The Devil's Dictionary, A-J

A hilarious and insightful look at the English language--mostly it has aged well. Like all dictionaries, it’s a collection of words and meanings, but this one is much more fun to read. Before it was compiled into a book, these entries were serialized in newspapers from 1881 to 1906. As might be expected, some of the definitions / jokes didn’t age well. However, a great many of them are as amusing as ever. In fact, because so many of the definitions revolve around people’s narcissism and self-serving biases, they may be more accurate and apropos than ever. (And lawyers and politicians continue to be fair game as the butt of a joke.)Let me give a few . Great. And Terrible. Biut it's a MUST READ book that enhances everything else you read. Steve Thomas Ambrose Bierce didn't write this dictionary. Instead, his definitions were filler for newspapers, later collected and published aw a dictionary. That's an importabt distinction, for he made no effort to write a complete dictionary, and he was writing in the context of current events that are no longer current.He includes a lot of poetry written by poets I've never heard of. Sometimes, it's more interesting than other times, and i wonder if that's because this was authored more than a century ago. The fact that so many definitions are still current and amusing gives us a perspective on h. A Work of Genius While some of the entries are badly dated, others remain as true as the day they were written by the brilliantly cynical Bierce.For example:Idiot -- A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.Required reading for an

Entries A-J. A conspicuous and, it is hoped, not unpleasant feature of the book is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenius cleric Father Gassalasca Jape, SJ, whose lines bear his initials. Ambrose Bierce disappeared in Mexico in 1913.. The Devil's Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881 and was continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. The author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed: enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor, and clean English to slang