Give the devil a dictionary, part IV
Sunday Missive
Are you ready for another helping of Devil Stew?
Delve down and dig some diabolically discountenanced definitions?
The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce is a book to boil the breeches off Beelzebub himself!
Here are the first three installments of this fiendishly fecund folio; we’ll pick up Part IV where we fell down last time…
QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish. QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable—omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, "soaring swine.")
RAPACITY, n. Providence without industry. The thrift of power.
REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.
RECOLLECT, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.
RICHES, n.
A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased." - John D. Rockefeller The reward of toil and virtue. - J.P. Morgan The savings of many in the hands of one. -Eugene DebsTo these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.
Thank you for dining with devilish devotion at the Verbihund Café!
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Quixotic is one of my favorite words, but I don't use it in conversation because I never can remember how to pronounce it for the reason Bierce notes.