[en] The subject of oscillatory solutions (wiggles), which sometimes result when the conventional Galerkin finite element method is employed to approximate the solution of certain partial differential equations, is addressed. It is argued that there is an important message behind these wiggles and that the appropriate response to it involves a combination of reexamination of the imposed boundary conditions, judicious mesh refinement (via isoparametric elements) in critical areas, and sometimes even admitting that the problem, as posed, is just too difficult to solve adequately on an affordable mesh. It is further argued that it is usually an inappropriate response to develop methods which a priori suppress these wiggles and thereby lead to claims that these unconventional FEM techniques are actually improvements and can be used to solve difficult problems on coarse meshes. 9 figures