The Devil’s Dictionary is a rather satirical reference book written by Ambrose Bierce, a columnist writing for a small weekly financial magazine published in San Francisco known as News Letter. It was originally published in 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book and then retitled in 1911. Here are some of the definitions from this interesting little dictionary.
Circus: A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.
Commerce: A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
Congress: A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Dictionary: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Discussion: a method of confirming others in their errors.
Economy: Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow you cannot afford.
History: An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools
Welcome to Saturday Street Prophets. This is an open thread. Feel free to add your own definitions, or to rant about the events of the past week.