Conference paper title changes -- or not

In his final post on NCS, JJC writes:

The typical NCS performance began by announcing a change in title. The speaker would then make reference to the very long version of the paper from which this tiny and insufficient piece was being extracted. He or she would last apologize for not having a sufficient number of handouts.

The pique"mildly amused observationalism" with which Jeffrey writes this explainsfails to explain something to me. At my own presentation, I cheerily pointed out, to my own great amusement, that on my handout I had *accidentally* changed my title. There was a word that begins with M that was different from the original title, but made just as much sense -- hence the reason why it found its way into my handout without my catching the mistake. I thought this was kind of hilarious, given the rampant purposeful title-changing at the conference, but my audience didn't even seem to smile.

But for some reason they absolutely guffawed when the next speaker crowed triumphantly that he had not changed his title. Hmph, I say, hmph!

Oh, and for the record, I did worry out loud that I didn't have enough handouts, but actually I did, and I finished my paper *under* time. Ta-da!

*****

In other news, I've settled into London now -- in the world's narrowest hotel room, not counting those "pod" hotels -- after visiting friends in Yorkshire. Blogging may be light as I've got to make good use of my scant three days here to do massive manuscript consulting. But I do want to revisit some things I've been thinking about all that posing, posturing, and prestige-chasing that I perceived at NCS and why it annoys and bores me so much. It may not be until I get back to the States, though, that I'll have time to write that post.