Posted by:
Jroc [
x] - (99.100.107.---)
Date: March 30, 2010 10:12AM
ABET, v.t. To encourage in crime, as to aid poverty with pennies
ABOMINABLE, adj. The quality of another's opinions.
ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.
ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
ACQUIT, v.t. To render judgment in a murder case in San Francisco.
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.
AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked your pocket with his tongue.
BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
BASE, adj. The quality of a competitor's motive.
BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband
BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy
BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
BILLINGSGATE, n. The invective of an opponent.
BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters.
BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.
BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.
BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND
CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment.
CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle
CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron---namely, that he is a blockhead.
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness
COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own.
CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
CONSULT, v.t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannonball and the inconsiderate bayonet.
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
CUI BONO? (Latin). What good would that do ME?
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter.
DARING, n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.
DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
DEFAME, v.t. 1. To lie about another. 2. To tell the truth about another.
DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.
DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies.
DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
EAT, v.i. To perform successivly (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
EULOGY, n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
FASION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity.
FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.
FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.
FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harangue-outang.
HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see or feel.
HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another---the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.
HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field or thought or action, but 'pervades and regulates the whole.' He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and cicumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceie any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.
IMPIETY, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.
INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability. . .
INK, n. A villainous compound of tanno-gallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.
INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house - pray let me insure it.
HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so low that by the time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.
INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no - we could not afford to do that. We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.
HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can I afford that?
INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time. There was Smith's house, for example, which -
HOUSE OWNER: Spare me - there were Brown's house, on the contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which -
INSURANCE AGENT: Spare me!
HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last so long as you say it will probably last.
INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it will be a total loss.
HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon - by your own actuary's tables I shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to you - amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?
INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.
HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from your clients than you pay to them, do you not?
INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly if we did not -
HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well, thenl. If it is certain, with reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable, with reference to any one of them, that he will. It is these individual probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.
INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it - but look at the figures in this pamph -
HOUSE OWNER - Heaven forbid!
INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.
HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a Deserving Object.
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
JUSTICE, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inpiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features, and accompanied by inarticulate noises.
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds puncture in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
MARIJUANA, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.
MINOR, adj. Less objectionable.
MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.
MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles---particularly when he didn't lead.
NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.
OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against his enemy.
OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.
ONCE, adv. Enough.
OPTIMISM, n. The doctine, or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything is good, especially the bad, and everything is right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile.
OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerers.
PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.
PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.
POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the conviction that one thing is better than another.
PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in damanding it.
PROOF, n. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
PUBLISH, v. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.
QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today.
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions except those of observation, experience and reflection.
REALLY, adv. Apparently.
REASON, v.i. To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire.
REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
RHYME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad.
RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or customk, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
TAKE, v. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
TURKEY, n. A large bird, whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.
VIRTUES, n. pl. Certain abstentions.
VITUPERATION, n. Satire, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace.
WEATHER, n. 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.
WHITE, adj. and n. Black.
YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30/03/2010 10:20AM by Jroc.