Author Archives
Robert Arrington
The New Devil’s Dictionary: A Quick Look at the Lexicon of the Left
Beginning in 1881, and extending up through 1906, the American newspaper writer and noted cynic Ambrose Bierce compiled what he called “The Devil’s Dictionary”. It contained wry and sometimes humorous, but always cynical, definitions of words and phrases. The copyright has long since expired, and the entire slim volume can be found at no cost on a number of internet sites.
Bierce suggested his definitions were what people really meant in practice, as opposed to the formal dictionary definitions of the same terms.
One of my favorites is his definition of “bigot.” He wrote that it means “[o]ne who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion you do not entertain.”
Although Bierce wrote this definition well over 100 years ago, the mentality that inspired his biting definition is very much with us. This column will offer some examples of how our political left really defines some terms commonly in use, even though the copy of “Webster’s” on your desk won’t include them.
How to Succeed without Really Trying
Recently, on YouTube, I watched a stage performance of the musical, “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying”. One of my favorite scenes in the play is the one in which Ponty the window-washer worms his way into the Executive Suite by convincing the company president he is a Groundhog, i.e., a graduate of “Old Ivy”. Together, they sing the fight song, which exhorts the football team to “rip, rip, rip the Chipmunk off the field.”
New Fiction: The Bigfoot
The Runner-Up of The Heroes Half of The Contest
The Bigfoot would be an unlikely hero. He didn’t know that, but then he didn’t know what a hero is. For that matter, he didn’t know that he was a Bigfoot, or that the Cherokee who once lived in these same mountains called him and his kind Tsul ‘Kalu.
He thought of himself and his family, and the other Bigfoot families in the most remote reaches of the Blue Ridge and the Smokies as the People, although he didn’t really have that word, or any words. A paleontologist would have called him a Panthropus robustus, but he didn’t know that either.
