New York pronunciation of tomato, a round, ruddy fruit known for
its acidity and widely believed to be a vegetable.
D'Amato: proper name:
New York pronunciation of tomato, a round, ruddy fruit known for
its acidity and widely believed to be a vegetable.
Damocles: proper name:
famous Greek swordsman, early exponent of the high-tension
overhead.
Dancing: n.:
the human adaptation of the mating display behaviors of other
animals; commonly practiced by men as a prelude to mating and
by women as a substitute for it.
Dangerous: adj.:
capable of causing damage. Frequently used in reference,
inaccurately, to weapons or, hyperbolically, to men.
DAR: acronym:
Drones, American, Reactionary.
Darwin: proper name:
to fundamentalists, an incarnation of the AntiChrist;
favored scapegoat for the Right to account for their faulty appreciation of
natural law.
Data: n.:
raw facts, before they have been kneaded into the form of
information.
Data compression: n.:
the Reader's Digest principle, as applied by one's computer.
Date rape: n.:
revisionist crime of the 1980's and '90's; commonly a result of a
young lady's having changed her mind in the cold, gray light of dawn.
Day care: n.:
an institution that allows parents to salve their consciences while
pandering to their own greed.
DB Cooper: proper name:
American folk hero who disappeared from radar screens after a
skyjacking; a criminal genius who demanded a parachute from the
same people he was holding up for a million bucks.
The FBI composite drawing looks strikingly like Duke from the
Doonesbury strip.
Dead: adj.:
east of the Rockies, permanently registered to vote.
Dean: n.:
honorific assigned to people prominent in a field, on the theory
that status confers wisdom.
Dear: adj.:
overly expensive; the traditional pet name of a spouse; the
conventional salutation on a letter to your banker or lawyer.
Death: n.:
the goal toward which all life earnestly strives.
Death penalty: n.:
the effrontery of the state to demand of a convicted felon, after due
process and many appeals and reviews, the same thing that it
requires of its young men after drawing their numbers from a hat.
The retribution which does not foster recidivism.
Death rate: n.:
a universal constant: one to a customer.
Debased: adj.:
[of money] adjusted toward its true value.
Debate: n.:
a media event where two (or more) candidates agree to share
exposure in order to get free (usually prime) TV time to make
campaign speeches. Debates are probably the only authentic
cost-control measure for major campaigns that has been
implemented in modern history.
Debunk: v.t.:
throw out of bed.
Debut: v.t.:
show for the fourth time: leak, pre-release press conference, sneak
preview, debut.
Decadent: adj.:
more refined or polished, or less abrasive, than I would choose to
have them be.
Decapitate: v.t.:
abridge with extreme prejudice.
Decapitation: n.:
traditional way of informing a snake that it only has until sundown
to live, or a king that he has overstayed his welcome, that his
Divine Right has left.
Deception: n.:
a trip down the garden path.
A classic deception was used during World War II to keep people
from speculating on the purpose of the Oak Ridge plant: it was
said that, owing to the shortage of horses to carry equipment into
combat, the plant would be involved in constructing the
forequarters of horses, which would then be sent to Washington,
D.C., for the completion of the beasts.
Decision: n.:
act of desperation we are forced to when we run out of time.
Avoidance of the necessity to make decisions seems to have been a primary motivating factor in the invention of the committee.
Declassify: v.t.:
perform the bureaucratic equivalent of turning over a stone, in
order to expose the secrets to the light of day.
Deconstruction: n.:
destruction; the intellectual equivalent of decomposition.
Decry: v.t.:
to rise in indignation against anything, especially after having been
caught red-handed at it.
Dedication: n.:
sincerity, in deed as well as in word.
Deep in thought: adj phrase:
the way most peoples' minds work, about time to put on the hip
boots, before it gets any deeper.
Certainly, lost in unfamiliar territory.
Defenestration: n.:
traditional extreme sport practiced by bullish stock brokers in celebration of a sudden bear market. Best observed as a spectator sport — from a respectful distance.
Deficit reduction: n.:
any moderation in the rate of increase of the burden we are piling
on our childrens' shoulders.
Deficit spending: n.:
living on your childrens' and grandchildrens' earnings.
A doctrine to which the Republicans were late converts; they spent
the '70s and '80s making up for lost time.
The whole concept can be viewed as an edited version of Swift's
"Modest Proposal."
Definitely: adv.:
maybe.
Definition: n.:
what I want a word to mean.
Deist: n.:
one who believes in a god, but not in the God.
Delaney amendment: n.:
a law that should forbid the sale of vegetables as food, since they
contain sunshine, a proven carcinogen.
Deliberate: v.i.:
sit in conclave for purposes of avoiding having to make a decision.
Delight: v.t.:
remove the bulb from.
Delight: n.:
the sweetest, and stickiest, of the emotions, which we inherit from
the Turks, along with the steam bath and the Thanksgiving fowl.
Delusion: n.:
a belief not in accordance with my own, especially when strongly held.
Demagogue: n.:
one who undertakes to inspire people in a cause that I disapprove of.
Democracy: n.:
a political system which, in the words of Shaw, "substitutes
selection by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt
few." Shaw had very limited experience of the American
experiment with democracy.
Democrat: n.:
member of a political party symbolized by the jackass, an animal
noted for its cooperativeness, the pleasantness of its disposition
and the beauty of its speaking voice.
Demonology: n.:
a compendium of the names, titles and attributes of the senior
members of the Legions of Darkness — sort of the medieval
equivalent of the Congressional Directory.
Demonstrate: v.i.:
gather to mill about and chant mindless jingles in such a way as to
get your picture on the TV; throw a group tantrum.
Deregulate: v.t.:
declare open season on consumers.
Deregulation: n.:
issuance of a blanket license to steal.
When you look at the historical record of the famous successes of the days before
"overregulation", it's no wonder they called the successful magnates "the Robber Barons."
Derivative: n.:
ticket in a high-stakes gambling game, where the broker plays
against the brokerage as bank, using your money.
Descriptivist: n.:
one who believes that natural law is a principle to be discovered
and used to predict the behavior of people or things. Typically a
scientist or engineer.
Contrast Prescriptivist.
Desirable: adj.:
rare, difficult of attainment, or forbidden.
Despair: n.:
the tender, nurturing emotion elicited by the inspection of IRS forms.
Despairasite: n.:
one who makes his fame, and his wealth, by playing on the public's fears, most often by creating "crises," "disasters," and "conspiracies."
The Dungeon Master in the game of "Ain't it Awful?"
Destabilize: v.t.:
overthrow without admitting involvement in the act.
Destiny: n.:
the name we give to our practice of blaming God for our own carelessness.
Destructive: adj.:
the relation of the Congress to the Constitution.
Deterrent: adj.:
a quality of an institution or policy that, if successful, can never
be proven effective, except by statistical analysis, which can be
used to prove anything desired.
Deus ex machina: phrase:
religious broadcasting.
Developed nation: n.:
one in which there is more industrial than biological pollution.
Devil: n.:
one who must traditionally be paid when the pitch is not hot.
The Devil: proper name:
anthromorphized scapegoat for all the infirmities, inconsistencies
and failings of humankind, especially those parts of it that belong
to Western religions.
Hides in the details.
The Devil's Dictionary: book title:
the definitive dissertation on life and culture in turn-of-the-century America.
Devil worship: n.:
flash-in-the-pan media crisis wedding religious oppression with child abuse.
Devout: adj.:
having firm faith in the tenet that anyone offered a choice between
one's chosen creed and its opposite will automatically choose the
opposite. It automatically follows that the choice must never be
allowed.
Dew: n.:
the footprints left by little cats' feet.
The variety from the mountains is notoriously more befuddling than the ordinary, lowland kind.
Diagnosis: n.:
the ascertainment of the source of an illness, generally reached by
incantation, divination, or poking around in the entrails of the patient.
Diagonal: adj.:
slaunchwise, as the line in the prohibitionary circle.
Diagram: n.:
anorectic drawing.
Diamond: n.:
symbol of the ostentatious display of wealth, whether on a finger or in a stadium.
Diaphragm: n.:
a bumper designed to keep a man from knocking chips off his old block.
Diatribe: n.:
talk-show host's monologue.
Dice: n., pl.:
The plural of die, hence the usage of the term to refer to aerial combat and close auto racing.
Dictator: n.:
successful law-and-order candidate from a faction other than my own.
Dictatorship: n.:
a political system that has its trains running on time, but no one is
free to travel on them.
Dictionary: n.:
a reference work useful to prove to yourself that you really did
know how to spell that word. (Have you ever tried looking up a
word you didn't know how to spell?)
Dictionaries are currently at the heart of a religious war between
those who believe a dictionary tells you the meaning of what you
said (the descriptivists) and those who believe it should tell you
how to say what you want to mean (the prescriptivists.) The
descriptivist dictionary is always out of date and therefore a barrier
to clear understanding; the prescriptivist dictionary is an
impediment to the evolution of the language and therefore a barrier
to understanding anything that transpired after compilation of the
dictionary.
Diet: v.i.:
impose upon ourselves in an attempt to look like what we are not:
slim and athletic (and young.)
Diet-for-health is a modern fixation and is pursued primarily by
the methods of old fashioned magic: [ethnic group] has some
measure of health that I want, so I will imitate and exaggerate
elements of their diet (preferably the distasteful ones -- no pain,
no gain) and it will give me the health I want.
Differ: v.i.:
(from me) err.
Difference: n.:
that which remains when all the similarities have been submerged.
Different: adj.:
wrong; dangerous; deserving of persecution.
Digital: adj.:
of or pertaining to the finger. Hence, when someone touts the
"digital age," he is symbolically giving you the finger.
Digital communications: n.:
something men have been doing since long before there were computers.
Dildo: n.:
an appliance designed to fill a void in a woman's private life.
Dionysos: proper name:
Greek god of wine and the theater.
Symbolically, the god of parties and good times; the patron of fraternities and sororities.
Diploma: n.:
a document which demonstrates that some school found the bearer certifiable.
Diplomacy: n.:
duplicity.
The apparent goal of diplomacy is to maintain a state of tension just short of outright warfare.
Diplomat: n.:
one who can invite you to go to Hell so smoothly that you actually
look forward to the trip.
Disappoint: v.t.:
treat as an elected official does his constituents.
Disappointment: n.:
the fruits of hope; the debris from the collision of anticipation with realization.
Disaster: n.:
a predictable inconvenience that no one could be bothered to prepare for.
Disaster area: n.:
any area that Nature has made to look
worse than the neighborhoods the Congress drive through (or around) on their
way to the office.
Discourtesy: n.:
action that does not demonstrate prior deferral to my tastes.
Discover: v.t.:
invent. Especially as applied to evidence in support of the
discoverer's preconceived notions.
Discriminating tastes: n.:
the judgement of someone who subscribes to the same magazines
as I do, and has money.
Discrimination: n.:
the capacity for making distinctions based on subtle, frequently
inconsequential, differences.
Discussion: n.:
a session where you can listen to my views.
Disenfranchised: adj.:
like a Democrat in the 104th Congress.
Disgrace: n.:
the condition toward which a political career naturally trends.
Disgust: n.:
the form of enthusiasm most often engendered by the realities of
the political campaign or the demeanor of the campaigners.
Dishonor: n.:
a form of the afterlife, as defined in the phrase "Death before dishonor."
Disinformation: n.:
that which we tell, which would be a lie if you told it.
Disingenuous: adj.:
less than completely forthright, as when the Republicans chide a
Democratic candidate for having overseen layoffs or taken a high salary.
Disk drive: n.:
a computer device designed to implement the loss of data.
Dismember: v.t.:
frighten, as "bibbity-Bobbity-boo."
Disobedience: n.:
creativity in an underling.
Dispute: n.:
the detritus of Society, on which lawyers feed.
Disregard: v.i.:
attend with the same studious intensity that the Government
exercises toward the rights guaranteed to citizens in the Constitution.
Dissemble: v.i.:
misrepresent, as the Prohibition movement claiming they were
only for control and moderation — temperance.
Given the historical record, perhaps we should encourage it more:
temperance societies got their way for a while, but ultimately were
discredited; firearm prohibition groups, dissembling as "control"
activists, have been a nuisance but have done little actual harm; the
absolutist Abolitionists precipitated the nastiest war in our history;
the drug prohibitionists have founded and funded the greatest
industry of crime and violence in all of history; the
uncompromising anti-abortionists have been responsible for a
reign of domestic terrorism unmatched by any admittedly political
or religious movement.
Dissonance: n.:
harmony on acid.
Distress: n.:
discomfort commonly caused by observation of the good fortune of others.
Distress: v.t.:
artificially age an artifact, so as to increase its value by making it
seem to be an antique.
Dittohead: n.:
fellow traveller along the Disinformation Superhighway.
Diversity: n.:
opportunity for conflict and exploitation.
Divide and conquer: motto:
battle plan of those who believe "united we stand...."
Divination: n.:
reading the mind of God.
Divine Comedy: book title:
a made-for-tabloid-TV event costarring Hugh Grant.
DNA: n.:
the chemical of heredity; its helical shape is the reason genetics is so screwed up.
Doctor: n.:
one to whom the state has granted a license to kill.
Docu-drama: n.:
fiction based on an historical event, using the names of a couple of
the original players and places.
Doggerel: n.:
to a literary critic, any poetry that rhymes and scans.
Dogma: n.:
an indulgence that futilely chases karma.
Dogmatic: adj.:
unwilling to be converted to my obviously superior position.
Doing the public's business: phrase:
doing the public, in a businesslike fashion.
Doldrums: n.:
a zone of inanity and tedium, devoid of excitement or events of interest.
Pronounced "Dole-drums."
Dole: v.t.:
to administer parsimoniously; to hand out grudgingly.
Dole-othy: improper name:
one who's not in Kansas anymore. He hoped the Yellow Brick
Road would be another name for Pennsylvania Avenue. It wasn't.
Domestic surveillance: n.:
the FBI plays KGB.
Donor card: n.:
a symbol that you'd like to be more useful in death than you were in life.
If you can't take it with you, you may as well give it to someone who can use it.
Double nickel: expletive:
an attempt to save fuel by making driving so unpleasant that
people will choose not to travel. Legislation in the '70s based on
an inadequate understanding of the technology of the '40s.
Doubletalk: n.:
talk delivered from both sides of the mouth.
Common during campaign season.
Downsize: v.i.:
reduce the height of a pyramid by cutting off its base; assign your effectives as Mammon fodder.
Downsizing: n.:
economic massacre.
Draft: n.:
[football, baseball, basketball, hockey] twentieth century legal slave market.
Dread: n.:
the gentle emotion engendered by the prospect of an upcoming
political campaign and it attendant advertisements.
Dream: n.:
the carrot we use to lead ourselves through the doldrums of life.
Dream team: n.:
the other side's worst nightmare.
Drink: n.:
age-old lubricant of the human spirit.
Having noted that as the drinker gets tight, his inhibitions loosen, the temperance
movement decided on the necessity of prohibition.
Drive: v.t.:
operate an automobile. Observation indicates that the use of such
verbs as control, pilot, maneuver is rarely warranted.
Drivel: n.:
the content of a campaign speech; or of advertising copy.
Drudge: n.:
one who toils meanly and monotonously, for hire.
Drug abuse: phrase:
use of any mood-altering substance that I don't use.
Drug free: adj phrase:
habituated to only those psychoactive, addictive substances which
are marketed by corporate entities with large political constituencies.
Duck-bill: n.:
a dinosaur whose head was shaped like a baseball cap.
The duckbill, as with all dinosaurs, is noted for the small size of its brain. Apparently, the association endures.
Duct tape: n.:
mankind's homage to gravity: that which holds everything else in
the Universe together.
Due diligence: n.:
the level of precaution that my hindsight decides should have been necessary.
Dull: adj.:
insufficiently bright for me to see the reflection of myself.
Duly constituted authority: n.:
the side with the biggest battalions.
Dummy: adj.:
in computing, a meaningless variable used
merely to hold a place until the place is needed; kind of the programming
equivalent of a Vice President.
Dunce: n.:
a special scholar who is rewarded for his accomplishments by
being allowed to sit in front of the class wearing the top part of a
Klansman's hood.
Dust bunny: n.:
cultural icon which appears in honor of the season of spring cleaning.
Dusty: proper name:
the inevitable nickname for anyone whose last name is Rhodes.
Duty: n.:
a muzzle for conscience.
The stick we use to drive ourselves, as we pursue our paths through the doldrums of life.
Dwarf: n.:
an unfortunate whose physical stature is comparable with the moral stature of the average presidential candidate.
Dynasty: n.:
an institution designed to disprove the notion that ability is hereditary.
Dysphemism: n.:
opposite of euphemism; the language of the Right in describing the
activities of the Left, or vice versa.
Dystopia: proper name:
proper name of worst of all possible worlds; the place where anything that can go wrong, does go wrong.
Dystopian: adj.:
of, or pertaining to: