Mini-AIR

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")

November 2025, issue number 2025-11. ISSN 1076-500X.

improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

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01 TABLE OF CONTENTMENT

02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: This Year's Special Ig Issue

03 Quite, as Used in Britain (2009)

04 Ig Nobel Events: SciFri (Nov), Paris (Dec), Tokyo (Jan)

05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Quite, as Used in Britain (2004)

06 Hiding Places Winner

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Yogurt, Wombat, Delicious Monster

08 Quite, as Used in English (2005)

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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

31 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)

32 — Contact Info (*)

33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

This little newsletter you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: This Year's Special Ig Issue

The special IG NOBEL (31:6) issue has gone out to subscribers.

See the TOC and several articles online at

https://improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-november-december-2025-vol-31-number-6/

SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!): gumroad.com/improbable

Tables of Contents: improbable.com/magazine-2/

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SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE:

The company we have long been using to process subscriptions has become very unreliable. We are in the process of switching to a more reliable processor (one that has human beings, rather than AI, doing its programming and customer service). We hope the transition will be accomplished by early 2026.

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03 Quite, as Used in Britain (2009)

This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:

" 'Quite Frankly, I'm Not Quite Sure That it is Quite the Right Colour,' A Corpus-Based Study of the Syntax and Semantics of Quite in Present-Day English," Ignacio M. Palacios Martinez, English Studies, vol. 90, no. 2, 2009, pp. 180-213. doi.org/10.1080/00138380902743153

The author explains:

"words such as very, utterly, absolutely, sure, which originally expressed a modal meaning gradually became intensifiers over time.... According to this, these words developed from simply transmitting the user’s attitude towards the message to placing emphasis on that which is being conveyed."

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04 Ig Nobel Events: SciFri (Nov), Paris (Dec), Tokyo (Jan)

Ig Nobel Face-to-Face events will happen in several countries over the next few weeks.

• Science Friday day-after-Thanksgiving radio (and internet) broadcast of edited highlights from this year's Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, RADIO — Nov 28, 2025

• Ig Nobel in Paris, FRANCE — Dec 9 and 10, 2025

• Ig Nobel in Tokyo, JAPAN, Jan 2026 (exact date TBA)

Details are on our Upcoming Events page:

https://improbable.com/upcoming-events/

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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Quite, as Used in Britain (2004)

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"I Quite Fancy This: Quite as a Degree Modifier of Verbs in Written British English," Hannele Diehl, Working Papers in Linguistics, 2004, pp. 1-19.

https://www.sol.lu.se/fileadmin/media/forskning/workingpapers/engelska/vol04/diehl-wp-04.pdf

The author explains:

"the configurational reading of the verb that combines with quite constrains the reading of quite. If the mode of construal of the collocating verb is clearly bounded, then quite functions as a bounded maximizer, as in I quite understand, but if the mode of construal of the collocating verb is unbounded, then quite functions as an unbounded booster, as in I quite fancy this."

Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:

QUITE LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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06 Hiding Places Winner

The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:

"A Topographical Index of Hiding-Places, II," Michael Hodgetts, British Catholic History, vol. 24, no. 1, 1998, pp. 1-54.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200005835

Winning limerickicist MICHAEL HODGKIN writes:

Mike Hodgetts has published a guide

To hundreds of places to hide

Which used to be used

By priests who recused

And chose what was then the wrong side.

This month's take, a double take, from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

Some new ones were found to exist,

So let's put together a list.

Consolidate? No.

Just an increment, so

We list only the ones that we missed.

Two faiths long ago were at war.

Behind doors and in holes in the floor

Is where priests had to hide.

Some were captured. Some died.

But they hardly hunt priests anymore.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Yogurt, Wombat, Delicious Monster

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG (improbable.com):

• The Mars Yogurt Question

• Smelly-Scat Communication by Wombats

• Flavor of Delicious Monster

• …and much more

SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)

MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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08 Quite, as Used in English (2005)

This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:

"Quite as a Degree Modifier of Verbs," Hannele Diehl, Nordic Journal of English Studies, vol.4, no. 1, 2005, pp. 11-34.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180426162206id_/http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/njes/article/viewFile/277/274#page=13

The author further explains:

"If the mode of construal of the collocating verb is clearly bounded, then quite functions as a bounded maximizer, as in I quite understand, but if the mode of construal of the collocating verb is unbounded, then quite functions as an unbounded booster, as in I quite fancy this."

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TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.

SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!

improbable.com/magazine-2/

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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

· Falling Walls, Berlin, GERMANY — Nov 6, 8, 2025

· Monell Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA — Nov 12, 2025

· Science Friday Ig Radio Special — Nov 28, 2025

· Chimie ParisTech–PSL, Paris, FRANCE — Dec 9 2025

· École Normale Supérieure, Paris, FRANCE — Dec 10 2025

· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Tokyo, JAPAN, Jan 2026

· Arisia, Cambridge, MA, USA — Jan 2026

· AAAS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA — Feb 13, 2026

· Royal Society Club, London, UK — Feb 26, 2026

Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2026

36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 2026

For details and additional events, see: improbable.com/upcoming-events/

If your institution would like to host an event,

please get in touch with us at:

MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine,

in PDF form. It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.

improbable.com/publications/magazine

SUBSCRIPTIONS ($40 for six issues)

BACK ISSUES ($8 each)

(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating quasi-appendix to the actual magazine.)

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31 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR, see the links at the end of this email.

ARCHIVES: improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

improbable.com

EDITORIAL: MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: subscriptions AT improbable.com

Cambridge, MA, USA

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33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

EDITOR: Marc Abrahams

CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, Stephen Drew

PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance

AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts

Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the

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