Spoiler Saturday: Lies My Lexicographer Told Me
Getting our ears Bierce'd.
When I was a kid, my Papa had a few books I loved to read over and over when we came to visit him and Nana. There was his collection of old comic strips, his book of palindromes and anagrams…and when I got a bit older and able to appreciate it, there was Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary.
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.
I still love it now. The Ubercross Abecedaria D is built around its definitions, which serve as both clues and longer answers. And that’s odd. Because the DD embodies two things I generally hate: lies and cynicism.
The lie, of course, is that The Devil’s Dictionary is a “dictionary” in any real sense. Bierce imitates the structure of dictionaries, but his definitions are half-truths at best.
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
I love a good joke. What bothers me is when there’s no clear distinction between actual facts and jokey mock-facts.
DISSEMBLE, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.
That’s one reason among several that I hate Urban Dictionary, which freely mixes satirical definitions with serious ones. Case in point: Urban Dictionary’s top definitions for the three words above are:
Life: A sexually-transmitted, terminal disease.
Dictionary: Words about words.
Dissemble: To give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or the real nature of: to dissemble one's incompetence in business. To conceal/lie and hide one's true motives, thoughts, actions, etc., by some pretense: speak or act hypocritically.
I’ll admit the first is funny and the last is accurate, but the middle one is neither, and none are both. UD also has definitions that are simply love letters or hate letters….
Lauren: If not the most beautiful then one of the most beautiful people you will ever meet, inside and out…
…and cutting-edge slang definitions that could be either front-line reporting on the language as it’s spoken or just crap someone made up for fun. You can’t tell.
Snow blunt: A blunt smoked out in the snow.
Fawxy: Fawxy twines hawt with danger. Sweet, sexy and dangerous.
Why don’t I mind that sort of thing with Bierce? It’s all about context. All of The Devil’s Dictionary is jokes, and unlike the crowdsourced UD, Bierce strikes a consistent tone, never entirely joking or serious. The DD is disguised as a real dictionary, but it’s purposely not disguised very well. And it’s aimed at a highbrow audience that’s likely to get where it’s really going.
For crosswords, which are likewise a bit highbrow and prone to jokey definitions, Bierce would seem like a natural fit…if not for the darkness at the heart of the man. I’ll go into that in a bit, but tomorrow’s going to be Sunday…and I’ll have a confession to make.
