Give the devil a dictionary, part III
Midweek Mélange
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 two installments of this fiendishly fecund folio; we’ll pick up Part III where we fell down last time…
PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.
PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.
PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
PREVARICATOR, n. A liar in the caterpillar state.
QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another—usually about as many times as it can be got there.
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.
RELIQUARY, n. A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of the saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to repentance and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It is related in the "Gesta Sanctorum" that a sacristan in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so raged the diocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the Stour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.
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To think, this snark is still 100% relevant today. Sad . . .
Kate Morgan Reade: PQR gives your superior lexicography a lot of opportunity. Patriotism, precedent and reliquary speak very much to me. On precedent, I think of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. I think much of "precedent" could be transferred to "originalism" in the "O" section of your dictionary.
It really, really is spooky that not so many years after the Bill of Rights, Congress (circa 1796) enacted the "Alien and Sedition Act," that has been a source of suppression of civil liberties, for example, under Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer (AG in the Administration of President Woodrow Wilson).
Now the new administration (Ahem!) looks to revive the use of that "precedent" in its war on the women and children among immigrants.
Patriotism . . . Yours is similar to classic lexicography on that word. Wasn't it H.L. Mencken who . . .
H. L. Mencken: He wrote massively on language, a subject I love, but somehow I have never been able to see my way through his work.
One can compare his obituaries: Wm Jennings Bryan versus J. Gresham Machen -- both conservative in their religion, but Mencken eulogized the one (Machen) and lambasted the other quite obscenely (Wm Jennings Bryan).
I am not a real fan of Wm Jennings Bryan, but H.L. Mencken seemed rather vulgar in his assessment of one who, however pompous, had fought for labor.
1896: Thou shalt not crucify labor on a cross of gold (referring to dear coins (gold) versus cheaper (silver).