Kosti’s Ambrose
by Richard Kostelanetz (March 2014)
In memory of B(rian). S. Johnson (1933-1973).
, I’m here appropriating him, much as I’ve appropriated other literary heroes, in this case rewriting some of his entries to make them mine and adding a few of my own reflecting his influence, not just what I wish I wrote but what I rewrote. Humor I like to rewrite mostly to be mine. Some of my own entries, written in 1958, became the earliest text ever reprinted by me (in A thick Brtish accent, n. A prime prerequisite for a television appearance by a delegate to the U.N. from a newly created nation in Africa or Asia.
ABSOLUTE, adj. A position undermined if firmly taken in quicksand.
ACADEMY, LITERARY, n. A gathering of dead writers, some of whom, wonder of wonders, are still living and then when they gather together are surprised to find others still alive.
ACTION, n. Whatever produces reaction without which the purported action need not happen at all.
AIMLESS, adj. Someone who repeatedly misfires.
ALPHABETIACLLY, adv. The most convenient way to organize a group of equals.
AMBIENCE, n. A surrounding aura often putative, especially if invisible.
AMBIENCE, n. An expensive aura.
AMBITION, n. That without which nothing special would happen.
AMBROSE (BIERCE), n. An independent American writer whose aphoristic writing from a century ago remains a continuing inspiration.
AMPHIBIAN, n. Whatever can thrive in more than one universe.
AMPLIFICATION, n. A technology new to the 20th Century that can make even initially modest sound intolerable.
AMUSE, v. t. What only a few can do to many, though not all.
AND/OR, conj. A compound word that ought to exist in English if only to avoid clumsy locutions.
ANIMALS, n. Not people, some sentimental publicity to the contrary notwithstanding.
ARMOR, n. Clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, n. Imprisoning whatever it is that proposes radical growth.
BACHELOR, n. Someone, of any sex, who is liked more than he likes.
Bandaranaike, n. A word that all foreign service applicants are required to know about, spell, pronounce, and tell the history of.
BARN, adj. A woman unable to bear children.
can be deemed objective.
BIERCEAN, n. The quality of high literary humor admired by some readers while mostly deplored by others.
BOGUS, adj. Fake to a higher measure.
BOOKS, n. Traditionally the richest repository of the accumulated wisdom of mankind, even with a succession of challenges from newer media.
BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something.
BRASSIERE, n. An early 20th-century development whose changing forms invariably surprise.
BUTT-KISSERS, n. People who inevitably disappoint to the surprise only of those whose butts were kissed.
CALIBER, adj. A measure too accurate for comfort.
CANNY, adj. Able to see not just one step but two or more steps beyond a contemplated action.
CAPITAL, n. Money that can disappear if not invested safely.
Career diplomats, n. Ambassadors to strategic countries.
CHAIN, n. A de facto weapon favored by those strong to intimidate the weak, whether as a whip or as a fence.
CHARM, n. Inauthentic flattery.
CHAS(T)E, adj. Without sex, temporarily.
CHOICES, n. What can never be too numerous.
CIGAR, n. An oral toy more acceptable if observed from afar (or in pictures) than smelled up close.
CIRCLES, n. What everyone wants most to avoid running around in.
CLASSICAL MUSIC, n. From those below a certain age a sure measure of cultural class.
CLEAVAGE, FEMALE, n. What has acceptably attracted male eyes for centuries.
CLEAVAGE, MALE, n. Above falling trousers, what no one wants to see.
CLUTTERED CLATTER, n. Noisy junk.
COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
CONCAVE, n. Where white collar crooks prefer to hide.
CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
Congressional investigations, n. Much like March, they come me in like a lion and go out like a lamb.
CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
CONSPIRACIES, n. Anyone routinely denying their likely existence in human affairs is consigning himself to an intellectual dustbin.
CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is rewarded with one on the condition that he leave the country.
CONTROL, n. Easier with pets and infants than with contemporaries or teenage children.
CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.
CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
CORONATION, n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown sky high with a dynamite bomb.
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
COUNTRY, n. Where urban people move to have no friends.
Crackpot, n. A person with definite positions.
CRAZY, adj. A platitudinous dismissal requiring more specific diagnoses.
CRIME, n. Something everyone has done at one time or another, albeit mostly to trivial degrees, for which some unfortunates go to jail, usually for longer than necessary.
CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that back to the rites of primitive peoples.
CRUTCH, n. Upon which cripples both physical and mental depend.
Deal, n An old American expression, as in Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, and You Deal.
DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in wholesale baptism that washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other comparably goodly sons and daughters.
Democracy, n. The name banner under which opponents of the system try legally to undermine the system.
Dictator, n. An unelected despotic heading a government unfriendly to us.
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. Otherwise, a
thick book whose small-print asides can be much funnier than its authors intended and perhaps know.
DIET, n. Neurotic eating.
DIGITAL, adj. Any entity with parts fewer than the fingers on both hands.
DIPLOMAT, n. A slippery operator.
DISADVANTAGES, n. Misfortunes afflicting everyone but overcome only by some.
DISEASE, n. Disability more serious if not diagnosed.
DOWNSTAIRS, n. A polite euphemism for genital domains both male and female.
DUMB, adj. A condition unawares of itself.
DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along with a dose of desire.
EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that it is employed by cheap fools to accentuate their incapacity.
ECOLOGY, n. A fearsome word that precedes righteous schemes for social planning that frighten me more.
ECONOMICS, ANARCHIST, n. Its key tenet holds that the best things in life are free, beginning with friendship and sunshine.
ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
EDITOR, n. A person who combines the
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Eke.
EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena that always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other. This is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog.
EGO, n. A mistaken substitute for form in poetry especially and sometimes in other arts.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
ELEVATORS, n. Mechanical wings.
EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meager crew.
EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination sent from the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
Engels, n. The celestial beings of communist heaven.
ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
ENTRANCE, v.t., n. Seduce with or through a doorway.
ENTRIES, DICTIONARY, n. The toughest and thus the most poetic constraint for prose.
ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterized by acidity or acerbity, sometimes by wisdom.
ERRANT, adj. Misguided screaming.
ERROR, n. To some people, an impossible outcome.
ESSAYS, n. Containers of sentences strung together, perhaps coherently.
ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots, and ethnologists.
EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and ineffectual.
EXHIBITIONISM, n. Making whatever was private public.
EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon a spit and then roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
EXILE, n. One who better serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance a certain folly that we have already embraced.
EXTRAVAGANCE, n. Excess not necessarily noticed by everyone, though scarcely invisible.
EXURBIA, n. Spacious residential neighborhoods preferred by sometime urban families favoring property over friends.
FACILITY, n. A talent that depends upon a predisposition to pursue the least resistant path.
FACT, n. What is verifiable and thus indisputable, often uncomfortably so to some.
FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who pursued an inviting opportunity to an unfortunate result.
FEMALE, n. A member of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
FOOL, n. A person who as he pervades the domain of intellectual speculation diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of the sciences. In addition to creating patriotism and taught the nations war he founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine, and Chicago.
FORECASTS, n. Essentially were, not is.
FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting bits of dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the later tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in abetting the knife.
FORTITUDE: One prerequisite for overcoming adversity.
FREEMASONS, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies, and fantastic costumes, which, originating among working artisans of London in the reign of Charles II, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on all sides of Adam.
FRENETIC, adj. Movement initially recorded at four frames per second.
FRIENDSHIP: What should be earned through admiration and affection, rather than power and abuse.
FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs.
FUN(D)RAISING, n. Two fundamentally different activities, notwithstanding nearly identical spellings.
FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker and his minions in the cemetery, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that while it deepens our groans also doubles our tears.
GARGOYLE, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building.
General, n. A position from which one can successfully enter politics for lack of past political blunders.
Generalissimo, no. An unelected despostic head of a government friendly to us.
GENEROSITY, n. Always worth extending as much as one can afford.
GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
GERBILS, n. Dump dogs.
GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.
GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to offer it anything good in their place.
GIRLS, n. What many women wish they still were.
GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.
GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures.
GODALMIGHTY, n. A fiction, alas.
Golf, n. The sport of Presidents.
GRACES, n. Three beautiful goddesses named Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne, who attend upon Venus, serving without salary. With no budget for board and clothing, they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing.
GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the mouth of a self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
GRAY, adj. A color whose shades can measure a life.
GRAZE GRAZE, v. What happens when a bullet hits sheep eating grass.
GROVE, n. Where only fruits can thrive.
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes that might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not with very convincing evidence. John Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.
HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.
HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.
HALF-BREED, n. Half-blonde, half-brunette, and, by extension, the offspring of comparable matings of radically different visages.
HALLELUJAH, n. An exclamation customarily spoken too soon.
HANDSHOES, n. Such a good literal translation of the German word for gloves that it should become accredited English.
HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as a harangue-outang.
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
HASH, x. There is no definition for this word, as nobody knows what hash is.
HEAVEN, n. A gated community whose key can only be obtained once the supplicant has been admitted inside.
HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.
Heavy campaign contributors, n. Ambassadors to non-strategic nations.
HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.
HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear that is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and thus prevents the wearer from taking cold.
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow.
HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false
HOLOGRAPHY, n. A awesome technology new in the 1960s, but nearly dead after 2000, not because it became obsolete but because it was so difficult that, as fewer people worked at it, the necessary film was no longer manufactured.
HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another. This classification exists only for advantage of the lawyers.
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities, and conditions of the congregation.
HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and H. cannot.
HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
Horse racing, n. The sport of Kings.
HORSE, n. A transport vehicle whose excrement contaminated urban life until the dissemination of the automobile whose exhaust currently contaminates urban life.
HORSEBACK, n. Sitting in a saddle with your head facing the tail and thus looking behind as the horse moves forward.
HOSE, n. Stockings also able to funnel water.
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge gratis certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
HOST, n. Someone generous to those from whom a favor is expected in return.
HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe. House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and appall the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngish person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.
HOUSEBOUND, adj. Imprisonment unless the subject likes to read favorite books or watch treasured films.
HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.
HOVEL, n. The bum fruit of a flower called the Palace.
HUMORLESSLESS, n. The great downer, especially if afflicting people close to you.
HUNGER: A permanent condition.
HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he ostensibly despises.
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