indexing jokes?

["D. Shaw" <shawd -at- MINDSPRING -dot- COM>]

>>Deborah Shaw wrote:
>>[snip]
>>6 rewrite; add cross references and the joke (traditionally, every _good_
>>  index has a single joke, which the indexer is not obliged to identify)
>[snip]
>
>Interesting -- can you give us some examples of indexers' jokes?
>
>Rikki Mitman
>Speaking strictly for myself.

The impulsive answer is to repeat
>>which the indexer is not obliged to identify
but I'll be a bit kinder.

I indexed _so_ long ago that my _only_ indexing text is _Indexing, The Art
of_ by G. Norman Knight, which was published posthumously in 1979. The last
chapter of Mr. Knight's book is "Humour in Indexing," and in that (p.176),
he refers the reader to the chapter on "Amusing and Satirical Indexes" in
Henry B. Wheatley's _How to Make an Index_. (Mr. Wheatley [1838-1917] is
sometimes called the "father of British indexing.") Humor in indexing can be
subtle or blatent, deliberate or accidental. It can be a joke itself, or it
can be a reference to something humorous in the text that would not normally
be indexed. Here's a classic, deliberate example (cited by Mr. Knight on p.181):

  These references appear in the index to the 3rd edition (1963)
  of Gordon Carey's _Making an Index_.

     Chase, wild goose. _See_ Von Kluck
     Goose chase, wild. _See_ Kluck, Von
     Kluck, von. _See_ Von Kluck
     Von Kluck. _See_ Kluck, von
     Wild goose chase. _See_ Kluck, von

When I put a joke in my first index, I told the editors that one existed.
One of the editors found it, the other didn't. The joke was published with
the index.

Cheers,
Deborah

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