The Devil's Dictionary (17 page)

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words.
A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter
an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a
good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good
enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer's attitude toward
"obsolete" words is as true a measure of his literary ability as
anything except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete
and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and
sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the
vocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a
competent reader.

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the
splendor and stress of our advocacy.

The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most
intelligent animal.

OCCASIONAL, adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That,
however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase
"occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion," such
as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflict
us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no
reference to irregular recurrence.

OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the
Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of
the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,
which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are
the principal industries of the Orient.

OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made
for man—who has no gills.

OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as
the advance of an army against its enemy.

"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should
say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't
come out of his works!"

OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with
general inefficiency, as an
old man
. Discredited by lapse of time
and offensive to the popular taste, as an
old
book.

"Old books?  The devil take them!" Goby said.
"Fresh every day must be my books and bread."
Nature herself approves the Goby rule
And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

Harley Shum

OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as
"unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever
afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the
vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies
have only to find it.

OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by
gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and
mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his
appetite.

His name the smirking tourist scrawls
Upon Minerva's temple walls,
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
And marks his appetite's abuse.

Averil Joop

OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

ONCE, adv. Enough.

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose
inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no
postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word
simulation
is from
simia
, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for
his model
Simia audibilis
(or
Pithecanthropos stentor
)—the ape
that howls.

The actor apes a man—at least in shape;
The opera performer apes and ape.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into
the jail yard.

OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.

How lonely he who thinks to vex
With bandinage the Solemn Sex!
Of levity, Mere Man, beware;
None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

Percy P. Orminder

OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from
running amuck by hamstringing it.

The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of
government, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members
of a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue. Forty of
these he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister
carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure.
Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously.
Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that
if they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their
heads. The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.

"What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions
cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition."

"Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is
true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all
is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust."

So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition
embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and
nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the
nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was
defeated—the members of the Government party had not been nailed to
their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put
to death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery,
and government of the people, by the people, for the people perished
from Ghargaroo.

OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,
including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and
everything 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. Being a
blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof—an
intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is
hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

A pessimist applied to God for relief.

"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.

"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that
would justify them."

"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked
something—the mortality of the optimist."

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

ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of
filial ingratitude—a privation appealing with a particular
eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the
orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of
its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place. It
is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and
eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or
scullery maid.

ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the
ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every
asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since
the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to
be conceded hereafter.

A spelling reformer indicted
For fudge was before the court cicted.
The judge said:  "Enough—
His candle we'll snough,
And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature
has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have
seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working
pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,
the ostrich does not fly.

OTHERWISE, adv. No better.

OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of
intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom
of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal
nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the
doer had when he performed it.

OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no
government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire
poets.

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
To see the sun setting in glory,
And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.
'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
Then the man would carry him miles on the road
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.
The moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station
Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
Like a visible new creation.
And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
Of an idle young woman who tarried
About a church-door for a look at the bride,
Although 'twas herself that was married.
To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
Ideas—with thought and emotion.
I pity the dunces who don't understand
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

Stromboli Smith

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of
one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A
lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to
signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the
hero of the hour and place.

"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,
But I thought it uncommonly queer,
That people and critics by him had been led
By the ear.
The Latin lexicon makes his absurd
Assertion as plain as a peg;
In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.
It means egg.

Dudley Spink

OVEREAT, v. To dine.

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,
Shows Man's superiority to Beast.

John Boop

OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries
who want to go fishing.

OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified
not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of
debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and
liabilities.

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the
hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are
sometimes given to the poor.

PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical
basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely
mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and
exposing them to the critic.

Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work:
the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between
the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.

PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great
official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church
is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a
field, or wayside. There is progress.

PALM, n. A species of tree having several varieties, of which the
familiar "itching palm" (
Palma hominis
) is most widely distributed
and sedulously cultivated. This noble vegetable exudes a kind of
invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece
of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable tenacity.
The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a
considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known
as "benefactions."

PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's
classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in
"reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The
pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very
accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted
plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not reading
it aloud.

PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them
have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a
lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice the
ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his
pride of distinction.

PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The
garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of
flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called
"trousers" by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.

PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in
contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.

PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to
the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To
add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going
abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special
reprobation and outrage.

PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we
have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the
Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These
two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually
effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow
and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The
Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the
one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential
prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing,
beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is
the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They
are one—the knowledge and the dream.