The Devil's Dictionary

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The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce offers an interesting reinterpretation of the English language in which cant and political double-talk were neatly lampooned. It has inspired dozens, if not hundreds, of imitations, both in its day and in the Internet age. Recent examples include The Computer Contradictionary and The Devil's Dictionary X.

Some definitions, such as that of marriage (see below) were considered scandalous or amoral or both by certain parts of society.

It was originally a newspaper serialization, starting in 1881 and continuing erratically until 1906, at which time it was first put in book form under the dubious title Cynic's Word Book. In 1911 it was republished under its current name (much preferred by Bierce).

Various editions are currently in print including ISBN 0195126270, by Oxford University Press, and ISBN 0820324019. It is also available online through Project Gutenberg.

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Some examples


Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
Cannon: An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Cat: A soft indestructible automaton provided by Nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din --
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
"God keep you, strange," I exclaimed. "You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:
"What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ."
- G.J.

Clarionet: An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet -- two clarionets.
Congratulation: The civility of envy.
Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
Electricity: The cause of all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
Helpmate: A wife, or bitter half.
Idiot: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
Innards: The stomach, heart, soul, and other bowels.
Insurrection: An unsuccessful revolution.
Justice: A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Learning: The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Marriage: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
Patience: Despair, disguised as a virtue.
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Rational: Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Road: A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
Sabbath: A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
Vote: The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Youth: The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice is never heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost--Polydore Smith.

Zeal: A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.

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Film

The book is currently getting the Hollywood treatment from The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh's Film Society. Written and Directed by Erik Cieslewicz, the film will be a short narrative that carries the same name as Bierce's book.

Although the script shows that the narrative is original, the film will employ many direct quotations in the form of voice overs.

Production is due to begin in April, 2006.

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