Habit: n.:
the autopilot of the mind.
Bierce characterizes habit as shackles for the free.
The Church calls nuns' clothing habits.

Hack: n.:
a writer whose works do not appeal to my prejudices.

Hack : v.t.:
in computerese, to do surgery on an ailing computer program with the delicacy of a woodchopper and the finesse of a cab driver.

Hallucination: n.:
a vision not prescribed by my religion.

Hallucinogen: n.:
a psychoactive agent lacking an effective lobby or press campaign.

Handbasket: n.:
preferred conveyance to Hell. Travel to be along a road paved with good intentions, no doubt.

Handicapped: adj.:
in horse racing, carrying an extra burden. This practice intends to bring the performance of the best animals down to the level of the poorest, in order to maximize the take at the pari-mutuel windows.

Handsome: adj.:
the masculine of pretty.

Handwriting: n.:
the device we use to disguise our thoughts and feelings from others when a computer isn't available.

Hangover: n.:

1. second term administration.
   
2. conscience with teeth.

Harangue: n.:
an opponent's exhortation to his followers.
Bierce characterizes such a speaker as an "harangue-outang"; this is insulting to the Old Man of the Forest.

Harem: n.:
Big Rock Candy Mountain for adolescent males.
An institution in which women are supported in relative ease and luxury by a powerful man, in return for dramatically less service than would be required of them by a much poorer husband, lover or master.
Execrated by men who believe they would never be able to afford one and by women who believe they would never be able to qualify to be selected for one.

Hastert: proper name:
Chicago Liberal slang which translates as "Menace."

Hatch: n.:
opening into a (usually odious and/or odorous) lower domain.

Hatch: v.t.:
bring to fruition a potential enterprise, e.g., a plot or scheme.

Hatfield: proper name:
the real McCoy among western senators.

Hatred: n.:
the warm feeling we have for others who have bested us.

Haute: adj.:
a French term most easily translated as "overpriced."

Hawk: n.:
one of the political birds, along with dove, peacock, (Jim) crow and turkey. Notably absent from the list is the owl.

"He started it": clause:
I got caught doing it.

Head: n.:

1. the center of action of thought;
   
2. the goal for action when going to the bathroom.
   

Head shop: n.:
a retail establishment whose clientele are largely in need of new heads, having burned out their old ones.

Health: n.:
the stalking horse chosen by the abstemious to coerce us to their style of life, since they have worn out the soul for that use.
Good health is no more than the slowest and least uncomfortable way of dying.

Hearsay: n.:
the category of evidence which stands in support of the adage "talk is cheap."

Heart: n.:

1. the most metaphoric of the organs.
   
2. the haven at the end of the way through a man's stomach.
   
3. fashionable sleeve wear, among Romantics.

Heaven: n.:
venue of the afterlife for me and my friends; the carrot offered by religion. Variously described: as an abode of continuous delight where you go; as the deadly dull place where the "good" go; as the great cathouse in the sky where Muslims go.

Heavenbound: adj.:
hogtied by the dictates of politically powerful and socially conservative religions.

Hedonism: n.:
Live fast, love hard, die young and leave a fashionable corpse.

Hell-bent for election: adj.:
description of the candidate opposed by the religious right.

Hell's Bells: n.:
the phone, doorbell or alarm on the morning after.

Hellfire: n.:
half the stock in trade of the snake oil salesman who sells from a pulpit.
Sold as a gift to one's neighbors, especially those who don't attend the sales meetings.

Hellion: n.:
one who causes disruption, disaffection or damage.
The Cuban spelling appears to be "Elian."

Hereafter: n.:
topic of conversation among dating youth:

Couple at the local lovers' lane:
He: "Let's talk about the hereafter."
She: "What do you mean?"
He: "Well, if you're not hereafter what I'm hereafter, you're going to be hereafter I'm gone."

Hermaphrodite: n.:
the traditional bisexual built with two.
A hermaphrodite must be a good thing: if it were a bad thing, it would have been renamed himmaphrodite.

Hero: n.:
traditionally, someone who didn't believe that what needed doing was valiant or glorious, but did it anyway.

A new variety is the "authentic American hero;" he is a serving government or military officer who sells lethal weapons to a country at war with his own in order to circumvent laws he is sworn to uphold.
In a harsher, less enlightened age there was a different word for such men.
Benedict Arnold, at least, never delivered.

One side's hero is the other side's traitor, or villain, if you're still into melodrama.

High moral ground: n.:
the position I attribute to the politician whose pronouncements most nearly match my prejudices.

Higher consciousness: n.:
greater state of inebriation.
Frequently the prelude to a state of unconsciousness.

Higher than a kite: adj. phrase:
for Charlie Brown, Ziggy or Thor, anywhere above the waist.

Highway robbery: n.:
"Speed Limit Strictly Enforced".

Hindenburg: proper name:
until the advent of the Republican Revolution in Talk Radio, the best known flaming Nazi gasbag.

Hip joint: n.:
sensamilla cigar.

Hippie: n.:
spiritual child of the Beat generation; the social (anti-social?) phenomenon of the '60s.
Middle-aged spread has given the old term a whole new, less attractive, meaning.

"His name is mud": phrase:
euphemistic expression of disapproval; the euphemism comes from the bowdlerization of the original "merde."

History: n.:
the study of the actions of old white men. This is primarily due to the fact that much of what is worth studying was done by white men, though most of them were fairly young at the time.
History is the account left by the victors. Historically, the few who have beaten out the Europeans have had other interests afterward than making marks on pieces of pressed wood pulp.

Hitler: epithet:
anyone successful whose policies are more authoritarian and less liberal than mine.

Hockey: n.:
a spectator sport popular among those who decry the increase of violence in the streets.

Holistic medicine: n.:
the patient performs the cure and the doctor sends him the bill.
Physicians use the term as a marketing ploy to make their practice sound more contemporary or "caring."
Non-physicians use the term on the theory that practicing "holistic medicine" does not require a license to practice "medicine."
If you see it spelled "wholistic," run, do not walk, to the nearest exit, preferably holding on to your wallet with both hands.

Hollywood: proper name:
erstwhile spiritual capitol of California (the famed land of fruits and nuts), before the rise of Orange County.

Holocaust: n.:
a term liberally applied to any situation involving death or repression in order to garner shock or sympathy. The term is not conservatively applied, since the arch conservatives deny that there was ever any event for the term to refer to.

Hologram: n.:
a phenomenon with the semblance of reality, but lacking in substance, rather like the integrity of a politician or the honesty of a lawyer.

Holonym: n.:
a phrase contrived as the (fictitious) prototype for a catchy acronym.
Originally, acronyms were used in order to save on syllables -- TNT vs. tri-nitro toluene, RADAR vs. RAdio Detection And Ranging, etc.
In later use, evocative terms were coined to represent projects, political stances, etc., then the holonyms were coined to justify the marketable "acronyms."
The practice of holonymy has not been recognized or sanctioned, yet, by other lexicographers.

Holy: adj.:

1. holier than thou.
   
2. more important to me than your life.

The Holy Land: n.:
any geographic division that has experienced religious warfare continuously for more than 1000 years.
Hang in there, Ireland.

Home: n.:
"Anywhere you hang your hat is home."
Which explains why congressmen keep hatracks in their offices in their home districts: it's as close to keeping a home there as most of them ever get.

Homogenized: adj.:
having had all of the identifying, or interesting, characteristics removed.

Homophobia: n.:
cultural symptom of a pasture-ized mind.

Homophone: n.:
bane of the undereducated; multiple spellings for a single sound is simply too much to bear — or is that "too much to bare"?
The raw material from which most puns are constructed.
There is no truth to the assertion that a homophone is a telecommunications instrument rented from the Greenwich Village office of NYNEX.

Homosexual: n.:
one who takes the dictum "All flesh consorteth according to kind, and a man will cleave with his like" as other than apocryphal.
Popular scapegoat to the Right for the failure of repressive child rearing practices.
For some reason, the term as a noun seems to be applied almost exclusively to males.

Homosexual: adj.:
descriptive of a person who finds attractive those with whom they share common interests, tastes, genitalia. . . .

Homosexual agenda: n.:
a political campaign, developed by the Third Reich and perpetuated by some of their social legatees, that uses popular fear of variant sexual practice as a pretext for ignoring civil rights and other social guarantees.

Honest: adj.:

• (of a politician) not yet caught.
• (of a lawyer) retired.
• (of an acquaintance) only inclined to tell those lies about me that I care to hear.

Honor: v.t.:
how a politician treats an offer to buy him.

Honor: n.:

1. an archaic quality of behavior, which has survived primarily as a term of address: "Yes, your Honor."
   
2. that laudable element of the behavior of others that furthers my ends.

Honorable: adj.:

1. on, or aligned with, my side.
   
2. a title conferred on legislators and other governmental functionaries in yet another triumph of hope over experience.

Hood: n.:

1. the wool the executioner pulls over your eyes.
   
2. criminal who works by force rather than by guile.

Hoover: n.:
one who causes things to disappear, as into a vacuum.

Hope: v.i.:
partake of junk food for the soul.

Hope: n.:
a broken promise of things to come.

Hops: n.:
a night-blooming aromatic from whose fermented juice we derive six-packs, keggers, microbrews, and other joys of life.

Hors d'oeuvres: n.:
an obscure French term which, from its conventional English pronunciation, must have something to do with the difference between stallions and geldings.

Horse's mouth: n.:
euphemistic attribution for a Washington information source.
Yet another illustration of how the Press get things all turned around.

Hospice: n.:
a place where you can get most of the care of a hospital without the intrusiveness. Where the terminally ill go so they can die without tubes and machines intervening.
Also, a similar level of care offered in the home.

Hostage: n.:
preferred currency for buying TV prime time exposure.

Hostel: n.:
a sort of hotel where the service is do-it-yourself.
The phenomenon of the Youth Hostel is a mystery: have you ever looked at a teenager's room?

Hot: adj.:

1. popular;
   
2. stolen.

Hot button: n.:
one that when pushed causes your face to turn red and your breath to go all funny.

House: n.:
establishment of ill-repute; as houses of Congress, House of Representatives.
As Polly Adler is said to have observed, it takes a heap of loving to make a home a house.

A house divided against itself cannot stand: adage:
in paraphrase, inspiration for the doctrines of the Church: a man divided against himself cannot withstand. . . .

Hug: n.:
new-age panacea for human ills. If offered or solicited in the workplace, by a man, sexual harassment.

Human: adj.:
unnatural.

Human: n.:
a person belonging to my ethnic group. No others need apply.

Human error: n.:
the cause of any catastrophe we can't blame on a machine.

Humility: n.:
that trait in which the abstemious take the most pride.

Humor: n.:
the name we choose to cloak our aggressions; polemic garlanded with punch lines.

Humorous: adj.:
designed or intended to draw forth one or more of the traditional humors: blood, sweat, tears, etc.

Humpty-Dumpty: proper name:
lexicographer to politicians, advertisers and activists.

Hunchback of Notre Dame: n.:
key player in the Fighting Irish' new football formation.
"I don't know him, but he's a dead ringer for Fra . . . ."

Hunger strike: n.:
(nominally) adult version of "I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue and then you'll be sorry."

Hurricane: n.:
natural State of the Union speech.

Hyde: proper name:
Dr. Jackal on the Hill.

Hype: v.t.:
sell by the use of exaggeration, with an extravagance of superlatives.
This is the alternative style to negative advertising in political campaigns.

Hyperbole: n.:
the staple from which the fabric of advertising is knit.

"Sell the sizzle, not the steak."
This leads naturally to the question "Where's the beef?"

Hypnopedia: n.:
prevalent activity in a college lecture hall on Monday morning.

Hypnotic: adj.:
having the same salutary effect on attention as a glowing cathode ray tube.

Hypochondria: n.:
a disease characterized by good health and general boringness; a common affliction of the rich and the lonely.

Hypochondriac: n.:
a patient who has been in failing health, typically, since before their doctor began his practice.

Hysteria: n.:

1. commodity dispensed by demagogues; standard reaction to a press campaign to create a new crisis.
2. little-known Muse: the patroness of patriotic rallies and demagogues worldwide.

Hysterical pregnancy: n.:
laboring under a misconception.