This 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.

I hate latin!! Really!! I remember myself back to the University trying to learn by heart “Gaudeamus Igitur, Yuvenes dum Sumus” and so on….hate it !
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I believe that a man should study all his life. I m not talking about universities or colleges only, but I mean learning new things and experiencing new spheres of knowledge.
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Learning Language is such an amazing and interesting thing!

World is so big! And there are so many people, cultures, traditions we have never heard about. It is simply amazing, that as soon as you leave your country, you can meet so many things to surprise you and to be interesting.
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I believe that German language (see Wikipedia ) is beautiful. It is very structured and very easy for learning. You need to learn grammar and reading rules that are simple and easy to remember.
It is such a pleasure to read German Literature and to listen to German Music. My favorite German groups are Rammstein and Die Toten Hosen. Unfortunately I understand only 70-80% of the words and that is why I am happy to have German Online Dictionary

An online German dictionary is specifically designed to help the average English speaker to know German and understand German easily. An online German dictionary provides with the pronunciation and the stress of the German word. It can also provide with the genitive and the plural of nouns. In cases of verbs a good German dictionary should indicate if it is “haben” or “sein”. Apart from the regular forms of German grammar some of the irregular forms will also be given.

Online German dictionary has made the usage of it to be friendly, and the strength of any literature that represents a language lies with it being able to provide with new and updated terminologies used in the language. The German Dictionary when considered and explored carefully can help one to ensure to learn the general vocabulary and modern technical terms quickly.

Some of the online German Dictionary are user edited thereby allowing the addition of new colloquialisms and jargon to it. Such kind of user participation in making the online dictionary makes it possible for lexicographers to be able to draw on their long experience with new practical additions from real people.

Something different with Online Dictionary is that the time honored structure of the print form is slightly varied with a more use friendly layout. This is made possible due to the ability to use search forms that automatically drops down word choices as the reader is searching for a particular word.

The initial entry by an end use is just a raw entry to the online German dictionary. This is further authenticated by the interference of an editor that gives in correct and verifiable citations to the meanings provided there in.

Also when preparing a well edited online German dictionary numerous corrections will have to be made in the body of the work and many important additions and deletions will be made. In open entry dictionary there is a probable change for users to key in nonsense, for this reason, the entry is publicized after due authorization of the content by a moderator. After so much of careful supervision the online dictionary is allowed for public utility. Learning German with the online dictionary is pretty easy; however with the growing boom of audio books, the day is not far when a German Dictionary Audio book is enough to help one learn a language.

It is also possible to use Google Translation . It has many languages - English, Spanish and of course German.

First of all what is a dictionary? According to the best source of information Wikipedia:
A dictionary is a book of alphabetically listed words in a specific language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information, or a book of alphabetically listed words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon.
Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a book, but some newer dictionaries are dictionary software running on computers. There are also many online dictionaries accessible via the Internet.
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Getting to know the German language is now a merit and it is ranked as one of the leading language studies in the high schools. German Translation has a decided superiority of rank. It has abundance of words and it has wonderful flexibility when it comes to using words to compile sentences.

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The Spanish language has 28 letters as documented in the Spanish Dictionary. The following is the order of the Spanish letters is like A-ah, b-bay, c-thay, ch-chay, d-day, e-a….. and so on. If you should get to know the alphabets and pronunciations of the Spanish language you can get the guidance of the Spanish Dictionary to start with.

There is wide use of diphthongs in Spanish language. The Diphthong is the union of 2 vowels that are expressing a double sound that is pronounced by single emission of the voices. There are 16 diphthongs in a Spanish language and it can be obtained form a Spanish dictionary to get to learning Spanish as a beginner.

Many of the Spanish books have not followed fixed rules and this is especially to old books. New beginners will do well to follow latest dictionaries. By following the Spanish Academy conformation to the pronunciation of Spanish double consonants where one alone is pronounced many double letters are no longer found in new Spanish books like tt, ff, bb etcetera.

When you look to almost all words in a Spanish dictionary it will be noted that there is one long syllable for every Spanish word. The long accent for the word is denoted by the acute accent placed on the vowel. In some cases the accent should be suppressed except in certain cases where it has to be preserved. A good Spanish dictionary will be able to provide with such details.

Spanish words are divided in to many classes, which we commonly understand as parts of the speech like Article, noun, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. In Spanish language the nouns do not change their terminations in changing their relations like they do in Greek and Latin; however, modern Spanish Dictionary does conform to the grammar of the Spanish Academy which admits to 6 cases to wit like the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative and ablative.

A whole set of grammar rules apply for Spanish translation and the evolution of the Spanish in current use is an account of internal development of the language. Spanish is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. It has been spoken for before approximately 5000 years.

A Spanish dictionary can be one of the best keys that can help someone to master the language that have such an extensive rich culture. So, try it, remember to follow the modern rules the language while you learn it.

Language is an expression of feeling and needs using speech or symbols. There are thousands of languages that are being spoken around the world. Language is one of the most familiar feature of the day to day life of most people that we rarely wait to define it. Language seems to be a natural part of a person just like walking and eating; however, not everyone knows all languages.
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An online dictionary is the place where you type the values or characters that you are looking for and click on enter, if the value that you enter is available in the online dictionary, it returns with the definition for the term and if it is not available then the answer returns as “term not found in the dictionary.” Read the rest…