The Devil's Dictionary X!

August 13, 2010 12:19 AM

"Repairing the English Language since 1998." Based on Ambrose Bierce's Original Devil's Dictionary

Sample definition:U.S. Constitution.

posted by fantodstic (18 comments total)

Every since Devil's Dictionary's publication Bierce had to contend with copycat publishers ripping it off. At least he's dead now. I wonder what his entry would have been under "Internet"?
posted by edgeways at 12:48 AM on August 13, 2010

Oh, man, this thing is great! Thanks for the link. I'm always the last to know about the cool stuff.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 1:53 AM on August 13, 2010

This title brilliant in 1998's debut aged about as well as Elizabeth Taylor and was divorced just as quickly. The new wife--Devil's Dictionary X(TM)--is not without wrinkles but her trust fund is.

Dame Elizabeth has aged very gracefully, thank you. And she's known for the frequency of her marriages, not their brevity. Could it be that this new dictionary is tinged with misogyny? Let's see:

mail order bride
the new indentured servitude—3 years of blowjobs, backrides, and semi-courteous treatment of the groom’s friends buys any pretty Ukrainian or Southeast Asian girl American citizenship with a side of American divorce.

...
male-slut
a man with no scruples; a lucky son of a bitch.

Yes, yes it could.
posted by tractorfeed at 2:11 AM on August 13, 2010 [3 favorites]

Here at MeFi we've linked to online editions of the original on numerous past occasions (including my FPP about something else Bierce wrote). There have been other relatively honorable attempts to update The Devil's Dictionary: my favorites were Stan Kelly-Bootle's Devil's DP Dictionary (long since outdated in many ways but still holding an honored place on my bookshelf next to Bierce's original) and Greg Knauss' sadly short-lived online Devil's Dictionary 2.0 (which defined Metafilter as "More nozzle than filter: a Web site that doesn’t reduce the information flow so much as shape it into a stinging, inconsumable torrent.")
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:00 AM on August 13, 2010

This is kind of terrible. All the "political" entries aren't even humor, they're just lazily edited abuse, and the others aren't funny at all. The original was better.
posted by nasreddin at 3:45 AM on August 13, 2010

Not to mention that this kind of shit--

rape
1. the Biblical term meaning marriage.
2. post King David and pre-1980: any non-consensual sex.
3. post-1980: all sex where consent forms have not been filled out and notarized.
4. the prison term meaning marriage.

--is not just unfunny but actively repugnant. This is humor for people who think yukking it up about political correctness is the height of comedy.
posted by nasreddin at 3:48 AM on August 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

feminist
[...]
3. humorless; without joy.

WHAT BOUT DEM HAIRY ARMPITS AMIRITE

Palestine
South Central Israel.

I don't even know what to say about this.
posted by nasreddin at 4:00 AM on August 13, 2010

There is some space between transgressive and just being an asshole. This isn't even in that space.
posted by charred husk at 5:38 AM on August 13, 2010

I wonder what his entry would have been under "Internet"?

Internet - n. - Communications system created for defense during nuclear war, now the manner in which it will be caused, and proof mankind deserves nothing less.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 5:54 AM on August 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

I don't know the word 'male-slut', but I do know 'slut', which is unisex. Or should be.
posted by mippy at 6:08 AM on August 13, 2010

Paglia, Camille
1. one of ten living women who deserves to be allowed to carry an unlicensed vagina—the other nine will not be described here; they do not include Madonna, nor Hillary Clinton.

bitch
1. any woman who is all business.
2. a former girlfriend who has opted to discuss that unfortunate evening widely.
3. a small, skinny man with close cropped hair and a squeaky nasal voice who plays the submissive in all sexual encounters; e.g., Eminem.

bisexual
1. one who will try anything twice.
2. a convenient label for a grand, lifelong fear of commitment.
3. a hallpass in the Great Colosseum of Sexuality, which not only serves to get one into any room one chooses, but has somehow come to be worth a couple of sympathy points along the way.

Mrs
a traditional type of college degree awarded exclusively to women. [I don't get this - you have BA and MA like in the UK over there, right?]

and, pretty telling:

woman
1. research indicates it is impossible for an almost exclusively white male staff to define this word in its most commonly used form, therefore we provide nothing as the first definition.
posted by mippy at 6:19 AM on August 13, 2010

I don't get this - you have BA and MA like in the UK over there, right?

The 'joke' is that women go to college to "get their Mrs. degree" (i.e., meet a man, get married, and go from Ms. to Mrs.). It's basically more of the same sexist tripe as the rest of it.
posted by jedicus at 6:57 AM on August 13, 2010

this here is some bullshit.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:04 AM on August 13, 2010

The entires here lack the quality and subtlety which has given Bierce's original pride of place on my coffee table.
posted by l2p at 10:46 AM on August 13, 2010

The entires here lack the quality and subtlety of men's room graffiti.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:50 AM on August 13, 2010

nymphomaniac
also nympho; a list of women which likely comprises none of the women you would like—from Anna Kournikova to Salma Hayek—and most of the women you wouldn’t—from your mother to your wife.

Ha ha? This is sub-terrible. It starts on the ground floor of stupid and then tunnels furiously.
posted by Skot at 11:07 AM on August 13, 2010

male-slut

Wouldn't the hyphenation indicate something more akin to slut for males, as opposed to a slut who is male? This is extra true if dude's going for a pun on mail-slot, which is similarly not a slot made of mail.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:24 AM on August 13, 2010

Jedicus, I read about that in The Feminine Mystique (and it surprised me given that university has never been seen as a way to do that for women here - I know very few people in my year who are now married - but I know people tend to settle down younger in the States) but, you know, that was knocking on for fifty years ago. I notice they shy away from knocking out dated black stereotypes, though. Wonder why that is?

I bite my thumb at them.
posted by mippy at 11:39 AM on August 13, 2010