Easter: n.:
the day on which Christians celebrate the death of their god.
Children see the juxtaposition of the death of the supreme authority with the conventional symbol of promiscuity-- the rabbit -- as a justification for sexual rebellion.
Conspiracy theorists interested in the significance of the first Easter are referred to The Passover Plot by Schonfeld.

Ebonia: proper name:
native land of American Inner City dwellers.

Ebonics: n.:
a language subject to extensive miscommunication because of its overt resemblance to Moronics.

Ebullient: n.:
acting as though they've had too much bubbly: unable either to shut up or to string together three sentences on the same topic.

Eclecticism: n.:
a school of philosophy that treats the works of other schools as a Chinese menu: "I'll have this from column A, and these from column B, and a little of this moo shoo pork . . . ."

Ecologist: n.:
one who believes the world would be better off if only Noah and his family had been left at the docks.

Economist: n.:
fictioneer who likes to work with budgets and ledgers, but whose arithmetic isn't good enough to qualify as an accountant.
Someone who has misunderstood Kelvin. "When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it" does not mean that the ability to make up numbers confers knowledge. Measurement means more than the assignment of arbitrary numbers chosen to advance a political philosophy.

Economy: n.:
the china shop in which the bulls of Wall Street frolic.

Ecotopia: n.:
mythical land where all industries are sustainable, all energy sources are renewable and the people live in harmony with Nature.

Ecstasy: n.: Joy unbridled; delight set free to dance barefoot through the psyche.

Edifice: n.:
a complex building.

Editor: n.:
traditional enemy of the writer.
Editors are empowered to both the low justice and the high on the words entrusted to their care.

Editorial page: n.:
the only part of the paper that admits to being slanted toward the publisher's prejudices. Not the only part of the paper that is so slanted.

Education: n.:
the process of training the next generation to parrot the misconceptions and prejudices of the last.
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach write books about education.

Efficiency: n.:
absence of compassion; antagonist to flexibility.

Effluenza: n.:
disease brought about by pollution.

EFT: acronym:
[Electronic Funds Transfer]

1. a way for your creditors or your PBS station to drain your bank account without any inconvenient pieces of paper, like bills, receipts, etc.
   
2. a way to move sums of money without having to handle valises full of $100 bills or have checks or other troublesome records lying around.

Eft: n.:
newt

Ego: n.:
the commodity which demands the highest price for the least return.

Egoist: n.:
one with such defective judgement as to think himself more important than me.

Egomaniac: n.:
a boor who continues to talk about himself when he should be listening to me talking about myself.

Egotism: n.:
the anodyne to the joint pains of incompetence and inadequacy.

Egotist: n.:
a headache brought on by severe I-strain.

Egress: n.:
the fabulously beautiful female egret, as featured in P.T.Barnum's museum.

Election: n.:
an event where we go to the polls to cast our vote for the candidate of our party bosses' choice.

Election fraud: n.:
how the other side wins.

Electra: proper name:
a young girl with a shocking love for her father.

Elephant: n.:
a mouse built on a cost-plus contract.

Elimination: n.:
Victorian euphemism for some of the biological Acts Which Must Not Be Discussed.
Nero Wolfe observed that "one of the deepest secrets of excellence [in art] is a discriminating elimination." Certainly, the NEA has taken his advice to heart.

Elitism: n.:
any system which presupposes the existence of a superior class that does not include me.

Elitist: n.:
one with the misguided notion that he and his friends are better than me or my friends.

Ellipsis: n.:
the "completion is left as an exercise for the reader" symbol; the author's tribute to the fact that you can stimulate your own imagination better than he can.

Email: n.:
modern anodyne for shyness.

Emasculated: adj.:
edited for television.

Embezzle: v.t.:
treat a financial trust in the private sector in the same manner as Congress treats the Social Security Trust funds in the public sector.

Embezzlement: n.:

1. private-sector pork barrelling; a crime wherein a businessman is caught acting as though he considered himself an electee.
2. the act of treating the corporate exchequer as though one were CEO, without having first gained the title.

Emotion: n.:
the leavening that causes the bread of life to rise and become fragrant, light and delicious. What matters it, that for many of us the leavening is not yeast, but sourdough.

End of the world: n.:
what will surely happen if I don't get my way. Sometimes modified to the end of the world as we know it, if the matter isn't really earth-shattering.

Endorse: v.t.:

1. (in private life) accept responsibility for, as when you endorse a check.
   
2. (in public life) attempt to make something more attractive by renting out the value of the public recognition of a name or face, as when a celebrity endorses a product, or a public figure endorses a cause.
   
3. (in political life) take a posture to appease a pressure group, without risking the consequences of actual support or action.
   Contrast with embrace.

Endorsements: n. plural:
the endorphins of the body politic: they are the reward for running, they reduce sensitivity to outside stimuli, and they impair the ability to react smoothly, quickly or strongly.

Enemy: n.:
ex friend.
Always choose your enemies carefully, for they are the people you end up most like.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend: motto:
a bit of fallacious philosophy that has been responsible for entirely too much of American foreign policy.

Energy: n.:
the ephemeral face of matter, the persistent face being inertia.

Enjoyable: adj.:
sinful.

Ennui: n.:
the goad which impels the wealthy in the same way as hunger, the poor;
the greens from which our salad days were cut.

Entitlement: n.:
everybody wants a slice of the pie; nobody wants to have to fork over the dough.
Americans have the idea that if you can afford (or get away with) something once when times are good, it should be guaranteed forever.

Entropy: n.:
the degree of disorder in a system, which constantly increases -- a common property in physics and politics. Entropy and the cost of living are the only things in nature that consistently run uphill.

Environment: n.:
the resource we consume in disposing of our wastes, as we use up paper towels in cleaning up spills.

Environmentalist: adj.:
pertaining to a group of activists who seem to believe that if they don't let us put it anywhere, radioactive waste will go away, that the one cancer caused by use of an agricultural chemical is worse than the ten cancers and three starvations it prevents, that timber companies should be forced to turn their lumber back into trees and plant them in the forests, . . . .

Envy: n.:
the consequence of observing another's good fortune.

Epidemiology: n.:
Medical Statistics.
This is the science that enables us to prove that cigarettes cause cancer, or eating rice causes yellow skin.

Equal: adj.:
favored.

Equal Opportunity: n.:
privileged status -- "and the sins of the father shall be visited on the sons."
Activists and Liberals routinely confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. Policies based on this confusion constitute much of the barrier to achievement of a genuinely egalitarian culture.

Equivocate: v.i.: speak in the forthright and uncompromising manner of a candidate during an election campaign.

Err: v.i.:
to hold views not in consonance with mine.

Erstwhile: adv.:
once upon a time.

Eructation: n.:
popular participatory sport of adolescent males. Vocalization with the intellectual content of a campaign promise.

Erudite: adj.:
possessing the kind of knowledge that comes from lots of reading and lectures, but no actual experience.

Eschew obfuscation: motto:
Sesquipedalian formulation of "keep it simple, stupid."

Et cetera: phrase:
the linguistic equivalent of the hand-waving a magician does to distract attention from the trick.

Eternity: n.:
the only period of time longer than the presidential campaigns.
The next shorter period is the NBA playoffs.

Ethnic: adj.:
having religion or ancestry different from mine.

Ethnic slur: n.:
the tool we use to sever our bonds to the humanity of our foes.
Killing people is murder; killing gooks, slopes, ragheads, kikes, the list goes on and on, is pest control.

Ethnocentric: adj.:
believing that the quirks and foibles of one's family and friends are laws of the universe.

Etiology: n.:
the study of the development of the manifestations of a physical illness; not to be confused with the homonymous ideology: the manifestation of mental or emotional illness.

Etiquette: n.:
a compendium of rules of behavior which, if followed carefully, will allow you to avoid being impolite. It is the custom to impose rules of etiquette rather than to teach courtesy, which would encourage being polite.

Etymology: n.:
the study of the derivation and variations of words. Sometimes confused with entomology, the study of the history and variations of bugs. The two converge in the field of computer programming, the art of developing and implementing bugs in computer languages.

Eulogy: n.:
a speech inventing the merits of the departed.

Eunuch: n.:
a man who has been treated with the same care and consideration we ordinarily lavish on our pets.
The traditional eunuch runs to the same physique as the standard couch potato.
The stereotype eunuch is pudgy, fussy and non-aggressive, with greatly reduced appetites, except, perhaps, for food, making him nearly the ideal man in the eyes of many Western urban women. Like most stereotypes dealing with sexuality, this one is not very accurate.

Euphemism: n.:
the language spoken by newscasters, admen or lawyers for the defense.

Europe: n.:
a geographic region named for a Greek girl who was raped by a bull claiming to be invested of a God, thereby setting the pattern for her namesake's political and social history.

Euthanasia: n.:
the execrable act of effectively alleviating terminal suffering.

Evangelism: n.:
putting the principle "misery loves company" into practice.

"Everybody does it": mantra:
"I did it, and I got caught."

Evil: adj.:
distasteful or inconvenient to me;
such that I would feel ashamed if caught at it.

Evil Empire: n.:
one in competition with mine.

Evolution: n.:
progressive change without violence, except by those who deny the reality of the change.

Exactly: adj.:
approximately.

Exaggerate: v.t.:

1. prepare for inclusion in a news report or a political speech.
   
2. discuss the merits of the dead.

Excessive force: n.:
force used against my side.

Excise: v.t.:
to remove bodily and/or totally.

Excise: n.:
a tax or license, designed to excise one's income.

Excrement: n.:
the substance of my opponent's platform.

Excuse: n.:
the lonely sentinel who wards between us and our unwanted obligations.

Executive: n.:
one whose duty is to act as executioner of the organization's plans and goals; and, especially, workforce.

Executive privilege: n.:
a cloak for the President to use when wrapping himself in the flag no longer offers enough protection.

Exercise: n.:
self-torture undertaken in an effort to polish the soul without having to give up the activities and attitudes that tarnished it in the first place.

Exon: n.:
in a gene, the part that promulgates useful information;
not so in the Congress.

Expanded consciousness: n.:
swollen ego.

Expectation: n.:
preparation for disappointment.

Experience: n.:
the one thing of value we bring home from our most humiliating defeats. Experience makes the difference between a preacher and a teacher.

Expert: n.:

1. one who has got enough of his writings published that people think he knows what he's talking about.
   
2. twentieth-century replacement for the Oracle at Delphi.
   
3. has-been, high-pressure drip.

Expert opinion: n.:
one which agrees with, or supports, my own.

Explain: v.t.:
create confusion about.

Expletive: n.:
a word pronounced explosively to relieve emotional stress; generally deleted from transcripts and bleeped from TV shows.

Exploit: v.t.:
use in any way I do not approve of or profit from.

Extol: v.t.:
invent; as to extol the virtues of the honored guest.

Extort: v.t.:
apply the methods of the IRS in the private sector.

Extravagant: adj.:
more generous with a limited resource than I would be, or claim to be; especially if it's my resource.

Extreme: adj.:
mindless, as extreme skiing, extreme magic, extreme political positions.

Extreme sports: n.:
activities undertaken in pursuit of a Darwin award, offering the added incentive that, in most cases, both the participant and the society he is flouting will be winners.