THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY Ambrose Bierce - Sunny Hills High School

Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound
by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon‐‐that is
to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable
of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
The man who writes in Saxon
Is the man to use an ax on
Judibras
MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of
our religion overlooked the advantages.
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which
either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
The bones of Agammemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument,
but Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The
monument custom has its _reductiones ad absurdum_ in monuments "to the
unknown dead"‐‐that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of
those who have left no memory.
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