“Absurdity, n. [1.] A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion. [2.] The argument of an opponent. A belief in which one has not had the misfortune to be instructed.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
What novel won the first Pulitzer Prize? His Family by Ernest Poole in 1918.
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
“Calculated for Likely. ‘The bad weather is calculated to produce sickness.’ Calculated implies calculation, design.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“In ancient times they had not statistics so they had to fall back on lies.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, numeracy
“The basic concept of the Dilbert principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved where they can do the least damage: management.”
Scott Adams
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Nothing is as irritating as the fellow who chats pleasantly while he’s overcharging.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Boilerplate (noun): Standard, stereotypical news stories, features, etc., syndicated to newspapers; ready-to-print copy; pedestrian or hackneyed writing (from the printer’s matrix or plate form). Adj. boilerplate
‘In newspaper jargon, you might call all this the boiler plate of the novel—durable informative matter set up in stereotype and sold to country newspapers as filler to eke out a scarcity of local news, i.e of ‘plot.’ And the novel, like a newspaper boiler plate, contains not only a miscellany of odd facts but household hints and how-to-do-it instructions (you can learn how to make strawberry jam from Anna Karenina and how to reap a field and hunt ducks).’ Mary McCarthy, On the Contrary”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Palindrome: 1. A word, phrase, or longer expression that reads the same backward as it does forwards: for example, the words level and noon, and the phrases, and the phrases Madam, I’m Adam, and Able was I ere I saw Elba. 2. Also reversal, semordnilap (a reversal backward palindrome). A word that spells another word when reversed: for example, doom, evil, warts, and the trade names Serutan, Trebor.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Ink, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones in an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much to get out.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
“Unfortunately, the big story often seems to elude Connell, who is obsessed with digression, flashback, and flashforward.”
Commentary
“This do-it-yourself kit will appeal to those who think confusion is a narrative strategy.”
J.O. Tate, National Review
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
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