Thursday, March 31, 2005

Orthodox

Orthodox, n. An ox wearing the popular religious yoke.

2005 Update: A dedicated innovator of ancient beliefs.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Opposition

Opposition, n. In politics, the party that prevents the Government from running amok by hamstringing it.

2005 Update: A political party that seeks to undermine the hypocrisies of the majority through dilution by imitation.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Birth

Birth, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightening. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I myself have seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

2005 Update: The end of life as we know it. In some political theologies, Birth is the ultimate entitlement, chronologically, of the human life cycle. This is why births are often referred to as "Last Rights."

Monday, March 28, 2005

Hand

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

2005 Update: The cards one has been dealt and will play. The wise look for the cards which would improve the hand, while the ambitious see them. The scoundrel recognizes the hand for what it is, plays what it should be (with a supplement from the sleeve if necessary) and fulfills the purpose of virtue by not suffering from it.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Christian

Christian, n. 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.

2005 Update:
1. One who believes that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected for the sanctimonification of sinners. A member of a religious community demanding great piety and in need of a little blasphemy.
2. One to whom I wish a joyous Easter!

To all people, regardless of their beliefs, a day full of blessings (I'll be surly again tomorrow.)

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Marriage

Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

2005 Update: A household organized to provide stability and a moral example to stepchildren.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Martyr

Martyr: n, One who moves along the line of least resistance to a desired death.

2005 Update: One who carries water for the huffing and the panting.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Saint

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

2005 Update: In the armies of the faithful, a private of the infantry. See also: Martyr.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Oratory

Oratory, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

2005 Update: A sermon delivered for the purpose of converting the audience, chiefly making fools of followers.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Eavesdrop

Eavesdrop, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

2005 Update: To intrude on the discretion of a gossip.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Adage

Adage, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

2005 Update: Advice from the mouldering dead, generally unattributed, as to the achievement of prosperity, longevity and fame.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Friday, March 18, 2005

Recount

Recount, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.

2005 Update: v. To describe an occurence to someone who wasn't there either.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Learning

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious

2005 Update: An ancestor of opinion, remembered fondly if not well

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Lecturer

Lecturer, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience

2005 Update: A miraculous composer who distills decades of study into a one minute libretto with 49 minutes of melody. The lecturer provides accompaniment to modern opera performed on Gameboy, Instant Messager and portable computer.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Rabble

Rabble, n. In a Republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable- omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, "soaring swine."

2005 Update: A collective term for nearby strangers. Strangers not within hearing distance, such as aren't on television, are referred to as "Us."

Monday, March 14, 2005

Good

Good, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

2005 Update: Opaque as to motive.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Politician

Politician, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

2005 Update: A particle of the the most robust plague. In ancient Egypt, for example, the angel of death relented while Pharoah remained. In republican, democratic, communist, fascist and despotic forms of government, a member of that lucky class which is preferred by no one but selected by all. The politician can be distinguished from the bureaucrat who is preferred by no one and selected by one.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Goose

Goose, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in Geese, as discocered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seem to be very great geese indeed.

2005 Update: A motivation made popular by the banning of all lesser offenses against employees.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Populist

Populist, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him power of flight, though professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was known as "The Matter with Kansas."

2005 Update: One who ventures to govern, tax, regulate and confine the common people without detectable spite.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Freedom

Freedom, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.

2005 Update: Fair warning- you're next.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Infralapsarian

Infralapsarian, n. One who ventures to belive that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to-in opposition to the subralapsarians, who hold that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called subralapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their views about Adam.

2005 Update: I like to watch television.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Lunarian

Lunarian, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinuished from Lunatic, one whom the Moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anotomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.

2005 Update: One who subsists on moonlight, a popular diet in Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the fashionable circles of large cities throughout the West. Adherents can be identified because they are thinnest when the moon is new. Movies are generally filmed on moonless nights, not, as some have surmised, to avoid harsh shadows but to reap them.

Absolute

Absolute, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.

2005 Update: Possible. In journalism, politics, advertizing and prospectuses (prospecta?) absolute can describe any illusion which will not be immediately rejected by those who wish it were so.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Patriotism

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name
In Dr. Johnson's dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due repect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

2005 Update: The vigilant elevation and protection of a nation's most cherished, enlightened and durable moral convictions no matter the sacrifice required. Practiced equally by soldier, statesman and citizen. In the first case at great risk to life and limb, in the second by the renaming of side dishes and in the third by blogging.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Piety

Piety, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon his supposed resemblance to man.

The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles
Judibras.

2005 Update:
1. Defence of the Omnipotent Creator from the conspiracy of inferior creatures.
2. Sufficient outrage.

Generous

Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

2005 Update: Willing to consider that a person of differing opinions may have received their beliefs from some source other than Satan, or, at least that they may have been tricked.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Exhort

Exhort, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

2005 Update: In political affairs, to insist on the rectitude of convictions the insister doesn't hold. This mode of persuasion was made obsolete by electronic voting.

Once from a soapbox exhorting,
Pols soon learned a method more sporting
Two strawmen now fakin'
That positions they'd taken
And the others' dispositions distorting

Ghoul

Ghoul, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place...As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the strategem, had transformed itself to the semblence of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurence that he never showed himself again in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

2005 Update: See Texan.

Heathen

Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

2005 Update: See Californian

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Alien

Alien, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.

2005 Update: A hardworking resident of the United States unentitled to constitutional protection due to the certainty of their participation in a terrorist jihad inspired by the Qu'uran. A Sikh.

Conservative

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

2005 Update: In the United States, a recent convert to large government, federal supremacy, nation-building as foreign policy, protectionism and the regulation of personal behavior. A lifelong adherent to traditional principles.

Evangelist

Evangelist, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

Update for 2005: A martyr who advertizes the merit of their condition. See also Republican, Democrat, Blogger.