The Devil's Dictionary

[oldbrownhat]

I was trying to remember the source of a joke and remembered Ambrose Bierce's cynical, "The Devil's Dictionary." (alhough it wasn't the source of what I was looking for.) Available online here.

Some examples from the Wikipedia article:

Egotist(n.) A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Love(n.) A temporary insanity curable by marriage...

Marriage(n.) A household consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Positive(a.) Mistaken at the top of one's voice.​

 

[Protocall_Design]

I have that book, and it's a humorous, thoughtful, and fairly accurate look at life as we know it. Definitely worth reading. Ambrose Bierce was friends with Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). Those two must have had some riotous times together.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I have that book, and it's a humorous, thoughtful, and fairly accurate look at life as we know it. Definitely worth reading. Ambrose Bierce was friends with Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). Those two must have had some riotous times together.

Bierce was an interesting and controversial fellow. A Civil War veteran who came out with some trauma from what he had been through.

...Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh ... a terrifying experience that became a source for several short stories and the memoir "What I Saw of Shiloh" ...In June 1864, Bierce sustained a traumatic brain injury at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain...

"...He was the tenth of thirteen children, all of whom were given names by their father beginning with the letter "A": in order of birth.."
​

Disappeared into Mexico in 1913 to be an observer with Pancho Villa's forces and was never heard of again.

I didn't know he was friends with Twain, but it doesn't suprise me. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the bar with those two... Twain's observations on the foibles of human nature are just as pertinent today as they were when he penned them. I guess we haven't changed all that much in a mere 150 years or so.