The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, is a satirical book published in 1911. It offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language which lampoon cant and political doublespeak.
The Devil's Dictionary has inspired many imitations both in its day and more recently. Recent examples include The Computer Contradictionary.
The origins of the Devil's Dictionary can be traced to when Ambrose Bierce was a columnist in the San Francisco-based N...
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The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, is a satirical book published in 1911. It offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language which lampoon cant and political doublespeak.
The Devil's Dictionary has inspired many imitations both in its day and more recently. Recent examples include The Computer Contradictionary.
The origins of the Devil's Dictionary can be traced to when Ambrose Bierce was a columnist in the San Francisco-based News Letter, a small weekly financial magazine which had been founded by Frederick Marriott in the late 1850s. The News Letter, although a serious magazine aimed at businessmen, contained a page set aside for informal satirical content, entitled The Town Crier. Bierce was hired as this page's editor in December 1868, writing with satire, irreverence and a lack of inhibition, thus becoming known as the 'laughing devil' of San Francisco.
Although the origins of the Devil's Dictionary are normally placed in 1881 (the point at which Bierce himself...
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