
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one`s country In 1881 Ambrose Bierce, journalist & former soldier for the Union army in the Civil War, began writing satirical definitions for the San Francisco Wasp, & then for William Randolph Hearst`s San Francisco Examiner. Bierce was launched on a journalistic career that would see him liked & loathed in equal measure
- & earn him the title of `the wickedest man in San Francisco`. In his column, Bierce, a contemporary of Mark Twain, brought his biting black humour to bear on spoof definitions of everyday words, writing deliberate mistranslations of the vocabulary of the establishment, the Church & the politics of his day, & shining a sardonic light on hypocrisy & deception. These columns formed the beginnings of a dictionary, first published in 1906 as The Cynic`s Word Book. Over 100 years later, Bierce`s redefinitions still give us pause for thought
- REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth & dispels it with a tempest of words; UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish; POLITICS, n. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage
- making for a timely new edition of this irreverent & provocative satire.