And Don't Call Me Shirley

In this post about Young/Bainbridge bias affair, Southern Appeal makes relays this sage observation:

I had a professor once note that writers use the term "surely" to indicate some proposition that seems all but irrefutable to the writer, but for which he or she has no actual evidence. It's a remarkably good rule of thumb.

For that matter "it can be shown that" means "I've forgotten these steps" and "a trivial exercise for the reader" means "this will take way more space than I care to spend, even if I could remember how to do it." If you have some other common caveats and translations, feel free to post to the comments.

Via Evangelical Outpost