This collection began with submissions by indexers to a game at a CINDEX reception during the May 2000 ASI conference. Additions have been made since then.
If you wish to submit a new item or make a correction, please do so by contacting us. No guarantee is made regarding the inclusion of your submission.
- Collective nouns for indexers
- Old indexers never die, they just…
- How many indexers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
- Why did the indexer cross the road?
- An indexer, a publisher, and an author walk into a bar…
- If indexers were vegetables, what vegetable would they be?
- Knock, knock. Who’s there?
- Cross reference on door
- Poll table alphabetical order
Poetry categories
Images
Collective nouns for indexers
A contention of indexers
— Fran Lennie
Old indexers never die, they just…
… rot, see also Decay
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
… get deleted.
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
… zzzz…
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
… get embedded.
—Dave Ream
… reinvent themselves: Information Architect, Information Navigator, …!
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
… filed/entered under ground!
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
… get buried alive in the text.
—Sally Nelson and Kay Wosewick
… lose their locators.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
… become indented.
— Steve Ingle, Mara Pinkard, Nan Badgett, Pat Buchanan and Deborah Patton
… get double-posted.
—Susan Klement, Allen Veaner and Barbara Cohen
… change page numbers.
— Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
… get lost in cyberspace
—Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
… play on leveled fields
— unattributable
… get lost in cyberspace
— unattributable
they always have deadlines
— unattributable
↑ Top
How many indexers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
They search and replace before the bulb burns out!
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
To escape multiple authors!
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
See Jokes, light bulb
—Jane Lorenzen
How much space have I got?
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
One to vet the wattage. One to mark the place. One to convert to HTML. One to proofread. One to light up the user.
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
None. We are kept in the dark until the last possible moment and then expected to work miracles!
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
They just hit the escape key.
—Sally Nelson and Kay Wosewick
It depends.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
Five, because more than that would be undifferentiated.
— Steve Ingle, Mara Pinkard, Nan Badgett, Pat Buchanan and Deborah Patton
None: they don’t have time to read the manual.
— unattributable
One: to call tech support.
— unattributable
One to write the main heading, one to write the subheading, one to cross-reference it, one to edit what has been done – total one, because I do all the work.
— Susan Klement, Allen Veaner and Barbara Cohen
Only one; she holds it to the socket and lets the room revolve around her.
—Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
↑ Top
Why did the indexer cross the road?
Because she saw a no entry sign.
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
So they wouldn’t run over the line.
— Steve Ingle, Mara Pinkard, Nan Badgett, Pat Buchanan and Deborah Patton
To cross a reference.
— unattributable
To run after missing proofs.
— unattributable
To get to the cross reference.
— Susan Klement, Allen Veaner and Barbara Cohen
Because the reference was there.
—Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
↑ Top
An indexer, a publisher, and an author walk into a bar
The publisher expects to wait 30 days to pay the tab, the author wants a little bit of everything, and the indexer couldn’t come because the proofs just came.
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
… but none of them could afford to buy a drink.
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
… and it immediately empties.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
… and start fighting over the significance of entries on the menu.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
… and only the indexer returned with two guns smoking.
— Steve Ingle, Mara Pinkard, Nan Badgett, Pat Buchanan and Deborah Patton
… and order an Absolut, a Bacardi and a Campari. They all enjoy their drinks but the indexer is left to pay the bill.
— Susan Klement, Allen Veaner and Barbara Cohen
The publisher ordered anything, the author wanted an advance before he ordered, and the indexer wanted the ingredients alphabetized before ordering.
— unattributable
The author orders a bottle of scotch, the publisher orders a glass of cheap Chardonnay from a box, the indexer informs the bartender that she can’t find what she wants because the bottles aren’t arranged in a manner that encourages browsing and retires in disgust to the hospitality reception.
—Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
↑ Top
If indexers were vegetables, what vegetable would they be?
Onion: multi-layered. Artichoke: good at heart Garlic: good in small doses
Kohlrabi: no one knows who we are, or what to do with us.
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
Anything from avocado to zucchini.
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
Mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed on shit (see Compost).
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
Beets (beats).
— unattributable
Carrots: We help you see.
— Jessica McCurdy Crooks & Deanna Crooks
They wouldn’t be a vegetable, they’d be a fruit: prickly pear.
—Sally Nelson and Kay Wosewick
Onion: they are composed of many layers and cry a lot.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
Parse-nips.
—Nancy Ford, Sally Nelson, Brooke Graves, Jessie Barczak and Kay Wosewick
Peanuts, because that’s what they get paid.
—Pat Aslin, Maria Young
↑ Top
Knock, knock. Who’s there?
Ellie. Ellie who?
Ellie-ctronic indexing!
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove
Bad index Bad index who?
Bad index done by author
— unattributable
Index. Index who?
I need to look this up…now where…?
—Madeleine Davis, Elizabeth Street, and Peggy Pedigo
Sue Sue who?
Sue you if you don’t get the index done on time.
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
An indexer
A what?— Susan Klement, Allen Veaner and Barbara Cohen
↑ Top
Haiku
Sunrise through window Reflects off my blank, dead, screen
One more deadline missed.
—Richard Feldman
You enter a term Lightning strikes your house
Publishing dates are missed
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid
↑ Top
Limerick
A charming indexer named Strauss Cross-referenced each thing in her house The sign on each item Grew ad infinitum
And led to the loss of her spouse.
—Richard Feldman
Some indexers from the UK To New Mexico came to stay To wear a hard hat They’d not bargained for that
It won’t happen in Cambridge, no way.
—Jill Halliday, John Halliday, Christine Shuttleworth, and Liza Weinkove (Referring t the construction site that was the ASI 2000 conference hotel, and the upcoming Society of Indexers conference in Cambridge, England.)
There was an indexer so smart She knew indexing was an art She uploaded her file But after a while
The editor made her re-start!
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
There was an indexer named Sue Who worked until she turned blue Flipping entries by day And grouping away
Until she came down with the flu!
—Bob Huerster, Caroline Parks, Loraine Schacher, Carolyn Weaver, Jan Wright and L. Pilar Wyman
An indexer stayed up all night To make her index just right But her fingers fumbled And she ended up jumbled
Her index did not come out all right.
— unattributable
There was an indexer who worked too hard: night and day she indexed by card. So tired was she, she referenced from “See” to “See”
thus committing an indexing canard.
—Dave Ream
There once was an indexer named Sue Who didn’t know what to do So she joined ASI And said with a sigh
Now my career is in deep doo-doo
— Peg Mauer and Bill Meisheid