Tag Archives: humor

Rotten Reviews: The Ginger Man

“Disgust, indignation, and boredom—those are the most likely responses to be anticipated among readers of The Ginger Man. No doubt the book will also get a few screams of praise from those who habitually confuse the effects of art with the effects of shock and sensation… This rather nasty, rather pompous novel gives us, in all, a precocious small boy’s view of life, the boy having been spoiled somehow and allowed to indulge in sulks and tantrums and abundant self-pity.”

Chicago Tribune

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

Write It Right: Chivalrous

“Chivalrous. The word is popularly used in the Southern States only, and commonly has reference to men’s manner toward women. Archaic, stilted, and fantastic.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Acquaintance

“Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor to obscure, and intimate when he is rich and famous.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

Robert Maynard Hutchins on the Caprice of the Law

“The law may…depend on what the judge has had for breakfast.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins

“The Autobiography of an Ex-Law Student,” American Law School Review, Apr. 1934

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Write It Right: Chance for Opportunity

“Chance for Opportunity. ‘He had a good chance to succeed.’”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman on Geography

“Conducting a survey for a question-and-answer book he was editing, George Oppenheimer once quizzed Kaufman on geography—a subject that thoroughly bored G.S.K. One of the questions read: ‘What is the longest river in South America?’

After a moment. Kaufman queried, ‘Are you sure it’s in South America?’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Rotten Reviews: Annie Dillard

 “Rotten Reviews: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

‘I have never seen frogs in Virginia ‘shout and glare’…”

Loren Eiseley, Washington Post Book World

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

Write It Right: Casket for Coffin

“Casket for Coffin. A needless euphemism affected by undertakers.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Andrew Lang on Statistics

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts…for support rather than illumination.”

Andrew Lang

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Accountable

“Accountable, adj. Liable to an abatement of pleasure, profit, or advantage; exposed to the peril of a penalty.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.