The Devil’s Dictionary
April 26, 2009 Online Dictionary No CommentsThis short entry is a tribute to Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce and his Devil’s Dictionary, the only dictionary I get never tired reading over and over again.
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born June 14, 1842, the tenth of 13 children, in Ohio. He was raised in Indiana and enlisted in the Union Army’s Indianan infantry Regiment at the outbreak of the American Civil War. He resigned the Army with the rank of brevet major after many campaigns and sustaining war wounds, including a serious head injury.
Bierce’s journalistic career began in San Francisco, continued in England from 1872 to 1875, and then resumed in San Francisco where he became a prominent and influential writer and journalist, although not without controversy. In late 1913 or early 1914 he disappeared without a trace in Mexico after joining Pancho Villa’s army as an observer to the Mexican Revolution.
The Devil’s Dictionary, originally serialized newspaper columns written by Bierce from 1881 to 1906, was compiled and published in 1906 as “Cynic’s Word Book”, a title Bierce claimed was forced upon him. In 1911 a further 500 words were published under “The Devil’s Dictionary”, for a total of 998 satirical definitions. The publication was controversial and outrage was directed at Bierce’s irreverence, racism and offensive sexism.
Bierce’s redefined definitions range from lengthy with quoted verse (quite often written by Bierce under aliases) to the succinct. The following are some examples of Bierce’s caustic wit:
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence
GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.
Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:
A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.
Heed not the definitions your “Unabridged” presents,
For dictionary makers are generally gents.
G.J.
HERS, pron. His.
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
WEATHER, n. The climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.
Once I dipt into the future far as the human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be –
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
From the coals that he’d preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote –
“Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.”
Halcyon Jones
The Devil’s Dictionary will provide the reader with hours of entertainment. Here you may be find online version of the Devil’s Dictionary. The doubtless best site to learn more about Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce is the The Ambrose Bierce Project, a non-profit research project hosted by Penn State University.