The Devil’s Dictionary (Chap. 23)

W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic. This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like epixoriambikos. Still, it is now thought by the learned that other agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been concerned in the decline of "the glory that was Greece" and the rise of "the grandeur that was Rome." There can be no doubt, however, that by simplifying the name of W (calling it "wow," for example) our civilization could be, if not promoted, at least better endured.

WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. Even the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.

&nbspCarnegie the dauntless has uttered his call
&nbspTo battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
&nbspCarnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;
&nbspKeep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail,
&nbspGo back to your isle of perpetual brume,
&nbspSilence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:
&nbspBen Lomond is calling his son from the fray—
&nbspFly, fly from the region of Wall Street away!
&nbspWhile still you're possessed of a single baubee
&nbsp (I wish it were pledged to endowment of me)
&nbsp'Twere wise to retreat from the wars of finance
&nbspLest its value decline ere your credit advance.
&nbspFor a man 'twixt a king of finance and the sea,
&nbspCarnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!

Anonymus Bink

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end—that change is the one immutable and eternal law—but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure dome"—when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu—that he

&nbspheard from afar
&nbspAncestral voices prophesying war.

One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.

WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

&nbspThey took away his vote and gave instead
&nbspThe right, when he had earned, to eat his bread.
&nbspIn vain—he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
&nbspTo come again and part him from his roll.

Offenbach Stutz

WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.

WEATHER, n. The climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.

&nbspOnce I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
&nbspAnd I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be—
&nbspDead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
&nbspWith a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
&nbspWhile I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
&nbspFrom the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
&nbspHe cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
&nbspOn a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote—
&nbspFor I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
&nbsp"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."

Halcyon Jones

WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."

WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.

&nbspShould you ask me whence this laughter,
&nbspWhence this audible big-smiling,
&nbspWith its labial extension,
&nbspWith its maxillar distortion
&nbspAnd its diaphragmic rhythmus
&nbspLike the billowing of an ocean,
&nbspLike the shaking of a carpet,
&nbspI should answer, I should tell you:
&nbspFrom the great deeps of the spirit,
&nbspFrom the unplummeted abysmus
&nbspOf the soul this laughter welleth
&nbspAs the fountain, the gug-guggle,
&nbspLike the river from the canon [sic],
&nbspTo entoken and give warning
&nbspThat my present mood is sunny.
&nbspShould you ask me further question—
&nbspWhy the great deeps of the spirit,
&nbspWhy the unplummeted abysmus
&nbspOf the soule extrudes this laughter,
&nbspThis all audible big-smiling,
&nbspI should answer, I should tell you
&nbspWith a white heart, tumpitumpy,
&nbspWith a true tongue, honest Injun:
&nbspWilliam Bryan, he has Caught It,
&nbspCaught the Whangdepootenawah!

&nbspIs't the sandhill crane, the shankank,
&nbspStanding in the marsh, the kneedeep,
&nbspStanding silent in the kneedeep
&nbspWith his wing-tips crossed behind him
&nbspAnd his neck close-reefed before him,
&nbspWith his bill, his william, buried
&nbspIn the down upon his bosom,
&nbspWith his head retracted inly,
&nbspWhile his shoulders overlook it?
&nbspDoes the sandhill crane, the shankank,
&nbspShiver grayly in the north wind,
&nbspWishing he had died when little,
&nbspAs the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
&nbspNo 'tis not the Shankank standing,
&nbspStanding in the gray and dismal
&nbspMarsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
&nbspNo, 'tis peerless William Bryan
&nbspRealizing that he's Caught It,
&nbspCaught the Whangdepootenawah!

WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.

WHITE, adj. and n. Black.

WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features of his character.

WINE, n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as "liquor," sometimes as "rum." Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."

WOMAN, n.

&nbspAn animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a
&nbsprudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by
&nbspmany of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
&nbspacquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
&nbsppostsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
&nbspdeny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
&nbspit roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all
&nbspbeasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
&nbspGreeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular
&nbspname (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
&nbspThe woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
&nbspAmerican variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be
&nbsptaught not to talk.

Balthasar Pober

WORMS'-MEAT, n. The finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Granitarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by contrast the foreknown futility.

&nbspAmbitious fool! so mad to be a show!
&nbspHow profitless the labor you bestow
&nbspUpon a dwelling whose magnificence
&nbspThe tenant neither can admire nor know.

&nbspBuild deep, build high, build massive as you can,
&nbspThe wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
&nbspBy shouldering asunder all the stones
&nbspIn what to you would be a moment's span.

&nbspTime to the dead so all unreckoned flies
&nbspThat when your marble is all dust, arise,
&nbspIf wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn—
&nbspYou'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.

&nbspWhat though of all man's works your tomb alone
&nbspShould stand till Time himself be overthrown?
&nbspWould it advantage you to dwell therein
&nbspForever as a stain upon a stone?

Joel Huck

WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God," "the day of wrath," etc. Amongst the ancients the wrath of kings was deemed sacred, for it could usually command the agency of some god for its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest. The Greeks before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of Achilles, though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor roasted. A similar noted immunity was that of David when he incurred the wrath of Yahveh by numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom paid the penalty with their lives. God is now Love, and a director of the census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.