Common medical research phrases and their real meanings:

"It has long been known..."                                        

I didn't look up the original reference

"A definite trend is evident ..."                                   

The data is practically meaningless

"Of great theoretical and practical importance ..."    

It's interesting to me

"It has long been known..."

I haven't bothered to find the original reference

"Unfortunately, no definitive answer is available."

It seems nobody else understands it either.

"Of course, much more work is necessary for a definitive answer."

I can't really make head or tails of the whole thing.

"The consensus is that..."

I know a couple of people who agree with me that...

"The results of NN is probably the most dependable."

NN is one of my students.

"I wish to thank NN for assistance and XX for valuable

discussions."

NN did the work and XX explained the results to me.

"Finally, some typical results.".

... the best results...

"Probably a prolonged series of experiments will show..."

I couldn't spend too much time on this.

"Correct within an order of magnitude."

Wrong.

"It is immediately obvious that ..."

aren't I clever ?

"Possible therapeutic application ..."

Please, please don't cut the funding now.

From an editor:

"Your paper contains certain obstacles to publication.."

Your paper contains numerous insurmountable flaws.

"These results will be reported at a later date."

I might get around to doing these experiments one day.

"Paper in preparation."

If I can ever get the damn experiments to work.

"This area of research was pioneered by Smith."

Smith will probably be reviewing this paper

"The sample was put through two rounds of purification..."

After purification, the sample was dropped on the floor, slurped up

with a pipette, and repurified.

"The XYZ system was chosen as especially suited to show the predicted

behaviour."

The guy in the next lab already had the system set up.