137846 Dictionary of Dictionaries 417p Douglas Quirk, O.A.*

Acknowledgements

This Dictionary of Dictionaries was not prepared for, nor does it represent the views of any known organization, institution or special interest group. All who have been approached to sponsor this material have vehemently opposed its creation or publication. These included my tailor (who insists on sewing into my suits a GFR label: 'Guaranteed Factory Reject'?), my soap-maker (who just went broke), my maiden aunt (who died just before I was born), my local psychological association (which declined to comment or be named) and the kid who today kicked a hole in the rust that is my car (who used some invective when I offered him part ownership in this my other possession). Perhaps you think I ought to thank all these for whatever kind thoughts they might have intended.

Like all dictionaries, this one steals other people's words and ideas. Many of the definitions offered here are plagiarized from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary. It was impossible to obtain his permission to reproduce his definitions. You see, around the middle of the last century, when he was in his 80s, I bore the pain of assassinating him, out of sheer envy of his vitriolic tongue. May his remains rest in pieces, wherever they are.

INTRODUCTION

People know how to be people. They just don't know how to talk to themselves or others about being people. Because we don't know how to talk about being people, we often mislead ourselves and others by using the wrong words and ideas. Well, anyway, I do.

A dictionary seeks to show how words are commonly used to achieve inaccurate communication, if with some circularity of statement (eg., soul = mind = spirit = soul). Unfortunately, dictionaries are organized without reference to the area of living about which we might want to talk. Also, they seek to show how words have been used, and NOT how they might most usefully be used. This one seeks to remedy these limitations of other dictionaries. It also tries to have some fun with words, rather than being stodgy and rational. Well, its trying (see there) anyway. Do share the indignity of it all with me.

As you will see from the illuminating book of Contents (each main topic is underscored), this one is disorganized according to areas of life, topics, issues and other irrelevancies. If it succeeds in confusing you (it certainly confused me), it achieved its intended purpose.

------* Obvious Alias (serving for want of a real other name). A AND CONTENTS(Sadly,anANDlist,notanORlist) [H=Intended light-heartedly; S=Serious intent]

A: AND H Another Nonsense Dictionary. This one is a list of the CONTENTS of the Dictionary of Dictionaries. Hey, wake up! It's what you're reading right NOW.

AND H Affective Nuances Dictionary; Affected Non- emotions Definitions. A dictionary of affects and emotions.

B: BAD H Be A Defamer. An abbreviated and barely expurgated dictionarywithwhichtobad-mouth others.

C: CAD H Crooked Actions Dictionary; Criminality As Defined. Gad what a Cad of A graD (of the school of life)!

D: DOT H Divergence Of Thought; Divergent Obtuse Thinking; Devil's Own Thinking; Dictionary Of Terminology. Everything has a base. This is the basest one ... and the most interminable and boringly complete.

E: EDIT S Equivalences Dictionary In Tautologies; Equivalence DefinedInTerms(ofpoligaband mediagab).

F: FORD H Failure Of Real Diction; Failure of Regular Decorum; Found On Road Dictionary. Warning: This dictionary is NOT For Observers of Reserved Discretion (Rated).

G: GOAL S Goals Of All Living; Groups Of Actions Laudable; Gratuitous Observable Actions Lists. This one Gives Observable Actions Lists -- for a programme of Goal-finding, whose Objective is to Achieve Life-as-you-want-it (to become your ideal self).

H: HIGH S Highs Involving Grand Hegemony; Help Inventing Gratuitous Highs; Hysterically Inherited Gargantuan Highs; Hourly Inducible Great Highs. HoweasyItis toGetHigh,ifyoumust,without the usual costs.

I: IN SH Inferential Nonsense; Inferring Noumena; In Nothing; Intellectual Nothings. (Contains mini- sermons, some might say junk, inferred from years of living.)

J: JUST H Justice Under Seige Terms; Justly Unjust Standard Transactions; Judges' Unjust Sentencing Tactics. A few unsolicited judgements of the justice system.

K: KNOW SH Knowledge Nobody Openly Wants; Knowledge Now Only Wished; Kickshaw's Never Owned Wisdom. Commentary on knowledge; profound epistemological notes.

L: LOVE H Lovely Ovations inVoluntarily Excluded; Love's Offensive Verbal Excretions. What is love? Is love?

M: MAR H Marriage's Arranged Relationships; Man's Arch- enemy: Relationship; Matrimonial Archaic Rituals. Wedlock!

N: NEED S Needs Everybody Ever Demeaned; Never Ending Effusions Denied; Nobody Ever Expected Demands. A thin dictionary of Needs few EvEr Dreamed of (intended seriously -- to surprise you).

O: OLD H Old Liars' Destinies; Over-grown Lilies' Demise; Out-Living Death. About old fogies.

P: POST H Perfection Only Saints Transcend; (im)Perfectly Obnoxious Servile Transigence; Preciously Old- fashioned Stereotypical Tastes. About Perfection.

Q: QUAIL S Qualities Uselessly Assumed In Life; Quantities Ultimately Avoided If Late. How to measure things.

R: RUT H Rejected Utterly Today; Rejections Uttered Totally; Rebuffs, Underminings & Tantalizings. Be Rejected!

S: SEX S Sourly Exhausting Xylophones; Somebody's Experience Unknown; Self Extirpation Xpected. Sex and its many analogs. Thistopicistreatedinaserious vein -- to offer information, with no entertainment value.

T: TELE- H Tell Everybody Lies Exclusively; Termites Elevated to Lice Everywhere; Telecommunications, Etc., Liars, Every one. Valuelessness dangerously revivified.

U: UNDIES H Undesirables Nobody Dares Impugn Except Silently; Unconscionable Nobodies Doing Idiotic Extreme Sensationalisms. Noticing the valuelessness of politicians and lawyers. (How can they be ignored?) V: VAN H Vanity's Accessories' Naivete; Vainly Amorous Nothings; Vying Against Nothing. Some of life's vanities exposed.

W: WAR H World Advancement in Reverse; War Against Reality. The bases of war.

X: X SH Unknowns; Mysteries Made More Mystifying. A book (that could be a dictionary) of brief Essays. NOT for the timid who need to hang on to their beliefs.

A On Acronyms B On Being Beached C On Causality D On Danger E On Entertainment F On Freedom G OnGayGaiety H On Hostility I OnIdentity J On Jam on the Cat K On Knowing L On Law M On Miracles N On Neurons O On Obsolescence P On Peace Q On Questioning R On Reality S On Sadism T On Television U On U-V Rays V On Virtues W On Water X On Xs Y On'You'Talk Z On Zed

Y: YELL S Y Ever Love Landladies? (Why not?) Values defined. Thisimportantmatteristakenseriously here.

Z: ZEEEEED H Zee Edited/Exceptional/Existing/Exhausting/Extra Dictionary (i.e., any ordinary dictionary you pick will do, such as The American Heritage Dictionary, or the Oxford Concise Dictionary). Unfortunately, to replace those silly dictionaries, by unpopular demand, a Z-stylish dictionary was finally written here to keep you from being driven to consult the telephone directory as a marginal improvement over an ordinary dictionary. Achoowally, by excelaunt commandnation, this one aknowledges its freedumb, without Queerk's bjection, to pretend to be enough dockaisle to le'avenot from tacttickleness and to express myidiosyncrazyness by being a Dictionary of Misspellings and Misuses. A: AND AN AFFECTIVE NUANCES DICTIONARY

ABACK An emotional reaction appropriate to affront.

ABASE Isestablished when a person orthinghasbeen depressed (possibly undulating), reamed out or flattened by being degraded or debased. Syn: Renovation. See also a Base.

ABASH A shameful and humiliating hit or assault on your ego, sufficiently stunning to make retribution or revenge impossible.

ABEYANCE A cowering expedient obedient feeling and attitude supposed to suspend violence to prevent extinction.

ABHOR Aversion's Bitterly Hated Objectionable Repugnance; disliking a person or event.

ACCORD Enforced agreement and harmony.

ACHE Constant dull pain -- as when your neighbour will not move away in spite of gentle inducements such as spreading vicious rumours about him/her or fire-bombing his/her premises.

ACID A sour substance frequently found on the tongues of your detractors.

ACRIMONY Another bitter part of matrimony.

ADMIRATION Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. [AB]

ADORE An opening through which much clatter, but no matter, may pass. AFFABILITY The attempt to humble another by the dissembled courtesy of humility.

AFFECT The emotional aspect of behaviour, mostly painful or unpleasant.

AFFECTATION Pretending to have feelings and emotions (affects) that you do not feel. Syn: Putting-on-a-show; hence: actor, actress, acting, showing-off, learning emotional expression.

AFFLICTION Having feelings but no intellect; having intellect but no feelings. Those few who have emotions and intellect are doubly afflicted. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world [AB].

AFFRONT To take another aback by frontal attack in insult, molestation or ill will -- no doubt as a rejoinder.

AGGRAVATE To make another's exasperating distress worse by increasing one's exaggerated vehemence in picking at his/her sore points.

ALARM An event signalling danger, presenting such a clatter to the senses as to render one confused and semi-conscious in order to ensure that no untoward actions occur to permit escape from the danger.

AMUSEMENT Mirth evoked while parked on a chesterfield playing a game of titillation (a renowned kind of elation).

ANGER Keen displeasure usually attributed to injury by another, but more commonly caused by impatience. Emotional arousal predisposing to attack against another. It is provoked by the angry person's mistaken assumption that the anger is due to the other's actions or nature -- for convenience of classification (of others).

ANGUISH Distress attributed to loss of a relationship, and calculated to extract sympathy from others. ANHEDONIA A lack of joy in living, usually brought about by withdrawing attention, feeling and energy from living and redirecting it into thinking about life.

ANNOYANCE Pain from the evil mischance of encountering one who you wish was a stranger, but who is not.

ANTIPATHY Revulsion diminished to its lowest degree.

ANXIETY The commonest of feelings -- that of uneasy fear, worry and apprehension, that your competitor might succeed better than you.

ASTONISHMENT The feeling experienced that time you were right.

ATTRACTION Response to artifice and propaganda, drawing you to your destruction.

AVERSIVE An attribute of a stimulus that evokes pain or discomfort in the stimulated and the stimulator in proportion to the intensity of the stimulus.

AWFUL An expression designating a degree of personal feeling slightly greater than none; being enforced to silence by great fear.

BANAL Anything or anyone having achieved the heights of the commonplace and ordinary. A-Anal: Appertaining to the rectum; B-Anal: the goal to Be commonplace, ordinary and replete with excrement.

BENEVOLENT Good violence. Manifestly concerned with the needs and good of others (ultimately to satisfy personal needs for recognition and power, to rid oneself of unwanted things, and to acquire more goods).

BITTER The better way to be hostile -- suggesting your attitudes and opinions might better be kept to yourself, though they rarely are.

BLAME Censure assigned to another for one's own fault.

BORED Bereft of feelings due to inhibition of them. BOREDOM The domain inhabited by those who inhibit their emotions, having failed to discover that emotions are the means by which boredom is dispelled and enlivenment achieved.

BUCCANEER One who, blind in one eye, wearing a wooden leg and waving a sword, forcefully expresses his/her love for your property or body.

CALAMITY An uncommonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune for ourselves, and good fortune for others. [AB]

CALLOUS Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another [AB]. A thickened barrier to protect from friction or invasion in order to prevent feelings from being aroused; imperfectly attuned to the needs and feelings of others.

CALM Quiet, serene, unresponsive to the turmoil and torment infesting the lives of others.

CARING Feeling, disguised as concern with another's best interests. Mutual nurturance, commonly under the guise of loving. Syn: Co-dependency.

CHARMING Adjective: a pleasant, friendly and nice person who has an attractive manner. Noun: Psychopath. Do the two uses really differ?

CHERISH To hold dear. The term is ambiguous, as one may cherish both another's and one's own infirmities. The latter are cherished in a different way, by holding them too dear to be supportable.

COMFORT A state of mind produced by contemplating your neighbour's uneasiness. [AB]

COMPLAIN To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction or resentment, usually about others' good fortune.

COMPOSED Calm and serene in the face of another's calamity.

COMPROMISE Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he/she got what he/she ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing that was justly his/her due. [AB] Mutuality when the outcome satisfies nobody.

CONSIDERATE Having enforced regard for the feelings of another.

CONSTERNATION Sudden dismay, as when a locomotive bears down on you with your car stalled on the railway tracks.

CONTEMPTUOUS A contemptible way to be.

COURAGE A state of mind adopted in the face of danger when escape is impossible.

CRUSTY see Callous

CURIOSITY An objectionable quality of the female's mind- lessness. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul [AB]. It is said to be a, likely congenital, tendency to be attracted to the strange and novel. This pervasive conflict of the female soul is poignantly reflected in her attraction to the strange (man) and to novel life experiences, while defending herself against both to retain her virtuous monogamous condition that she values, if only publicly, above all else.

DARING One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man who is absolutely safe. [AB]

DEJECTION A state of melancholy arising from contemplating the advancement of another.

DELIGHT Joy and great pleasure afforded in the desolation of one's enemy.

DEPRESSION The state of mood most naturally attuned to a proper appreciation of the state of social reality. A collection of actions ('symptoms') by which we manage to keep ourselves depressed instead of enjoying life and the world around us.

DESPONDENT The dented pond in which people of reason see the reflection of the world as it is, and from which they derive the basic ingredient for getting drunk.

DESOLATE The feeling appropriate to finding yourself alone and abandoned, as in the middle of a desert or after a nuclear holocaust -- where desolation reigns supreme.

DESPAIR The feeling appropriate to the disappointment of discovering that you do not control the entire universe and everybody in it.

DISAPPOINTMENT To expect something -- anything.

DISCIPLINE A skill implanted in you by the application of leather, invective and criticism, to serve as a companion to skills in murder and mayhem.

DISCORD See Discussion.

DISGUST A feeling or emotion of nausea or repulsion brought about by having had too much of a good thing.

DISLIKE Similarity between two people in their affections for themselves.

DISSEMBLE Being yourself; being somebody else; putting on pretended emotions; being a phoney; being usual.

DREAD An appropriate emotion in the face of a better armed adversary.

ECSTASY A dementing process, frequently a precursor of gamous change, either from polygamy to monogamy or from monogamy to polygamy.

EMBARRASSMENT The natural feeling accompanying usual conduct.

EMOTION A prostrating disease caused by subversion of control from the head to the heart. [AB] Energy that motivates/arouses actions. The formula is: E = MC (this equation's constant is not for squares). EMPATHY The mistake of caring to understand another.

ENDURE The not-yet-divulged secret of living.

ENTHUSIASM A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance with outward applications of experience. [AB]

EXCITE To stimulate to inactivity.

EXPRESSIVE As it applies to emotions (and most other things), the acting of mime and speech involved.

FABULOUS Extremely worthless, and thus rapaciously pursued.

FATUOUS The state achieved when U are too Fat to keep up with the rest of Us and Our weak feelings.

FEELINGS The internal sensations experienced by those who are incapable of genuine emotions. The formula for this is: F = 1/M(CX4) (i.e., the smaller the person the stronger and more demanding the feelings).

GRATITUDE Herald of another sting; harbinger of another mill-stone; the appropriate response of one who has received a crumb off your table or the garbage from your bin.

GUILT A sense of wrong-doing, most frequently encountered in the innocent.

GUT FEELINGS Inexpressibly strong feelings (see there) made the more disgusting by permitting the entrails to hang out in plain view.

HAPPINESS An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another [AB]; a state of blissful ignorance of the utter misery and pain of social and personal life.

HATRED A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority [AB], success or advancement Derived as a neologism from combining a concrete representation of a head with the typical colour of the face (an upward extension of a Red-neck). HEART The part of the body blamed for irrationality.

HIGH Drunk; sober; feeling calm; feeling aroused; feeling awful; feeling good; above some things; below some things; superior authority; inferior authority; a drink, when prefixing a ball.

HILARIOUS Another person's attempt to be serious.

HONEST The nature and justification claimed by people for their feelings; the justification and nature claimed by women for their judgemental and critical opinions and attitudes; the nature and character from which men are exempted by women's edict.

HURT The feeling resulting when we attribute to others and to events the pains we suffer from what we tell ourselves in thought. It's easy to hurt another. All you have to do is observe what the other gets him/herself angry about, and then arrange for that to happen. The other, aroused to guilt feelings, arising from anger, will tell him/her self that he/she has been hurt by you or that event.

INCOMPATIBILITY A similarity of tastes, especially the taste for domination. [AB]

INCONSIDERATE Devoid of consideration for my feelings that are widely recognized to be far more appropriate, strong and worthy of attention than yours.

INCONSOLABLE Communicated sadness, that resists others' attempts to moderate it, for fear that self- importance will be reduced in the process. A result of injury or slight deemed of such proportions that any attempt to make it right would be insufficient, though the offending person is certainly expected to try.

INDIFFERENCE Imperfectly sensible to the feelings of others [AB]

INJURY An offence next in degree of enormity to a slight. [AB] INTEREST Changes in investments arising from the passage of time and exposure to events. In economics, the more the time passed, the greater the interest -- a winner's game. In psychology, the more the time passed, the less the interest -- a loser's game.

INTIMACY A relationship into which fools providentially are drawn to their mutual destruction. [AB]

INTRODUCTION A social ceremony invented by the devil to plague his enemies for the gratification of her servants. It attains its most malevolent development in north American democracy where every person is equal to every other. Thus it follows that everyone has the right to know everyone else -- implying the right to introduce without request or permission. [AB]

INTROSPECTION Discovery of all that is vile and reprehensible through the simple operation of examining the contents of one's own mind.

ITCH A seven year long disaffection afflicting monogamy, which is said to recur each seven years.

JEALOUS Undue concern about the preservation of that which can be lost only if it is not worth keeping. [AB]

JOY An emotion reserved foranotherand betterlife.

KINDNESS A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction. [AB]

LAUGHTER An external manifestation of an internal derangement. An interior convulsion, distorting the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. An infectious disease which, although intermittent, is incurable. It distinguishes humans from most (except hyenas) other animals, which are not susceptible to the microbes that propagate the disease. [AB]

LOVE Noun: A temporary insanity, curable by marriage [AB]. Verb: An irregular verb having a masculine and a feminine form. Declined as: I love you; you love me; he loves her; she loves herself; we love her; you must love me; they obviously love me. LUST Appetiteforthatwhichisimaginedmosttobe desired, most commonly for gold, and next most commonly for the female/male least likely to be accommodating.

LUSTRE Brightness, sheen or attractiveness born of the bright light of imagination concerning an object of lust -- subject to fading in the light of reality.

LYMPHATIC TEMPERAMENT Phlegmatic as opposed to emphatic -- the former involves an automatic limp(h) of the (ph)leg, while the latter involves an automatic phatness of the emph or rotundity.

MANIA A mental disorder whose prefix specifies that its sober possessor exhibits a high level of uncontrolled excitement when exposed to the prefix. Thus, hypomania is a high level of excitement when presented with hypodermic needles. Without a prefix, everything excites the pathetic sufferer.

MANIPULATION Handling of an object. If the object is a person, since it is indiscreet to handle it, manipulation involves a clever disruption of the other's normal indifference to induce cooperative behaviour.

MASOCHISM Sexual enjoyment in being tormented or subjected to pain; thus sexual experience shared with another -- any other. Masochism is reputed to occur mainly in women. In fact, it is found most commonly among heterosexual males, who subjugate themselves to torment and humiliation from demon woman.

ME The objectionable case of 'I'. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. [AB]

MEEKNESS Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is deemed worth the effort. [AB]

MELANCHOLY The feeling of one who realistically perceives the unhappy fact of having to relate to other people in social life. The word is derived from the colic or disease of black feelings contracted by exposure to the infection of contemplation of the melons found on other people's shoulders.

MISERY An infectious unpleasant feeling which, loving company, is shared with everyone else, if possible.

MISTRUST A quality peculiar to those who can be trusted -- to be cold, hostile, abusive and mistrusting.

MORBID The kind of sick elation manifested in people while listening to news or viewing traffic accidents.

MOROSE More roses for the cheeks from contemplating the inevitability that others succeed as well as we do.

MYSOPHOBIA Morbid dread of dirt, found frequently in luminaries while holding press conferences.

NARCISSISM The most widely practised 'ism', especially among females.

NAUSEA Feeling sick to your stomach about whatever you happen to be doing at the time -- commonly, sick of work or home-sick; a mind sickness giving rise to revulsion in the gut from the attempt to digest an unpalatable substance, namely, another's success.

NAUGHTY Feminine for wicked, sinful, criminal. In the wisdom of English teachers, affectionate reference to a misdeed having naught of consequence.

NECROPHILIA Joy and sexual arousal experienced when one's sexual partner is immobile and unresponsive -- most perfectly realized when the partner is dead.

NERVOUS A genetic disorder, due to inheriting nerves with which to excite distress, tension and the jitters.

NUMB A sensation of lacking sensation -- thus, a non- sensation sensation. Another impossible, invented to complain about.

NYCTOPHOBIA Fear of the darkness of nyct without street lights.

NYMPHOMANIA One of the most pleasant attributes of some females that presents itself to man's imagination. The discovery that it is non-existent in the specific, and rapaciously present in the general, marks the beginning of man's experience with hell on earth.

O UsualabbreviationfortheObserver,andfor his/her reaction to what he/she observes.

OBSTINATE Inaccessible to the truth as it is most gloriously manifested in the splendour and stress of our advocacy. [AB]

OFFENSIVE Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy. [AB]

PAIN An uncomfortable frame of mind [AB] brought about by intense sensations as when a dancing partner tramps on your toe with the ingrown toe-nail, or when a person becomes a royal cramp.

PENITENT Undergoing or awaiting punishment. [AB]

PESSIMISM A philosophy forced on the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his/her futile hope and unsightly smile. [AB]

PHOBIA Dread of exposure to an event, commonly of phobia.

PHONEY One claiming to have feelings; one expressing feelings; one affirming a lack of feelings; one who pretends feelings in different ways from yours.

PITY A failing sense of exemption inspired by contrast. [AB]

PLEASURE The least hateful form of dejection. [AB] P.M.S. Acronym: Please Me, Slave! An excuse used by women for inexcusable conduct, justified as inescapable due to the biological nature of demon woman -- her sole admitted attention to her biological nature.

PREFERENCE A sentiment or frame of mind induced by the illusion that one thing is better than another. [AB]

PREJUDICE A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. [AB]

PREMONITION A pre-existing admonition that anticipates yet another catastrophe.

PRIDE A family of devouring lions defending a region replete with self-inflating obstacles over which the presumptuous trip and fall; a family of lions which, possessed, will devour the possessor.

QUERULOUS Warfare conducted using the weapon of the tongue to criticize and oppose. This is the commonest form of spousal abuse, used to evoke spousal abuse, on the part of the inarticulate, of the sort that can be used as a basis for criminal charges.

REGRET The dismay we feel about having been caught red- handed; the dismay we feel about having missed an opportunity or a failure to acquire power, wealth, recognition or a lack of regret.

REMORSE The tiresome business of pretending sorrow for somebody else's faults.

REPUGNANCE The appropriate emotion when confronted with the reprehensible.

REPULSION A pushing away, including anything that was recently ingested, incorporated or embraced.

REPULSIVE The feeling for a thing or person that is ugly.

REVENGE The commonly recognized prerogative of one who imagines he/she has been injured by another, as burning down one's own house, which caused one injury through the offices of the tax collector.

REVERENCE A complex emotional state in which, according to McDougall, three primary emotions are fused. These are fear, self depreciation and tender emotion, with emphasis on the second. The attitude of a person to a god, and of a dog to a person [AB].

RIDICULE Words designed to show that the person at whom they are directed is devoid of the dignity and character distinguishing the one who utters them [AB]; means by which those fearful of their feelings inhibit the expression of feelings by those who are not.

SADIST One who obstinatelyrefuses to be mean to a masochist.

SADNESS The feeling accompanying frustration of one's desire for total ownership of others; sorrow for oneself; a feeling evoked by the contemplation of reality; a motive underlying people's tendencies to reconstruct reality to suit themselves.

SATISFACTION The feeling accompanying success in destroying an adversary, suppressing a competitor, silencing a critic, or picking a pocket without having your own picked in the process.

SELF-ESTEEM An erroneous appraisal. [AB]

SELFISH Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. [AB]

SENSITIVITY The recognition of the essential honesty of one's detractors.

SENTIMENTAL A mental affliction acquired when with a member of the opposing sex while one's mental sentries sleep -- the word is a reminder to all to 'stay awake and alert' when with another who seeks to arouse our emotions, whether an intimate and/or politician. SHAME The natural and appropriate feeling when your Sham is displayed to your view Electronically on video.

SHOCK Sudden depression of the nervous system to prevent adaptation in a shocking or depressing situation.

SHY Aresultof eatinganapplewhilenotwearingyour fig leaves.

SMOOTH Unabrasive to the touch, but abrasive to the ear and the pocket-book.

SORROW The polar opposite of Joy. This is not preferred as a girl's name, except in the form of Ruth.

SPONTANEOUS Well rehearsed.

STARTLE To react suddenly with surprise and shock, as when confronted with the evidence that another person has told a truth.

SUBSERVIENCE Indirect means to get what you want through the offices of someone having more strength or power.

SYMPATHETIC Pathetically similar to another's pathos.

SYMPATHY The most hostile of acts, arousing, enhancing and perpetuating another's pain once more.

TABOO The sweet scent and flavour that Providence has afforded forbidden fruit.

TANTRUM The most natural adult response to the frustration of children who are misbehaving.

TEMPERAMENT Those elements of a person adopted to deal with his/her temper about the way other people act.

TENDER The feelings experienced when beaten to a pulp by the tenderizing machinations of another intent on subjugating one to his or her will.

TERROR The most extreme form of fear, brought about by imagining the most awful consequences possible -- most often experienced in the real world of dreams. TIMIDITY A wholesome attitude in the presence of one's personal monsters.

TORPOR The natural state of turtles and workers during working hours.

TRANSFERENCE Shifting emotional responses and responsibility from their proper source to another target where they are entirely inappropriate. The result is considered to represent recovery -- from normalcy?

TRAUMA An injury, wound or shock, commonly arising from the discovery of another's good fortune in not being completely under the control of the one who is thus traumatized.

TREMOR A quiver excited byan arrowor other barb.

TRYING Making an effort -- to try others' patience.

UNPLEASANTNESS A humble way to refer to a personal catastrophe.

UNSPEAKABLE The subject on which most speaking is done.

UNWILLING A man paying his Bills.

UPSET A wayof referringto yourrage when you don't want to commit to the attribution of your anger to others, the situation or yourself.

UXORIOUSNESS A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife. [AB]

VANITY The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. [AB]

VITRIOLIC The poisonous acid on your tongue that, cobra- like, you spit at me for no good reason.

WANDERLUST The appropriate desire not to be where you are, with the inappropriate preference to be elsewhere.

WANT The great leveller among people and animals.

WANTED Discovered, but not yet found. WANTON Want-ing-everything-that-pleases-that-you-set- your-eyes-on; a Chinese soup, after eating which you weigh one ton.

WARMTH A measure of the intensity of one's feelings, mostly of rage.

WEAKNESS Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of the species binding him to the service of her will and paralysing his rebellious energies. [AB]

WORRY Anticipation of all the possible horrors of the future, and considering each as a serious risk with a 'What if ...?' Thereby, by employing thoughtful planning, enhancing the probability that at least some of the horrors will occur.

X-Y Thegenesthatmakeussexy,andevengendery.

ZEAL A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced; a passion that goes before a sprawl. [AB]

ZEST The subjective state of zeal; the second best soap.

ZYGOTE The part of your genetic inheritance that puts you at risk of doubling or re-doubling your feelings, emotions and even yourself. B: BAD A DICTIONARY BY WHICH TO DEFAME AND BAD-MOUTH OTHERS

ABERRANT An exceptional deviation accepted as erroneous.

ABOMINABLE An abdominal reaction to another's guts or gutlessness or even (in the case of snow-people) difficulty to encounter or pin down.

ABSURD Observed to be inconsistent with your opinion [AB].

ACCOMPLICE One associated with another, usually in crime; having knowledge and complicity -- as a defence attorney in a criminal case. [AB]

ADHERENT A follower who has not yet obtained all he/she hopes to get. [AB]

AFFLUENT Plenteous supply; abundant flow -- garbage, sewage.

AGITATOR A statesman who shakes his neighbour's fruit trees to dislodge the worms. [AB]

AMBIDEXTROUS Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. [AB]

ANIMAL A vegetable capable of locomotion.

APATHY A remarkable level of motivation and dedication, commonly found among employees. The behavioural domain of this state is torpor and somnolence.

APOLOGIZE To lay the foundation for a future offence. [AB]

APTITUDE A skill in performing a meaningless and worthless activity, namely, the activities involved in taking an aptitude test.

ARGUMENT A discussion or debate in which the attempt is made to reason to a conclusion that is both unreasonable and contrary to all evidence.

ARROGANT Having the pride and effrontery to imagine that you and your views have anywhere near the high status and value of me and mine.

ARTFUL Displaying the deceitful cunning to represent yourself as creative and possessed of value.

ASININE The stupidity and oppositionality of another's utterances detected by your own remarkable ears.

ASS One who sings or speaks in public, having a good voice but no ear [AB]; one who sings in public, having a good ear but no voice; one who speaks in public, having a voice and ear but no nose or consideration; the seat of authority and mediocrity alike.

ASSURANCE The insolent promise and assertion that another's belief or hope is a certainty -- the sales pitch, concerning death, adopted by insurance companies.

ATROCITY An outrageous, wicked and cruel deed, as a slight or another stepping on your toe by accident.

ATTORNEY A mis-representative who, having acquired power over your goods and wealth, disposes of it in small part to others, and in large part to him/herself.

BAA The vocalization appropriate to sheep, and to humans created in their image. Abbr: B.A.

BABBLE The conversational ability of infants and of those who care for or about them.

BABY A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion, and the meaningless babble produced by, at and about it. [AB] Said to be characterized by a loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other. Akin to infant that, along with child, denotes a dreadful human ailment from which those of judicious understanding seek, with all haste, to cure the afflicted into normal adulthood. BAD A three-letterword used with children to express the variance of their actions from that demanded by a proper consideration for what we adults want and insist upon under threat of punishment in hell.

BARN-YARD A microcosm of the human community, containing chickens, turkeys, cats, dogs, cows, horses, asses, hogs, many sheep, and much chicken feed.

BARRISTER A lawyer who, having been admitted to the bar, expects to be paid for each drink he/she takes.

BEAST See Husband.

BEGGARLY The true level of value to be assigned to another's nature and utterances.

BELLADONNA In Italian, a beautiful lady; in English, a deadly poison. A striking example of the identity of the two tongues. [AB]

BELLOWS An instrument for directing a strong current of air, to create a draft and ignite a fire. This is the most valued possession of politicians, in whom are implanted bellows to ignite and fan fires in the hearts and special interests of others.

BIGOT One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. [AB]

BORE One who talks when you wish he/she would listen. [AB]

BRAGGART One who speaks of his/her accomplishments that exceed your own.

BRAIN The apparatus with which we think we think [AB]. It is the universal scapegoat made responsible for the human operations of failing to control the body and actions correctly, failing to regulate itself accurately, and failing to learn what it is expected to learn. This last failure offers educators the sublime opportunity to evade the responsibility for failing to teach effectively by imputing pejorative labels to the untaught (e.g., Learning Disability). Brain is so highly honoured in government that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office [AB].

BRAY The conversational ability of an ass.

BRILLIANT Our own random collections of grunts and whines, clothed in the shining vivid colours afforded by our own attention to them.

BRUTE See Husband. [AB]

BULL A male cow with a hump and a pack of lies.

CABBAGE A vegetable having a head in many ways indistinguishable from that of many humans.

CALLOUS Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. [AB]

CELEBRITY One who has become well-known for doing things in public that nobody else would care or dare to do; one who imagines others enjoy his/her braying.

CENSOR One who undertakes the duty of preventing others from exposure to enjoyed media contents.

CHARLATAN One claiming to have skill or knowledge superior to your own in a field in which you believe yourself to have superior skill or knowledge.

CHARM The magical power of something about another that forces you, against your will, to be drawn to the other to be abandoned. Thus, the initial cause of shame, hopelessness and despair.

CHASTE Onewhohasneverbeenchased.

CHEEK A light and impudent sauce with a moral flavour constraining it to be beaten on both sides before it bites back.

CIVILITY Being as rude as common politeness permits.

COMPETENT Barely qualified and capable of doing a specific menial task. CONFABULATE To speak as a politician; to advertise; to lie.

CONFRONTATION A process in which A (see Ass), having connected his/her headset to the microphone into which he/she speaks, turns up the volume to his/her headset and instructs B in the error of his/her ways -- B being a complete stranger. Confrontation is held to be the proper process by which a criminal (actually an innocent) is converted to a clear appreciation of the error of his/her ways and is led to correct them. This position is tenaciously held by the righteous who, having been expelled from convents or monasteries for their extero-punitive insistence on a return to the Inquisition, and for dogmatism and rigidity scores exactly equivalent to those obtained by the most serious criminal offenders, have obtained employment in the justice system.

CONGRATULATION The civility of envy. [AB]

CONJUGAL With much juggling, living with a jug. Everybody knows how to marry them; nobody knows how to live with them.

CONSCIENCE The fear that others will notice your nose grow.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS Scrupulously honest, painstakingly thorough, careful -- in elucidating another's faults.

CORRUPT Immoral, perverted, decaying, putrid; government.

COWARD One who in perilous emergency thinks with the legs. [AB]

CRAFT A substitute forbrains[AB] in those who have none.

CRETIN A little person diminished by proportionately little brains, reputedly due to little output from a little gland, although there is little to support this little contention.

CRITIC One who boasts him/herself hard to please because nobody tries to please [AB], and who is bereft of pleasure; one who boasts him/herself reasonable and correct, whose task in life, while denying the desire to give pain, offers nothing but pain.

CRITICISM The act of putting another down. The unfounded faith that you know better than me what I'm trying to do and how best I should do it.

CROOK A bent or un-straight implement or person, such as the Law or a lawyer, employed in the business of those who seek to control sheep. Syn: Politician.

CUSS Use of swear words or strong expletives, itself an expletive. The word can be used as a noun, as in: "Although I strongly disapprove of washing dishes, considering that action barbaric and uncivilized, I do wash my dishes almost every year out of sheer cussedness."

CYNIC A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as others would like them to be, nor as they ought to be, nor as they are purported to be. The Scythians had the custom of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his/her vision. [AB]

DAMNABLE Used as a modifier to express the inexcusable character of another's conduct -- sufficient to ensure that the other is doomed to hell.

DEBATE The basic operation and skill of the practice of law, in which two individual automatons, having no interest, belief, values or ethics, adopt, for the sake of their personal amusement and presumed entertainment of others, opposing points of view. Each defends the adopted view for a time before giving up and going home, with no concern for the effects of their enterprise on others.

DEBAUCHEE One who has so earnestly pursued a pleasure that he/she has had the misfortune to overtake it. [AB]

DEFIANCE Intentionally provocative resistance to authority -- one mark of a loser.

DEFICIENCY The extent to which another falls short in virtue to yourself. DEFINITIVE Precisely outlined and determined, as these definitions.

DEFLATE To lessen the confidence, pride or certainty of another by pricking a hole in his/her ego and releasing the air that supported it.

DEGENERATE Less conspicuously admirable than one's own ancestors. [AB]

DEGRADATION Stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment [AB]. Delboeuf's Degradation Law states that a sensation is always strongest on entry...into consciousness, and diminishes in intensity thereafter. The exception that proves this rule is to be found in sex.

DENSE Crowded together, thick, impenetrable, dull, stupid; denoting that crowds are stupid.

DEPLORABLE Your conduct and views seen in the light of my high moral standards.

DESTITUTE Devoid of ideas.

DEVIL Thebig'D'thatistheauthorof allevilthat befalls you.

DEVOID The condition of another with respect to virtue; the condition of yourself with respect to vice.

DIPLOMA A document attesting to an individual's proven ability to tolerate indefinitely the boring, the irrelevant and the immaterial, thus qualifying him/her for employment in any kind of work.

DIPLOMACY The patriotic art of lying for one's country. [AB]

DIPLOMAT One appointed by his/her government to perform diplomacy in public. Diplomats are selected at government poker games, and are exiled (see there) for being winners.

DISTORTED Your uncomplimentary view of my outlook on life.

DISTRACTION A destination to which wives and husbands frequently drive one another.

DIVORCE Women's favourite crime, using the courts as their accomplices; the commerce of women, in partnership with their lawyers.

DRIP One who is all wet.

DULLARD One of the ruling dynasty in letters and life.[AB]

DUMB Unable to react appropriately vocally to my views. ECCENTRICITY Considered by some to be a normal deviation from the normal. Actually the first person singular in declining the irregular verb: To be nuts, declined as: I am eccentric; you are crazy; he is psychotic; she is a psychiatrist.

EGOTIST A person of low taste and narrow interests, more interested in him/her self than in me. [AB]

ELOQUENCE The art of oral persuasion that white is the colour it appears to be. [AB]

ENVY Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. [AB]

EPIDEMIC Disease spread by contact with the media.

EPIDERMIS The wrapping paper that makes disgusting contents tolerable, if not attractive.

EQUAL In democracy, the relative power assigned to every person, from which is derived the egalitarian state of affairs in which a few rule, fewer control the rulers, and the rest are ruled with varying degrees of injustice.

ERUDITION Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull. [AB]

ESOTERIC Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. Philosophers are almost able to understand exoteric philosophies, but not the esoteric ones. [AB]

ESP Error Some Place; Extra Specious Presumption. EVIL Afour-letterwordtoexpressthatwhich contradicts our most cherished beliefs about how other people should conduct themselves.

EXAGGERATE Another's statement of his/her virtues.

EXCEPTIONAL The degree inconsistent with membership in the human condition; a modifier to express a degree of miscreance greater in magnitude than that attained by any other person -- ever.

EXHIBITIONIST One who deems his/her privates to be a public and interesting affair.

EXHORTATION To put the conscience of another on a spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort. [AB]

EXILE One who serves his country by living abroad, yet is not an ambassador. [AB]

EXTRAORDINARY Peculiar in the extreme; unusually ordinary.

EXTRAVAGANT Your neighbour's style of living.

FACTS Fictions.

FACULTY Literally, an ability. A term purloined by groups of academics to create the illusion that they are possessed of abilities instead of just possessed.

FAD Apatternof behaviourthatitmoreexpressive than useful. Syn: Custom.

FAIR A public exhibition to demonstrate that justice is for light coloured and modestly egalitarian people.

FAITH Belief without evidence, in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [AB]

FALSE Every utterance of yours.

FATIGUE A state produced by continuous exposure to the uninviting. FAULT An attribute found exclusively in your neighbour.

FAX A true copy of fictions.

FELON A person of greater enterprise than discretion who, in embracing an opportunity, has formed an unfortunate attachment. [AB]

FEMALE One of the opposing, or unfair, sex [AB]; the bitter half.

FENCE A wall to keep your neighbour out and through which to pass your neighbours property on its way out.

FEUD Interactive entertainment for rural families.

FIB Aliethathasnotcutitsteeth;thehabitual liar's nearest approach to the truth. [AB]

FICTION Fabricated commonplaces. The nearest approach of most people to the truth.

FLAW Singular:the defectin oneself. Plural:the defects in others.

FLEECE The act of taking the coat, and maybe the shirt, off sheep or those created in their image.

FOLLY The gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energies inspire people's minds, guide their actions and adorn their lives. [AB]

FOOL ThefirstTarottrump. Onewhopervadesthe domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses him/her self through the modes of morality. He/she is omnific, omniform, omniperceptive, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnivorous. He/she invented letters, printing, railroads, steamboats, the telegraph, the telephone, the platitude and the sciences. He/she created patriotism, and taught the nations war; he/she it was who founded law, medicine, theology, philosophy [AB] and Toronto.

GAG A blessed obstacle to speech. GALLOWS A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. Chiefly remarkable for the number who escape it. [AB]

GAMBLE To wager against the laws of chance, and lose.

GOODNESS Always expressed in the form: 'My Goodness!' You haven't got any.

HAIRSPLITTING The act of burying the hatchet in another's blockhead to assist his/her understanding of what you are trying to communicate.

HATCHET Diminutive and affectionate term for Axe, commonly offering the suggestion: 'Bury the hatchet'. Often accomplished by its interment in another's head.

HATRED A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority [AB], success or advancement. Derived as a neologism from combining in a single word a concrete representation of a head with the typical colour of the face.

HEATHEN That segment of humanity that, by virtue of holding beliefs differing from our own, is relegated to eternal damnation.

HEEL Themaintargetforarrowsandbarbs.

HILARIOUS Another person's attempt to be serious.

HIRSUTE A nice wayto referto a hairlip. Actually, suits him better than hir.

HOMELY The attractiveness of a person destined to be cloistered at home.

HOMICIDE The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy. But it makes little difference to the person slain whether he/she fell by one kind or another. The classification is purely for the pecuniary advantage of lawyers. [AB] HONESTY A vicious virtue, found mainly in the hostile.

HONEY A sickly sweet commodity accompanied by a vicious sting.

HYDROTHERAPY Drowning as treatment. (The treatment fails if the patient survives.)

HYPOCHONDRIAC One whose illness is characterized by a lack of illness. The afflicted is treated as ill to get rid of the fear of illness, without which he/she would not be ill and in need of treatment.

HYPOCRITE One who, professing virtues he/she does not respect, secures advantages by seeming to be what he/she despises. [AB]

IDIOSYNCRASY The sin of eccentricity that starts with idiocy and ends in being crazy.

IDIOT A memberof a large and powerfultribe whose influence on human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The idiot's range is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but pervades and regulates the whole. He/she has the last word in everything; his/her decision is unappealable (and unappealing); he/she sets the fashion of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech, and circumscribes conduct with a deadline. [AB]

IDLENESS A farm in which the devil experiments with the seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices. [AB]

IGNOBLE A gentle reference to your less than worthy ancestry.

IGNORANT A supercilious way of supporting the contention that what you just said is wrong.

IGNORAMUS An appropriate way of expressing the contention that everything you say is wrong; a person who is unacquainted with knowledge familiar to yourself, but has certain other kinds that you know nothing about [AB], and never cared to know. IGNORANT Having failed to learn something you tried to teach him/her.

ILLICIT Sick of the Law.

ILLITERATE Anybody having less qualification to use the English language than a professor of English, most of whom are illiterate.

IMBECILE An aspirant to membership in the tribe of Idiots, or an immature Idiot.

IMITATION The flattery of fools; behaviour of the dependent.

IMMODEST Possessed of a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of the worth of others. [AB]

IMMORAL Inexpedient. [AB] Acts you wrongly think are right.

INCOMPATIBILITY In marriage, a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. [AB]

INCONSISTENT Your position as measured against mine.

INCONSOLABLE A consequence of injury or slight deemed to be of such proportions that any attempt to make it right would be insufficient, though the offending person is certainly expected to try.

INCONTINENT A term used for its connotation to refer to the size of verbal or other emissions, implying that a continent might be sufficient to contain them.

INJURY An offence next in degree of enormity to a slight. [AB]

INJUSTICE A burden which, of all those we load upon others and carry ourselves, is lightest in the hands and heaviest on the back. [AB]

JACKASS A way of saying the other is as stupid as a donkey, without running the risk of misunderstanding and ambiguity about the part of the other's body to which reference is being made. KINDNESS A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction. [AB]

KLEPTOMANIAC A rich thief. [AB]

LAWYER One skilled in circumvention of the law. [AB]

LAZINESS Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. [AB]

LIAR A lawyer with a roving commission. [AB] The judgement that the other habitually makes false statements, thus relegating him/her to the lowest type of being cast in human form. In Newfoundland the word 'lawyer' is spelled and pronounced 'liar' -- revealing the basic accuracy and appropriateness of Newfoundlandese.

LIP Cheekyand hung-over edge of anything or anybody, especially the mouthy ones.

LOQUACITY A disorder rendering the sufferer insufferably unable to curb his/her tongue when you want to talk. [AB]

LUDICROUS Exciting mirth, scorn and a feeling of superiority, most nearly approximated in contemplating the potency of the human mind.

LYMPHATIC TEMPERAMENT Phlegmatic as opposed to emphatic -- the former involves an automatic limp(h) of the (ph)leg, while the latter involves an automatic phatness of the emph or rotundity.

MACE A staff of office signifyingauthority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading dissent.[AB] We have now graduated to the enlightened age of chemistry in which a chemical composition, assigned the same name, is used for the same purpose and effect.

MACHINATION The method employed by your opponent to baffle your open and honest efforts to do the right thing. [AB]

MANGE French gastronomic activity with taste piqued by a sauce made of skin sores. MANIA A mental disorder whose prefix specifies that its sober possessor exhibits a high level of uncontrolled excitement when exposed to the prefix. Thus, hypomania is a high level of excitement when presented with hypodermic needles. Without a prefix, everything excites the pathetic sufferer.

MANIPULATION Handling of an object. If the object is a person, since it is indiscreet to handle it, manipulation involves a clever disruption of the other's normal indifference to induce cooperative behaviour.

MENDACIOUS Addicted to rhetoric. [AB]

MENTAL SeeMind,ifthereisonetosee.

MICROCEPHALIC Possessing a tiny head. The term is commonly coupled with Ament (lacking mental ability) to become: microcephalic ament.

MISCREANT A person of the highest degree of unworth. [AB]

MISDEMEANOUR An infraction of law having less dignity than a felony, and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society. [AB]

MISERABLE A reference to the effect on others of a miscreant person's unpardonable conduct.

MISFORTUNE The kind of fortune that never misses. [AB]

MISOGYNIST One who has been married.

MISTRUST A quality in one who can be trusted to be abusive.

MYOPIA Your vision when unable to perceive the truth and correctness in my way of seeing things.

MYSOPHOBIA Morbid dread of dirt, found frequently in luminaries while holding press conferences.

MYSTICISM Belief in the accessibility of truths through contemplation, that are inaccessible to understanding or proof. NARCISSISM The most widely practised 'ism', especially among females.

NASTY A way of expressing the unspeakably bad and destructive way in which another acts, while appearing to retain dignity and reserve in expression.

NAUSEA A sickness of the mind giving rise to revulsion in the gut resulting from the attempt to digest an unpalatable substance -- another's success.

NAUGHTY Feminine for wicked, sinful, criminal. In the wisdom of English teachers, affectionate reference to a misdeed having naught of consequence.

NEGATIVISM Your resistance to my suggestions. My resistance to your views is called Constructive Criticism.

NEIGHBOUR One we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he/she can to make us disobedient. [AB]

NEPOTISM Appointing your grandfather to office for the good of the party. [AB]

NERVE A nervous state seen in a bundle of nerves.

NERVOUS DISORDER A disorder of the mind classified as being of the nerves so it can barely be seen.

NEWS Political rubbish reviewed, recycled and reused.

NEWSPAPER Paper covered with all manner of distortions, lies and defamations, whose main purposes and uses are to wrap up garbage and light fires.

NITWIT A nobody (see there), in spades.

NOBODY Almost everybody; as distinguished from Somebody - - that is, almost nobody.

NOTORIETY The fame of one's competitor for public honours; the kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. [AB]

OBSESSED Vexed by an evil spirit [AB]; preoccupied with a thought or chain of thoughts to the despair of others who think the thinker should think their thoughts; impaled on a spit of thoughts of no interest to the thinker (or his/her therapist).

OBSOLETE No longer used by the timid [AB] -- as the words you use, my enemy and all of his/her thoughts and ideas, last year's fashions, yesterday's laws, the day before yesterday's computer, my car.

OBSTINATE Inaccessible to the truth as it is most gloriously manifested in the splendour and stress of our advocacy. [AB]

OFFENSIVE Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy. [AB]

OLD In the stage of usefulness that is not inconsistent with general inefficiency; discredited by lapse of time, and offensive to the popular taste [AB]; young plus a forward time warp.

ORANGUTAN Your uncle who happens to be my next door neighbour.

PAGAN Onewhohaslearnedtoactinthemannerof his/her culture, and not as those in our culture act.

PAIN An uncomfortable frame of mind [AB] occasioned by intense sensations as when dancing a partner tramps on your toe, or a person becomes a royal cramp.

PARANOIA Another's suspicion that you are out to cheat, or otherwise to injure him/her.

PARAPLEGIA A nightmare in which you seek to escape but cannot, come true.

PEDANTIC Unnecessary labour in expounding the details of a point that wasn't necessary from the start.

PEDESTRIAN A slow moving target for the automobile driver; one of low station, without benefit of a car, or the where-with-all to buy one.

PERSEVERATION The evidence that the human being can handle but one idea at a time -- time being understood to refer to ten years.

PERSONALITY The imagined collection of enduring characteristics that a person attributes to him/herself, and by which he/she recognizes him/herself as 'the same person' over time -- even although everything in and about him/her has changed radically.

PERSONATION Having so weak a sense of one's own personality and worth that one adopts the identity of another.

PESSIMISM A philosophy forced on the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his/her futile hope and unsightly smile. [AB]

PICAYUNE Tiny, negligible and unimportant, as any argument you might muster against mine.

PITIFUL The condition of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself. [AB]

PLATITUDE The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke; the wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard; a fossil sentiment in artificial rock; a moral without a fable; all that is mortal of a departed truth; the cackle of a surviving egg [AB]; in sum, the vain glorious rhetoric of the poor man's poetry.

POLITENESS The most acceptable form of hypocrisy. [AB]

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB]

PREJUDICE A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. [AB]

PRESUMPTUOUS You, having the sumptuous experience of expressing your assumptions as if they were fact before I get mine out.

PREVARICATOR A liar in the caterpillar state. [AB]

PROGNATHOUS A low-brow, slope-head, without the sense to tuck his/her chin in.

PROJECTION The, usually reasonable and logical, attribution to another of those unpleasant characteristics one cannot tolerate seeing in one's self.

PRUDE Abawdhidingbehindthebackofher demeanour.[AB]

PUERILE Childish and silly, as anybody else's utterances.

PUSILLANIMOUS Destitute of strength and firmness of mind; faint- hearted; cowardly; ill but animated ... by pus.

PUTRID A corrupt foul rotting in another's guts.

QUEER Different from me and mine --the standard of excellence and appropriateness used for everyone.

RASCAL A fool considered under a lesser aspect. [AB]

RASH Impulsive due to insensibilityto the value of our advice [AB], and for this sin marked with spots.

RAT In the wisdom of scientists, the nearest relative of the human, which, being animal, may be subjected to experimental procedures and sacrifice.

RATIONALIZATION The attempt to explain by reference to the higher authority of reason an act that is indefensible, unreasoned and unreasonable; the extension of a sentence to avoid responsibility for it.

REASON To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire; a propensitate of prejudice. [AB]

REASONABLE Accessible to the infection of our own opinions; hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion; [AB] dull and under-emotional. REMEMBER To recall with all its horror, pain and remorse a past experience forgotten with great care.

REMORSE The tiresome business of pretending sorrow for somebody else's faults.

REPREHENSIBLE The natural judgement of normal human conduct seen without blinkers or rose-coloured glasses.

REPULSIVE Tending to a pushing away, including anything that was recently ingested, incorporated or embraced. Your capacity to disgust me, repelling me and all others (who are obviously most like me in tastes and values).

RIDICULE Words designed to show that the person at whom they are directed is devoid of the dignity and character distinguishing the one who utters them. [AB]

RIDICULOUS The position you adopt that is stupid, outrageous and contradictory (to my view) to such a degree that it can only be responded to with laughter -- since I have no adequate come-back for it.

RIGHT Each agreement of your views with mine.

RIGHTEOUS The state of virtue, propriety, correctness and desirability found exclusively in what I do and say, especially when I am judging anyone else, particularly when I am a judge or prosecutor.

ROTTEN Decayed, resulting from failure to stay cool during exposure to the elements -- as passionate behaviour exposed. Decayed teeth involved in chewing on anything or anyone.

RUBBISH Worthless matter, such as the philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions south of the North Pole. [AB]

SADIST One who obstinatelyrefuses to be mean to a masochist.

SAINT A dead sinner, revised and edited. [AB] SATANIC Your most unrighteous conduct and ideas.

SCATTER An array of things on a Table, sometimes called a Mess.

SCHEME Your sneaky idea or program. When it's mine, it's called a Plan.

SCHIZOPHRENIA The ultimate argumentum ad hominem, in the form: 'You are crazy, so I can safely ignore everything you say as meaningless.'

SELF-ESTEEM An erroneous appraisal. [AB]

SELF-EVIDENT Evident to one's self, and to nobody else. [AB]

SELF-DETERMINED Misled.

SELFISH Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. [AB]

SELF-OBSERVATION The process by which we find ourselves to be perfect.

SEXISM A misnomer for Genderism, used for its advertising value by female genderists.

SHAM Pretence,asintheS(ubject)isaham.

SHAME The natural and appropriate feeling when your Sham is displayed to yourself Electronically on video.

SIN Reverberations from the undulating movements of a serpent; the discovery that makes us feel unworthy and at risk of harm.

SINISTER His/her purpose.

SKUNK Aromatic pussy cat, often in a black-and-white casing, with a propensity to spray stinging and stinking substances on those who offend.

SMOOTH Unabrasive to the touch, but abrasive to the ear and the pocket-book.

SOCIAL DISTANCE The most preferred type of distance. SOCIAL SELF The pretended front one displays to others.

SOPHISTRY A controversial and inadmissible view expressed by an opponent, distinguished from one's own honest sincerity and tom foolery. [AB]

SPITE Another's brutish reaction to your success.

SPONTANEOUS Well rehearsed.

STANDARD Conventional commonplaces people live down to.

STANDARD DEVIATION The scientific way to refer to a shit disturber.

STARTLE To react suddenly with surprise and shock, as when confronted with the evidence that another person has told the truth.

STEREOTYPE Continuous repetition of the same idea or action after it was found worthless when first tried.

STERN Mimicrybythe browof the appearance of the rear.

STIGMA A mark of distinction.

STUPID A pernicious and persistent feature of another who will not learn in spite of your excellent efforts to teach.

STUPOR Unresponsive, but not stupid.

STYLE A barrier used to keep hogs from exercising their own unrestrained individuality, and the clothing and manner they adopt.

SUPERSTITION Beliefs of those not yet instructed by you in your true beliefs.

SUPPOSITION Another's pretended knowledge.

SURREPTITIOUS The under-handed way that your competitor responds to your open and above-board ploys.

TACT Themaskof thepredator;theAchillesHeelof the naive. TACTFUL A deep insult, travelling under false colours, pretending to communicate that the others' statements, actions or manners are considerate and thoughtful, but actually implying that the other is trite, commonplace, uninspired and boring.

TALENT Your child's faculty to do everything wrong.

TALK To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. [AB]

TANTRUM The most natural adult response to the frustration of children who are misbehaving.

TASTE The response of certain ugly outcroppings of your mouth and nose, absent in most other people, to their acts that you do not approve or practice.

TENACITY A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. [AB]

TENSION Being up-tight, as distinguished from being down- loose or down-and-out.

TEPID The uninspired, unchallenging and uncaring quality of your ideas and delivery that leaves me cold.

TIC Aninvoluntaryjerk--eachofushasknown several. TRENDY An inclination to wear the uniform of the day.

TRYING Making an effort -- to try others' patience.

UGLINESS A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. [AB]

ULTIMATUM In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. [AB]

UNSPEAKABLE Conduct of others about which we do not wish to speak -- but do, at length. The subject on which most speaking is done.

VANITY The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. [AB] VICIOUS A delicious venom added to honesty to make it the more palatable.

VILE Aqualityfoundinotherswhodonotshareourown personal values and wickedness.

VILLAIN An engagingly wicked person.

WICKED A word to modify references to others who do things that are not in my imagined best interest.

WITCH An ugly, repulsive old woman, in wicked league with the devil; a beautiful and shapely young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil. [AB]

WRONG The positive way of saying that, in contrast to mine, your utterances are incorrect; the correct way to express how you have offended me by holding a position different from mine; the summary statement about your utterances, character and nature, as in 'You are wrong-headed.'

YOU ...! An expression calculated to communicate all manner of insult and street invective without having to risk vilification for having a bad-mouth by seeming unable to find 'such words'.

ZOO Aplacewherevariouskindsofanimalsare collected to give them an opportunity to ogle and laugh at humans found wandering aimlessly in the vicinity.

ZWINE A weak attempt to code into German the insulting statement that the other is a pig -- or worse. C: CAD CRIMINAL ACTIONS DICTIONARY (How to do Crime)

ABDUCTION Absconding with a person for conduction to a place where reduction of the person's freedom to escape is assured. Syn: Arrest.

ACCESSORY A road agent who assists another road agent in nefariousness [AB] -- as a lawyer or salesperson for jewellery, clothing and other adornments.

ACCIDENT An inevitable occurrence caused by known immutable universal laws [AB], but attributed to chance to allow the officers of the court to be immune from all responsibility when they are at fault.

ACCOMMODATION A place prepared to suit, and loaned to an offender to given him/her aid in adjustment to prepare new habits of reconciliation and accommodation to the selfish needs of others.

ACCOMPLICE One associated with another, usually in crime; having knowledge and complicity, as a defence attorney in a criminal case. [AB]

ACCUSE To affirm another's guilt and unworthiness, most commonly to obscure the fact that he/she has been wronged by you. [AB]

ACQUITTAL A decision to free an accused from further harassment in court for fear that responsibility for the act at issue, sitting poorly on the shoulders of the accused, may fall perchance on the shoulders of the prosecutor or the judge.

ADJUDICATION Choice made by an adjudicator whether to put on a law suit or a black hood to abuse another for doing a usual act of commerce.

ADJUSTMENT Settlement of a grievance by preparing another to change toward your image of health and fitness.

ADMISSIBLE Worthy of being allowed to enter, as testimony against the accused, or as a convict to a jail.

ADMONITION Friendly warning; gentle reproof -- as with a meat-axe. [AB]

ADVERSARY The method and approach of the Law. In this, two mis-representatives, affectionately calling each other 'my friend', perform a sham war-game before an ostensibly disinterested judge, with whom they both curry favour. The object of the exercise is to discover which can debate most to the liking of the adjudicator, the better to intimidate other lawyers (see there) and to enhance personal glory and financial advancement. The product (survival of the one who serves as the battlefield) induces the unfortunate to pay vast sums to his/her lawyer. The value given is nothing but the lawyer's ability to intimidate others. Syn.(or sin): Crime.

AGGRESSOR That participant in a quarrel weak enough to allow him/herself to be held responsible for the first move.

AGENT A gentleman entrusted to serve in one's place to produce a chemical reaction in others found on the road such that they voluntarily part with their property, rights and persons in one's favour. Syn: Sales-person, Lawyer.

AGILITY Nimbleness in avoiding the finger of guilt.

ALIAS A name assumed not to be the name of the assumee.

ALTERABLE Another's behaviour's most precious capability.

AMBIDEXTROUS Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. [AB]

AMNESTY The state's magnanimity to those offenders it would be too expansive to punish. [AB] See: Probation.

ANTI-SOCIAL Harmful to society; helpful to oneself.

APPEAL In law, to put the dice into the boxforanother throw. [AB] A never appealing pealing cry for another chance to make the same or other mistakes.

APPOINTMENT An interview with an office adornment demanding a commission -- for which we're always late.

APPREHEND Fear that we know how to seize and hold an idea or person, whichever is most available.

APPREHENSION Fear that you will be caught and arrested.

APPROPRIATE To take to oneself or steal -- which, by convention of verbal identity, is suitable and proper.

APPROVE To agree with another's commendation of us.

APT The tendency to be passively willing to accept that our expedient acts are consonant with exceptional intelligence and highly trainable cleverness. Thus the capacity to be so willing is called: Aptitude.

ARBITER A judge who serves as an advisor -- that we plead guilty, so he/she can go home for dinner. Hence the word, Arbitrator: An irregular traitor who, sitting under a tree and biting the bit in his/her mouth, lawlessly, condemns another arbitrarily.

ARRAIGN To summon a prisoner into court to answer charges about an act of which he/she has no knowledge (due to plea bargaining).

ARREST Formally to stop and detain one accused of usualness. [AB]

ARSENIC A flavour added to food, reputed to have effects on the taste and on the longevity of the intended gastronome.

ARSON A practice, commonly encountered in cold climates, where a person lights a match, seeking to create warmth in the ambient environment, creating warmth instead in the breasts of prosecuting attorneys, insurance agents and correctional administrators. ASSAULT A narrowly proscribed range of unseemly actions from touching another's shoulder to murderously attacking with an entire army.

ATTORNEY A mis-representative who, having acquired power over your goods and wealth, disposes of it in small part to others, and in large part to him/herself.

BAIL Compensation paid to the court when denied the pleasure of prosecuting one charged of a felony.

BARRISTER One who, having been admitted to the bar, in the face of all good judgement, expects to be paid for each drink he/she takes.

BIAS Alinecuttingdiagonallyacrossthegrainof a fabric; a prejudice, as when another's opinion cuts diagonally across the grain of your convictions.

BIGAMY An offence against common decency and the law, found most commonly among males of most species. Bigamy was expressed most succinctly as: Higamous hogamous, woman’s monogamous; hogamous higamous, man is polygamous. Some bigamists use the term in the form: Big-of-me.

BIGOT One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. [AB]

BLAME Censure assigned to another for one's own fault.

BRACELET A gaudy adornment for the wrist, signifying captivity or slavery, sought after with rapacious vigour by the unfair sex; sometimes available as a gift or prize for male or female crimes.

BREACH A criminal offence of failing to do as you're told.

BRIBE An inducement to action, valued in the wisdom of the Orient where it is understood to be to everybody's advantage, and made a crime in the western world where it is understood to be potentially to someone else's advantage. BRIEFS Longs serving as underclothing, commonly submitted to argue the impropriety of the wearer, or seeking to suggest that the bare facts be revealed.

CENSORSHIP An unlawful task assigned by government to naive others to ensure that information in the media paints a picture of life as composed solely of dangerous, sensational and shocking events.

CHARACTER That collection of immoral and unethical acts that mark one individual as barely different from any other.

CHARLATAN One claiming to have skill or knowledge superior to your own in a field in which you believe yourself to have superior skill or knowledge.

CHARM The magical power of something about another that forces you, against your will, to be drawn to the other to be abandoned. Thus, the initial cause of shame, hopelessness, despair, crime and divorce.

CHASTE Onewhohasneverbeenchased.

COMMON LAW Will of the judge [AB]. That part of the Law which is commonly understood by women, unknown to men, and is commonly used to abuse the latter in court.

COMMUNICATE To impart the disease of misunderstanding.

COMPROMISE Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he/she got what he/she ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing that was justly his/her due. [AB] Resolution such that everybody loses.

COMPULSION The eloquence of power. [AB]

CONFISCATE To seize private property for the public treasury -- one example of magic in law, whereby an unlawful act is transmuted into a lawful one.

CONFRONTATION A process in which A (see Ass), having connected his/her headset to the microphone into which he/she speaks, turns up the volume to his/her headset and instructs B in the error of his/her ways -- B being a complete stranger. Confrontation is held to be the correct process by which an innocent, alleged to be a criminal, is provided a clear appreciation of the errors of his/her ways and is led to correct them. This approach is tenaciously adopted by the righteous who, having been expelled from convents or monasteries for their extero-punitive insistence on a return to the Inquisition, and for dogmatism and rigidity scores exactly equivalent to those obtained by the most serious criminal offenders, have obtained employment in the justice system.

CONJUGAL Popular form of penile servitude [AB]. Living with a jug, with much juggling -- everyone knows how to marry them; nobody knows how to live with them.

CONNOTATION The configuration of associative implications constituting the general sense of an abstract expression beyond its explicit sense. How's that for the connotation of a word? Honestly, that's a direct quote from the American Heritage Dictionary. It is written as the Law reads. Understand it, if you can. At least, you can enjoy it if you want to.

CONSCIENCE The fear others will notice your nose grow.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS Scrupulously honest, painstakingly thorough, careful -- in elucidating another's faults.

CONSENT Yielding to irresistible pressure from an offer you cannot refuse.

CONSEQUENCE An event purported to be the result of a cause.

CONSERVATIVE A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal who wishes to replace them with others. [AB]

CONSIDERATE Having enforced regard for the feelings of another.

CONSIDERED Accomplished thought, reached after one micro- second of off-hand deliberation.

CONTRACT An enforceable agreement entered by mistake, from which both parties commonly shrink.

CONTROVERSY A battle of wits among the witless, to revoke existing wisdom and replace it with a smoke screen of banalities, the better to glorify the contestants in an imaginary history of thought.

CONVICT Formally to assign guilt to another for misdeeds of the prosecutor and judge -- at which time the term and state is changed from a verb to a noun; an individual with a preference for stripes, who wears horizontal ones and contemplates vertical ones.

COP To steal or take, hence, a policeman.

CORRECTION A punishment meted out by subtracting that which belongs to the individual, and adding that which belongs to someone else.

CORRECTIONS An opportunity for priests/priestesses, defrocked for insisting upon a return to the Inquisition, to be employed in the justice system to impose moral sanctions and other recriminations on those who acknowledge themselves innocent of wrong-doing.

CORRUPT Immoral, perverted, decaying, putrid; i.e., the government and the Law.

COURT A place where salacious games are played, commonly seduction of the opposing sex or of jurors.

COURTESY An artificially polite manner adopted in court or courting.

CREDITOR One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions. [AB]

CREDITS Accomplishments claimed by A as credentials (not signed by B or anybody else) displayed, but never scrutinized, as public record, conforming in detail to a format presumed by all to be prescribed.

CREDULOUS Disposed to believe that the creativity claimed by another enhances the value of the other's work.

CRETIN A little person diminished by proportionately little brains, reputedly due to little output from a little gland, although there is little to support this little contention.

CRIME Commerce deemed immoral in the eyes of politicians and lawyers, who alone would want to perform the selected and proscribed acts. Accordingly, crime is elevated to a position of fame, to be glorified by the media as a service to the general public.

CRIMINAL One whose acquiescence and socialized adaptations have led him/her either to acknowledge or to fail to defend against accusations by the envious, and who has therefore been found guilty of performing a usual act of commerce. Criminals are sentenced, as punishment for their acquiescence and high degrees of socialization, to a period of supervision and re-education by others, to afford educators another try at teaching that true socialization involves developing the skills of the lawyer (see there), or of the magician (see there), or at least the skills of artifice, manipulation and denial.

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE While driving, having failed to notice traffic signs, speed limits or the fact of being drunk (which supposedly impairs judgement or skill). By convention, these failures are designated as causes of dangerous traffic accidents for which the person involved can be held responsible. This affords the investigating police the chance to account for some accidents (see there) while ignoring other facts.

CRITERION A test for truth that has passed the test of political acceptance by dint of careful and clever salesmanship.

CRITIC One who boasts him/herself hard to please [AB], who nobody tries to please, and who has no capacity for pleasure; one who boasts him/herself reasonable and correct, whose task in life, while denying the desire to give pain, offers nothing but pain.

CRITICISM The act of putting another down; the unfounded faith that you know better than me what I'm trying to do and how best I should do it.

CROOK A bent or twisted implement or person, such as the Law or a criminal, employed in the business of those who seek to control sheep. Syn: Politician.

CROWD Acleverdevicebywhichanumberofpeopleis assembled to mill about in a given place to obscure the operations of usual commerce.

CUSTODY Confinement, segregation and supervision afforded to hide one, proven to be less-than-a-human being, from the easily offended eyes of proper society, while dehumanizing procedures can be introduced the better to humanize the one in custody. An alternative formulation proposes that the purpose of custody is to hide and protect the less-than- human being from the commerce of proper society while his/her delicate sensibilities are toughened for effective participation in that commerce.

DEBATE The basic operation and skill of the practice of law, in which two individual automatons, having no interest, belief, values or ethics, adopt, for the sake of their personal amusement and the presumed entertainment of others, opposing points of view. Each defends the adopted view for a time before giving up and going home, with no concern for the effects of their enterprise on others.

DEBAUCHEE One who has so earnestly pursued a pleasure that he/she has had the misfortune to overtake it. [AB]

DEBT An ingenioussubstitute forthe chain and whip of the slaver. [AB]

DEFAME To lie about another; to tell the truth about another. [AB] DEFECT Themotethatablindpersoncanseeintheeyeof another.

DEFENCE Any means by which to avoid dealing with that which is not there but, being invisible, is presumed to be there and dangerous.

DEFENCELESS Unable to attack. [AB]

DEFENDANT An obliging person, who devotes time and character to acquire property for his/her lawyer. [AB]

DEFERENCE Courteous yielding to the opinions of another in the presence of too many of his/her friends to permit opposition.

DEFIANCE Intentionally provocative resistance to authority -- one mark of a loser.

DEFICIENCY The extent to which another falls short in virtue to yourself.

DEFRAUD Impart instruction and experience to another. [AB]

DETECTIVE The word used, by one who suffers from high- frequency deafness, to refer to a defective on the police farce.

DETENTION A period of confinement for those who might have performed an offence, to give the real offender a chance to repeat the offence while those who might have been responsible for it have an iron-clad and witnessed alibi.

DETERMINATION The force of intention to continue in a wrong course.

DOCUMENT A device invented by lawyers to entertain them- selves by reading so as to ignore what's happening.

EGOTIST A person of low taste and narrow interests, more interested in him/herself than in me. [AB]

EMANCIPATION A bonds-person's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of him/herself. [AB] EMERGENCY The state of affairs existing when one emerges from hiding.

ENCOUNTER The misfortune of meeting another by accident.

END Thepositionfarthestremovedfromtheseatof accomplishment -- supposed to be the head. Syn: Goal (in English, sometimes rendered Jail).

EPIDEMIC Disease spread by contact with the media.

EQUAL In democracy, the relative power assigned to every person, from which derives the Egalitarian State in which a few rule, fewer control the rulers, and the rest are ruled with varying degrees of injustice.

ETHICS Codes that define the 'bad' in human conduct. When a code to define the 'good' can be found, ethics can be abandoned in principle. Ethics are mostly ignored in practice anyway.

EVIDENCE Fabricated data on which to base a misjudgment.

EVIL Fun.

EXHIBITIONISM An act against public decency in which the actor deems his privates to be worthy and interesting for public display. If performed by an actress, since, by convention, her privates are deemed interesting and worthy for public display, it is called Art.

EXILE One who serves his country by living abroad, yet is not an ambassador. [AB]

EXTORTION The use of threat (see there) to obtain advantage, property or acquiescence in ordinary commerce.

EYE-WITNESS One who affirms stoutly that he/she was present during an incident and saw it, the better to avoid detection as being responsible for a misdemeanour that happened somewhere else at the same time.

FACT Theunbelievablepartof fiction. FAIR Anexhibitiontoshowthatjusticeisforpeople with light coloured hair who are moderately good.

FALSE A statement inconsistent with the court's opinion.

FARCE Standardly staged court proceedings.

FELON A person of greater enterprise than discretion who, in embracing an opportunity, has formed an unfortunate attachment. [AB]

FENCE A wall to keep your neighbour out and through which to pass your neighbours property on its way out.

FINE Thin, excellent and costly punishment that is acceptable and rewards the government.

FLEECE The act of taking the coat, and maybe the shirt, off sheep or those created in their image.

FORBID An edict to ensure that a prohibited action will be performed.

FORCIBLE CONFINEMENT An act in which a person, with no license to do so, captures another who, by convention, would prefer to be free. If the Law grants the confiner license for such an act, it is called Arrest. If the confinee consents to the act, it is called Marriage.

FORCIBLE ENTRY An act wherein a person, without a license to do so, gains entry to another's premises to search for and abscond with the other's property or person. If the Law grants the enterer a license for such an act, it is (L)awful Search and Seizure. In either case, it leaves the owner aghast. If the owner consents to the entry, the enterer is a-Guest.

FOREFINGER The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors. [AB]

FRAUD Participation in commerce, often by representing oneself as somebody else. Syn: Theatrics. FREEDOM Transferred from bondage of which we are aware to one more subtle of which we are not aware.

FREE WILL The right freely to choose, constrained only by our needs, fears, despondencies and established habits. We assign free will to ourselves as an act of faith, to miscreants as an excuse for prosecution, and to others as a noumenon of mythical origin.

FUGITIVE One who, unliked is sought after, disapproved is wanted, and disparaged is pursued.

GALLOWS A stage for the performance of miracle plays, where the leading actor is translated to heaven. Chiefly remarkable for the number who escape it. [AB]

GAMBLE To wager against the laws of chance, and lose.

GEM Apieceofrock,buriedbynatureanddeprivedby compression of its worthwhile substances that when dug up by humankind is assigned an arbitrary value proportional to the labour required to find it.

GLUE Substance inhaled by wood to make it sticky, and by blockheads to convert their putative brains to goo.

GOAL A destination forthose who affirm ordenybeing offenders.

GRAFT The commerce of government.

GRASPING Ostensibly an automatic reflexive response of the fingers to a desired object in contact with them, and justified by a claimed need for security.

GUILT A sense of wrong-doing, most frequently encountered in the innocent.

GUN Man's fabricated approximation to his own reproductive organ. It falls short of the mark by terminating life instead of creating it.

HABEAS CORPUS A writ by which one may be released from jail to ask how it was [AB]; confined for the wrong crime.

HAND Asingularinstrumentwornattheendof thehuman arm, and commonly thrust into somebody else's pocket. [AB]

HANG A procedure for murdering offenders that is slightly less gory than decapitation; an act performed to deface a wall with non- representations of nature.

HIGH Drunk; sober; feeling calm; feeling aroused; feeling awful; feeling good; above some things; below some things; superior authority; inferior authority; a drink when prefixing a ball.

HOLD-UP A temporary delay in the operations of commerce occasioned by a demand for the transfer of possessions from one to another.

HOMICIDE The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy. But it makes little different to the person slain whether he/she fell by one kind or another. The classification is purely for the pecuniary advantage of lawyers. [AB]

HONESTY A vicious virtue, found mainly in the hostile.

IDENTIFICATION A sign of recognition that an event or person has no independent or personal identity. The identical identities of people is repressed, but is hinted at by its abbreviation: Id.

IDLENESS A farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes growth of staple vices. [AB]

ILLICIT Sick of the Law.

IMMORAL Inexpedient. [AB]

IMPARTIAL Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy. [AB] IMPENITENCE A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment. [AB]

IMPIETY Your irreverence toward my deity. [AB]

IMPUNITY Wealth. [AB]

INCEST Afamilyaffair.

INFAMY Famousforbeinga scoundrel.

INJUSTICE A burden which, of all those we load upon others and carry ourselves, is lightest in the hands and heaviest on the back. [AB]

INMATE One who, being insufficiently practised in lying, aggression and other means of self-defence, has failed to protect him/herself adequately in court when charged with a usual act of commerce, and who has therefore been sentenced for a time to prison.

JAIL The goal of unsuccessful commerce.

JUDGEMENT An act of persons (who for the purpose are called judges) calculated to advance the interests of the judge and his/her friends, to disadvantage those he/she disparages, and to assure his/her political and economic advancement.

JUSTICE A mythical blindfolded female in adulterated condition, sold at auction to a citizen as a reward for allegiance, personal service, acquiescence to suppression, and personal resource depletion. [AB]

KILL To create a vacancy without nominating a successor. [AB]

KLEPTOMANIAC A rich thief. [AB]

LAW An artificial construction of words deemed to possess final authority in the conduct of the universe and human affairs; formulations, derived by debate and brow-beating, by which people seek to reconstruct the universe to suit their own selfish wishes; the justice system's mutable rock, creating all manner of evils generously assigned to others.

LAWYER One skilled in circumvention of the law. [AB] The accomplice in all crime. Syn: Felon.

LIAR A lawyer with a roving commission [AB]; the spelling and pronunciation of Lawyer employed in Newfoundland -- revealing the basic accuracy and appropriateness of Newfoundlandese.

LIBERTY One of imagination's most precious possessions. [AB]

LICENSE PLATES An art-form, reserved for convicts by governments that profit from its products. The products serve the artists in place of mail, to send messages to those at large announcing personal views (URMOM2), observations (ICU812) and wishes (24NIK8).

LITIGANT A person about to give up his/her skin in the hope of retaining his/her bones [AB]; a rapidly propagating species of wolves.

LITIGATION A machine you go into as a pig, and come out of as a sausage. [AB]

LOCK-AND-KEY The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment. [AB]

MACE A staff of office signifyingauthority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading dissent [AB]. We have now graduated to the enlightened age of chemistry in which a chemical composition, assigned the same name, is used for the same purpose and effect.

MACHINATION A method employed by your opponents to baffle your open and honest efforts to do the right thing. [AB]

MALEFACTOR The chief factor in the progress of the human race. [AB]

MANIPULATION Handling of an object. If the object is a person, since it is indiscreet to handle it, manipulation involves a clever disruption of the other's normal indifference to induce cooperative behaviour.

MANSLAUGHTER The sexist crime performed by a man laughing. The danger to women: man's-laughter might be derisive.

MERCY An attribute beloved of detected offenders. [AB]

MISCHIEF The chief means to sneak admittance to the best criminal society. It consists in naughty behaviour in disturbing private property or public order.

MISCREANT A person of the highest degree of unworth. [AB]

MISDEMEANOUR An infraction of law having less dignity than a felony, and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society. [AB]

MOB The most elementary type of social group that acts in concert -- usually for self-protection at the expense of others. The more scared the criminal, the greater the probability that he/she will claim to be a member of the mob. Syn: Organization.

MORAL Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right, having a quality of general expediency. [AB]

MURDER See Homicide.

NAUGHTY Feminine for wicked, sinful, criminal. In the wisdom of English teachers, affectionate reference to a misdeed having naught of consequence.

NOTORIETY The fame of one's competitor for public honours; the kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. [AB]

OATH Inlaw,asolemnappealtoDeity,madebinding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury [AB]; in life, a casual appeal to Deity, often arising from the discovery of perjury.

OBSTRUCT To obstruct 'justice' is to be guilty of (failing in) providing the justice system with information of the substance or type it happens to deem to be required or appropriate. By convention, it is a lamentable felony to oppose (see there) justice.

OMNIPOTENCE Absolute power with which one feels invested when he/she believes his/her friends to be omnipotent.

OPIATE An unlocked doorto the prison of identity. It leads to the jail yard [AB] or to a bedroom in which to sleep and dream.

OPPORTUNITY A favourable occasion for grasping a disappointment. [AB]

OPPOSE To assist with obstructions and objections. [AB]

PALMISTRY The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in reading character in the wrinkles made by closing the hand, which, if fully closed could not be read nor offer money. Character can be read very accurately in this way. In the wrinkles of every hand examined for this purpose can be read plainly the word 'dupe'. The imposture consists in not reading it aloud. [AB]

PARDON To remit from a penaltyand restore to a life of crime. [AB]

PAROLE A means bywhich the State saves moneynowto pay more later in the confinement of a felon; a means by which a convicted felon and liar is released from prison in exchange for his/her word that he/she will abide by the Law and many other rules.

PENITENT Undergoing or awaiting punishment. [AB]

PENITENTIARY A place to squeeze all penitence out of offenders.

PENOLOGY The knowledge that penitence is not to be found in a penitentiary, that corrections do not correct, and that punishment is a waste of time, effort and money; the knowledge that jail bars serve the purpose to protect the offender from the wrath of an offended community until the community has forgotten that offence under the impress of so many new offenses by others.

PERSUASION The art of influencing another voluntarily to part with his/her pocket book and its contents.

PICKPOCKET One who, in conducting commerce, extracts loose change in exchange for minor sexual favours.

PILLORY A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction -- prototype of the contemporary newspaper -- operated by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. [AB]

PIRACY Commerce without its follies -- just as it was first created. [AB]

PLUNDER To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft; to effect a change of ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band; to wrest the wealth of A from B leaving C lamenting a vanished opportunity [AB]; to levy taxes.

POCKET The cradle of motive; the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking. So she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others. [AB]

POLICE An armed force to protect and participate. [AB]

POLITENESS The most acceptable form of hypocrisy. [AB]

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB]

POLYGAMY A house of atonement or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from Monogamy, that has but one. [AB]

PORNOGRAPHY The poetry of the masses.

POSSESSION Transient ownership of property or drugs, which, by convention, were not obtained by payment of their full value by the present owner. Such property or drugs may be seized and the owner impounded for a period of time deemed sufficient to compensate the previous owner for the unpaid balance.

PRECEDENT In law, a previous decision, rule or practice that, for want of a definite statute, has whatever force a judge may choose to give it, greatly simplifying the task of doing exactly as he/she pleases. [AB]

PRISON A fortress where offenders are protected from the wrath of those not yet detected; the goal (or jail) for those confessing and denying crime.

PROBATION A further period inflicted on a convicted felon in which to prove him/herself unable to function in a manner acceptable to officials, in the face of the strain of community life without the protection of a prison. The court's excuse to help the government pay the costs of looking after an indigent.

PROMOTE To lift, raise up, levitate or elevate -- an act which, performed by another, we call theft.

PROOF Evidence having a shade more plausibility than absolute unlikelihood. [AB]

PROSECUTE To persecute another publicly without offering recourse to revenge.

PROSTITUTION Offering a service for pay; working for a living. Used pejoratively only regarding such actions by women, who are not supposed to work for a living.

PROTECTION That which is offered to another as an excuse to control the other. Operationally: Police.

PYROEROTIC Sexual excitement in the presence of fires, leading to the expression, 'Come on baby, light my fire.'

PYROMANIA Fascination and heightened excitement when exposed to a fire set by the afflicted person. QUIVER A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments. [AB] Shaking or twitching of the target requires care in taking aim with its contents.

RANGE A stove comprised of cells in which people can roam unfree, by which fingers can be burned to add to their flavour, and which is a delimited segment of space in which specifiable species get lost so they can be found to be at risk of extinction.

RAPE The ultimate indiscretion in the system of laws written to remind men of women, and to protect women from the desires they wish men had.

RASCAL A crook considered under a lesser aspect. [AB]

RASH Impulsive due to insensibilityto the value of our advice [AB], and for this sin marked with spots.

REACH The radiusof action of the human hand [AB],as distinguished from Grasp, or what you can actually get your hands on.

REBEL Aproponentof anewmisrulewhohasfailedto establish it. [AB]

RECIDIVISM Repetition of an already failed strategy of commerce.

REFERRAL To transfer the responsibility for failure to another.

REFINED Speeding, again!

REFORM A singular way to satisfy reformers opposed to reformation. [AB]

REFUGE A place to which one can escape from perils, the perils of which are unknown.

REGRET The dismay we feel about having been caught red- handed; the dismay we feel about missed opportunity or failure to acquire power, wealth, recognition or a lack of regret. REHABILITATE To remove all vestiges of institutional constraint to embrace once more the clothing, setting and misdemeanours of the past; to return to one's ordinary misdeeds.

REMEDIATION The process by which one is returned from the excitement and fascination of idiosyncrasy and eccentricity to the desolation and dejection of the hopeless and the commonplace.

REMORSE The tiresome business of pretending sorrow for somebody else's faults.

REPARATION Satisfaction paid for a wrong, and deducted from the satisfaction in committing it. [AB]

REPENTANCE The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment, more visible in its approach than in its retreat. It is manifested in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin. [AB]

RESIDENT Unable to leave. [AB]

RESPITE A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to decide whether the murder might not have been performed by the prosecuting attorney -- since he/she seemed to know more about it than anybody else; any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation. [AB]

RESTITUTOR Some require no tutor: benefactors; charities; philanthropists. The rest require a tutor: army; navy; courts; prisons; misanthropists.

RETALIATION The natural rock on which rears the Temple of Law. [AB]

RIOT Popular entertainment given for the police by innocent bystanders. [AB]

ROBBER A candid person of affairs [AB], lacking artifice; one whose calling is to lighten another's load.

ROBBERY A hold-up or delay of another; an abrasive and demanding form of salesmanship. ROPE A device to remind assassins that they too are mortal. [AB]

SADIST One obstinately refusing to be mean to masochists.

SALESMANSHIP The essential feature that converts rape to seduction, seduction to wedlock, and wedlock to robbery -- to form the circle of crime.

SELFISH Devoid of consideration for others' selfishness. [AB]

SHACKLES Bracelets given as a reward for crime.

SIREN A lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose, and disappointing performance [AB]; hence carried as advertising on the top of police cars.

SITUATION The dreadful place in which you find yourself.

SLACK A renowned and unknown sociologist who stated the principle that if you give violent criminals nice things they will use them well. Although wrong, the principle obtained a following among those of taste but no breeding, spawning elegant prisons that were later diminished by calling them Slack shacks or Slackers' shackles.

SOBER Sombrely undrunk; not yet drunk enough to enjoy life.

SOCIALIZATION The process by which a person ceases to be him/herself and becomes another who might be acceptable to others.

SOCIETY A group of individuals of any species, living together in a community and interacting with one another, the better to protect themselves from the enemies they have made, and the better to rob others of their means of subsistence.

SPEEDOMETER An instrument to record variations in velocity, which always displays lower values than radar scopes at speed traps.

STANDARD Conventional commonplaces people live down to. STERN Mimicrybythe browof the appearance of the rear.

STIGMA A mark of distinction.

SUMMATION Unnecessarily adding to what has already been said unnecessarily, to say it again but in shorter form.

SWINDLE Commerce such that the other benefits at your expense.

TAKE To acquire, frequently by force, but preferably by stealth. [AB]

TESTIMONY Perjury by offering evidence of inexperience about how an act that may have occurred was misperceived while looking another way, if present at all.

THEFT A particularly stealthy method of commerce to obtain property as a possession (see there).

THEORY A statement of personal belief organized in elegant words, the aesthetics of which are designed to mislead another into adopting said belief, in spite of its lack of meaning.

THREAT Used as an excuse for prosecution when there is no other. It involves the use of common expressions of anger to another, such as 'I'll tear out your throat', 'I'll beat you up', or 'He/she will kill you'. When police use it, it is Interrogation. When used by government edict, it is called Information (e.g., Cigarettes will kill you).

TRANSVESTISM In males, the wearing of female clothing. This condition does not occur in women, all of whom wear male clothing as a matter of course. Transvestism has ceased to be illegal since women achieved ascendance and insisted that it be unlawful for men to discriminate on the basis of gender (or to be discriminating in sex).

TRIAL A formal inquirydesigned to prove and put on record the blameless characters of judges, jurors and advocates. To effect this purpose, it is necessary to find a contrasting or standard other, called the defendant, prisoner or accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear, this other is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentle-persons a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. [AB]

TRUTH An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. [AB]

TRUTHFUL Dumb and illiterate. [AB]

TRYING Making an effort -- to try others' patience.

ULTIMATUM In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. [AB]

UNLAWFUL An awful unl in which one performs an unlaw fully. [Unl is a French expression for one: Un 1]

UNSPEAKABLE The subject on which most speaking is done.

VENGEANCE The satisfaction of returning to another, several- fold, the pain he/she inflicted on you.

VERIFICATION The process by which A confirms his/her suspicions about C by asking B who claims intimate knowledge of C, where C lives in a far-away place and has never met A or B.

VICTIM The identity self-assigned to perpetrators who assign responsibility for their own crimes and frailties to others.

VICTIMIZER One who makes victims out of perpetrators and those they have wronged for the former's financial benefit. Syn: Lawyer.

VILLAIN An engagingly wicked person.

VIRTUES Certain abstentions. [AB]

VOLITION The exercise of free-will in deciding that one acted precisely as determined to do by one's experience history, needs and greeds.

WANTED Discovered, but not yet located; sought, but not desired; identified, but not yet found.

WAY OUT An expression used to refer to unusual events and to escape routes.

WEAPON A device which, when used by one group breaks the Law, and used by another group upholds the Law.

WITNESS An unconscious perjurer; one who was not there. The term is a degeneration of the word Witless -- referring most properly to all court proceedings.

YES The unqualified, and therefore never meaningful, response most sought by persecuting attorneys.

D: DOT A DICTIONARY FOR DIVERGENT THINKERS

A Thefirstletterofthealphabet,therefore assigned the value of number one. though indefinitely.

DICTIONARY An alphabetical list of words arbitrarily assigned meaninglessness to enhance and emphasize one's characteristic illiteracy.

for Four,whenuareleftout;forewheneisleft out; I am always left out. In any case, leading to the four-th word.

DIVERGENT Varying from the standard or unusual. Thus appropriately individualized and different, as befits oneself.

THINKING An operation of mind which, made material in a thought, is alleged to verify the real existence of the thinking mind, until one considers the mindlessness of people. by Beside, as being beside oneself, having been driven to distraction -- that is, to inattention. a An expression, frequently misspelled as 'eh' by Canadians, that has no meaning, being used only to expand speech in time.

CORRECTIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST A psychologist who corrects the errors of other psychologists by locking their doors after they escape the day's custodial tasks.

D. Quirk The fourth (d) case of the smallest particle of behaviour, which can therefore safely be ignored as insignificant, if a bit queer.

Note unheeded: This text contains large sections liberally plagiarized from Ambrose Bierce's [AB] Devil's Dictionary -- a work of no consequence, by an ancient rebel who, in his 80s, acquired the consideration to have been assassinated, and hence is dead. Long live his remains! -- some of which are entombed in the following text, while others have satisfied the appetites of a succession of worms, ducks and Mexican peasants. Having met him once, 150 years ago, I am in a position to affirm that he is where he would wish to be.

ABORIGINES People of little worth found cumbering the soil of newly discovered territory. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize. [AB] ABRIDGE To deprive a river of its natural right to impede travel by shortening the distance to be traversed to ford it, thus lessening the effort required of a traveller in moving him/herself and vehicles.

ABSENCE The most cherished quality found in another person.

ABSENT Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. [AB]

ABSOLUTE That feature of truth peculiar to one's own beliefs. All else is relative.

ABSORB Thoughtfully to suck in -- as in sucking in one's stomach at the approach of an attractive member of the opposite sex, to consume the other's attention and interest, with the hope of combining forces.

ABSTAINER A weak person who yields to the temptation to deny him/herself a pleasure. [AB]

ABSTRACT Thoughts and ideas that are not concrete -- that cannot safely be used to construct anything but rigid structures; to steal by separating, diverting and abridging essential qualities of someone's ideas, perhaps neglecting to note prior ownership.

ABSURDITY A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. [AB]

ABUSE One generation's standard training practices reviewed and reviled by a later generation.

ACADEMIC One who, in declining work, teaches. We decline work as follows: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers how to teach; those who can't teach teachers, administer; those who can't administer, politic; those who can't politic, collect welfare; those who can't collect welfare, work.

ACCELERATE Quicken the speed of -- as the heart at the approach of one's lover, the car at the departure of the policeman, the employee at the approach of the boss, the pace of life at the departure of the work day, and one's pocket money at the approach of pay day.

ACCESSORY A road agent who assists another road agent in nefariousness [AB] -- as a lawyer or other salesperson of jewellery, clothing and other adornments.

ACCIDENT An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws. [AB] Accidents are of several sorts. Accident-of-birth: see Rhythm Method of birth control; Bastard. Motor-Vehicle- Accident: an opportunity to disadvantage an insurance company, afforded by the incautious use of alcohol or other euphorizing agent by a fellow driver. Employee-Accident: a failure of judicious hiring procedure; an employee benefit providing an opportunity to vent hostility at an employer.

ACCOMMODATE To adapt; to adjust; to be obliging to -- as when giving over your house, cottage, car and office to accommodate your boss to avoid prejudice.

ACCOMPLICE One associated with another, usually in crime; having knowledge and complicity, as a defence attorney in a criminal case. [AB]

ACCORD Enforced agreement and harmony.

ACCOUNTABILITY The mother of caution. [AB]

ACCURACY A measure of the failure to conform to standard, or a measure of imprecision or inexactitude.

ACCUSE To affirm another's guilt and unworthiness, most commonly to obscure the fact that you have wronged him/her. [AB]

ACHE Constant dull pain -- as when one's neighbour will not move away in spite of gentle inducements such as spreading vicious rumours about him/her or fire-bombing his/her premises.

ACHIEVEMENT The death of endeavour, and the birth of disgust. [AB] ACID A sour substance frequently found on the tongues of your detractors.

ACKNOWLEDGE To confess. To acknowledge one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth. [AB]

ACQUAINTANCE A person we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to; a degree of friendship called 'slight' when the object is poor or obscure, and 'intimate' when he/she is rich or famous. [AB]

ACQUITTAL A decision to free an accused from further harassment in court for fear that responsibility for the act at issue, sitting poorly on the shoulders of the accused, may fall perchance on the shoulders of the prosecutor or the judge [AB].

ACRIMONY The bitter part of matrimony.

ACTING Performing a series of actions precisely as one would do them if he/she were being him/herself.

ACTUALLY Perhaps; possibly [AB]; maybe; approximately.

ACUTE A cute angular activity cleverly perceived to be a sharply pointed musical tone violently painful to the bodily senses, and requiring immediate curative action (or it might get better by itself).

ADAMANT A mineral frequently found beneath a skirt, but soluble in solicitate of gold. [AB]

ADDICT A devotee of a habit who, in not changinghis habitual apparel, acquires a characteristic stench, with the resulting social isolation sought.

ADHERENT A follower who has not yet obtained all he/she hopes to get. [AB]

ADJOURN To put off until another time -- a public servant's approach to his/her work, or the court's thoughtful time-out to afford a defendant more time in prison.

ADMINISTRATION An ingenious construction of politics designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the management or the premier or president. [AB]

ADMIRAL That part of a warship that does all the talking, while the figurehead does the thinking. [AB]

ADMIRATION Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. [AB]

ADMISSIBLE Worthy of being allowed to enter, as testimony against an accused, or as a convict to a jail.

ADMONITION Friendly warning; gentle reproof -- as with a meat-axe. [AB]

ADORE An opening through which much clatter, but no matter, may pass.

ADVICE Smallest coin of the realm [AB]; add vice to virtue.

AEROPLANE A far from plain machine that defies the laws of gravity and, without landing in court, wins its case.

AFFECT The emotional aspect of behaviour, mostly painful or unpleasant.

AFFLICTION An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world. [AB]

AFFLUENT Plenteous supply; abundant flow -- sewage, garbage. Syn.: Effluent

AGAIN Thelossorhavingtoencounteraneventonce more.

AGE Theperiodof lifethathasalreadybeenwasted. Age is of several kinds. Mental Age: the amount of time wasted in pondering life's imponderables. Chronological Age: the amount of time wasted waiting to grow up. Youth: an estate wasted on those of brief chronological age. Old Age: a condition resulting from much wasted commitment to the myth of declining faculties, participation in which plan for youthful advancement reaps progressive decline and retirement in the surfeit of interest in the natural proclivity of inflation to produce depression -- the product is suicide.

AGENT A kindly gentle-person (male) who performs an act for another too lazy to do it for him/herself; a refined male person, considerate to the point that he spends himself in helping others to squander their wealth. If the word 'road' is used as a prefix, the implication is that the help offered is a somewhat nefarious commercial enterprise.

AGGRESSOR That participant in a quarrel weak enough to allow him/herself to be held responsible for the first move.

AGILITY Nimbleness in avoiding the finger of guilt.

AGITATOR A statesman who shakes his neighbour's fruit trees to dislodge the worms. [AB]

AGREE Manufacturedharmony.

AID Helptotheneedy,commonlyintheformofaswift kick in the pants.

AIDS A disease of acquired immunity to women, commonly found among possible men.

AIR A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. [AB] An atmospheric gas creating winds that play a tune whose appearance assumes the affectation of an unsubstantial fashion. Note: Pony tails are worn by blondes to hide the air hose by which they and their minds are inflated.

ALARM An event signalling danger, presenting such a clatter to the senses as to render you confused and semi-conscious in order to ensure that no untoward actions occur to permit escape from the danger. ALDERMAN An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding [AB] -- taxation.

ALIAS A name assumed not to be the name of the assumee.

ALIGHT A beacon to stop you when you arrive, and to add to your weight so you can descend.

ALIMONY In the so-called western world, a provision of the courts to transfer the wealth of the husband to the wife when the latter, deeming the former to have acquired all the wealth he is likely to obtain, elects divorce to seek greener pastures. In the wisdom of the rest of the world, a dowry willingly paid by a bride's family to a husband for having undertaken to marry and support her.

ALLERGY Overt physical reactions of the immune system to covert psychological causes, attributed to exogenous events for convenience of classification.

ALLIANCE A union of two thieves who, having their hands so deeply inserted into each other's pockets, cannot separately plunder a third. [AB]

ALLOPATHY Creating a new disease or poisoning the victim to cure a putative existing disease. Syn: Medicine.

ALLOWABLE Permissible because it cannot be prevented.

ALLOWANCE A pittance granted grudgingly to purchase acquiescence.

ALONE Inbadcompany.[AB]

ALOUD The most oppressive way in which somebody else can read.

ALPHABET The lexicographer's most prized possession.

ALTAR/ALTER A ceremonial table on which is placed to change its state someone's person or possessions.

ALTERABLE The most precious capability of another's behaviour.

ALTERNATIVE One of two impossibles between which to choose.

ALTOGETHER The whole that is said to be greater than the sum of its parts.

ALTRUISM Selflessness in giving to another something you do not want -- commonly the dirty shirt off your back, to be washed (another all-too-truism).

ALWAYS At all times and all places, unfortunately.

AMANUENSIS A devilishly attractive young woman whose sister had the misfortune of averaging out the family's beauty -- the latter being your secretary, while the former is your competitor's secretary.

AMBIDEXTROUS Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. [AB]

AMBIGUITY Events open to more than one interpretation, so the interpretation made is assuredly the wrong one.

AMBITION An overpowering desire to be vilified by enemies while living, and to be made ridiculous by friends when dead. [AB]

AMBULATORY Sick, but walking; not yet needing to be carried.

AMELIORATE The kind of improvement noted when one stops banging one's head against a wall.

AMENABLE Submitting with a 'so be it' to any kind of mistreatment.

AMNESTY The state's magnanimity to those offenders it would be too expansive to punish. [AB] See: Probation.

AMORPHOUS A shapeless and irregular form of amorousness.

AMPHIBIAN Able with equal ease to walk on the bottom of the water and the top of the land. AMPLE Too much.

AMPLIFIER A machine of destruction for the ears.

AMPUTATE Surgically to remove a part of the body deemed no longer to be useful or needed.

ANAESTHESIA A substance used by physicians to render rebellious patients unconscious and at their mercy.

ANALGESIC A means by which to kill killing pain.

ANALOGOUS Imagined similarity between two different things.

ANALYSIS To separate something into its component parts; to scrutinize the thing in detail -- the better to be confused by the resulting plethora of things.

ANCIENT Tomorrow's view of today.

ANGER Keen displeasure usually attributed to injury by another, but more commonly caused by impatience.

ANIMAL A vegetable capable of locomotion.

ANNUAL An event blessed bythe fact that it appears but once a year.

ANNUL To declare today that yesterday's lawfulness is illegal.

ANOINT To grease a king or other functionary, already too slippery [AB] from greasing his own palm.

ANONYMOUS Blessed by being unacknowledged and unidentified.

ANSWER A-swear, defanged by misspelling.

ANTICIPATE To foresee disaster and thereby aggravate both the probability of its occurrence and the pain of its encounter; to foresee, expect and be prepared for a future anachronistic catastrophe.

ANTIPATHY Sympathy inspired by another's success. ANTIQUE An ancient relic, commonly barely recognizable, no longer having either its original condition or any use, prized solely for its age, and costing far more than a new and functioning one. The reverse relationship of value and price applies if the antique is human.

ANTI-SOCIAL Harmful to society; helpful to oneself.

ANXIETY The commonest of feelings -- that of uneasy fear, worry and apprehension, that your competitor might succeed better than you.

APART One of two parts, separated, as in marriage.

APATHY A remarkable level of motivation and dedication, commonly found among employees. The behavioural domain of this state is torpor and somnolence.

APHONIA A blessed state in which another demonstrates total loss of voice.

APOLOGIZE To lay the foundation for a future offence. [AB]

APOTHECARY The physician's accomplice; the undertaker's benefactor; the grave-worm's provider [AB]; and the next probable beneficiary of medicare.

APPAREL The mask to hide ugliness; the veil preventing despair; the screen to avoid the provocation of nausea; the covering to prevent arrest.

APPEAL In law, to put the dice into the boxforanother throw. [AB] In life, to get others to pay your way.

APPENDIX A necessary part of the body frequently removed by surgeons to enlighten their students; a necessary part of a book frequently removed by editors to enlighten publication costs.

APPETITE An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labour question. [AB]

APPLAUSE The echo of a platitude. [AB] APPLICANT One who, hat in hand, begs for the opportunity of servility; one who, with pride of heart, stands prepared to decline the offer of too menial a position.

APPOINTMENT The application of nepotism.

APPRAISE To assign valuelessness to a commodity or person.

APPRECIATE The process by which increasing value is assigned to the valueless and the misunderstood.

APPREHEND To seize and hold an idea of person, whichever is more available.

APPROPRIATE To take to oneself or steal -- which, by convention of verbal identity, is suitable and proper.

APPROVAL Sanction and ratification with satisfaction, but without proof.

APPROXIMATE A degree of resemblance slightly greater than utterly different.

APTITUDE A skill in performing a meaningless and worthless activity, namely, the activities involved in taking an aptitude test.

ARBITRARY The capricious exercise of personal will, as is characteristic of the actions of traitors and arbitrators.

ARCHAEOLOGY A discipline devoted to the task of reviving and revivifying antiques that are dead without benefit of reincarnation; a cunning way to throw a great curve at architectural and archetypal knowledge.

ARCHITECT One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft on your money. [AB]

ARENA An imaginary rat-pit in which a statesman wrestles with his/her record. [AB]

ARGUMENT A discussion or debate in which the attempt is made to reason to a conclusion that is both unreasonable and contrary to all evidence.

ARISE Preliminary preparations for lying down.

ARISTOCRAT A rat in lion's clothing.

ARITHMETIC The art of reckoning to confusion.

ARMS The weapons of the body; the weapons directed at somebody.

ARMISTICE A brief pause in war, agreed by all sides on the assumption made by each that it will gain the advantage in the time to reinforce.

ARRAIGN To summon a prisoner into court to answer charges about an act of which he/she has no knowledge (due to plea bargaining).

ARREARS Being in the rear of obligations that rear their ugly heads.

ARREST Formally to stop and detain one accused of usualness. [AB]

ARSENIC A flavour added to food, reputed to have effects on the taste and on the longevity of the intended gastronome.

ARSON A practice, commonly encountered in cold climates, where the actor seeks by lighting a match to create warmth in the ambient environment, instead creating warmth in the breasts of prosecuting attorneys, insurance agents and correctional administrators.

ART Aproductinvestedwithvaluebythosewhowillbe deprived of their fortunes as a fine for having valued the product.

ARTIFICIAL Unnatural, feigned, non-genuine, as anything made or done by people.

ASK Toputaquestiontheanswertowhichyoudonot know, and which is probably none of your business. ASS One who sings or speaks in public, having a good voice but no ear [AB]; one who sings in public, having a good ear but no voice; one who speaks in public, having a voice but no ear or nose.

ASSAULT A narrowly proscribed range of actions from gently touching another to murderously attacking with an entire army.

ASSEMBLE To bring together things that would rather be apart.

ASSERTIVE Positive and confident in statement, although positively wrong.

ASSESSMENT Officially to determine the value of property, such as personality, for purposes of taxation or other forms of violation.

ASSOCIATION To bring things together to increase confusion.

ASSUME To make an ass of u and me, by undertaking to take on a supposition, as if granted.

ASSURE To make certain and inform confidently, as assuring that one will eventually die.

ASTRONOMY The science that, having despaired of being able to unravel the things of this world that can be seen, heard and touched, has resolved to unravel the mysteries of the rest of the universe, most of which it cannot even see.

ASYLUM A place offering sanctuary to people who cannot tolerate (or cannot be tolerated in) the place where they used to live, and who cannot adapt to the place to which they have moved.

ASYMPTOTE An imaginary line that meets a supposed curve at an imagined point called infinity -- revealing the meaninglessness of mathematics.

ATHLETE One who expends his/her energies in useless endeavours whose sole purpose is the expenditure of energy. ATROCITY An outrageous, wicked and cruel deed, as another stepping on your toe by accident.

ATROPHY Wasting of tissue. Wastage of other kinds, such as hunting or athletics, may result in a-trophy.

ATTORNEY A mis-representative who, having acquired power over your goods and wealth, disposes of it in small part to others, and in large part to him/herself.

ATTRACTIVE Having the power to cause another to draw near, to self-destruct -- a force possessed of much gravity. AUCTIONEER One who proclaims with a hammer that he/she has picked your pocket with his/her tongue. [AB]

AUDIBLE Distressingly, demanding attention from the ears.

AUDIENCE Spectators or listeners who feign enjoyment of grotesque spectacles or noise for personal reasons independent of the purposes of the performers.

AUDITOR One who listens attentively to your accounting of your insupportable expenditures, judges you false, and adds a large additional expense to your burden.

AURA An invisible breath or emanation; a distinctive air or quality that characterizes a person or thing. Syn: Stench.

AUSPICIOUS The expedient prediction that a hoped for opportunity will yield prosperity -- the one chance in thirteen million of winning a lottery.

AUTHOR One who seeks distinction or recognition by imposing his/her fantasies on others to distract them from their own.

AUTHORITY One who holds his/her knowledge to be superior to that of others, whether or not that knowledge flies in the face of all reason and evidence.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY The fictitious account of the remembered part of your life -- the declining years. The earlier part is best forgotten and too ordinary for publication. AUTOCRACY Government.

AUTOMOBILE A thing that moves itself wherever it wants to go.

AVERSIVE An attribute of a stimulus that evokes pain or discomfort in the stimulated and the stimulator in proportion to the intensity of the stimulus.

AWAKE A time-dependent state, occurring mostly on weekends and after 5 PM on weekdays, but only if there is no work to do around the house.

AWKWARD Clumsy; lacking in grace or dexterity -- as the appearance of the word, awkward.

AXE Animplementintendedtobeburiedinwooden blocks, especially those found on people's shoulders.

AXIOM An undemonstrated proposition, concerning an undefined set of elements, properties, functions or relationships, that is taken to be self-evident and an accepted idea.

BAA The vocalization appropriate to sheep, and to humans created in their image. Abbr: B.A.

BABBLE The conversational ability of infants and of those who care for or about them.

BABY A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion, and the meaningless babble produced by, at and about it. [AB] Said to be characterized by a loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other. Akin to infant that, along with child, denotes a dreadful human ailment from which those of judicious understanding seek, with all haste, to cure the afflicted into normal adulthood.

BACCHUS A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. [AB] BACHELOR A miscreant who has eluded custody, but who has been detected preparatory to his apprehension.

BACK That part of your friend it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity. [AB]

BACKBITE To speak of another as you find him/her when he/she can't find you. [AB]

BACKWARD The opposite of smart and forward, often confused with the latter, as in the famous blunder: 'The Light Brigade is Backward'. In the attempt to clear up the confusion, psychologists have reversed the contingencies in the famous Ash experiment, resulting in the Ash-backwards experiment.

BACTERIA One of the three things with which physicians know how to deal. This one they approach with murder in their minds.

BAD Allthatisfunisbad. Allthatisnotisgood. Strangely, it feels good to be bad.

BAG A container for garbage. See also Purse.

BAIL Themeanstoreimbursethecourtfornotbeing able to enjoy prosecuting an alleged offender at once.

BAIT A preparation to make a hook more palatable. [AB]

BALANCE That which protects you from falling over on your face or your credit.

BALCONY A shelf suspended by a building, designed to stimulate vertigo.

BALL A rubber boomerang which, discarded, insists on returning whence it came; a spherical object aggressively pursued incessantly by hordes of serious-minded devotees bent on making devout spectators out of herds of sheep.

BANAL Uncommonly commonplace; extraordinarily ordinary; unusually usual; inexhaustibly exhausting. BANK A steep decline over which your body or credit may fall if your balance is poor.

BAR A rigid rod-like musical phrase, sounding shallow and sandy, to exercise, support, confine or impale, while getting you drunk to ease the pain, most commonly with a chocolate flavour -- and reputedly stared down by Davy Crockett. Is it any wonder bars confuse people?

BARE Asnatureintendedustobe,andwesoseldomare.

BARGAIN A commodity priced to increase sales and profits. The price assigned to a bargain is calculated by multiplying its market value by 3 and subtracting 20% to 50% from the result.

BARK Audiblecoveringonthetrunkofadogtree.

BARN-YARD A microcosm of the human community (or the courts), containing lots of chicken feed, chickens, turkeys, cats, dogs, cows, horses, asses, hogs, sheep, and the scavenging wolves (or lawyers) to eat them.

BAROMETER An ingenious instrument that occasionally guesses correctly the weather we are having. [AB] The barometer reached its zenith as a measuring device when several means were found to use it to measure a building's height (beyond using it to measure top-to-base relative atmospheric pressures or consulting the official plan for the building).

BARRISTER A lawyer who, having been admitted to the bar, expects to be paid for each drink he/she takes.

BASE A soothing and sweet substance that forms the lowest and most inferior position at the bottom and supports other edifices, such as the location from which armed forces conduct war.

BASEBALL A sport, indigenous to America's United Mistakes, dis-playing the national Oedipus Complex. In the game, the entire world cheers a young man seeking, against the will of an opposing force, to prevent a projectile from becoming lodged in a gloved cup, by using a large size phallic object. If he succeeds, amid much clatter, he is chased around the area with projectiles hurled mercilessly at him.

BASIN Adishintowhichwaterispouredtomakethe water dirty.

BATH A mystic ceremony[AB], employing a large basin, by which the vast unwashed multitudes become transformed and made fit for social and other forms of intercourse.

BATTLE A method for untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue. [AB]

BEARD Thehairthatiscommonlycutoffbythosewho justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head. [AB]

BEAST See Husband.

BEAVER A large rat with a penchant for destroying trees and rivers which, along with the frog with whom it is reported to have an intimate relationship, has been adopted as the national symbol, image and character of Canada.

BECAUSE The beginning of a c[l]ause that has no end, that seeks to justify the unjustifiable, and that externalizes the responsibility for an internally motivated act. It is a good example of an English word that permits an error while permissively suggesting how to correct it: Be-[at]-Cause.

BED A type of rock; standing furniture for reclining; reclining space to nurture standing; bottom of a body of person or water. Used to cultivate intimacy between people and flowers.

BEFRIEND To make an ingrate. [AB]

BEG To ask for something with an earnestness proportional to the belief that it will not be given. [AB] BEGGAR One who has relied on the assistance of his friends. [AB]

BEGINNING The origin and completion of each task.

BEHAVIOUR Conduct as determined, not by principle but by breeding [AB]. An ephemeral intangible purportedly the subject matter of the putative science of Psychology, which justifies its scientizing by noting that behaviour is temporally-distributed (cannot be found if looked for at the wrong time), in contrast to spatially- distributed physical things (meaning they will not be found if looked for in the wrong place).

BELIEF A statement with no visible means of support.

BELLADONNA In Italian, a beautiful lady; in English, a deadly poison. A striking example of the identity of the two tongues. [AB]

BELLOWS An instrument for directing a strong current of air, to create a draft and ignite a fire. The most valued possession of a politician in whom is implanted a bellows to ignite and fan fires in the hearts or personal interests of others.

BENEFACTOR One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude. [AB]

BET To wager against the laws of chance. See also Miracle.

BIAS Alinecuttingdiagonallyacrossthegrainof a fabric; a prejudice, as when another's opinion cuts diagonally across against the grain of your convictions.

BIGAMY An offence against common decency and the law, found most commonly among males of most species. Bigamy was explained most succinctly as: Higamous hogamous, woman is monogamous; hogamous higamous, man is polygamous. Some bigamists use the term in the form: Big-of-me.

BIGOT One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. [AB] BILL Asharpobjectthatbitesdeeplyintoyour material possessions or income.

BINOCULAR The unhappy capability to see with two eyes what you did not want to see with one.

BIRTHDAY An annual event, mourned by bathing in decadence as a compensation for another year of declining faculties. Sometimes rendered: Bath-day.

BISON In America, a shaggy bovine mammal; in Australia, an object to wash one's faice in. Some Americans term the latter: a cynic.

BLAME Censure assigned to another for one's own fault.

BLIND Blessed with the inability to see the vileness of others. A special case of selective blindness is called Love.

BLINK A brief moment of blessed blindness.

BLOSSOM A blasted bloomin' thing, offensively colourful.

BLOT A stain of ink having no particular shape or meaning. It is used for this its character by psychologists as a means to study meaning in perception and disorganization of personality.

BOOK A collection of pages already stained with ink, and without space for further staining -- it is therefore useless.

BORE Onewhotalkswhenyouwishhim/hertolisten. [AB]

BORN The past tense of the first and direst of all disasters. [AB]

BOSS Tocommandinadomineeringmanner--hence, employer or supervisor.

BOTANY The science expressly devoted to the study of vegetables. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly ill-designed, inartistic, deadly and foul-smelling. [AB]

BOTTLE A container with a narrow neck and mouth, capable of being covered to keep its contents where they ought to be left.

BOX Pugilism to protect offensive and defenceless objects from view, itself without a container to hide it from view.

BRACELET A gaudy adornment for the wrist, signifying captivity or slavery, sought with rapacious vigour by the unfair sex; available as a prize for crimes.

BRAGGART One who speaks of his/her accomplishments that exceed your own.

BRAIN The apparatus with which we think we think [AB]. The universal scapegoat made responsible for the human operations of failing to control the body and actions correctly, failing to regulate itself accurately, and failing to learn what it's expected to learn. This last failure offers educators the sublime opportunity to evade the responsibility for failing to teach effectively by imputing pejorative labels to the untaught (eg., Learning Disability, Attention Deficit Disorder). Brain is so highly honoured in government that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office [AB].

BRANDY A cordial composed of one part thunder-and- lightening, one part remorse, one part bloody murder, and four parts clarified Satan. [AB]

BRASS Analloyof copperandzinc,foundinlarge quantity in sophomorons, young employees and other near-neophytes.

BRAY The conversational ability of an ass.

BREVITY The soul of wit and of witlessness. Ultimate brevity of speech is the silence of wisdom.

BRIBE An inducement to action, valued in the wisdom of the Orient where it is understood to be to everybody's advantage, and made a crime in the western world where it is understood to be potentially to someone else's advantage. [AB]

BRIDE A woman with a fine prospect of happiness, behind her. [AB]

BRIDGE A section of false teeth to permit articulation of difficult passages without drowning or other disasters.

BRIEFS Shorts serving as underclothing, commonly submitted to argue the impropriety of the wearer, or seeking to suggest that the bare facts be revealed.

BRILLIANT Our own random collections of grunts and whines, clothed in the shining vivid colours afforded by our own attention to them.

BRUTE See Husband. [AB]

BRUXISM A nocturnal residual of chewing the cud, resulting in ground down teeth and support for dentisadistry.

BULL Amalecowwithahump,apackofliesandan inordinate amount of aromatic excrement.

BUSH An unsightly disarray of sticks participating in entrepreneurial commerce as nature intended it.

BUZZ Thefore-runnerandsequeltoasting.

CABBAGE A vegetable having a head in many ways indistinguishable from that of many humans.

CABINET A cupboard having several compartments, each serving as a repository for a Secretary or Minister responsible for a section of the government.

CAGE A barred or grated enclosure for confining birds, animals and other criminals. CALAMITY An uncommonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. [AB] Calamities are of two kinds: our misfortunes, and others' good fortune.

CALLOUS Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. [AB]

CALM Quiet, serene, unresponsive to the turmoil and torment infesting the lives of others.

CAMERA An instrument to record for repeated review scenes that were painful enough to be vividly retained in memory without it; a miraculous device that, in the twinkling of an eye, permanently recreates the world bereft of size, distance and depth.

CANNABIS A weed, burned and inhaled by those wishing to become vegetables incapable of resisting folly.

CANDID Impartial, fair, straightforward and open, as any utterance by a politician.

CANNON An instrument employed for the rectification of national boundaries. [AB]

CANON An instrument to rectify personal beliefs. Scientists claim they believe in the canon of parsimony (a razor that, waved by an ancient, graduated him as a barber). However, their interminable hair-splitting (ostensibly with the said razor) and the unassailability of their beliefs in the face of evidence, brands them as adherents to the canons of warfare, ill-will, intuition, faith, guess-work, and sophistry.

CANVAS A white fabric that is commonly defaced with ugly patterns of messy paints. The thus destroyed fabric, is reused to evade the garbage, offered at high price to sophisticates to be displayed as honest evidence of how easily they can be duped.

CAPITAL An excellent seat of mis-government [AB]; a top- of-the-line action of a system of justice that serializes murders to afford fiscal advantage to the media in titillating its victims, the public. CAUTION A wary anticipation that makes the inevitable all the more calamitous.

CEILING The bottom of the bottom of the next floor up.

CELEBRATE To observe with due ceremony the passing of an event.

CELEBRITY One who has become well-known for doing something in public that nobody else would ever dare to do.

CENSOR One who undertakes the duty of preventing others from exposure to media contents he/she enjoyed.

CENSORSHIP An unlawful task assigned by government to naive others to ensure that information in the media paints a picture of life as composed solely of dangerous, sensational and shocking events.

CEREBRUM That part of the brain that cerebrates little of any importance -- most highly developed in humans.

CHARACTER That collection of immoral and unethical acts that mark one person as barely different from any other. CHARLATAN One claiming to have skill or knowledge superior to your own in a field in which you believe yourself to have superior skill or knowledge.

CHARM The magical power of something about another that forces you, against your will, to be drawn to the other to be abandoned. Thus, the initial cause of shame, hopelessness, despair and divorce.

CHASTE Onewhohasneverbeenchased.

CHEEK A light and impudent sauce with a moral flavour constraining it to be beaten on both sides before it bites back.

CHEER Anything that promotes happiness and diligence, as hearing about the misfortunes of your enemy.

CHEMISTRY The science of the composition, structure, properties and reactions of matter or substance. It has no substance and it doesn't matter. It is commonly used to abuse the body by changing its natural and healthy chemical composition, structure, properties, reactions to the advantage of the physician and chemist.

CHEQUE A paper directinga bank to give moneyit has purloined to another. The bank may decline to comply with the direction if analysis reveals that the paper is made of rubber.

CHERISH To hold dear. The term is ambiguous, as one may cherish both another's and one's own infirmities. The latter are cherished in a different way, by holding them too dear to be supported.

CHICAGO A mythical city in the Ozark mountains peopled with Al Capone's comic characters such as Li'l Abner, Daisy Mae and the rest of the mafiosi.

CHILDHOOD The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth. [AB]

CHINA An oriental country, made in England for Americans to eat off.

CHOICE The evidence and exercise of free will, by which we demonstrate that we are utterly determined to choose precisely as we do due to the situation's constraints acting on us and our own needs and greeds.

CHOW Edible dog, used as a farewell, neverserved hot.

CHRONOGRAPH The watch we watch to watch out that our work does not invade our own time; the instrument by which we gauge the disparity between our work and our remuneration for it. Two mice ran up a chronograph. The clock stuck one, but the other got away. H.D.D.

CHRONIC ILLNESS A life sentence to abuse by the health system.

CIGARETTE American hindus' most celebrated contribution to western culture -- for distant communications.

CIVILITY Being as rude as common politeness permits. CIVILIZATION The process acclimatizing man to living with woman without being in a constant state of war.

CLAIRVOYANT A person, commonly a woman, possessed of the power to see clearly that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead [AB]; a person, commonly a man, wishing voyeuristically to see clearly through obscuring window hangings.

CLARINET Instrument of torture operated by one with cotton in his/her ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarinet -- two clarinets. [AB]

CLASSIFICATION A game of darts in which A, knowing nothing about B or C, assigns B to C for the enlightenment of A, the entertainment of B and the burdenment of C.

COLUMN A pillar supporting a thing or point of view, consisting of lines of words or numbers -- as boring at the bottom as at the top.

COMFORT A state of mind produced by contemplating your neighbour's uneasiness. [AB]

COMMENCEMENT A ceremony marking the end of a time of education.

COMMENDATION A tribute we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own. [AB]

COMMENTATOR A tater that is in every respect more common than the rest of us spuds.

COMMON LAW That part of the Law which is commonly understood by women, unknown to men, and is commonly used to abuse the latter in court.

COMMON SENSE The kind of sense common to 'the masses', having no resemblance to that which is correct or true. The common reliance on common sense, which depends upon intuitive 'understanding' (counter to the counter-intuitive), gives rise to the necessary and true admonition that: 'If a million (or more) people believe anything, it is bound to be wrong.'

COMMUNICATE To impart the disease of misunderstanding. COMMUNISM The political persuasion of those who are to the left of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun.

COMPATIBLE A state of harmonious association immediately preceding open warfare.

COMPETENT Barely qualified and capable of doing a specific menial task.

COMPETITION A woman's approach to another woman's flower (of beauty); a man's approach to another man's things; humanity's approach to nature; inhumanity's approach to business, life and 'success'.

COMPLAIN To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction or resentment, usually about others' comparative good fortune.

COMPOSED Calm and serene in the face of another's calamity.

COMPROMISE Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he/she got what he/she ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing that was justly his/her due. [AB] Resolution that assures that nobody will be satisfied.

COMPULSION The eloquence of power. [AB]

COMPUTER Deity as conceived and constructed by the electronic engineer.

CONCRETE Tangible footwear afforded by assassins to assist their subjects to stand erect though immersed in water.

CONCUSSION Percussion with the head.

CONDOM A device preferred by those who trust physics over chemistry; a device to deny nature her way.

CONDONE To accept the inevitable graciously.

CONDUCTOR One who orchestrates the movement of a train of events from one place to another. Its body is comprised of conductible material. However, if it acquires or dissipates charges along the way, it is said to be improperly insulated, and a poor conductor.

CONFABULATE To speak as a politician; to advertise; to lie.

CONFERENCE An administrative device that groups together the most highly paid employees to maximize costs and minimize effectiveness.

CONFESSION A formal declaration of guilt, to prevent undue wastage of the court's time, extracted by police from a hapless innocent bystander chosen at random.

CONFIDANT One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided to him/her by C. [AB]

CONFIDENTIAL A label assigned to material that must be burned or destroyed, rather than merely discarded, after everybody not entitled to see it has had sufficient opportunity to examine it.

CONFIRMATION The affirmation that a requested reservation is available and will be held -- an affirmation that will later be denied; firm agreement with a tion (whatever a tion is).

CONFISCATE To seize private property for the public treasury -- one example of magic in law, whereby an unlawful act is transmuted into a lawful one.

CONFRONTATION A process in which A (see Ass), having connected his/her headset to the microphone into which he/she speaks, turns up the volume to his/her headset and instructs B in the error of his/her ways -- B being a complete stranger. Confrontation is held to be the proper process by which a criminal (actually an innocent) is converted to a clear appreciation of the errors of his/her ways and is led to correct them. This position is tenaciously held by the righteous who, having been expelled from convents or monasteries for their extero-punitive insistence on a return to the Inquisition, and for dogmatism and rigidity scores exactly equivalent to those obtained by the most serious criminal offenders, have obtained employment in the justice system.

CONGRATULATION The civility of envy. [AB]

CONNOTATION The configuration of associative implications constituting the general sense of an abstract expression beyond its explicit sense. How's that for the connotation of a word? Honestly, that's a direct quote from the American Heritage Dictionary. Enjoy its connotation if you can and want to.

CONSCIENCE The fear others will notice your nose grow.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS Scrupulously honest, painstakingly thorough, careful -- in elucidating another's faults.

CONSENT Yielding to irresistible pressure from an offer you cannot refuse.

CONSEQUENCE An event purported to be the result of a cause.

CONSERVATIVE A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal who wishes to replace them with others. [AB]

CONSIDERATE Having enforced regard for the feelings of another.

CONSIDERED Accomplished thought, reached after one micro- second of off-hand deliberation.

CONSOLATION The knowledge that a better person is more fortunate than yourself. [AB]

CONSOLIDATION The process by which accidental learnings, insignificant knowledge and silly ideas, having waited a decent time in short-term memory without dying, become irrevocably imprinted in the brain and personality -- to replace other learnings painfully acquired in the process of maturing. Consolidation is the psychologist's recognition that interment is inevitable when remains have been properly and ceremoniously blessed. CONSTANCY The universal illusion that things seen retain their size in spite of radical changes in the size of the retinal images deriving from changes in distance. One of nature's ways of reducing variety to increase boredom.

CONSTERNATION Sudden dismay, as when a locomotive bears down on you while your car is stalled on the railway tracks.

CONSTITUENT That part of the whole that is mis-represented by another, for whom he/she did not vote and whose views he/she violently opposes.

CONSUL A person who, having failed to secure an office from the people, is given one by the administration on the condition he/she leave the country. [AB]

CONSULT To seek another's approval of a course of action already decided upon. [AB]

CONTAGIOUS Capable of carrying and transmitting disease; tending to result in epidemics -- as news reports and violent programming in the media.

CONTEMPLATE To ponder or consider deeply -- commonly the application of common sense to achieve an instant impression.

CONTEMPT The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed. [AB]

CONTEMPTUOUS A contemptible way to be.

CONTENT Satisfaction derived from contemplating the substance of another's miseries.

CONTRACT An enforceable agreement entered by mistake, from which both parties commonly shrink.

CONTROVERSY A battle of wits among the witless, to revoke existing wisdom and replace it with a smoke screen of banalities, the better to glorify the contestants in an imaginary history of thought. CONVENT A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness. [AB]

CONVENTION An accepted practice, generally used, of formal assembly of delegates to reach a universal agreement to stay away from work for the period of the convention and to get drunk. The term was chosen for its implication of associated celibacy.

CONVERSATION Wasting time in making inarticulate sounds, to create misunderstanding and controversy.

CONVERSE Closer to the truth, as it applies to what people say to account for themselves and what they do.

CONVERT To misappropriate another's beliefs.

CONVICT Formally to assign guilt for the misdeeds of the prosecutor and judge to another, at which time the term and state is changed from a verb to a noun.

CONVOCATION A fair for the display of minor mental commodities, in which each exhibitor is too intent upon his/her own wares to notice that the same wares are displayed by his/her neighbours.

COOPERATE To work together toward a common end, commonly the disparagement or destruction of another.

COP To steal or take, hence, a policeman.

CORPORATION An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without personal responsibility [AB] or obligation; hence, a pot belly.

CORRECTION A punishment meted out by subtracting that which belongs to the individual, and adding that which belongs to someone else.

CORRUPT Immoral, perverted, decaying, putrid; i.e., government.

CORSET A means for creating fiction, falsification or fantasy, allowing the user to alter the shape of the unimaginable universe to create an image closer to what one imagines others imagine it ought to be.

CORTEX The part of the brain with which we think we think. Actually, we don't think well enough to matter, so the cortex is either a fiction, or of no importance or a central part of Texas.

COSMETIC Paint to cover skin to create an impressionistic painting purporting to improve on nature's art- work.

COSTLY The price of goods and services.

COUNTER-INTUITIVE Correct; right; antithesis of Intuitive, Common Sense. That which is said to be counter- intuitive is senselessly implied to be bereft of truth.

COURAGE The state of mind adopted in the face of danger when escape is impossible.

COURT A place where games are played, commonly seduction of the opposite sex or of jurors.

COURTESY An artificially polite manner adopted in court or courting.

COVER To hide something from offending sight, hearing or smell. Sometimes rendered Cover-up.

COW Aheftyheiferthatcan'tbehefted.

COWARD One who in perilous emergency thinks with the legs. [AB]

CRAFT A fool's substitute for brains. [AB]

CRAZY A term employed to refer to the ideas of another when they cannot be understood due to the listener's own mental retardation or abnormality.

CREATIVE A term employed to refer to works in order to account for their high cost in light of the fact that they don't represent anything in the universe, don't mean anything and have no use. CREDENTIALS Papers purchased by A, signed and attested by B, purporting to show that A is pre-eminently qualified to meddle in the affairs of others. The papers are purchased, at high cost in time and money, from B who never met or knew A.

CREDITOR One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions. [AB]

CREDITS Accomplishments claimed by A as credentials (not signed by B or anybody else) displayed, but never scrutinized, as public record, conforming in detail to a format presumed by all to be prescribed.

CREDULOUS Disposed to believe that the creativity claimed by another enhances the value of the other's work.

CRETIN A little person diminished by proportionately little brains, reputedly due to little output from a little gland, although there is little to support this little contention.

CRIME see Commerce.

CRIMINAL One whose acquiescence and socialized adaptations have led him/her either to acknowledge or to fail to defend against accusations by the envious, and who has therefore been found guilty of performing a usual act of commerce. Criminals are sentenced, as punishment for acquiescence and socialization, to a period of supervision and re-education, to afford the educational system another try to teach them true socialization involving the skills of the lawyer (see there) or of the magician (see there), or at least those of artifice and denial.

CRITERION A test for truth that has passed the test of political acceptance by dint of clever salesmanship.

CRITIC One who boasts him/herself hard to please, who nobody tries to please [AB]; having no capacity for pleasure; one who boasts him/herself reasonable and correct, whose task in life, while denying the desire to give pain, affords nothing but pain.

CRITICISM The act of putting another down, remarking the faults in others, or complaining about another's responsibility in something presumed to be wrong. The unfounded faith that you know better than me what I'm trying to do and how best I should do it.

CROOK A bent or curved implement or person, such as the Law or a criminal, employed in the business of those who seek to control sheep. Syn: Politician.

CROWD Acleverdevicebywhichanumberofpeopleis assembled to mill about in a given place to obscure the operations of usual commerce.

CRY Inarticulatesoundsmadebyababyofanyage.

CUBE A conventionalperson, ora square, made the more so by the addition of a third dimension.

CUE A weapon that assumes several forms. Billiard cue: a long, strong, pointed stick with purposes equivalent to a policeman's billy, but used most often to poke at small balls. Stimulus cue: a subtle weapon used by psychologists to enforce, surreptitiously, a conditioned response to emerge from hiding. T.V. cue: a card on which is written the words to be mouthed, to the despair of the audience, by an actor -- one incapable of any skill save that of reading the written word out loud to make an ass (see there) of him/herself.

CULTURE That aspect of social living said to represent the creative and intellectual side of investment in the times. Distinguished from civilization, referring to how people manage to get along with each other in social life. Both concepts are greatly over-valued. In truth, they refer, respectively, to the number of things society can produce to dissipate the boredom of idle times, and the amount of stereotypical activity that can be maintained by people in society short of killing one another out of sheer boredom. CUNNING The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: 'The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.' [AB]

CUPS Containers for containers of milk, offered in graded sizes as an advertising ploy.

CURE Inmedicine,death.

CURIOSITY An objectionable quality of the female's mind- lessness. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul. [AB] It is said to be a, probably congenital, tendency to be attracted to the novel and strange. This pervasive conflict of the female soul is poignantly reflected in her attraction to the strange (man) and to novel life experiences, while defending herself against both to retain her virtuous monogamous condition that she values above all else, at least publicly and politically.

CUSTODY Confinement, segregation and supervision afforded to hide the purported less-than-human being from the easily offended eyes of proper society, while dehumanizing procedures can be introduced the better to humanize the one in custody. An alternative formulation proposes that the purpose of custody is to hide and protect the less-than- human being from the commerce of proper society while his/her delicate sensibilities are toughened for effective participation in that commerce.

CUSTOMER One who has become accustomed to waiting endlessly to be served, and who is well-advised while being served to beware.

CYCLE A series of events recurring as a whole, as going up and down or round and round. Thus cycles are inherently boring. Cycles are of several sorts. Mono-cycles: monotonous circles. Bi-cycles: doubly boring circles. Tri-cycles: triply boring circles. Sound cycles: wavy noise. Mood cycles: interminable waves of changing levels of boredom.

CYLINDER Anything hollow, round and long; interminable, empty and boring.

CYNIC A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as others would like them to be, nor as they ought to be, nor as they are purported to be. The Scythians had the custom of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his/her vision. [AB] They must have valued cynicism, given that it worked.

DABBLE The approach to the derivation of knowledge employed by scientists.

DAINTY The word between Daily and Dairy in the Dictionary.

DANCE Toleapaboutinalarm atadeafeningnoise pervading the environment, sometimes while clinging for protection to a neighbour's wife or daughter [AB]. The female of the species is immune to the clatter so that she both tranquillises the male with her participation, and receives her share of the torture by placing her feet under those of the stampeding male. One evidence contradicting the contention that dancing is a vertical position with a horizontal desire is the fact that the leaping stampede remains for a while in the presence of the noise instead of moving at once out the exit.

DANGER That which makes all people cowards; operationally, that which is the proximal stimulus for a leap or stampede up a tree or out the exit.

DARING One of the most conspicuous qualities of a person who is absolutely safe. [AB]

DARK Definednegativelyasanabsenceof light. Weare in the dark about the positive definition of dark.

DATA Two syllables without meaning, among the earliest uttered in infancy. The term therefore refers to an early form of recordable meaningless nonsense. It is no accident that data forms the basis of science.

DATE A time specified according to a calendar and clock, to be forgotten if possible.

DAWN Thetimewhenmenofreasongotobed[AB](hence adopted as a woman's name), and slaves of tyrant custom get up to commerce in the marketplace. It is a time too when certainly elderly people get up, take a cold shower and go for a long walk or run, pointing to this habit as the cause of their robust good health and longevity. People of understanding know that the reason why only robust people do this sort of thing is that it has killed all the others who tried it [AB].

DAY A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. The period is divided into two parts, the day proper, and the night or the day improper -- the former is devoted to the sins of business, and the latter to the other sort, although these two sorts of sins overlap. [AB]

DEAD Allgoalsachieved.

DEAF A blessed condition following closely upon exposure modern or rock 'music'.

DEBATE The basic operation and skill in the practice of law, in which two individual automatons, having no interest, belief, values or ethics, adopt, for the sake of their personal amusement and presumed entertainment of others, opposing points of view. Each defends the adopted view for a time before giving up and going home, with no concern for the effects of their enterprise on others.

DEBAUCHEE One who has so earnestly pursued a pleasure that he/she has had the misfortune to overtake it. [AB]

DEBT An ingenioussubstitute forthe chain and whip of the slaver. [AB]

DECIBEL One tenth of a bel, the latter being l less than a bell. A kilobel is the contemporary unit of measurement of intensity in modern music, and its lowest known value is one thousand kilobels, or a megabel -- the point at which hearing is already dead and the auditory system committed to hell.

DECIDE To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set. [AB]

DECISION The fact of having decided. The result is inertia.

DECLINE To refuse to deteriorate downwards into gradually weakening disease. Hence, affirming youth and health. DECORATE To cover the beauty of simplicity and the natural with flamboyant ornamentation and raucous colours.

DEDUCE To infer the obvious from the manifestly obvious, but wrong.

DEEP Extending to a distance below the surface; profound and learned. That which cannot be experienced or is not understood by others (probably because it is misleading or wrongly inferred) is called 'deep'.

DEFAME To lie about another; to tell the truth about another. [AB]

DEFECT A mote a blind person can see in another's eye.

DEFENCE Any means by which to avoid dealing with that which is not there but, being invisible, is presumed to be there and dangerous.

DEFENCELESS Unable to attack. [AB]

DEFERENCE Courteous yielding to the opinions of another in the presence of too many of his/her friends to permit opposition.

DEFIANCE Intentionally provocative resistance to authority -- one mark of a loser.

DEFICIENCY The extent to which another falls short in virtue to yourself. DEFINITIVE Precisely outlined and determined, as these definitions.

DEFLATE To lessen the confidence, pride or certainty of another by pricking a hole in his/her ego and releasing the air that supported it.

DEGENERATE Less conspicuously admirable than one's own ancestors. [AB]

DEGRADATION One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment. [AB] Delboeuf's Degradation Law states that a sensation is always strongest on entry...into consciousness, and diminishes in intensity thereafter. The exception that proves this rule is found in sex.

DEJECTION A state of melancholy arising from contemplating the advancement of another.

DELAY To linger longer, as in old age.

DELEGATION The process by which a millstone is shifted progressively to lesser and lesser backs where it can less effectively be borne.

DELIBERATION The act of examining one's bread to determine on which side it is buttered. [AB]

DELIGHT Joy and great pleasure afforded in the desolation of one's enemy.

DELINQUENT A young person accused of being usual.

DELIRIUM A condition common to advanced alcoholics, the insane and lovers.

DELIVERANCE Rescue from bondage or danger, as in winning a lottery.

DELUSION A false belief that does not yield to reason, demonstration. punishment, or other efforts aimed at reinstating the deluded in those delusions commonly agreed not to be false.

DEMAND To make an offer the other cannot refuse. DEMEAN To debase in dignityor stature, as when a pet dog is treated as though it were a human being.

DEMENTIA Divested of mind. Psychologists deny mind, they do not divest one of it. Psychiatrists denude mind, they do not divest of it. Psychopaths demand that one mind, they do not divest themselves of it. The rest of the world is mindless. Nobody has yet discovered who is divested of mind.

DEMOCRACY Government of the people, purportedly by the people. Democracy doesn't exist. If it were by the people, there would be no need for government, since the people would regulate themselves. Democracy (degeneration of Demon-Crazy) comes into being because people will not effectively govern themselves. This results in the need to be governed by others, which is Autocracy or Poligocracy or Bureaucracy -- the only real forms of government.

DEMOGRAPHY Statistical investigation of populations, whereby it is determined that the populations studied are not the populations intended, where the former's characteristics are not studied, and the latter's characteristics are unknown. Demography justifies the generalization that: 'If all the statisticians in the world were lined up end to end, it would be a good thing.'

DEMONOLOGY Knowledge of demons. Demons are spirits that are not familiar spirits. Since they are unfamiliar and unknown, there is no such thing as demonology.

DEMONSTRABLE Capable of being proved or shown to be true, but not yet proved or shown to be true, and therefore not yet known to be demonstrable.

DENIAL Repudiation or disavowal, frequently taken to mean that that which is denied is true -- or why bother.

DENSE Crowded together, thick, impenetrable, dull, stupid; denoting that crowds are stupid. DENTIST Formerly a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulled coins from your pocket [AB]; now an alchemist who, putting base metal into your mouth, derives gold from your pocket.

DEPARTMENT A distinct division of a large organization intended to insulate individuals in it from those in other departments, the better to allow their deportments and departures to go unnoticed.

DEPENDENCY A state in which a person behaves in a manner similar to another, usually older, person. Thus advanced mental age or high intelligence.

DEPENDENT Reliant on another's generosity for support when not able to exact it from his/her fears. [AB]

DEPLORABLE The lamentable condition of being at the mercy of another.

DEPORT See Exile.

DEPRESSION The state of mood most naturally attuned to a proper appreciation of the state of social reality.

DEPTH Widely acclaimed as a measure of one's knowledge, perspicacity, feeling and wisdom, as well as a measure of one's grave and the journey to be traversed when one is in it.

DERANGE De place where de deer and de antelope play.

DESENSITIZE To remove another's sensitivities or anxieties, especially about others, and thus to render another defenceless in the face of others' slights.

DESERT A region made barren by environmental extremes, especially extremes of rationality and impracticality, as found in universities.

DESERVING Worthy, meritorious -- of a swift kick in the pants

DESIRE The Achilles Heel of the bachelor. DESPAIR The emotion appropriate to the discovery that you cannot order the affairs of the entire world.

DESPOND The pond in which people of reason see the reflection of the world as it is, and from which they derive the basic ingredient for getting drunk.

DESTINATION The place of an eternal future.

DESTINY The tyrant's authority for crime; the fool's excuse for failure. [AB]

DESTITUTE Devoid of ideas.

DETECTIVE The word used, by one who suffers from high- frequency deafness, to refer to a defective on the police farce.

DETENTION A period of confinement for those who might have performed an offence, so the real offender has a chance to repeat the offence while those who might have been responsible have an iron-clad alibi.

DETERMINATION The force of intention to continue in a wrong course.

DETERMINISM The philosophically-naive doctrine that all events are caused by other events pre-dating the former, ensuring that no novelty can be achieved in the universe beyond that fore-ordained. It ignores the human purpose to destroy the universe.

DEVELOPMENT The process of growing up, over, down and out.

DEVIATION Anything fun others do that is different from what you accept that others should be allowed to do.

DEVIL Thebig'D'thatisthesourceofallevilthat befalls or overtakes you.

DEVOID The condition of another with respect to virtue; the condition of oneself with respect to vice.

DIAGNOSIS A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse. [AB] DIALECTIC Argument, purporting to be reasonable, but really interminable.

DIAMOND Valueless, indestructible bauble worn by women as an ornament. Really used to preserve fingernails in scratching out other women's eyes. Its cost is its weight multiplied by the total weight of those baubles that have been stolen.

DIAPHRAGM A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels. [AB]

DIARY Adailyrecordofthatpartoflifethatcanbe disclosed to oneself without blushing. [AB]

DIATRIBE A bitter and abusive verbal attack of one tribe on another -- in which the responsibility for a major error is shifted from your employer to you.

DICHOTOMY Separation of meaningless events into two classes of equally meaningless events, ostensibly to increase the meaning of each class of events. This increases the number of meaningless events in life, and requires one thereafter to suffer the pain of seeking means to discover the relationships, if any, between the dichotomized meaningless events.

DICHOTIC Listening with two ears to noise you didn't want to hear with one; doubly chaotic.

DICTATOR See Boss.

DICTIONARY A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language, making it hard and inelastic [AB], and forcing people to restrict the range of sounds they make.

DIE ThesingularofDice. Thesingularformisnever used under the edict: 'Never say die!' [AB] This edict allows us to imagine that die occurs a plurality of times, thus supporting the view of transmigration of souls such that living occurs more than once.

DIETITIAN One who, having been trained in how chemicals interact with each other in cooking, holds him/herself out to be an expert in nutrition -- concerning which he/she has as little expertise as you do.

DIFFERENCE THRESHOLD Variously termed, 'Difference Limen', 'Just Noticeable Difference' or 'Least Noticeable Difference'. All refer to the time elapsing between when the traffic light turns green and the person behind you starts honking his/her horn.

DIGESTION The process by which victuals are converted into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead, [AB] or nutrients are converted into nuisances.

DIGIT SPAN A test method, which does not use the fingers or toes, for creating inattention through disinterest, thus to measure the span of attention. Measures are expressed as the number of thumb-tip to baby finger-tip distances from attention.

DIGNITY Nobility and worth assigned to oneself for the misfortune of having been born a human being, and used to compensate oneself for the obvious advantages that would have been acquired by being born an animal or a vegetable.

DIGRESS To stray from the narrow and painful path into pleasant fields.

DILEMMA A situation presenting only two distasteful alternatives. Syn: Life.

DILIGENCE Characterizing one's own work in contrast to that of others.

DIMENSIONS Measurements such as girth. In the plural form usually referring to measurements at wrong angles to one another. This is one of the few English words that has a masculine and feminine form or shape. The feminine form is 'Statistics'.

DIMINISHING RETURN Syn: Asymptotic. The point at which the rate of growth becomes so infinitesimal it can safely be ignored; the average rate of growth of a person's learning and erudition.

DIMPLE A disfiguring pit, misassigned value in beauty.

DIPLOMA A document attesting to an individual's proven ability to tolerate indefinitely the boring, the irrelevant and the immaterial, thus qualifying him/her for employment in any kind of work.

DIPLOMACY The patriotic art of lying for one's country. [AB]

DIPLOMAT One appointed by his/her government to perform diplomacy in public. Diplomats are selected at government poker games, and are exiled (see there) for being winners.

DIRECT Instruct; immediate; shortest -- take your pick. The most 'direct' travel route is a 'Traffic Jam'.

DIRECTION Instruction; orientation; points of a compass -- it doesn't matter which. To get 'direction' is to be told to do the wrong thing in the wrong way and in the wrong direction.

DIRT Composition of the entire earth, deplored and exempted from access to homes, themselves made of it; language and stories used by all, but deplored and exempted from exposure in 'proper' society; a shirt's state before it is generously given away.

DISABILITY Something one person doesn't have any more, that he/she imagines someone else has.

DISABLED Ideally situated to be able to get others to help.

DISABUSE To replace one error with another.

DISAPPOINTED To expect anything.

DISCIPLINE A skill implanted in one by the application of leather, invective and criticism as a companion to skills in murder and mayhem.

DISCORD See Discussion. DISCOUNT Disregard another's count of his/her virtues.

DISCREPANCY Divergence between errors mistakenly taken as facts.

DISCRETE A separated section of Crete. Concrete comes from the unseparated section of that island.

DISCRIMINATE To note the particulars in which one person or thing is more objectionable than another. [AB]

DISCUSSION A method to confirm others in their errors. [AB]

DISGUST A feeling or emotion of nausea or repulsion brought about by having had too much of a good thing.

DISINTEGRATION A bi-annual event in the process of human development -- the more enduring of the alternating cycles of your child's mis- development.

DISMISSAL A precursor to seeking to rest in the greener grass of another person's yard.

DISOBEDIENCE The silver lining of the cloud of servitude. [AB]

DISORIENTATION Your neighbour's state when he/she ignores the information you have given him/her.

DISPARITY The state of being drunk and disorderly at a party, which one affirms is dissimilar (but in fact is identical) to one's real self.

DISPLACEMENT The process of shifting responsibility for an action to the back of another who is more able to bear the burden of defamation.

DISPLAY To show off or exhibit -- an exhibitionist's act.

DISPOSAL An inclination, order or arrangement to get rid of garbage.

DISPROVE To affirm the error of another's views.

DISSEMBLE To put a clean shirt upon one's character. [AB] DISSOLUTION Absolute commitment to a pleasure.

DISSONANCE Modern music.

DISTANCE The one thing that the rich are willing for the poor to have and to hold. [AB]

DISTILL Unplough, motile, now (see Dictionary Z).

DISTORTED Your uncomplimentary view of my outlook on life.

DISTRACTION A destination to which wives and husbands frequently drive one another.

DISTRESS A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of another. [AB]

DIVERGENT An approach to thinking in which convention and expectation are abandoned in favour of flexibility, creativity and reality.

DIVIDE To separate into parts, implicitly of equal size, as in dividing common-wealth into parts assigned to its people. Hence the division of wealth between the rich and the poor is commonly held to be equal, with the dozen or so rich justly receiving an amount equal to that received by all the poor.

DIVORCE Dissolution in marriage. Each side agrees to stay apart and to disagree on everything. Thus lawyers can serve as mediators, so the courts can act to assign the commonwealth to the distaff side in order to be able to pay at least one lawyer.

DIZZY To walk a mile in the shoes of a Whirling Dervish.

DOCILE Having ceased to resist; probably dead.

DOCK A slip between two peers.

DOCTOR One who, having completed the highest degree of training in the highest institution of learning, is found qualified to read, and maybe write, a book. Commonly restricted in its use to those who, having completed a lesser degree of lesser education, hold themselves out to be able to refer to the diseases and distresses of the body by their Latin names.

DOCUMENT A device invented by lawyers and administrators to allow them to entertain themselves by reading so they can ignore what's going on around them.

DOG A carnivorous beast held in such fear by humankind that it is permitted to survive only in captivity.

DOGMA A doctrine held tenaciously with much audible clatter but no visible matter for its support.

DOMESTIC House broken and properly civilized.

DOMINANCE Seeking control over others who are seeking someone to control them.

DONATE Enforced contribution.

DO NOT A paradoxical and contradictory instruction designed like a donut: Do eat the whole; do eat the dough. Not eaten the hole; not eaten the nut. The only way to abide by this instruction is to do the act (eat the dough) and undo the act (burp up the hole), eating the whole thing but not the hole thing.

DONUT One who is crazyabout fattening the wad he/she carries in his/her purse, pouch or paunch.

DOOR Themostvaluablepartofaroom--thepart through which one can leave.

DOUBT A state of mind appropriate to dealings in the marketplace.

DOUGH A pliable substance, sometimes called bread, that is rapaciously pursued by one and all.

DOUSING A method for getting wet with the aid of a willow wand. Civilized people note that the willow wands used are not hollow and hence cannot conduct water. Doubting its efficacy, they call its practitioners whyches. Whyches note that the civilized, having indoor plumbing, do not need wells to be all wet.

DOWRY Oneofthemeansusedbyuglywomentomake themselves attractive or appealing.

DRAFT Awindusedtolureyoungmentotheirdeath.

DREAD An appropriate emotion in the face of a better armed adversary.

DREAM Realityasitispresentedinthedark.

DRILL An implement of dentisadistry creating excruciating pain, the threat of which serves to exact a high fee for an anaesthetic.

DRIP One who is all wet.

DRUM Anafflictionof theearallowingpainarouteto enter.

DUBIOUS Decidedly undecided.

DUCK A foul creature with greased floats which, when given a proper bath, doesn't stink but sinks.

DUEL Aformalceremonypreliminarytothe reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed, the most deplorable consequences may ensue. [AB]

DULLARD One of the ruling dynasty in letters and life. [AB]

DUMB A saint possessed of the power of silence.

DUPE See Customer.

DUST A plentiful substance supplied by Providence to support the financial needs of the allergist; a domestic activity seeking to dispel all evidence of the earth's most plentiful substance to obscure all remembrances of the inevitable goal of life. DUTY Thatwhichsternlyimpelsusinthedirectionof profit, along the line of desire. [AB]

DWARF An adult person blessed with the abilityto understand empathically the viewpoint of the child.

DYAD A sad arrangement in which a monad must take another into account.

DYE A substance used to permit anything the advantages of a chameleon.

DYING Living.

DYNAMITE A substance with an explosive disposition.

DYS- Inseparable prefix conveying the meaning of un- (French for unity), or mis- (short for a Miss that is as good as a mile, the plural forms of which are Misses or Mistress). Dyspepsia is the most commonly associated word using dys-.

DYSLEXIA Inability or unwillingness to read a dictionary.

EAR Organofhearing. Inthegoodolddays,theorgan was used for hearing. Contemporary composers, however, deem the organ unnecessary and set about noisily to destroy it.

EARLY Before5PM.

EARNINGS Salary; wages; income. The Earnings Law is: 'Expenses rise to supersede income.' This is interpreted to mean that wages ought to grow in inverse proportion to inflation.

EARTH Atinyplanetof atinystar,lostsomewherein the universe, whose tiny inhabitants, in order to demonstrate their enormous power, seek in every way they can to destroy their tiny home.

EARTH-WORM The one inhabitant of the earth determined to turn the tide of the self-destructive habits of the rest of the earth's inhabitants. Some think it may win. EASE Anathema to the physician. Ant: Disease.

EAVESDROP Secretly to overhear a catalogue of your own vices. [AB]

ECCENTRICITY Considered by some to be a normal deviation from the normal. Actually the first person singular in declining the irregular verb: To be nuts, declined as: I am eccentric; You are crazy; he is psychotic; she is a psychiatrist.

ECHO Reflection of sound from an object, resulting in the repetition of the sound you didn't want to hear the first time.

ECLECTICISM A form of sophistry in theory construction in which diametrically opposed and totally inconsistent views are combined, at peak volume, to create an elegant pseudo-theory in which inconsistencies are artfully ignored.

ECLIPSE Obscuring of one celestial body by another, as in falling in love with one person to forget another.

ECOLOGY The branch of natural science that contemplates creatures in their natural environment -- a condition that no longer exists. Syn: Eden.

ECONOMY The principles of the arrangement of any organized operative system where wastage is eliminated. There is no such system -- except our bodies.

ECSTASY A dementing process frequently a precursor of gamous change, either from polygamy to monogamy or from monogamy to polygamy.

EDIT Systematically to destroy a composition by revision, extirpation, and punctuation by a method of random assignment. Syn: Decompose.

EDUCATION That which discloses to the wise and disguises for the foolish their lack of understanding. [AB] The process by which knowledge is systematically and wilfully refined out of existence. A means to extinguish the capacity to learn from experience. EFFECT One of the dire consequences that physical science has perpetrated on the mis-development of behavioural science. In physical sciences, the effect follows after its cause. In behavioural science, the effect precedes the cause. The tiger would have some difficulty in pursuing its dinner if it had already eaten it.

EFFEMINATE Another case of the irregular and genderist nature of the English language. Effeminate is to affect and increase one's feminine traits; emasculate is to dispossess and reduce one's masculine traits. That is, effeminate means emasculate.

EFFICIENCY A ratio of work done to energy consumed, which has been elevated to the status of a 'value' by means of which managers seek to obtain from labour hard work with insufficient help.

EGG Ahard-shelledbeginningfordeath.

EGOTIST A person of low taste and narrow interests, more interested in him/herself than in me. [AB]

EIDETIC An affliction of visualization whereby a person sees repeatedly and clearly in his/her mind an image of something he/she didn't want to see in the first place.

ELASTIC Capable of springing back when stretched, to strike the stretcher.

ELBOW A part of the bodyprovidentiallycreated to be bent to allow self-sufficiency in getting drunk.

ELECTOR One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for a stranger of another's choice. [AB]

ELECTRICITY A shocking commodity; sometimes misconstrued to be a popularly elected Right Incumbent in a city.

ELEMENT The imaginary fundamental constituent of anything; a theoretical construction of a metaphysicist fascinated by electricity; the wish-fulfilling fantasy of a reductionist innocent of all reason. ELEVATOR A platform to raise people to the heights of importance, and to dash their hopes down again to the ground or beneath it. Its role in life is best expressed in the epitaph: 'Here lies the body of William Brown, who attempted to peer up the elevator shaft to see if the elevator was coming down. It was. Age 29.'

ELOQUENCE The art of oral persuasion that white is the colour it appears to be. [AB]

EMANCIPATION A bonds-person's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of him/herself. [AB]

EMBARRASSMENT The natural feeling accompanying usual conduct.

EMBRYO The object that forms the ugliest stage of human development.

EMERGENCY The situation existing when one emerges from hiding.

EMOTION A prostrating disease caused by subversion of control from the head to the heart. [AB]

EMPATHY The mistake of caring to understand another.

EMPIRICAL The method of deriving knowledge from observation and subsequent introspection.

EMPLOYMENT The process of obtaining remuneration from love of work -- evidenced by spending days staring at it.

ENCOUNTER The misfortune of meeting another by accident.

END Thepositionfarthestremovedfromtheseatof accomplishment -- popularly supposed to be the head. Syn: Goal (in English, sometimes rendered Jail).

ENDOMORPHIC A means, employing proper scientific reserve, for calling another person 'fat'.

ENDURE The not-yet-divulged secret of living.

ENGAGEMENT A period of time between proposal and marriage, deemed sufficient to permit one or both to back out, but supposed to be insufficient to destroy desire.

ENGLISH A people inhabiting a foggy part of a small rocky island adrift in an inhospitable ocean, who speak the language for which these dictionaries were written; the languages they are said to speak. The English language is comprised of as many dialects as there are people who speak it. Its words are often taken inappropriately and without permission from other languages, and are rarely pronounced in the way they are spelled, or even in the same way in any two of its dialects. There are only two places in the world where English is afforded appropriate treatment. In Quebec it is outlawed, those who use it are castigated, and a special police department has been structured to deal brutally with those who infringe the language laws. In the rest of the world English is ignored as insignificant or disruptive. The only appropriate dictionary of English is to be found as dictionary 'Z' in this collection, where it is shown that English can be abused in any way one might like.

ENOUGH That quantity of something you like that`s slightly greater than all there is of it in this world [AB] and the next; that quantity of something you dislike that is slightly short of none at all.

ENTERTAINMENT Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by dejection. [AB]

ENTHUSIASM A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance with outward applications of experience. [AB]

ENURESIS A loss of control in sleep, impossible while awake.

ENVELOPE The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-sheet of a love letter. [AB] Truly a functional chameleon. ENVIRONMENT The lesser cause of all pain, misery and disease. The greater cause is the self.

ENVY Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. [AB]

EPIDEMIC Disease spread by contact with the media.

EPIDERMIS The wrapping paper that makes disgusting contents tolerable, if not attractive.

EPINASTIC The clever tactic of achieving advantage by being sick. Syn: Disability Insurance.

EPIPHENOMENA Phenomena occurring fortuitously without effect or outcome. The most common example is thought. Psychologists, knowing it to be useless, camouflage it as 'cognition' to justify doing and studying it.

EPITAPH An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. [AB]

EQUAL In democracy, the relative power assigned to every person. From this derives the Egalitarian State in which a few rule, fewer control the rulers, and the rest are ruled with varying degrees of injustice.

EQUIVOCAL Ambiguity achieved by two or more positions being vocalized at the same time to drown each other out.

ERECTION Something that stands out from its surroundings in proud disdain of the laws of gravity, achieved with the help of hands and materials.

EROSION Eros' erotic process of abrasion, dissolution, corrosion and transposition to ensure decay, mainly of Eros' most diabolical invention -- matrimony.

ERROR The grand route to knowledge and skill, and thus to success.

ERUDITION Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull. [AB] ESOTERIC Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. Philosophers are at least almost able to understand exoteric philosophies. [AB]

ESP Error Some Place; Extra Specious Presumption.

ETHICS Codes that define the 'bad' in human conduct. When a code to define the 'good' can be found, ethics can be abandoned in principle. Ethics are mostly ignored in practice anyway.

ETHNOLOGY The science that treats of the various tribes of humankind, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists. [AB]

EULOGY Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead. [AB]

EVALUATE To assign valuelessness to anything.

EVENING That time when light and dark are even.

EVENTUALLY Never ever.

EVIDENCE Fabricated or trumped up data on which to base a misjudgment.

EVIL Fun.

EVOLUTION The doctrine which, taking up where creation left off, shows how humankind survived the anti- evolutionists by being meaner, sneakier and more prolific than other predators, and how other animals survived by being cleverer than humans.

EXAGGERATE Another's statement of his/her virtues.

EXAM A test of ignorance.

EXCEPTION A thing that takes the liberty to differ from other things in its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman [AB], and the unlike.

EXCESS Toomuchof abadthing;notenoughof agood thing. In morality, an indulgence that enforces moderation by appropriate penalties [AB].

EXCITE To stimulate to inactivity.

EXERCISE One of the many things that are bad for your health, but excellent for your neighbour's.

EXHIBIT By a magician: a cunning stunt; spoonerized by an actress.

EXHIBITIONIST One who deems his/her privates to be a public and interesting affair.

EXHORTATION To put the conscience of another on a spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort. [AB]

EXILE One who serves his country by living abroad, yet is not an ambassador. [AB]

EXISTENTIAL A point of view extolling the transient, futile, inaccurate and painful phenomenon called experience, but omits to concern itself with those kinds of experiences that foster wisdom.

EXODUS Rush hour, as in leaving time.

EXPECT Anticipation leading to disappointment and despair.

EXPECTATION The hope that you will win the lottery of your choice. The hope is supported by the slogan: 'You have to play to win.' Its alternative formulation is more accurate: 'You have to play to lose.'

EXPERIENCE The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. [AB]

EXPERIMENT An advertising method whereby events are carefully orchestrated to yield a given outcome to convince those educated past the loss of all judgement that reality is as the experimenter claims.

EXPERIMENTER Advertiser.

EXPLAIN Compulsion to expand the length of a sentence. EXPLICIT A statement that is so complete, precise and detailed that the listener is utterly confused and unable to use the information.

EXPOSTULATION One of the many ways by which people prefer to lose their friends. [AB]

EXTINCTION The process by which a useful habit decays for want of recognition or reward.

EXTRAORDINARY Peculiar in the extreme; unusually ordinary.

EXTRAVAGANT Your neighbour's style of living.

EXTROVERSION Another version of the pejoratives intended to discourage people from action and participation in the real world, by fostering instead attention to the epiphenomena of thought and the emptiness of inner life.

EYE The sense that artists seek to destroy; the organ made to carry the 'aye' of acquiescence; the thing that creates the 'I' of personal identity; that part of a needle through which a camel can hardly pass. An esteemed part of the body, valued such that any calamity can be made to seem the less by the suggestion that it is 'better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.'

EYE-WITNESS One who affirms stoutly that he/she was present during an incident and saw it, the better to avoid detection as being responsible for a misdemeanour that happened somewhere else at the same time.

FACT Theunbelievablepartof fiction.

FACTOR A force, condition or circumstance, cooperating covertly with others in bringing about any of the undesirable outcomes of life.

FACTOR ANALYSIS One of the methods employed to create the third kind of lie through a mathematical artifice, the effect of which is so to confuse others that they accept uncritically the arbitrarily assigned order and organization in a series of events. FACTORY A building in which people are redesigned and recreated in the image of machines.

FACTS Fictions.

FACULTY Literally, an ability. A term purloined by groups of academics to acquire the illusion that they are possessed of abilities instead of just being plain possessed.

FAD Apatternof behaviourthatitmoreexpressive than useful. Syn: Custom.

FAIR Anexhibitiontoshowthatjusticeisforpeople with light coloured hair who are moderately good.

FAITH Belief without evidence, in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [AB]

FAMILY A group of things or people clinging together for mutual protection.

FAMOUS Conspicuously miserable [AB], miscreant, mistaken or dumb.

FAN A source of appreciable wind supporting an air- head's showing-off.

FAR Still much too near.

FARCE Standardly staged court proceedings.

FASHION A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey. [AB]

FATHER The malefactor in child breeding.

FATIGUE A state produced by continuous exposure to the uninviting.

FAULT An attribute found exclusively in your neighbour.

FAX A true copy of fictions.

FELON A person of greater enterprise than discretion who, in embracing an opportunity, has formed an unfortunate attachment. [AB]

FEMALE One of the opposing, or unfair, sex [AB]; the bitter half.

FENCE A wall to keep your neighbour out and through which to pass your neighbours property on its way out.

FEUD Interactive entertainment for rural families.

FIB Aliethathasnotcutitsteeth;thehabitual liar's nearest approach to the truth. [AB]

FICTION Fabricated commonplaces. The nearest approach of most people to the truth.

FIDDLE An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat. [AB]

FIDELITY A virtue peculiar to one about to be betrayed. [AB]

FILM Slimethroughwhichoneseestheworldasseen through the eye of a photographer.

FINAL Most recent.

FINE Thin, excellent and costly punishment that is acceptable and adds to government funds.

FISH A slimy, scaly creature introduced into water to induce people not to risk drowning and polluting by swimming in it; an edible marine animal amply supplied with sharp barbs for the throat, to maintain supply over demand.

FISSION People's favourite sport, involving casting a missile across the seas, followed by an explosion of warfare with other supposedly lesser beings.

FIT A seizure that is supposed to result in good health.

FITNESS: A proneness to fits. FIX To repair,preparatoryto furtherabuse.

FLAG A coloured ragborne above troops and displayed on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as a red cape waved at a bull, or as a sign on vacant lots in London that reads: 'Rubbish may be shot here.' [AB]

FLAW Singular:the defectin oneself. Plural:the defects in others.

FLEECE The act of taking the coat, and maybe the shirt, off sheep or those created in their image.

FLOOR Ceilingofthefloorbelow.

FLOWER A prettything, cut off before it blooms the better to kill it.

FLUORIDE Deadly poison introduced into drinking water to protect the teeth from healthy food ingested, the better to ensure that the teeth can chatter during the drinker's final spasms of life.

FOLLOW The action of those created as sheep.

FOLLY The gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energies inspire people's minds, guide their actions and adorn their lives. [AB]

FOOL ThefirstTarottrump. Apersonwhopervadesthe domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses him/herself through the channels of moral activity. He/she is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnivorous. He/she it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the telephone, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He/she created patriotism, and taught the nations war; he/she founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. [AB]

FOOTBALL In America, a game played with the hands. The game played with the feet is called soccer. FORBID Edict to ensure that a prohibited action will be performed.

FORD Found On Road Dead. Fearless financier's formerly fabulous fortunes frequently fund Ford's foul follies, from Ford's fictitious, false, fraudulent fanfare. Finally Ford's frail fabrications frequently fail Ford's former friends.

FORE Adirewarningissuedbyoneabouttofirea projectile, to another about to be knocked unconscious by the golfer's missile.

FORECAST Calculated error in predicting what the weather might not be like.

FOREFINGER The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors. [AB]

FOREIGN Preferentially to be ignored.

FORESIGHT Recognition of manifest evidences of impending disaster.

FORGETTING Remembering denied.

FORGIVE To excuse another in advance for a minor fault on the understanding that all of your major ones will be reciprocally excused. To Give For anticipated future misdeeds.

FORNICATE (4NIK8) Coupling, deplored and practised by all.

FORTHRIGHT Candidly to obfuscate.

FORTHWITH Eventually, maybe.

FORTUNATE The calculated success of another.

FRAUD Participation in commerce.

FREEDOM Transferred from bondage of which we are aware to one more subtle of which we are not aware.

FREE WILL The right freely to choose, constrained only by our needs, fears, despondencies and established habits. We assign free will to ourselves as an act of faith, to miscreants as an excuse for prosecution, and to others as a noumenon of mythical origin.

FREUD Variation of Fraud.

FUDDLE-DUDDLE Canada's only contribution to political wisdom.

FUGITIVE One who, unliked is sought after, disapproved is wanted, and disparaged is pursued.

FUNCTION What a behaving thing does, namely, functions poorly; the not-so-much-fun in unction.

FUNDAMENTAL The lowest form of an event. Hence, Fundamentalism is the lowest form of belief.

FUSE Forced connection between things that would rather be apart; the prologue to an explosion.

FUTURE The realm of preeminent causes, that guide our present as it pours into our past; that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured [AB].

GAG A blessed obstacle to speech.

GALLOWS A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. Chiefly remarkable for the number who escape it. [AB]

GAMBLE To wager against the laws of chance, and lose.

GEM Apieceofrock,buriedbynatureanddeprivedby compression of its worthwhile substances that when dug up by humankind is assigned an arbitrary value proportional to the labour required to find it.

GENDER The division between men and women, which assures their mutual incompatibility.

GENEALOGY An account of one's descent from ancestors who did not particularly care to trace their own. [AB] GENERAL An officer of high rank who is commonly widespread in the rear, who is lacking in precision and detail, and who applies him/herself to nothing in particular.

GENES Robust adornment, within which is hidden one's most personal and identifying characteristics.

GENIUS One who has taken specialization seriously and has grown in knowledge toward more and more about less and less until he/she knows everything about nothing. Ever since the principles of the Division of Labour in Society were enunciated, genius has been elevated to the highest rank (see there) of intellectual preeminence and achievement.

GENTLENESS A quality peculiar to those about to be abused.

GERM A prolific and insignificant organism that has had the misfortune to be blamed for all the ills afflicting humankind. The infectious notion attaching to this blame has been extended to account for the ills of the mind, such that it is held that the germ of an idea must be avoided or destroyed lest it create an epidemic of knowledge.

GHOST The outward and visible sign of an inward fear. [AB]

GH-O-TI F-i-sh that you wouldn't beard.

GIRAFFE The naturally occurring version of a Calthumpian, from the ridiculous breed of Halloween costumes.

GLUE Substance inhaled by wood to make it sticky, and by blockheads to convert their putative brains to goo.

GOAL A destination forallwho affirm ordenyoffenses.

GOLF A game of chance in which an actor strikes, if possible, with a stick something on the ground, and then drives a vehicle after the missile to see who it hit. If success is achieved in knocking out a victim, the vehicle may be used to run over the hapless victim, but not the errant missile.

GOOD That which serves your purposes; as opposed to Bad, or that which serves your purposes ill.

GOUT A physician's name for rheumatism of the rich. [AB]

GOVERNMENT That body that enacts the laws that cause crime; mis-administration of public funds and needs, and faulty exercise of power, all obscured under the euphemism of: 'for the public good.'

GRAFT The commerce of government.

GRASPING Ostensibly an automatic reflexive response of the fingers to a desired object in contact with them, and justified by the claimed need for security.

GRATITUDE Herald of another sting; harbinger of another mill-stone; the expected response of one having received a crumb off your table or the garbage of your bin.

GRATUITY The motive for politeness.

GRAVE Aplacewherethedeadarelaidtoawaitthe coming of the medical student. [AB]

GRAVITY The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a force proportional to the quantity of matter they contain. The quantity of matter they contain is ascertained by the force of their tendency to approach one another. [AB] The usage's meaningless circularity having been recognized, the term has now been reserved for the force that keeps a strapless evening gown up, namely, the gravity of what might happen if it came down.

GRIPE An ancient excuse for complaining.

GROOM Oneemployedbyabridetotreatherasahorse.

GROTESQUE A term most often employed by schizophrenics, having an ill-defined but exact meaning, that reveals the user's appropriate understanding of the nature of things and others.

GROUP A plurality of objects or people, that would be awful enough in itself, but also connoting that they appear some way together and alike.

GROWTH Increase in the measurable size of an already too noteworthy thing.

GUARANTOR One who provides the assurance that a debtor will be in default, and the insurance to cover the cost without benefit of a premium to recover the loss.

GUESS The closest approximation anyone can make to stating a fact -- I guess.

GUEST One invited to rob you blind and destroyyour home.

GUILD Toputagoldensurfacesheenonanoldtyranny.

GUILT A sense of wrong-doing, most frequently encountered in the innocent.

GUN Man's fabricated approximation to his own reproductive organ. It falls short of the mark by terminating life instead of creating it.

GURU A wise oriental gentleman whose wisdom is sufficient to provide him the knowledge that occidental persons do not understand usual oriental commerce, but insufficient to let him know that oriental experience is irrelevant to occidental life -- perhaps he/she just ignores that fact.

HABEAS CORPUS A writ by which a man may be released from jail when confined for the wrong crime. [AB]

HABIT A shackle for the free [AB]; something one puts on as a mask to feign being learned.

HACKIN' Renowned composer whose music is often played by youthful student musicians while learning to play compositions by his close relative, Chopin. With luck, they'll go into Hyden.

HAIRSPLITTING The act of burying the hatchet in another's blockhead to assist his/her understanding of what you are trying to communicate.

HALF The lesser of two portions, and that share to be given to another.

HALLUCINATION A peculiarly poignant awareness of reality that, by convention, is denied to the perception of others, and thus is denied reality.

HAMMER An implement used to drown out dissention in a group meeting or in a work-site.

HAND Asingularinstrumentwornattheendof thehuman arm, and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. [AB]

HANG A procedure for murdering offenders that is slightly less gory than decapitation; an act performed to deface a wall with non- representations of nature.

HAPPINESS An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. [AB]

HARBOUR A place where ships in taking shelter from storms are exposed to the fury of customs. [AB]

HAREM A warehouse in which an entrepreneur collects the women he has captured to enrapture himself with his collectibles.

HASH There isno definition of thisword. Nobodyknows what hash is. [AB] Being an uncommitted word, it is used for hashish -- also an unknown substance.

HAT Adornmentandprotectionforaheadthathasno other of either.

HATCHED Born of an egg or an egg-head. In either case, whether chick or idea, never to fly.

HATCHET Diminutive and affectionate term for Axe, commonly offering the suggestion: 'Bury the hatchet'. Often accomplished by its interment in another's head.

HATRED A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority [AB], success or advancement. Derived by combining a concrete representation of a head with the typical colour of the face.

HAY FEVER Despondency and weeping at the sight of ragweed.

HEAD Anterior outgrowth of the trunk in humans and most animals, with the exception of elephants of which it is a posterior outgrowth. The head is accorded a special place in the valuation of the body parts by some of the persuasion of Faustus, until it is too late for its appropriate subordination.

HEALTH A state of being valued and advertised only by those who profit from its absence.

HEAR A word used to proclaim a special talent in the art of listening, and used most frequently to interrupt or drown out the conversation of another; sometimes used as a command to abort conversation from the other.

HEARSE Death's over-priced taxi.

HEART The part of the body blamed for irrationality.

HEAT A commodity for which vast sums of money are paid during half of the year to obtain it, and during the other half of the year to get rid of it. Mothers prepare children early for this conundrum in a poem they must memorize: 'As a rule, a man's a fool. When it's hot, he want's it cool; when it's cool he wants it hot; always wanting what is not.'

HEATHEN A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he/she can see and feel [AB], and which had some part in his/her creation or subsistence.

HEAVEN The goal of the greedy, where a person's grasp equals his/her reach; a place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen attentively while you expound on yours [AB].

HEBREW A male Jew, as distinguished from a Shebrew, an altogether superior creation [AB].

HEDONIC Pursuit of personal pleasure, as diminishing another and exalting oneself.

HEEL Themaintargetforarrowsandbarbs.

HEIR One whose hopes outreach his/her destiny.

HELICOPTER An aeroplane with a misplaced propeller.

HELIX Theouterborderof theouterear,knowntobe flatter and straighter among criminals than among non-criminals, where it is convoluted and curved in a most crooked fashion.

HELPMATE A wife, or bitter half. [AB]

HEM The stitch whose length adapts to fashion.

HEMIANOPSIA An affliction of Ian's vision such that he can see only half of what he thinks he should see.

HERE There (to you).

HEREDITY Transmission from parents to their offspring of characteristics the latter despise in the former.

HERMAPHRODITISM A word, degenerated from Hermanfraudism, which refers to one who can fraudulently pass as a member of either gender by the good fortune of having both gender's genitalia undeveloped on his- her body.

HERMIT A female person whose vices and follies are not sociable. [AB] Masculine: Hismet. This gender separation is one of the reasons for the unsociability and isolation of each.

HIBERNATE To pass the winter in domestic seclusion. [AB] HIERARCHY An arrangement of things or people in ascending or descending order. In morality, the pagan is found at the bottom, and the erect missionary is on top.

HIGH Drunk; sober; feeling calm; feeling aroused; feeling awful; feeling good; above some things; below some things; superior authority; inferior authority; a drink when prefixing a ball.

HILARIOUS Another person's attempt to be serious.

HIP Containerforthe pelvis, from which, byremoving the 'p', Elvis took his name.

HIRSUTE A nice wayto referto a hairlip. Actually, suits him better than hir.

HISTORIAN A broad-gauge gossip. [AB]

HISTORY An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, using soldiers, mostly fools [AB], from a time, mostly fictitious, when men, mostly mistreated, thought their initiatives, mostly instigated by women, and their exploits, mostly to acquire replacement women, worthy to report, mostly to acquire dust in hysterical libraries.

HOLD-UP A temporary delay in the operations of commerce occasioned by a demand for the transfer of possessions from one to another.

HOLOGRAM A three-dimensional hollow picture.

HOMELY The attractiveness of a person destined to be cloistered at home.

HOMICIDE The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy. But it makes little difference to the person slain whether he/she fell by one kind or another. The classification is purely for the pecuniary advantage of lawyers. [AB]

HONESTY A vicious virtue, found mainly in the hostile. HONEY A sickly sweet commodity accompanied by a vicious sting.

HONOURABLE Afflicted with an impediment in one's grasp.

HOPE Desire and expectation rolled into one. [AB]

HORMONE A chemical found circulating in the body, in small enough quantities that it can be accused of causing the barely remarkable sins of which I am guilty, but sufficiently widespread in the body that it can properly be used to account for your extensive and unconscionable faults and transgressions.

HOROSCOPE A wide-angle telescope to preview horrors to come.

HOSPITAL A secure and expensive hotel wherein the physician has established his/her right to confine the unsuspecting to practice the rites of vivisection.

HOSPITALITY The kind of kindness offered to the infirm, defenceless and imminently penurious by hospitals.

HOURI A comely female inhabiting Islamic heaven [AB] who joys only in giving all pleasure that a man might want, and in the quantity desired. The concept, though seductive, makes one wonder whether it has been thought through thoroughly. Superabundance, followed by satiety, might lead the faithful to wish to attend elsewhere. Still, that might serve to control the population of heaven and prevent over-work of these most seemly harem-mates.

HOUSELESS Having paid all taxes on household goods. [AB]

HUMBLE The attitude exhibited by one who is about to humble you.

HUMOUR Vile and infectious bodily fluids spewed on others to dissolve them in laughter.

HUNGRY An internationally cooperative appetizer from Hungary that assures the future economies of the countries of Turkey, Greece and China, and the counties of Hereford, Champaign, Cork and Southern Fried Chicken.

HURRY The dispatch of bunglers. [AB]

HUSBAND One who, having eaten, is charged thereafter with the care of the plate. [AB]

HYDRA A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads. [AB]

HYDROTHERAPY Drowning as treatment. (The treatment fails if the patient survives.)

HYGROMETER A device by which we discover the amount of water in the vicinity as measured down from absolute immersion in the ocean.

HYPNOTIC An artificially induced state of artificial sleep to create artificial effects in one who disclaims all artifices by one whose artificial manner is supported by an artificial transplant of funds from the former to the latter.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS An illness characterized by lack of an illness, treated as an illness to rid the afflicted of the fear of illness, without which he/she would not be ill and in need of treatment.

HYPOCRITE One who, professing virtues he/she does not respect, secures advantages by seeming to be what he/she despises. [AB]

HYPO- Less than or smaller, and therefore able, by deference to its diminutive nature, to control and run everything and everybody while professing to be controlled and run by others.

HYPOPHYSIS A tiny executive endocrine gland that tells all the rest what to do.

HYPOTHALAMUS A tiny executive neural organ that tells all the rest what to do.

HYPOTHESIS A tiny thesis that tells the rest of the dissertation what to do, how it should do it, and the outcome expected. Another diminutive damn executive.

HYSTERIA A condition involving a wandering uterus, arising from repressed impulses and tendencies, resulting in scattered social behaviour and weak awareness of personal sexual desires. It is the idealized image of the western female as presented in the media, and thus the image women repress, deplore and pursue insatiably.

I 'I'isthefirstletterofthealphabet,thefirst word in the language, the first thought in the mind, and the first object of affection. [AB]

Id Abeastunknownthateveryonetriestoavoidand, in avoiding, is preoccupied with and pursues constantly. In typing, 'if it is id' may be rendered, 'id id id id' to represent repression of id impulses displaced into typing errors.

IDEA Somethingsomeofushad...once.

IDEAL Somethingthat none of us quite lives up to.

IDENTICAL Having no independent or personal identity.

IDENTIFICATION A sign recognizing that a person has no personal identity. The identical identities of people is repressed, but is hinted by its abbreviation: Id.

IDENTIFY To pick out your competitor in a police line-up.

IDIOPATHY A kind of pathology for which the physician is too much of an idiot to find the cause.

IDIOSYNCRASY A sin of eccentricity that starts with idiocy and ends in being crazy.

IDIOT A memberof a large and powerfultribe whose influence on human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The idiot's range is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but pervades and regulates the whole. He/she has the last word in everything; his/her decision is unappealable (and unappealing); he/she sets the fashion of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech, and circumscribes conduct with a deadline. [AB]

IDLENESS A farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes growth of staple vices. [AB]

IGNORAMUS A person unacquainted with knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about. [AB]

IGNORANT Having failed to learn something you tried to teach him/her.

ILLICIT Sick of the Law.

ILLITERATE Anybody having less qualification to use the English language than a professor of English, most of whom are illiterate.

ILLUSION Sick of seeing things the way others suppose them to be.

ILLUSTRIOUS Suitably placed to receive the shafts of malice, envy and detraction. [AB]

IMAGINATION A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership. [AB]

IMBECILE An aspirant to membership in the tribe of Idiots, or an immature Idiot.

IMITATION The flattery of fools; behaviour of the dependent.

IMMEDIATE Eventually, but maybe after supper, tomorrow or ...

IMMIGRANT An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another. [AB]

IMMINENT About to transpire or expire, immediately (see there).

IMMOBILE Stationary, as in engineer, in-basket, public servant or upward mobility.

IMMODEST Possessed of a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of the worth of others. [AB]

IMMORAL Inexpedient. [AB]

IMPARTIAL Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy. [AB]

IMPENITENCE A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment. [AB]

IMPIETY Your irreverence toward my deity. [AB]

IMPLICIT An attribute of a statement that was never stated, but which is irrationally expected to be understood by the listener as clearly as the speaker intended.

IMPOSITION A kindness in which I permit you to expend time and effort on my behalf; a presumptuous invasion by you of my time and effort.

IMPOSTER A rival aspirant to public honours. [AB]

IMPOTENCE A condition of less power than the circumstance demands -- in controlling the universe.

IMPROVEMENT Rearrangement to make your things suit my tastes.

IMPROVIDENCE Provision for the needs of today from the revenues of tomorrow.

IMPUNITY Wealth. [AB]

INADEQUACY Insufficiency in the expenditure of another's efforts on one's behalf.

INARTICULATE An Eskimo greeting in the form of a complaint.

INCEST Afamilyaffair.

INCOMPATIBILITY In marriage, a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. [AB]

INCONSISTENT Your position as measured against mine. INCONSOLABLE A consequence of injury or slight deemed to be of such proportions that any attempt to make it right would be insufficient, though the offending person is certainly expected to try.

INCONTINENT A term used to imply the absolute size of verbal or other emissions, implying that nothing short of a continent might be sufficient to contain them.

INCUMBENT The person of the liveliest interest to the out- cumbents. [AB]

INDECISION The chief element of social success. [AB]

INDEX Thatpartof abook,madeupincorrectlybythe wife, and reached by use of the first finger.

INDIFFERENT Imperfectly sensitive to the differences among things [AB] and people.

INDIGENT An indignant gentleman of no consequence or means.

INDISCRETION The guilt of a woman. [AB]

INDOLENCE Into the 'dole' for want of the desire to work.

INEQUALITY The complaint used to re-allocate the 75% of the advantages and 25% of the disadvantages in life originally consigned to woman, so that 90% of the advantages and 10% of the disadvantages are secured as her moral and legal possession and right.

INESTIMABLE A lazy appraiser's excuse for not counting.

INEXPEDIENT Not calculated to advance one's interests. [AB]

IN FACT One rendition of the prelude to a lie.

INFAMY Famousforbeinga scoundrel.

INFANT A loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other.

INFERIORITY A complex set of ideas I have that make me feel less than I am. You don't have a complex; you are inferior.

INFIDEL In America, one who does not believe in Christianity; in Egypt, one who does. [AB]

INFLUENCE The coinage of politics, acquired by popularity bred of attractiveness, and spent only as an investment to increase its possessor's fund. A subtle way to refer to the behaviour of hyper- dominant, but politically-successful, others.

INFORMATION Grains, presumed to be gold, purported to exist in deserts of paper called manuals. Information is dug painstakingly from mounds of data (see there) by those admitting to ignorance.

INGRATE One who receives a benefit from another or is otherwise and object of charity. [AB]

INHIBITION Something that the full weight of the law, admonition and parental guidance seek to increase so that the psychiatrist, in releasing it, can earn his/her daily bread (and then some).

INJURY An offence next in degree of enormity to a slight. [AB]

INJUSTICE A burden which, of all those we load upon others and carry ourselves, is lightest in the hands and heaviest on the back. [AB]

INNATE Natural, inherent, inborn -- as innate ideas, that is, ideas with which we were born, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths in philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof. Among innate ideas might be mentioned the belief in the superiority of oneself and one's country, the importance of one's personal affairs, and the interesting nature of one's diseases. [AB]

INSIGHT Mental discrimination, commonly concerning the errors of one's therapist, the valuelessness of others not one's countrymen, and the vices of those who had the misfortune of being involved in some minor capacity in one's life.

INSPECTOR A spectre we're not 'in' with.

INSTINCTS Inborn animal impulses, mostly the ability to emit a foul odour not unlike that emitted by a skunk.

INSTITUTION An organization representing an established aspect of social or political life consecrated to the eternal maintenance of practices that, by virtue of being obsolete, are in danger of being abandoned. Psychologists, noting that institutions guarantee obsolescence, have cleverly cut themselves off from the political and economic benefits that accrue only to institutional structures.

INSTRUCTIONS A set of statements referenced only when all else fails; statements which, when followed precisely and in detail, lead to wrong outcomes; statements specifying how to construct and use the model you did not purchase, and that is unavailable anyway.

INSURANCE A modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he/she is beating the table and the house. [AB]

INSURRECTION An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government. [AB]

INTELLECTUAL One who bores your head with his knowledge.

INTELLIGENCE The relative problem-solving inability of the mind. Psychologists have adopted this concept, having first denied any interest in relatives (leaving that to geneticists), having denied the mind is meaningful (leaving that to philosophers), having demonstrated their own lack of problem- solving ability, and having affirmed that intelligence is an attribute of the living, functioning, and therefore unobservable, human brain.

INTEREST Increase in one's investment arising from the passage of time and exposure to events. In economics, the more the time passed, the greater the interest -- a winner's game. In psychology, the more the time passed, the less the interest -- clearly a loser's game.

INTERIM Permanent; final.

INTERMEDIARY The target of a cross-fire.

INTERPRETER One who, having invested part-time in learning two languages imperfectly, enables two people speaking different languages to misunderstand one another, by repeating to each what it might be to the interpreter's advantage for each to have said. [AB]

INTERRUPTION What you do when I am speaking that, when I do it, is merely increasing the pace and interest of the interaction.

INTERVAL A period of time between two boring events that is calculated to increase, if possible, the boredom.

INTIMACY A relationship into which fools providentially are drawn to their mutual destruction. [AB]

INTRODUCTION A social ceremony invented by the devil to plague his enemies for the gratification of her servants. It attains its most malevolent development in north American democracy where every person is the equal of every other, from which it follows that everyone has the right to know everyone else -- implying the right to introduce without request or permission. [AB]

INTROSPECTION Discovery of all that is vile and reprehensible through the simple operation of examining the contents of one's own mind.

INTROVERSION An affliction in which the person is cast into the habit of continuous introspection, and is thereby rendered chronically depressed.

INTUITION The tuition paid and received for introspection whereby one discovers that others are motivated by the same vile and despicable intentions and purposes as one's self.

INTUITIVE Incorrect; wrong; presumed knowledge acquired by instantaneous 'feeling' about anything without the benefit of consideration, thought or evidence.

INVALIDATION An impossible scientific process showing that nothing can be demonstrated to be untrue.

INVENTOR A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it to be civilization [AB], or at least culture.

INVOLUNTARY An excuse for a reprehensible voluntary act.

IRRATIONAL Normal conduct, based on feeling and caring, as distinguished from that which is reasoned, intellectual, boring and valueless.

IRRELEVANT Another's comment or point when it is not absolutely consistent with your own.

IRRELIGION The principle one of the world's great faiths. [AB]

IRRITANT Any other person or thing.

IT Id, misspelled.

ITCH A seven year long disaffection afflicting monogamy, which is said to recur each seven years.

JAIL The goal of unsuccessful commerce.

JEALOUS Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping. [AB]

JESTER An officer of the court of a king, whose business it is to amuse those gathered in court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity of which is attested by his motley costume. The jester, called the fool [AB], usually speaks of things as they are, thereby appearing foolish in the eyes and ears of those living lives of pretence. It has since become the custom, especially in court, to state in formal seriousness and earnestness all fabrications and lies, and to speak the truth in jest.

JOST'S LAW A law that unlawfully discriminates in favour of age -- the only support of the value of age known to humans. Needless to say, Jost was an old man who wanted to ensure that his random thoughts would achieve ascendance by repetition over younger ones.

JOY An emotion reserved foranotherand betterlife.

JUDGEMENT An action of persons, who for the purpose are called judges, calculated to advance the interests of the judge and his/her friends, to disadvantage those he/she disparages, and to assure his/her political and economic advancement.

JUSTICE A mythical blindfolded female, in adulterated condition, sold at auction to a citizen as a reward for allegiance, personal service, acquiescence to suppression, and depletion of personal resources through payment of taxes. [AB]

K Oneofthemoreinterestinglettersofthe alphabet. It is a hard consonant offensive to the ear, that is therefore frequently knocked down and silenced. It is unnecessary, its functions being adequately filled by 'C', with which it is often combined: CK is a mixture of ascorbic acid and potassium, useful in handling stress. K is also a constant, called potassium, that varies in its amount in the body, increasing with sleep. In the south, people utter the letter with an anxious stutter: K.K.K. In the northern states, the letter is made long and lean, and is given as a name to some girls: Kay. This variety is not surprising since 'k' is the alienation coefficient, defined by: the square root of 1 minus r squared, where 'r' is the correlation coefficient. Kink of that!

KALLIKAK A fictitious name assigned to two branches of a New Jersey family (same male ancestor, two female ancestors -- his wives), of which one branch (496 people) showed, almost without exception, a record of good citizenship and often distinguished service, while the other branch (480 people) presented an almost unrelieved picture of feeblemindedness, degeneracy and criminality. This meaningless array of statistics, laboriously assembled, shows that there is little difference between politically successful people and crooks, and that the only detectable differences are solely the responsibility and fault of the female parent.

KILL To create a vacancy without nominating a successor. [AB]

KINAESTHESIA An acute and uncomfortable sensation of tension suggesting that relatives are in close proximity.

KINDNESS A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction. [AB]

KLEPTOMANIAC A rich thief. [AB]

KNOWLEDGE The sum total of one's wisdom, comprised of distorted perception, miscreant points of view, misunderstandings, confused thoughts and ideas, faulty memories, decayed learnings, misplaced injunctions, and a rich collection of ill-formed myths and fables, all entombed in dusty books or shiny new computers.

KNUCKLE Something hard and knobby we are exhorted to get under to be knocked down.

KORAN A heavenly book, written for men, making ample provision for polygamy in this life and the next.

KURTOSIS A way to describe the differences among normally occurring curves, purporting to express mathematically the statistics of pulchritude, as platykurtic or flat-chested, mesokurtic or don't mess with this kurtosis, and leptokurtic or wow!

LABOUR A process by which one who does an action acquires property from another. Syn: Theft.

LANDING The dangerous part of flying. LANGUAGE The music by which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure [AB]; the guttural sounds by which social beings are induced to repent for their sins of social intercourse; means for communication having a masculine and feminine form. Masculine: communication to influence or entertain. Feminine: communication to foster relationship or to seek the truth. Thus, another basis for incompatibility.

LAP Amostimportantorganofthebody,usedforthe repose of infants, the support of plates, and to rest the head of one of the opposing gender. [AB] It does not exist when its owner is erect. It is another physical thing that is created and destroyed by events of the ephemeral behavioural world without affecting its physical state.

LAST First in iteration.

LATE Thetimewhenthingsneededaredone.

LATIN The language of ancient Rome, and of modern Medicine and Law, leading the recipient of the latter's services to moan: 'Latin is a language as dead as dead can be. It killed the ancient Romans, and now it's killing me.'

LAUGHTER An interior convulsion, distorting the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. An infectious disease which, though intermittent, is incurable. It distinguishes humans from most (except hyenas) other animals, which are not susceptible to the microbes that propagate the disease. [AB]

LAW An artificial construction of words deemed to possess final authority in the conduct of the universe and in human affairs; formulations derived from interminable debate and brow-beating, by which people seek to reconstruct the universe to suit their own selfish wishes.

LAWYER One skilled in circumvention of the law. [AB]

LAZINESS Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. [AB]

LEAD A plentiful substance precipitated in great quantities at the point of meeting of two opposing patriotisms [AB], and which, by virtue of its active aspect of 'going ahead', is adopted by greedy alchemists and others to convert their impoverished states into possessing others' gold. Its 'going ahead' quality was invented by the ancient Chinese who, bereft of patriotic values and the desires of the alchemist, used the magic powder to entertain children.

LEANING TOWER A great pile of pizza pies each set slightly off- centre to defy the laws of gravity. The intention was to cap the whole construction with a clock on the understanding that there's no point having the inclination if you haven't got the time.

LEARN A continuous process of the brain requiring repeated experience with events, and impeded greatly by exposure to an institutional arrangement structured to enhance it -- school.

LEARNING The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious [AB]; the act of self-inflicted boredom through self-inflicted iteration.

LEARNING CURVE A curve with two asymptotes revealing that whatever it is goes on interminably in both directions.

LEAST SQUARES A statistical method by which information is refined to the point that it becomes insignificant.

LECTURER One with his/her hand in your pocket, his/her tongue in your ear, and his/her faith in your patience [AB]; a lecher whose seductions are reserved for university students.

LEFT RightforthatwhichIface,butnotwhenI've left; right in reflection, but not while reflecting; the ignored and abandoned residual.

LESSON Something to be learned that lessens our options of conduct, thought and feeling; to be left with less than we started with.

LEND Lose.

LENS A pestilential object engineered to make appear closer, larger and more fully visible objects that you didn't want to see at all.

LETHARGY The proper and practised attitude and bodily state of the wise, and of government employees.

LEVEL A plane reiterating the same pull of gravity, providentially constructed to be traversed and re- traversed with the least expenditure of energy.

LEVEL OF ASPIRATION A plane reiterating zero gravity, elevated such that it is always appreciably beyond the grasp, and thus part of the purpose of heaven.

LEVITATION The means by which one is transported and transformed, while living, toward the plane of reiterated zero gravity without visible support.

LIAR A lawyer with a roving commission [AB]; the spelling and pronunciation of lawyer found in Newfoundland -- revealing the basic accuracy and appropriateness of Newfoundlandese.

LIBERTARIANISM A political party and persuasion that is absolutely right and is the only appropriate political party. Its platform is: That government governs best that governs least. A party of individualists based on Rand's Objectivism. A solipsist renounced his solipsism upon receiving a letter from a fellow solipsist suggesting a society of solipsists.

LIBERTY One of imagination's most precious possessions.[AB]

LIBIDO An anagram used to referto the life force or vital energy, taken literally by Freud. The term derives from the words: 'do libel id'.

LIFE A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its fermentation and loss; yet when lost it is not missed. [AB]

LIGHT A substance that is not particularly attractive to gravity, that invades the visual sense to annoy its nerves, that others seek to cast upon us to our dismay, that we hunger for in its absence, and that fatigues us in its presence. Providence has supplied us with eyelids as a means to blot it out, the better to see clearly whatever we wish.

LIGHTHOUSE A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and a friend of a rival politician [AB] too influential to permit his/her friends to be exiled.

LIMIT The outside limit or threshold beyond which one may not stray without changing one's state. City Limit: inside = city slicker; outside = hick. Speed Limit: inside = little old person; outside = criminal; Psychophysical Limit: inside = don't know; outside = may know.

LIP Cheekyand hung-over edge of anything or anybody, especially the mouthy ones.

LITIGANT A person about to give up his/her skin in the hope of retaining his/her bones [AB]. A rapidly propagating species of wolves.

LITIGATION A machine you go into as a pig, and come out of as a sausage. [AB]

LIVER A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. [AB]

LOCK-AND-KEY The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment. [AB]

LOCOMOTIVE A crazy self-propelled machine, providentially restricted to motion along a visible track -- think how loco you might feel if one came screaming at you down the road or through your home.

LOGIC The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accord with specific rules derived from the limitations and incapacities of human misunderstanding. The basis of logic is the syllogism [AB] (silly-ism) consisting of a major and a minor premise that are taken to be true, though usually manifestly false. A conclusion is deduced based on the two probable errors, resulting in a doubly false derivation of knowledge.

LONGEVITY Uncommon extension of the fear of death. [AB]

LOOKING GLASS A vitreous plane on which to display a fleeting and disillusioning show of people's givens [AB], and upon which is seen the given form, altered to suit, either by misperception or enterprising art- form.

LOQUACITY A disorder rendering the sufferer insufferably unable to curb his/her tongue when you want to talk. [AB]

LOST Privationofthatwhichwehad,orhadnot. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he/she 'lost the election', or of any man or woman that he/she 'lost his/her mind'. In the former and more legitimate sense, consider the epitaph: 'Here Huntingdon's ashes long have lain, Whose loss is our eternal gain; For, while he exercised his living powers, Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.' [AB]

LOVE A temporary insanity, curable by marriage. [AB]

LUCIDITY A sane interval in mental disorder, occurring rarely in the species homo sapiens.

LUDICROUS Exciting mirth, scorn and a feeling of superiority, most nearly approximated in contemplating the potency of the human mind.

LUMINARY One who is noteworthy for casting light upon a subject, as an editor by not writing about it. [AB]

LUNARIAN An inhabitant of the moon. [AB] Such creatures have been studied via video. They are found to be born of LLM pods that move on lugs; they look like deep-sea divers, and they have antennae as ears.

LUNATIC One whom the moon inhabits, subject to twitches and cycles from the moon.

LUST Appetite forwhat is imagined most to be desired, most commonly for gold, and next most commonly for the female/male least likely to be accommodating.

LUSTRE Brightness, sheen or attractiveness born of the bright light of imagination concerning an object of lust, subject to fading in the light of reality.

LUX A soap used to measure illumination, said to be equal in quantity to the density of luminous flux on a surface at right angles to the rays, at a distance of one foot from a point source of one candle-power. This saying is false, since a foot from a point source is either a heel or the tip of a toe-nail. Anyway, soap film dims luminosity.

LUXURY That demanded by a want rather than a need.

LYMPHATIC TEMPERAMENT Phlegmatic as opposed to emphatic -- the former involves an automatic limp(h) of the (ph)leg, while the latter involves an automatic phatness of the emph or rotundity.

LYMPHOCYTE A misanthropic white or Caucasian cell that engulfs and murders intruders trespassing in the body -- the police, empowered to murder, of an autocratic political system with highly developed territorial imperatives.

LYRE An ancient instrument of torture forthe ears. [AB] The modern version is called Liar or, more recently, Guitar.

M.A. Abbreviation for mother in her apple pie mode, for Mental Age mostly in a pejorative mode, for Master of Arts in an uneducated mode, and for Mistress of Artifice a la mode. MACE A staff of office signifyingauthority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading dissent. [AB] We have now graduated to the enlightened age of chemistry in which a chemical composition, assigned the same name, is used for the same purpose and effect.

MACHINATION The method employed by one's opponents to baffle one's open and honest efforts to do the right thing. [AB]

MACHINE Any device devised to make a task easier for the doer. Increasingly, however, by being the doer, it is replacing the original doer in the affection and budgets of employers -- another worrisome indicator that employers prefer things that work.

MAD Afflictedwithahighdegreeof intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and conduct derived from the conformants' study of themselves; at odds with the presumed majority; in short, unusual, interesting, and probably right. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they are themselves sane. [AB]

MAGIC The art of converting superstition into coin. [AB]

MAGICIAN One who pulls rabbits out of hats. Sometimes distinguished from Psychologist: one who pulls habits out of rats.

MAGNETISM Something acting upon a magnet. [AB] It is a property of attraction between two things, if one is a magnet. Magnetism is also found in people. It depends upon their comeliness, measured by the speed with which other people come to them.

MAGNIFICENT Having a grandeur or splendour superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass to a rabbit, or the glory of a glow-worm to a maggot. [AB]

MAGNIFY To increase the magnitude or visibility of something in order to observe the better that it was of no interest in the first place. Self- magnification is a prerequisite to achieve the public status of a magnificent luminary.

MAIDEN A young person of the unfair sex, addicted to clueless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus is widespread (geographically too), being found wherever sought, and deplored wherever found. [AB]

MAIL A coat of armour used to transmit messages.

MALADJUSTMENT A French sickness of adjustment, requiring re- adjustment at great cost to the ears and to the pocket-book. The French, in their wisdom, call it a Malady, having discovered it occurs most frequently in a lady. They have also noted, however, that re-adjustments made tend to be temporary, and are followed by re-adjustments made by a male -- called Male-adjustments.

MALE A memberof the unconsidered ornegligible sex. The genus has but two varieties: good providers and bad providers [AB] -- the latter being referred to with various uncomplimentary names.

MALEFACTOR The chief factor in the progress of the human race. [AB]

MALINGER The illness of one whose illness has either bored his/her physician beyond the limits of toleration, or is not understood by his/her physician.

MAN Ananimalsolostinraptcontemplationofwhathe thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is in the extermination of other animals and his own species -- which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. [AB]

MANAGEMENT People who, not having the skills or the patience themselves to do the tasks of work assigned to them, acquire others to do the required work, and then take credit for it. MANE Strawonthebackof ahorse,providentially supplied to be clutched by the rider to avoid drowning in a sea of hooves; straw on the face of a lion, but not to be clutched lest the clutching arm be severed from the body from which it grew.

MANGE French gastronomic activity with taste piqued by a sauce made of skin sores.

MANIA A mental disorder whose prefix specifies that its sober possessor exhibits a high level of uncontrolled excitement when exposed to the prefix. Thus, hypomania is a high level of excitement when presented with hypodermic needles. Without a prefix, everything excites the pathetic sufferer.

MANIPULATION Handling of an object. If the object is a person, since it is indiscreet to handle it, manipulation involves a clever disruption of the other's normal indifference to induce cooperative behaviour.

MANSLAUGHTER The genderist crime performed by a man laughing. Man's laughter is no longer a crime since revolting feminism prohibited discrimination in sex.

MANUSCRIPT Abbr: MS. Expansion: Multiple Sclerosis; by which it can be deduced that a manuscript is a document that cannot support itself, can barely be understood, and is generally weak due to ineffective executive function and diseased communication with the parts.

MARRIAGE The state of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all two. [AB]

MARTYR One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death. [AB]

MASS ACTION The principle that states that loss in a crowd is proportional to the number of parts injured, trampled or deranged (see Riot). The principle has been applied blindly to brain functioning, the degree of malfunctioning of which is said to be proportional to the amount of missing brain. In the real world, where science has not yet found a place, most brains malfunction, and the brainless seem to get along quite well.

MASS MEDIA A set of amplifiers that make commerce out of a vacuum filled with braying, lies and disgust in the consumer. The amplifiers are increased by shocked and angry attention to them. The only known way to cure this malignancy is by complete quarantine.

MATERIAL Imagined to have actual existence, as distinguished from actually having an imagined existence. [AB]

MATERIALISM A metaphysical theory that imputes to matter, as opposed to metaphysics, the only real existence in order to prevent metaphysics from being blamed for the ills afflicting humankind.

MATURATION A long and boring process through which one waits in order to begin the even longer and more boring process of growing to decline.

MAUSOLEUM The final and funniest folly of the rich. [AB]

MAYONNAISE One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion. [AB]

MAZE A thing constructed to confuse a person, and to provide fitness exercises for rats and other lower animals to make them ravenously hungry in preparation for their dinner.

ME The objectionable case of 'I'. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. [AB]

MEAN The most commonly occurring degree -- commonplace, banal, boring, vile, hostile, iterative. It is, however, a degree that sadists fail to achieve.

MEANING The act of forcing interesting events to degenerate to a mean degree. The laws governing enforcement of this degeneration are required reading for all, contained in special records called dictionaries.

MEANINGFUL Having an operational definition, whereby the operations involved in vivisection to enforce meaning are described in frightful detail.

MEANDER To proceed sinuously and aimlessly [AB], as the mind proceeds.

MEASURE The result obtained by applying something else (a scale) to any object to count the number of times bigger the object is than the something else -- hence to demonstrate the superiority of the object over its external scales. By this it is shown that a whole fish is superior to the sum of its scales.

MEASUREMENT The process by which real things are magically transformed into unreal metaphysical events by a process of abstraction and accretion, whereby another thing is placed against the object and removed, leaving its residue (invented by the Arabs to confound the rest of the world) as a new and permanent, if invisible, quality of the original thing, called quantity.

MEDIAN Medium misspelled. A clever way of discovering the middle of a group of events ranked for the metaphysical quality of quantity.

MEDICINE Any of a number of chemical compounds, and the commerces that exploit them. Its proponents claim remarkable effects from it in dispelling devils that, in inhabiting humankind, create diseases of one unkind or another.

MEDIUM One who, while in a trance, is controlled by disembodied spirits, frequently found to have a high alcohol content.

MEEKNESS Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is deemed worth the effort. [AB]

MEGALOMANIA A mental disorder discernible in one's enemies by their inappropriate and excessive overestimation of their own importance.

MEMORY The ability to forget what you are learning in order to extend the period of exposure to one despair at the expense of another. Sometimes misconceived as the storehouse of the irrelevant with which to bore one's audience.

MENDACIOUS Addicted to rhetoric. [AB]

MENTAL SeeMind,ifthereisonetosee.

MERCHANT A shakespearean venetian blind (from birth) with an affinity for heart and a disaffection for bacon.

MERCY An attribute beloved of detected offenders. [AB]

MESS Miss misspelled, to communicate with things placed such that they miss their intended mark.

METAPHYSICS Speculation, removed from economics and placed in philosophy, and having no visible means of support other than the invisible, and commonly non- existent, mind of the philosopher.

METROPOLIS A stronghold of provincialism. [AB]

MICROPHONE A tiny device to magnify a tiny sound -- the means by which mice can roar.

MILIEU The immediate environment in which one despairs of living.

MIMICRY The sarcastic and hostile form of flattery.

MIND A mysterious form of mattersecreted bythe brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature and whether it exists, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but its own doubtful nature with which to know itself. [AB]

MINE BelongingtomeifIcanseizeandholdit[AB]; apt to blow up in my face if I can't or if I don't notice it in time. MINOR Less objectionable. [AB]

MIRACLE An act unaccountable, as beating a normal poker hand of four Kings and an Ace, with four Aces and a King. [AB]

MISCREANT A person of the highest degree of unworth. [AB]

MISDEMEANOUR An infraction of law having less dignity than a felony, and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society. [AB]

MISFORTUNE The kind of fortune that never misses. [AB]

MISOGYNIST One who has been married.

MISTRUST A quality peculiar to those about to be abusive.

MOAT A trench filled with an aqueous substance surrounding a person's home in which garbage is floated, notably decomposed salespersons who sought to invade the home. MOTE: A blindingly tiny boat in the aqueous substance surrounding the eye, floating with garbage composed of the invasions of one's peacefulness by others.

MOB The most elementary type of social group which, under the influence of emotion, acts in concert -- usually for self-protection at the expense of others. The more scared the criminal, the greater the probability that he/she will claim to be a member of the mob. Syn: Organization.

MODE The most commonly occurring one in any class of events -- hence the most commonplace and trite- but-wrong member in a class. This is the basis of the statement: 'If a million people believe something, it's bound to be wrong.' One French application involves the deception of serving detested food camouflaged under ice-cream as a la mode.

MOMENT Those few hours we wait for an appointment while the other is on the phone.

MONKEY An arboreal animal that makes itself at home in genealogical trees. [AB]

MONOGRAPH An exhausting discussion on a single limited topic of no interest to anyone, having the grace to be placed on paper so that it can be used to wrap garbage or to be burned.

MONOTONY Listening to someone reading his/her monograph.

MORAL Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right, having a quality of general expediency. [AB]

MORALE A managerial construction transmitted by E-mail to employees informing them of their moral obligation to be happy in their work.

MORBID The kind of fascination manifested by people in listening to news or viewing traffic accidents.

MORE Thecomparativedegreeof toomuch.[AB]

MORPHOLOGY The masculine branch of biology that examines the form and structure of organisms. The feminine branch of this science is called Aesthetics.

MOTION The apparent state of all other things viewed from the common human state of apparent immobility.

MOTIVE Money.

MOTOR Psychologists use the term to refer to little R- cars that run from the brain to muscle cell garages where, on impact, they turn salt water into jelly.

MOTORCYCLE Motorized conveyance for timorous, but leather- protected, graduated tricycle drivers.

MOUSE An animal that strews its path with fainting women.

MOUTH Inman,thegatewaytothesoul;inwoman,the outlet of the heart. [AB]

MULTITUDE A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. [AB]

MUSCLES What a man mayhave in place of beauty.

MUSIC A cacophony of noises created to be abrasive to the ear.

MUTATION The species homo sapiens.

MUTISM The blessed condition of another lacking speech.

MYELIN Insulation to keep nervy impulses from sticking their noses into other nervous business -- for which advantage we gain in increased fat.

MYOGRAPH An instrument for converting the meaningful and useful actions of muscles into meaningless and useless wavy lines on a page.

MYOPIA Your vision when unable to perceive the truth and correctness in my way of seeing things.

MYSOPHOBIA Morbid dread of dirt, found frequently in luminaries while holding press conferences.

MYSTICISM Belief in the accessibility of truths through contemplation, that are inaccessible to understanding or proof.

MYTHOLOGY The body of a primitive people's beliefs about their origins, early history, heroes, deities and the like, as distinguished from the true accounts of these events invented later [AB] during their de-primitivization after all bases in evidence for what actually transpired are destroyed.

MYXOEDEMA One of the many excuses for obesity, this time blaming the thyroid gland for its deficiencies in restraining the person from eating, and having the advantage also of accounting for the person's mental deficiency.

NAIL Athingwehitwithahammer,andthen triumphantly shout a tinker's malediction while shaking hands with ourselves. NARCISSISM The most widely practised 'ism', especially among females.

NARCOLEPSY Uncontrollable inclination for sleep during the daylight hours, common among government employees and people attending lectures.

NASTY Immoderately inconsiderate of the feelings of others, as in dispatching salad dressing as relief supplies to people reduced to eating grass during a period of famine.

NATURAL Inborn and not evoked. Hence, every response that is natural is against nature and is not susceptible to the laws of the universe.

NATURAL SELECTION 20/20 hindsight about how those who survived survived. An artificial process involving clawing one's way over others less able to survive clawing.

NAUSEA A sickness of the mind giving rise to revulsion in the gut resulting from the attempt to digest an unpalatable substance -- another's success.

NAUGHTY Feminine for wicked, sinful, criminal. In the wisdom of English teachers, affectionate reference to a misdeed having naught of consequence.

NECK The conduit through which the head tells the body how to misbehave and, by convention, severed to prevent further misbehaviour.

NECROPHILIA Sexual arousal and excitement when one's partner is immobile, unresponsive and unable to resist -- most perfectly realized when the partner is dead.

NEGATIVE The result of taking something from zero, creating the illusion you can get something from nothing -- even better than alchemy. No wonder negative funding, negative rewards, negative values and negative attitudes are among humankind's most popular pursuits.

NEGATIVISM Your resistance to my suggestions. My resistance to your views is called Constructive Criticism. NEIGHBOUR One we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all in his/her power to make us disobedient. [AB]

NEPOTISM Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party. [AB]

NERVE A nervous state seen in a bundle of nerves.

NERVOUS DISORDER A disorder of the mind classified as being of the nerves so it can barely be seen.

NESTING A deplorable instinct of birds, which keeps those of the animal kind around to mess up the yard, and those of the human kind driving their mates to over-burden with mortgages and other debts.

NEURAL CONDUCTION Nervy excitement regulated by limiting social consequences.

NEUROLOGY The curiosity underlying neurosurgery.

NEUROSIS A disorder of distress without known biological basis other than the way the body works/functions.

NEWFIE The Canadian equivalent of the American congressman, having similar fame but without the salary or status. Both species are at risk of becoming extinct for want of ice-cubes, ever since the lady who had the recipe died.

NEWS Political rubbish reviewed, recycled and reused; an acronym for the main points of the compass used to mislead the unwary into believing that it describes real events from real sources.

NEWSPAPER Paper covered with all manner of distortions, lies and defamations, whose main purposes and uses are to wrap up garbage and light fires.

NEWSWORTHY Anything that is at the same time false, shocking, distorted and defamatory, and that can be expressed in brief sentences comprised of one- syllable words.

NEWTONIAN Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground if disengaged from its stem, but he was unable to say why. His successors have advanced so far as to be able to say when. [AB]

NEVER Notbeforethisevening.

NICE Apleasuretosee,intheMediterranean.

NIGHT BLINDNESS A convenient excuse to allow your spouse to sleep while you drive.

NITWIT A nobody (see there), in spades.

NOBLE Much loved of a monarch, having no vices, and also no virtues; a condensation of a English and French word, communicating that the noble has no wheat.

NOBODY Almost everybody, as distinguished from Somebody: almost nobody.

NOISE A stench to the ear. The chief product and authenticizing sign of civilization. [AB]

NOMINATE To designate for the heaviest political assessment [AB]; to select another for a hazardous existence.

NONCE Not quite an ounce, with the 'u' turned upside down and moved.

NON-COMBATANT A dead Quaker. [AB]

NONSENSE The kind of sense most commonly evidenced in sentences.

NOSE The face's extreme outpost [AB], prone to receive comment when the ear is eavesdropping (see there) or the tongue is used for commentary.

NOSOPHOBIA Morbid fear of getting one's nose stuck too deeply into a disease.

NOTE Payattentionto,as:adartfromcupid'sbow;a dart from the boss's crossbow; a dart across a classroom; a dart shot at the ear from a musical instrument. All are disastrous.

NOTORIETY The fame of one's competitor for public honours; the kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. [AB]

NOUMENON That which is said to exist, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist -- the latter being a phenomenon. [AB] One of the remarkable phenomena in philosophy is the positing of noumena.

NOVEL A short story, padded. [AB]

NOVEMBER The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. [AB]

NUCLEAR A branch of physics that is neither new nor clear.

NUCLEAR FAMILY Those close associates of genetic relativity that one might wish engulfed in a nuclear disaster.

NUCLEUS The centre orcore of a thing. It haslongbeen unclear whether the thing, or its nucleus, exists. At least there is a name for it if it is found.

NUMB A sensation of lacking sensation -- a non- sensation sensation. Another impossible to complain about.

NUMBER A non-existent abstraction to stand in the place of things, which are unchanged by it, and without which it has no meaning. This non-weed is implanted to afflict the brains of those who wish innocently to pursue scientific knowledge.

NYCTOPHOBIA Fear of the darkness of nyct without street lights.

NYMPHOMANIA One of the most pleasant attributes of some females that presents itself to man's imagination. The discovery that it is non-existent in the specific, and rapaciously present in the general, marks the beginning of man's experience with hell on earth.

NYSTAGMUS A jerk, most easily recognized by movements of his/her eye.

O UsualabbreviationfortheObserver,andfor his/her reaction to what he/she observes.

OATH Inlaw,asolemnappealtoDeity,madebinding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury [AB]; in life, a casual appeal to Deity, often arising from the discovery of perjury.

OBJECT Something assumed to exist and to be before the mind, at any time, perceived, imagined or thought -- thus an obstacle for the mind to trip over. Recently, the metaphysical pursuit, physics, has noted that the mind has to be before the object, or how else could we perceive, imagine or think about the object? In either case, neither object nor mind is specified except in relation to each other.

OBJECTIVE Subjective consideration of objects, as though they precede mind; subjective objects pursued by the mind, as though mind preceded them.

OBLIVION The eternal condition in which the wicked cease from struggling, and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. [AB]

OBSERVATORY A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors. [AB]

OBSESSED Vexed by an evil spirit [AB]; preoccupied with a thought or chain of thoughts to the despair of others who think the thinker should think their thoughts; impaled on a spit of thoughts of no interest to the thinker (or his/her therapist).

OBSOLETE No longer used by the timid [AB] -- as the words you use, my enemy, and all of his/her thoughts and ideas; last year's fashions; yesterday's computer; the day before yesterday's laws; my car.

OBSTINATE Inaccessible to the truth as it is most gloriously manifested in the splendour and stress of our advocacy. [AB] OCCASIONAL Afflicting us with a greater or lesser frequency. [AB]

OCCIDENT The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by so-called 'white people', who (appropriately) wear pink faces. This is a powerful tribe of Hypocrites, whose principle industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These are also the principle industries of the Orient. [AB]

OCCULTISM The doctrine and practice of the Occult -- an unknown doctrine and practice concerned with unknowables. Distinguished from Occulism, or the doctrine and practice devoted to help people see more clearly that occultism is the most valid means to knowledge.

OCCUPATION Another word for Work, Job or Employment, implying that the time used up in it is occupied instead of merely being passed. The chief occupation, of course, is avoiding work.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY Treatment for those inappropriate enough to seek to be usefully occupied in their work. The therapy seeks to disabuse them of this irrational idea by praising them for filling their time with creating baskets and assorted other worthless doodads, destined to decorate garbage bins.

OCEAN A bodyof water occupying two-thirds of a world made for humans -- who have no gills [AB]; that part of the world suitably equipped to sink ships.

ODOUR A noise to the nose.

OEDIPUS A jolly fellow from Greek mythology who had the misfortune of being blind such that he could not distinguish between his wife and his mother -- the mother's role in the story is discretely omitted.

OEDIPUS COMPLEX An attempt to give the American sport of baseball a history. The game pits the entire world against a young man, wielding a phallic object much too big for him, who is intent on warding off another man's missile aimed at a gloved cup.

OFFENSIVE Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy. [AB]

OFFICER One who, having no office of his/her own in which to work, is appointed to office and assigned authority and responsibility to follow another's orders in giving orders to others.

OLD In the stage of usefulness that is not inconsistent with general inefficiency; discredited by lapse of time, and offensive to the popular taste; [AB] young plus a forward time warp.

OLFACTORY The sense that is most acutely tuned to stenches and stinks; an ancient manufacturing facility.

OLYMPIAN Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods; now a repository for yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans. [AB]

OMEN A sign that somethingwillhappen if nothingelse happens. [AB]

OMNIPOTENCE Absolute power with which one feels invested when he/she believes his/her friends to be omnipotent.

ONCE Enough.[AB]

ONTOGENY The evolution and development of the individual. Formerly, when the point was deemed to be interesting, it was said that, 'Ontology recapitulates Phylogeny.' A contemporary parody states: 'Oncology recapitulates Iatrogeny.'

OPERATOR One who performs the tasks of operating a machine (or other devilish device, such as a telephone); one who thinks he/she ought to be driving a tank, to protect him/herself from the effects of his/her own bad driving.

OPHTHALMOSCOPE An instrument to serve as an eye to observe the eye. Distinguished from a Proctoscope -- an instrument to afford the eye a crappy outlook.

OPIATE An unlocked doorto the prison of identity. It leads to the jail yard [AB] or to a bedroom in which to sleep and dream.

OPPORTUNITY A favourable occasion for grasping a disappointment. [AB]

OPPOSE To assist with obstructions and objections. [AB]

OPPOSITION Those wrong ones we rightly despise and oppose.

OPTICAL SYSTEM The system by which we manage to construct our notions of reality by reference to the optical illusions it creates.

OPTIMISM The belief that everything is beautiful, including the ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. [AB]

OPTIMIST One in a mist who, having fallen from the top of the Empire State building, as he/she passes each floor, declares: 'So far, so good.' To be distinguished from the Pessimist, who wears belt and braces, and stays discretely at home.

ORAL Anorificethroughwhichpassgoodthingsonthe way in and, following a magical transformation, all evil on the way out.

ORANGUTAN Your uncle who also is my next door neighbour.

ORATORY A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. [AB]

ORDINATE A vertical axis of disgusting growth.

ORGONE A wonderful, if fanciful, force produced by organic substances, contributing to growth and orgasmic power, as well as to general health. It has been bottled, but it may not be sold, since those who protect us claim that it is nothing but hot air. ORIENTATION The attempt to provide another with organization of thought, direction of action and enlivenment of motivation. It usually results in confusion, bewilderment, directionlessness and immobilization.

ORTHODOX An ox wearing the popular religious yoke. [AB]

OSCELLOGRAPH An instrument constructed specifically to perform oscillations.

OSCILLATION Indecisively going back and forth or up and down.

OSTRICH A large bird to which (doubtless for its sins) Providence has denied the hinder toe, in which many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has cleverly been observed, the ostrich does not fly. [AB]

OTHERWISE No better. [AB]

OUTCOME A particular type of disappointment. [AB]

OUTDO Tomakeanenemy.[AB]

OUT-OF-DOORS That part of the environment upon which governments have only recently found ways to levy taxes. [AB]

OVATION See Applause.

OVEREAT Todine.[AB]

OVERLAPPING Two individuals who have the indiscretion to occupy the same space, commonly a bed.

OVER-LEARNING Practice of a habit until boredom has over-reached itself, and somnolence has set in.

OVERT Something that has lost its covers and shivers.

OVERWORK A dangerous disorder afflicting high public functionaries who want to go fishing. [AB]

OWE Tohave,andtohold,adebt. Theword,from 'own', formerly signified not indebtedness but possession. In the minds of many debtors there remains much confusion on the matter. [AB]

OYSTER A slimy, gobby shellfish that civilization has given man the hardihood to eat, only after woman has acquired the shiny hardened goop that forms around dirt. The shells may be given to the poor. [AB]

OYY An expression formerly uttered by those who perceived things as they are, and consequently were depressed. The sound was taken into English and converted to a rational idiom of speech by using it as an abbreviation followed by a question mark in place of the conventional exclamation point.

OZ Aplacewheremenhaveeverythingtheywant, though manifestly lacking those things, and women are afforded the opportunity to return to their nests from which they never departed. The whole thing is run by a wizard who is a klutz. Some doubt that Oz exists. However, as any child can tell you, he/she has seen it. It is located in a box at home.

PAD Whereoneplacesabarefoot,andcallsithome. PAIN An uncomfortable frame of mind [AB] brought about by intense sensations as when a dancing partner tramps on your toe with the ingrown toe-nail, or when a person becomes a royal cramp.

PAINTING The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic [AB]; a pain from a t'ing afflicting the eyes.

PAIR Twoofsomething,whereonewoulddo.

PAIRED COMPARISON A method to tax the skill of another in distinguishing between two like, but unlikely and unlikable, events, neither of which is of any interest anybody.

PALACE A fine and costly residence for a great official [AB], paid for by taxes, thus diminishing the quality of the residence you can afford. PALM A species of tree having several varieties, of which the familiar 'itching palm' is the most widely distributed. [AB]

PALMISTRY The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in reading character in the wrinkles made by closing the hand, which, if fully closed could not be read nor offer money. Character can be read very accurately in this way. In the wrinkles of every hand examined for this purpose can be read plainly the word 'dupe'. The imposture consists in not reading it aloud. [AB]

PALPATE To touch lightly with the fingers, to discover the location and thickness of the wallet -- the diagnostic act of the pickpocket and physician.

PANTOMIME A play in which the story is told without violence to the language [AB] or to the ears.

PAPER A material commonly created pure and white, provided by Providence to fill empty drawers and shelves, usually to hide it after it has been covered with unsightly ink stains.

PARADOX A sound that is beside itself; a statement apparently involving internal inconsistency, but in fact representing reality as it inconsistently is.

PARALLEL Two events lying in relation to one another such that they proceed to infinity without meeting. The fact that lines are curved in interstellar space, making it impossible to ensure that they never meet, is not considered a disadvantage to this formulation. The lines are only metaphysical abstractions, and refer more to hope than to fact. The lines may represent hopes such as you and your mother-in-law being forever at a distance apart.

PARALYSIS The condition encountered in you, and fervently wished for in your adversary, when he/she is much larger than you and has greater muscle development. PARAMETER A constant that varies from situation to situation.

PARANOIA Another's suspicion that you are out to cheat, or otherwise to injure him/her.

PARAPLEGIA A nightmare, where you try to escape but can't, come true.

PARAPRAXIS A bit of underwear or a slip manufactured and marketed by Freud.

PARAPSYCHOLOGY The study of E.S.P. (Error Some Place) has two branches. The study of Error is called Statistics. Parapsychology studies where the Some Place is.

PARASYMPATHETIC That part of the autonomic nervous system that is beside itself, but is not sympathetic.

PARDON To remit from a penaltyand restore to a life of crime. [AB]

PAROLE A means bywhich the State saves moneynowto pay more later in the confinement of a felon; a means by which a convicted felon and liar is released from prison in exchange for his/her word that he/she will abide by the Law and many other rules.

PARSIMONY The principle that every scientific law ought to be as simple as possible -- to permit simple- minded scientists to understand them.

PARTIAL Being attracted to less than the whole.

PARTICULAR That which is not nothing in particular.

PASSIVE Inactive response to external influences, as the nod of a somnolent public servant toward one who subserviently calls upon him/her for service.

PASSPORT A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen for going abroad to spend his/her money, exposing him/her as an alien and pointing him/her out for special reprobation and outrage. [AB] PAST That part of eternitywith some smallfraction of which we have had a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment; the other is bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs; the Future is the realm of song. In one crouches memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayers; in the sunshine of the other hope flies with free wings beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past of today in the Future of yesterday; the Future of today is the Past of tomorrow. They are one -- the knowledge and the dream, [AB] both self-created.

PASTIME A device to promote dejection; gentle exercise for intellectual debility. [AB]

PATHOLOGY The study of what happened after the tissue being studied no longer lives to care about the result.

PATIENCE A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. [AB]

PATRIOTISM Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his/her name. [AB]

PATTERN Functional union of a whole of distinguishable parts, itself being incapable of distinction.

PAVLOV A Russian scientist of renown who discovered that dogs could learn to salivate when the dinner bell sounded, but who was unable to create an equivalent response in people.

PEACE In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting [AB]; a greeting or salutation whose intention is ambiguous when it is uttered alone. Is it intended to say: 'may peace be with you', 'gimme a piece of you or yours or your action', or 'peess on you'? PECKING ORDER The demonstrated order (established in science, not in law) in which chicks and old crows, turkeys and old geezers, owls and vultures, peck one another.

PEDANTIC Unnecessary labour in expounding the details of a point that wasn't necessary from the start.

PEDESTRIAN A slow moving target for the automobile driver.

PEN A device used to stain clean paper.

PENDULUM Something that swings back and forth marking time, but not to be confused with a female soldier or with Tarzan.

PENITENT Undergoing or awaiting punishment. [AB]

PENOLOGY The knowledge that penitence is not to be found in a penitentiary, that corrections do not correct, and that punishment is a waste of time, effort and money; the knowledge that jail bars serve the purpose to protect the offender from the wrath of an offended community until the community has forgotten that offence under the impress of so many new offenses by others.

PERCEPTION The misrecognition of an event sensed by the body's receptor organs, created by a plethora of pre-existing mythologies and prejudices through which the sensory impulses must travel to be catalogued.

PERFECTION An imaginary state or quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of critics; [AB] A hostile act directed at that evaluated for it.

PERFORMANCE A word purloined by psychologists from actors, to show the artificial character of human actions.

PERIPHERY Where everybody is when they feel they ought to be at the centre of it all; the place where we want to be when we are in the middle of it all.

PERISTALSIS The disgusting way in which the intestines make room for more food.

PERSEVERANCE A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. [AB]

PERSEVERATION The evidence that the human being can handle but one idea at a time -- time being ten years.

PERSONALITY The imagined collection of enduring characteristics that a person attributes to him/herself, and by which he/she recognizes him/herself as 'the same person' over time -- even although everything in and about him/her has changed radically.

PERSONATION Having so little a sense of one's own personality and worth that one adopts the identity of another.

PERSONNEL Employees who, having been assigned no duties, count things, seeking to advance other employees' interests -- as determined by introspection.

PERSPECTIVE Modification of the apparent size and importance of an event seen at a distance (in space or time) to adapt it as one imagines it ought to be relative to the rest of one's perceived world.

PERSUASION The art of influencing another voluntarily to part with his/her pocket book and its contents.

PERVERSION Another's diversion of an action from its known 'real' purpose or function.

PESSIMISM A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his/her scarecrow hope and unsightly smile. [AB]

PHASE What every optimist thinks every ungrateful and hateful child is going through and will eventually grow out of.

PHENOMENOLOGY The systematic investigation of the subjective conscious experience of others by one who believes in the objective study of phenomena. PHILATELIST A philanderer with the mail.

PHILOSOPHY A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PHOBIA Dread of exposure to an event, commonly a phobia.

PHONETICS A branch of science that investigates vocal sounds. The result of the investigation is the discovery that the sounds are often words or syllables.

PHONOGRAPH A malevolent toy that restores life to dead noise. [AB]

PHOTOGRAPH A picture painted by the sun without the benefit of instruction in art. [AB]

PHRENOLOGY The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ with which one is a dupe. [AB]

PHYSICIAN One on whom we set our hopes when sick, and our dogs when well. [AB]

PHYSIOGNOMY Defining one's character by resemblances of his/her face to mine -- the standard of excellence. [AB]

PHYSIOLOGY The branch of biological science that investigates the malfunctioning of the different parts of the living organism.

PHYSIQUE Something we are pleased to have and to exhibit, but that common decency demands others who have it hide under thick clothing.

PIANO A parlour utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience. [AB]

PICTURE A misrepresentation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three. [AB]

PIE Anadvanceagentofareapercalledheartburn. [AB] PIETY Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon his supposed resemblance to humans. [AB]

PIG A fat slob whose flesh is relished with disgust.

PIGMENT Colour for the artist's pig-hair brush, meant to be lavished therefrom to deface a surface.

PILGRIM A traveller who takes travelling seriously. [AB] Noteworthy among these were the Pilgrim Fathers, whose female counterparts came across on the decks of the Mayflower.

PILLORY A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction -- prototype of the contemporary newspaper -- operated by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. [AB]

PINEAL The third eye; point of contact between body and soul -- hence found to be lacking in dead bodies.

PIRACY Commerce without its follies -- just as it was first created. [AB]

PISTON A mechanical alcoholic -- that goes down after ingesting alcohol, and up again after the effects wear or are burned off.

PITCH An affliction to the ear brought about by throwing away a sound at a given speed.

PITHECANTHROPUS A variety of ape-men who were less civilized than their ape cousins, and less effective in killing their cousins than their human cousins.

PITIFUL The condition of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself. [AB]

PITY A failing sense of exemption inspired by contrast. [AB]

PLAGIARISM Literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honourable subsequence. [AB]

PLAGIARIZE To take the thought or style of another writer you have never, never read; [AB] to use your eyes. PLAGUE In ancient times, a general punishment of the innocent for the admonition of their ruler. The plague, as we are privileged to know it today, is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness. [AB]

PLAN To bother about the best way to accomplish an accidental result. [AB] If achieved, it is usually constructed after the result has happened.

PLASTIC A mouldable and inflammable substance detected in an elector in the hands of a politician.

PLATEAU A temporary halt in progress, as the period of history of humankind.

PLATES Sections of the earth's crust that, shifting how they are piled, destroy crockery and make food unpalatable (even nauseating).

PLATITUDE The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke; the wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard; a fossil sentiment in artificial rock; a moral without a fable; all that is mortal of a departed truth; the cackle of a surviving egg; [AB] in sum, the vain glorious rhetoric of the poor man's poetry.

PLATONIC A euphemism for the relationship between a disability and a frost [AB]; play as tonic.

PLAUDITS Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it. [AB]

PLAY Activity for its own sake. Sometimes misused for the instrumental activity involved in Playtonic: Play for him/her; tonic for her/him.

PLAYING-FIELD Bed.

PLEASE To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition. [AB]

PLEASURE The least hateful form of dejection. [AB] PLEBEIAN Pedestrian -- a common target for Patricians driving cars.

PLEBISCITE Popular vote to ascertain the will of a ruler. [AB]

PLOUGH Animplementthatcriesaloudforhands accustomed to the pen. [AB]

PLUNDER To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft; to effect a change of ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band; to wrest the wealth of A from B leaving C lamenting a vanished opportunity [AB]; to levy taxes.

POCKET The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking. So she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others. [AB]

POETRY The pornography of the literate.

POINT OF EQUALITY The value at which stimuli are subjectively equal. The imagined value of democracy.

POKER A card game, used to excite fire, and to clobber others on the head with.

POLICE An armed force to protect and participate. [AB]

POLITENESS The most acceptable form of hypocrisy. [AB]

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB] Hence Politician: with media folk and lawyers, one of the three most degenerate and destructive species of humankind.

POLYGAMY A house of atonement or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from Monogamy, that has but one. [AB]

PORNOGRAPHY The poetry of the masses. PORTABLE Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession. [AB]

PORTUGUESE A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic. [AB]

POSITIVE Mistaken at the top of one's voice. [AB]

POSITIVISM A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real, and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. [AB] It insists that we limit our knowledge to the facts of experience, but it denies the value of experience as a route to knowledge. It is quite Positive.

POST A vertical stationary object through which we hasten to communicate in writing.

POSTERITY An appellate court that reverses the judgement of a popular author's contemporaries. The appellant being his/her obscure competitor. [AB]

POSTULATE An unknown, assumed to be true and made a fact for all time, to acquire a basis for future knowledge.

POSTURE Slouched.

POTENTIAL Latent power, probably never to become kinetic.

PRACTICE What people are invited to do over and over again in order to learn how to perfect success.

PRAGMATISM A doctrine that judges truth by what works -- its practical consequences. It is widely accepted that in institutions nothing works. Hence, nothing in institutions is true.

PRAYER The request that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a petitioner who is admittedly unworthy. [AB]

PRECEDENT In law, a previous decision, rule or practice that, for want of a definite statute, has whatever force a judge may choose to give it, greatly simplifying the task of doing exactly as he/she pleases. [AB]

PRECISE Approximate.

PRECISION A measure of the inaccuracy of measures.

PRECOCITY My child's cleverness; your child's good luck; his/her child's involvement in misdemeanours.

PRECONSCIOUS A place where lies buried all the things one is supposed to know, but does not.

PREDICAMENT The wage of consistency. [AB]

PREDICTION A statement of expectation; a precursor of disappointment.

PREDILECTION A pre-existing ill-taken election as a preparatory stage of disillusion [AB].

PRE-EXISTENCE An unnoted factor in Creation. [AB]

PREFERENCE A sentiment or frame of mind induced by the illusion that one thing is better than another. [AB] A Buddhist observation that 'The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences', suggests the preference for no preferences.

PREJUDICE A pre-set judgement in the form of a vagrant opinion without visible means of support [AB].

PREMONITION A pre-existing admonition that anticipates yet another catastrophe.

PREPARATION The work of getting ready for something that is not going to happen -- certainly not as anticipated.

PREROGATIVE A sovereign's right to do wrong. [AB]

PRESCRIPTION A physician's guess about what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient. [AB]

PRESENT A gift occupying that portion of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope [AB]; already past; seeking future favours. PRESENTABLE Hideously apparelled, considered to conform to the mode, after the manner of the time and place. [AB]

PRESERVATIVE Brandy.

PRESSURES Forces pushing you in the very directions you do not want to go; other forces are Pleasures.

PRESTIGE The kind of glamour accessible to the ugly.

PREVARICATOR A liar in the caterpillar state. [AB]

PRICE Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it. [AB]

PRIDE A family of devouring lions defending a region replete with self-inflating obstacles over which the presumptuous trip and fall; a family of lions that, possessed, will devour the possessor.

PRINCIPAL Least worthless; chief among ignobles.

PRINCIPLE A statement that neither we nor the universe care to follow.

PRISON A fortress where offenders are protected from the wrath of those not yet detected.

PRIVATE The only part of one's life in which others and the press are interested.

PROBABILITY Games of chance scientists play in lieu of working, in which games of chance results are found to occur more often than planned experimental results.

PROBABILITY CURVE Probably a well-shaped breast lying down.

PROBABLE ERROR A measure of limits within which the chances are equal that the mean from another sample will fall -- computed from the standard, or one's own results. A polite, way to find error in another's results.

PROBLEM What another person complains about, and wants to make yours. PROBLEM SOLVING The standard defence in dealing with problems: figuring out how to turn over to another the task and responsibility for solving your problems.

PROCEDURE A description of a despair you encountered, in enough detail that another might not note the despair and be tempted to try the same track.

PROCESS A milder despair than a procedure. Here, events are interdependent and at least change over time.

PRODIGY The excuse you give for liking your child in spite of him/herself.

PRODROME A conditioned cue that something awful is about to happen; an aerodrome for pros only.

PROFICIENCY Almost a sufficient degree of skill, still found in those having the benefit of limited education, and carefully trained out of those not so fortunate.

PROFILE An outline; a sketch; a brief exposure; a side view; the third most desirable view of the human head -- the second best is its back, and the first best is no view at all.

PROGNATHOUS A low-brow, slope-head, without the sense to tuck his/her chin in.

PROGNOSIS The prediction that a lamentable state of affairs will continue indefinitely.

PROGRESSION An optimist's misty and opposing view of how things are going.

PROJECTILE The final arbiter in international disputes. [AB]

PROJECTION The, usually reasonable and logical, attribution to another of those unpleasant characteristics one cannot tolerate finding in one's self.

PROLIFERATION The disheartening tendency for unpleasant and disgusting things to increase in their numbers.

PROMOTE To lift, raise up, advance, levitate or elevate -- an act which, performed by another, we call theft.

PROMPT To tell another what to say; to operate on one's own time schedule.

PROOF Evidence having a shade more plausibility than absolute unlikelihood. [AB]

PROPAGANDA Publicly funded advertising on a grand scale, intended to lie to the public.

PROPAGATION A method by which things proliferate; a reference to the fun they have in doing so.

PROPERTY The object of a person's brief rapacity and long indifference. [AB]

PROPHECY The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery. [AB]

PROPOSITION A scientist's statement of a judgement; a woman's statement before a judgement; a man's judgement that his statement ought to have but a brief or inexpensive sentence attaching to it.

PROSECUTE To persecute another publicly without offering recourse to revenge.

PROSPECT An outlook, usually forbidding; an expectation, usually forbidden. [AB]

PROSPERITY What we want for themselves, but deplore in others.

PROSTITUTION Offering a service for pay; working for a living. Used pejoratively only regarding such actions by women, who are not supposed to work for a living.

PROTECTION That which is offered to another as an excuse to control the other. Operationally: Police.

PROTOCOL The original record of an experiment. Most often used as the prescribed procedures of an experiment in how to relate to and influence others, specially those others having power or attractiveness. PROTOPLASM Living substances found in cells. Sometimes called Prisoners.

PROTOTYPE The obsolete version, afforded a special reverence.

PROVERB A statement commonly used to talk about one set of events while speaking of another. It is always too general to be understood, found to be wrong when understood, and thought to be right by at least a million people. Confucius (the origin of the word Confusion), having the whole huge population of China to believe him, was the source of many proverbs. The most true of these was: 'Beaver who build his home near a graveyard am dam near dead.'

PROVIDENTIAL Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial. [AB]

PRUDE A bawd hiding behind her demeanour. [AB] Her miss- demeanour: de meaner, de more prudish she presents. PSEUDOSCOPE An instrument that reverses the relationships among optical events, thus presenting to the person an image of things as they really are, and hence, by convention, designated as false.

PSYCHE A Greek goddess who had a brief abortive affair with Soma, the memory of which unpleasantness is perpetuated in the mythology of Psychiatry.

PSYCHIATRY The study of the id by the odd.

PSYCHOANALYSIS A religion, belief in which affords a daily journey for ten years to a place of solitude peopled only by the guide, who sleeps through the journey, waking only to collect the fare.

PSYCHOANALYST The sleeper in the journey of psychoanalysis whose wishful dreams are used to replace the traveller's dreams, to enhance the interest of the journey by offering variety.

PSYCHOLOGY A woman's subject, studying not what a man is or what he does, but what his intentions are.

PSYCHOMETRICS The attempt to capture that which is fleeting and put it in its paper cage. The paper is commonly torn so that the caged usually escapes, thus not to be studied and known.

PSYCHONEUROSIS Distinguished only vaguely from Psychosis by psychiatrists. Psychoneurotics build castles in the air; psychotics inhabit them; and psychiatrists collect the rent.

PSYCHOPATH One who places his/her interests in importance above that of others. Thus, a human being.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY That which goes wrong with the misbehaving bodies of others, designated as a disorder or illness, and caused by those who loved and cared for the others. Thus it is shown that to avoid disorder and illness loving and caring for another must be avoided.

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY The study and practice of drug-induced highs.

PSYCHOPHYSICS The study of the relationship between what happens in the outside world and how people misperceive the resulting information through their senselessness.

PSYCHOTHERAPIST One who picks pockets by listening to another. The term comes from the ancients' understanding of the process: Psycho-the-rapist.

PSYCHOTHERAPY The pointless attempt to listen attentively, and with interest and caring, to the aimless and meaningless meanderings of another's mind.

PUBERTY The period of abject bewilderment, preceded by the period of complete bewilderment and followed by the period of utter bewilderment. The only cure is to drown awareness at the local pub.

PUBLIC Everybody in the world, minus your own guild.

PUBLIC OPINION A popular method for obtaining confirmation of idiotic misinformation (i.e., common sense opinion), with the provision that the knowledge obtained can be revoked or revised by appeal to another group of the capricious.

PUBLISH To expose oneself in writing to the critic's fury.

PUPIL Something, commonly a small and inexperienced dot or person, whose size contracts to stare vacantly in front of itself, and expands to roam about aimlessly, all to acquire mis-information.

PURE About to be contaminated, seduced or abused.

PURPOSE A formulation constructed after an action to account for why it was done in the first place; the imaginary after-glow presented as a fore-glow.

PURSUIT A chase after a purse that wasn't yours or a suit that wouldn't fit anyway.

PUSH One of the two things mainly conducive to success. The other one is Pull. [AB]

PUTRID Foul,asapunchbelowthebeltandthe breathlessness and nausea it produces.

PUZZLE A game, whose purpose and pursuit puzzles the mind.

PYGMY One of a tribe of verysmallpeople discovered in many parts of the world by ancient travellers. Distinguished from the bulkier Caucasian, who is called a Hogmy.

PYKNIC Fat. The modern term Picnic explains why.

PYROEROTIC Sexual excitement about fires, giving rise to the expression, 'I have the hots for you.'

PYRE A pile of wood or other combustible substances on which one lies down as propitiation for having sung, 'Come on baby, light my fire' or as a sacrifice for having been 'burned' Syn: Bed.

PYROMANIA Fascination and heightened excitement when exposed to a fire set by the afflicted person.

QUALITY The main deficiency in humankind's re-creations. QUARK The smallest particle of matter. It doesn't matter.

QUART A measure of milk that has been legislated into obsolescence -- not the milk, unfortunately.

QUEEN Awomanbywhomtherealmisruledifaking lives, and through whom it is ruled if one does not. [AB]

QUESTION To offer an answer followed by a question mark, put by one who is blind to one who cannot hear; a test put to a student by a tutor demanding that the former read the latter's mind.

QUESTIONNAIRE Interminable questions that one is expected not only to read but also to respond to.

QUILL An instrument of torture yielded bya goose and wielded by an ass. [AB]

QUIRK The smallest particle of behaviour (analogous to a quark), trivial to the degree that it doesn't matter, though a bit queer; a quip or quibble; an artful evasion from the truth, or clever lie; behavioral trickery; writing with a twist ... of lemon; prolific author of great genius.

QUIVER A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments. [AB] Shaking and twitching of the target required care in taking aim with its contents.

QUORUM A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to allow them to have their own way and their own way of having it. [AB]

QUOTATION The act of repeating erroneously the words of another; the words erroneously repeated. [AB]

QUOTIENT A tricky way of expressing the inexpressible dullness of another.

RABBIT The container by which your carrots are harvested en route to the pie.

RABBLE In democracy, those who exercise the supreme authority, tempered by fraudulent elections. [AB]

RADIATION Something that by going out becomes invisible, but inflames those on which it lights -- taxes.

RADICALISM The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today. [AB]

RADIO A device that denies one seclusion from the noise and clatter of music and news, even in the wilderness sought for seclusion.

RAILROAD A mechanical device enabling us to get away from where we were to where we are no better off. [AB]

RANDOM The order in things; the order scientists seek to re-establish in things to find out what things are really like.

RANGE A stove comprised of cells in which people can roam unfree, by which fingers can be burned to add to their flavour, and which is a delimited segment of space in which specifiable species get lost so they can be found to be at risk of extinction.

RANK Relative elevation in the scale of assigned human worth [AB] -- hence, putrid; position of inequality among a host of equals.

RANSOM The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can be owned by the buyer. [AB]

RAPE The ultimate indiscretion in the system of laws written to remind men of women, and to protect women from the desires they imagine men to have.

RAPPORT A state in human relationships that salesfolk and other influence peddlers seek unremittingly to create, that is itself nothing more than the willingness or acquiescence of the other who wishes to be influenced.

RASCAL A crook considered under a lesser aspect. [AB] RASH Impulsive due to insensibilityto the value of our advice [AB], and for this sin marked with spots.

RAT In the wisdom of scientists, the nearest relative of the human, which, being animal, may be subjected to experimental procedures and sacrifice.

RATE Speed--apotentstreetdrugofgreatcostper unit, that is preferred by raters.

RATING The assignment of position to an individual. In the wisdom of the navy, the lowest position.

RATIO The ultimate level of measurement, qualifying numbers to be multiplied together and divided into parts -- as if there weren't already enough of them, let alone their parts.

RATIONAL Devoid of all delusions save those deriving from observation, experience, and reflection. [AB]

RATIONALIZATION The attempt to explain by reference to the higher authority of reason an act that is indefensible, unreasoned and unreasonable; the extension of a sentence to avoid responsibility for it.

REACH The radiusof action of the human hand [AB],as distinguished from Grasp, or what you can actually get your hands on.

REACTION FORMATION A concept from psychoanalysts who, in order to extend their earnings to maximum coverage, have made a pejorative and psychopathology out of a person being nice and kind.

READINESS Prepared to respond by grasping at any opportunity for self advancement.

READING A providential by-product of writing allowing one to avoid having to listen to another talk; the act of staring at a page while pretending to transfer its contents to the starer's mind -- the pretence being evidenced by the fact that the ink stains on the page remain unchanged by the putative transfer.

REALISM The art of depicting nature as it is seen [AB] by earthworms who ingest, digest and exude the same dirt in which they live; the art of accurately depicting life as media people re-create it.

REALITY The dream of a mad philosopher [AB] -- oneself.

REALLY Apparently.[AB]

REAR Thepartofanarmyexposedbybeingnearestto the politician; the body part that advances backwards; the part of your credit prefixed with ar-.

REASON To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire; [AB] a propensitate of prejudice.

REASONABLE Accessible to the infection of our own opinions; hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion; [AB] dull and under-emotional.

REASONING An epiphenomenon assigned predominant value by academics, but playing no part in the business of life other than helping a little in passing exams.

REBEL Aproponentof anewmisrulewhohasfailedto establish it. [AB]

RECALL To struggle to retrieve an illusion.

RECAPITULATION Tiresomely going over the same material again.

RECIDIVISM Repetition of an already failed strategy of commerce.

RECOGNITION The Golden Grail sought by all who are obscure; the blight of those who are not.

RECOLLECT To recall with embellishment something not previously experienced. [AB]

RECOMMENDATION Equipped to acquire advantage from the advancement of another's position; the prerogative of those having responsibility without authority. RECONCILED Surrendered to superior force.

RECONCILIATION A suspension of hostilities; an armed truce to [AB] provide time to find new bases for war.

RECONSIDER To seek further justification for a decision already made. [AB]

RECOUNT In politics, another throw of the dice accorded to the player against whom they are loaded. [AB] In life, to bore you with the same old story.

RECREATION A particular form of dejection to relieve a general fatigue [AB] by instilling a particular one.

RED Avisualsensationfromthelong-waveendofthe light spectrum; an auditory sensation from the left-hand end of the political spectrum. Either is calculated to stimulate the bull to charge.

RED LIGHT An advertisement, used by police, managers, doors and other prostitutes to command anyone coming, to stop or to exit, but certainly not to enter.

REDRESS Reparation without satisfaction [AB]; re-apparel with continuing disgust.

REDUNDANT Superfluous, needless [AB] and obsolete, as an essential job in hard economic times.

REEDUCATION A second attempt to un-miseducate the educated.

REFERENDUM Submitting proposed legislation to the popular vote that elected the legislator, without risking personal loss of office in another election.

REFERRAL To transfer the responsibility for failure to another.

REFINED Speeding, again!

REFLECTION An act of the mind wherein we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and become able to avoid the perils we shall not again encounter. [AB] REFLEX Another thing of the bodyto which we assign the blame for actions consistent with our own desires, but not with others' expectations.

REFORM A singular way to satisfy reformers opposed to reformation. [AB]

REFUGE A place to which one can escape from perils, the perils of which are unknown.

REFUSE Relegating to the garbage something desired or undesired. Refuse takes several forms. Refuse Absolute: absolute garbage. Refuse Conditional: a definite maybe. Refuse Tentative: let's wait and see. Refuse Feminine: sometimes called the Refusal Assentive; although the case has been reported of a woman saying 'no', meaning NO!

REGRET The dismay we feel about having been caught red- handed; the dismay we feel about missed opportunities or failures to acquire power, wealth, recognition and an absence of regret.

REGULAR Even-paced and like everyone else, and thus a further cause of dejection.

REGULATE Control to the point it doesn't work; put into its usual disarray and disorder.

REHABILITATE To remove all vestiges of institutional constraint to embrace once more the clothing, setting and misdemeanours of the past; to return to misdeeds.

REINFORCEMENT Strengthening an edifice or habit with concrete and steel, icing and candy, praise and recognition, or termination of pain and fear.

REJECTION Refusal to accept the type of good fortune commonly complained about and avoided as disheartening and dejecting. People suffer from this state although it presents only advantages in the opportunity to be self-sufficient and free of nuisance others.

REJUVENATION Alchemy from lead paint; the illusion of cosmetics; the hope of Faust; the despair of the wise.

RELATIONSHIP Kinship; mutuality of causation; association; all the things that bring people together for their mutual disgruntlement and destruction.

RELATIVE One of the three desolating and inevitable absolutes; defensively implying denial of the absolute necessity by the connotation of comparative determination.

RELAXATION Going limp to become proficient in wasting time.

RELEARNING Pursuing the boring, the irrelevant and the immaterial, again.

RELIABILITY A way of discovering veracity in a liar by testing his/her memory to see if he/she does it the same way again and again.

RELIEF Deviation from the pain and desolation of the repetitive ups and down of the flat plain of the rest of life and its surroundings.

RELIGIONS The daughters of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. [AB]

REMEDIATION The process by which one is returned from the excitement and fascination of idiosyncrasy and eccentricity to the desolation and dejection of the hopeless and the commonplace.

REMEMBER To recall with all its horror, pain and remorse a past experience forgotten with great care.

REMINISCENCE To repeat in memory and thought something that is better forgotten, which is not interesting, and was sufficiently awful at first contact.

REMIT To get rid of something, such as money.

REMORSE The tiresome business of pretending sorrow for somebody else's faults.

REMOTE An excuse for ignoring an imminent danger. RENOWN A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame. [AB]

REPARATION Satisfaction paid for a wrong, and deducted from the satisfaction in committing it. [AB]

REPARTEE Prudent (or impudent) insult in retort. Practised by gentle-persons with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. [AB]

REPENTANCE The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment, more visible in its approach than in its retreat. It is usually manifested in a degree of reformation not inconsistent with continuity of sin. [AB]

REPORTER A writer who guesses his/her way to what seems a plausible truth, confirms the guesses by misquoting what inappropriate authorities did not say, and dispels the whole in a tempest of words [AB], confirming his/her virtues and others' vileness.

REPOSE To cease from troubling [AB]; the occasional angelic state of the child.

REPREHENSIBLE The natural judgement of normal human conduct seen without blinkers or rose-coloured glasses.

REPRESSION The process by which that which is inferred becomes visible to all but the repressor.

REPRODUCTION The disagreeable process by which something undesirable perpetuates itself.

REPUBLIC A nation in which the thing governed and the thing governing, being the same, permits authority to enforce an optional obedience [AB]; it arises in despotism, and leads to anarchy.

REPUGNANCE The appropriate emotion when confronted with the reprehensible.

REPULSION A pushing away, of anything recently ingested. RESEARCH A game of chance in which the house reveals, with carefully loaded dice, that the player wins more often than chance would decree. The purpose of the advertising demonstration is to raise the stakes.

RESENTMENT A sentiment desiring that another be sent backwards having advanced him/herself too far for comfort.

RESIDENT Unable to leave. [AB]

RESIDUE The remainder left after that which is known about is removed or accounted for. In the realm of knowledge, the residue is all and everything.

RESIGN To renounce an honour for an advantage; to renounce an advantage for a greater one. [AB]

RESIGNATION The state of mind following failure to achieve an advantage or a greater advantage.

RESISTANCE In politics, another name for the Opposition.

RESOLUTE Obstinate in a course that we approve. [AB]

RESPECT A proper valuation of another from whom one seeks to gain something.

RESPECTABILITY The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account. [AB]

RESPITE A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to decide whether the murder might not have been performed by the prosecuting attorney -- since he/she seemed to know more about it than anybody else; any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation. [AB]

RESPONSE Any action that anybody cares to notice -- any other action is just Behaviour. Some responses are actually occasioned by some other event -- they are called Reactions. Some responses that nobody cares to notice, may be inflicted on unwilling eyes and ears -- they are called Performances.

RESPONSIBILITY A detachable burden, easily shifted to the shoulders of Deity, Fate, Fortune, Luck, one's neighbour, or even the stars. [AB]

REST Themajorpartof life;thewholepartof death-- the other hole part of death is the grave.

RESTITUTOR Some require no tutor: benefactor; charities; philanthropist [AB]. The rest require a tutor: army; navy; courts; prisons.

RESULT Something blamed on something else.

RETALIATION The rock on which rears the Temple of Law. [AB]

RETARDATION Holding back, slowing down, arriving late, as in exercising one's imagined brain power/intelligence. RETENTION Holding on to, as in the exercise of one's imagination concerning his/her brain power.

RETRIBUTION A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting the just. [AB]

RETROACTION The effect of something that happens now upon something that has happened already. Such as the employment of an employee, who pilfered from the employer, is said to be redundant retroactively.

RETROSPECTION Reviewing the past in order to correct its errors retroactively.

REVENGE The commonly recognized prerogative of one who imagines he/she has been injured by another, as burning down one's own house, which caused one injury through the offices of the tax collector.

REVERENCE A complex emotional state in which, according to McDougall, three primary emotions are fused, namely, fear, self depreciation and tender emotion, emphasizing the second. The attitude of a person to a god, and of a dog to a person [AB]. REVERSE Going forward in the other direction.

REVOLUTION In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. [AB]

RHYTHM Another kind of beat than that one would like to do to the person producing the beat; in contraception, the cause of parenthood.

RIDICULE Words designed to show that the person to whom they are directed is devoid of the dignity and character distinguishing the one who utters them. [AB]

RIGHT Not illegitimate; not incorrect; not left; not wrong; the prerogative of rulers to differ from the left, and to prescribe what is good and correct; the prerogative of rulers to be wrong.

RIGID Unbending; unyielding; indifferent; rigged id.

RIOT Popular entertainment given for the police by innocent bystanders. [AB]

RITE A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. [AB] It seems right to its proponents.

RIVAL Acompetitorwhoisatriskofwinning. One without such risk is afforded the consideration of being called a Deadbeat.

ROAD Astripoflandonwhichtopassfromwhereitwas tiresome to be to where it is futile to go. [AB]

ROBBER A candid person of affairs. [AB]

ROBOT A civilized person in whose image machines are built.

ROD The object that, when spared, spoils children, so their aroma cannot be tolerated. Syn: Icebox.

ROOTS Upside down and leafless limbs of trees. ROPE An appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. [AB]

RORSCHACH A mythological being who delighted in making messy blotches of paint, to the displeasure of the nuts and dolts of humanity.

ROTIC A romanticeventwithoutthe man.

ROUGH Abrasive, as one's boss duringan annual performance evaluation.

RUBBISH Worthless matter, such as the philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions south of the North Pole. [AB]

RUIN To destroy. Specifically to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids. [AB]

RUM Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers. [AB]

RUMOUR A favourite weapon of assassins of character. [AB]

RUSSIAN A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar emetic. [AB]

S Subject; Stimulus. The resulting confusion is compounded by the fact that the lower case 's' states that the object (subject, stimulus or state) is specific.

SADIST One who obstinatelyrefuses to be mean to a masochist.

SADNESS A feeling evoked by the contemplation of reality; a primary motive underlying people's tendencies to reconstruct reality to suit themselves.

SAINT A dead sinner, revised and edited. [AB]

SALESMANSHIP The essential feature that converts rape to seduction, seduction to wedlock, and wedlock to robbery -- to form the circle of crime. SALIVA A canine secretion, much deplored in people.

SAME Indistinguishablydifferent.

SAMPLE In medicine, a bodily excrement; in other sciences, a part of the whole that is examined. The latter use has a modest advantage in modesty.

SAMPLING Careful selection of a group of observations in such a way as not to bias the findings from those preferred by the hypothesis.

SANITARY A clean napkin created to be soiled.

SANITY A paternalistic and kindly way of saying that a person is commonplace and dull.

SARI The most dignified and attractive of costumes to adorn a woman, and the most daunting to a man.

SATIETY Feelings for a plate after eating its contents. [AB]

SATIRE Literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies are expounded with imperfect tenderness. [AB]

SATISFACTION The feeling accompanying success in destroying an adversary, suppressing a competitor, silencing a critic, or picking a pocket without having your own picked in the process.

SAW A trite popular saying, so called because it makes its way into a wooden head. [AB]

SCALE Abrasive roughness on the skin of a fish, which can be weighed or measured, and which, when used to scratch a tensile object, creates vibrations of varying pitch, thus forming one basis for music.

SCATTER An array of things on a Table, often called a Mess.

SCHEME Your sneaky idea or program. When it's mine, it's called a Plan. SCHIZOPHRENIA The ultimate argumentum ad hominem, in the form: 'You are crazy, so I can safely ignore everything you say as meaningless.'

SCIENCE A commercial enterprise where words are sold at unconscionably high prices. The sale is effected, less by virtue of the words used (that cannot be understood), and more by some mysterious letters that the salesperson places after his/her name.

SCHOLARLY Having memorized everything everybody (construed to be important) ever said.

SELF Metome;youtoyou;anothertoanother. Since none knows another self, philosophers have astutely intoned: 'Know thyself.'

SELF-ESTEEM An erroneous appraisal. [AB]

SELF-EVIDENT Evident to one's self, and to nobody else. [AB]

SELF-DETERMINED Misled.

SELFISH Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. [AB]

SELF-OBSERVATION The process by which we find ourselves to be perfect.

SEMANTICS The scientific study by which it is shown that words are meaningless, and that dictionaries are necessary to create standards of meaning.

SENATE A body of elderly people charged with high duties and misdemeanours. [AB]

SENESCENCE One of the two necessary prerequisites to be a senator. The other is political influence.

SENSATION A deionizing state of ascending neural affairs.

SENSATIONAL Something of sufficient moment to activate a series of deionizations ... in a news reporter.

SENSE Something that can be aroused by a sensation to assist understanding, regardless of whether it is reasonable; a sense takes a sensation to help us make sense, even if it makes no sense.

SENSITIVITY The recognition of the essential honesty of one's detractors.

SERIAL Belonging to a series. Distinguished from Cereal, which belongs to breakfast.

SEX Nowthat you're payingattention, we can proceed.

SEXISM A misnomer for Genderism, used for its advertising value by female genderists.

SHAM Pretence,asintheS(ubject)isaham.

SHAME The natural and appropriate feeling when one's Sham is displayed to oneself electronically on video.

SHOCK Sudden depression of the nervous system associated with any sudden depressing state of affairs.

SHY Aresultof havingeatenanapplewithouthaving fig leaves on.

SIBLING Primal competitors in primal commerce; the most loathsome of one's early people contacts.

SIGH Aninwardbreathasanoutwardsignofaninner change, of emotion.

SIGMA The Greeks used this letter to refer to the gaiety of a standard deviation; the moderns use a Chi to refer to their unknown sweethearts.

SIGN Ameans,withoutwords,totelluswheretogo.

SIGNIFICANCE An expression that purports to assign meaningfulness to meaningless events.

SILO Alargetubeinwhichisstored,andoutofwhich is cast, food for animals or missiles for people.

SIMILARITY The apparent equivalence between events that misleads us into the belief they are identical. SIMPLE Without infrastructure; idiotic.

SIMULATION The normal process underlying the production of people's emotions.

SIMULTANEOUS Indistinguishably different in time.

SIN Thecompensationwhilelivingfortheagonyof dying; man's nature; women's opportunity.

SINGLE Unique; individual; one, having thus far eluded the ball-and-chain.

SINISTER His/her purpose.

SINUS A hollow cavity, typically filled with fluid and inflammation, to create headaches.

SIREN A lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose, and disappointing performance [AB]; hence carried as advertising on the top of police cars.

SITUATION The dreadful place in which you find yourself.

SKEW Said to represent samples, but not populations; large at one end (usually the bottom), pointed at the other (usually the top), like a screw.

SKILL A kind of saw that requires no skill to operate; a kind of knowledge that requires no understanding; a kind of ability that requires no training -- having read the directions.

SKIN A covering, providentially supplied, to hide disgusting things; a type of entertainment that is deplored and denied, by edit of women, to husbands and other prisoners, in order to ensure that such persons retain their sexual perversions for the continued entertainment of women.

SKUNK A pussy cat travelling under false colours, as all enforcers, ready to spray a stinging, stinking substance on those who offend imposed limits.

SLACK A renowned and unknown sociologist who stated the principle that if you give violent criminals nice things they will use them well. Although wrong, the principle obtained a following among those of taste but no breeding, spawning elegant jails, called Slack shacks or Slackers' shackles.

SLANG The grunt of the human hog with an audible memory. [AB]

SLEEP One-third of people's lives, providentially provided to afford relief from the despair of having to interact with others.

SLIP A skinny, smooth item of lingerie provided for entertainment to the tongue, bottom or foot, down which ships slide or are moored.

SLOW Thenormalandidealrateofspeed.

SMALL The normal and ideal size of things and sentences.

SMELL Sightandhearingforthenose.

SMILE To dissemble with the mouth without speech.

SMOKE The external evidence of fire within, but not without; visible air-borne particles falsely reputed to kill when emanating from tubular objects.

SMOOTH Unabrasive to the touch, but abrasive to the ear and the pocket-book.

SNOW A substance the melting point of which affords us the best measure of the freezing point of water.

SOAP A luxurious substance designed to enforce sitting down while bathing.

SOAP OPERA Tales of short-legged Amazons designed to compensate for the indignity of sitting down while bathing.

SOBER Sombrely undrunk; not yet drunk enough to enjoy life.

SOCCER An American game in which a ball is propelled at a net by the foot. Distinguished from Football, in which a ball is propelled by the hand with no net to catch it. The confused British call the former Football and the latter Rugby, after the public school (anybody else's private school) that first beat the Americans at their own game. Canadians, bewildered by this confusion, have invented other sports. One, called Hockey, involves using a frozen pork hock to propel a frozen hamburger patty across frozen water at a frozen net. The other is called Lacrosse, wherein hardy lumberjacks propel various hard objects at one another by means of the net, and failing to hit their marks with the objects, flail at each other with the net.

SOCIABILITY The tendency to seek the company of other people in lieu of working.

SOCIAL The level of analysis of behaviour involving interactions among a plurality of people. Since such interactions are commonly aversive and avoided, social analyses are confined to those infinitesimal factors that draw people together.

SOCIAL ADAPTATION Suppressing oneself in the service of others.

SOCIAL DISTANCE The most preferred type of distance.

SOCIALIZATION The process by which a person ceases to be him/herself and becomes another who might be acceptable to others.

SOCIAL SELF The front one displays to others.

SOCIETY A group of individuals of any species, living together in a community and interacting with one another, the better to protect themselves from the enemies they have made, and the better to rob others of their means of subsistence.

SOCIOLOGY The science that studies organizations. It generates such important principles as: 'A person rises to the level of his/her incompetence'; 'levels of management alternate between yes- and no-persons'; 'expenses rise to supersede income'; 'if anything can break, it will'; 'organizations progress through successive disorganizations and reorganizations of disorganization, and are thus continuously disorganized' -- derived by intuition.

SOCRATES A Greek who asked so many poisonous questions that he was finally asked by his countrymen to drink poison, and did. There's a moral here somewhere.

SOLE Fishfoundonlyonthebottomofthefoot. Itis considered a culinary delight in some circles, perhaps because, like fine wine, it is pressed in the traditional way.

SOLID Firm, robust, impenetrable, as any crooked law.

SOLIPSISM A philosophical persuasion that designates the universe and its contents as mere epiphenomena of the perceiver's mind, which is the only fact of existence. This doctrine provides the clearest evidence that philosophies are inventions of humankind's wish-fulfilling fantasies.

SOMATIC A kind of tick that embeds itself into the body and draws blood.

SOMNAMBULISM Ambling about at night while sleeping and unconscious.

SOPHISTRY A controversial and inadmissible view expressed by an opponent, distinguished from one's own honest sincerity and tom foolery. [AB]

SORCERY The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. [AB]

SORROW The polar opposite of Joy. It is not preferred as a girl's name, except in the form of Ruth.

SOUL AfoodpreferredbyAfricansandtheclergy.

SOUND Stink to the ear; the condition of a building about to collapse; an argument we agree with.

SOUR The appearance of a person'sface aftereatingor hearing something sour.

SOUSED All wet due to excessive alcohol ingestion.

SPACE The most desired of dimensional commodities; the commodity most in demand and least in supply in urban areas; the commodity that by its nature is empty except for air; and the commodity that has no air, only ether.

SPAN A measure obtained bystretching out the fingers and laying off distances from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the baby finger. It is variable from person to person, and is thus appropriate as a measure of horses, bridges and personal longevity.

SPECIAL Every ordinary event considered for itself.

SPECIMEN Italian astronauts.

SPECTACLES Things we look at through things we look with; things we look with at things we look at.

SPECTRUM The full band of colours, which collectively assembled forms the white tribe.

SPEECH Guttural noises made by forcing breath over the vocal cords, reverberated in the nasal cavities and shaped by mouth and tongue movements -- altogether calculated to irritate anybody in hearing range. Sometimes these noises are assigned arbitrary signal value for mis- communication.

SPEED A street drug that reduces control over cars and increases the probability of accidents.

SPEEDOMETER An instrument to record variations in velocity, which always displays lower values than radar scopes at speed traps.

SPELL A series of sounds that, in incorrectly assigning order to the letters of a word, fail to create the magical effect intended. SPINAL NERVE The nerve to say that another is spineless.

SPINE Something less rigid than a poker stuck in a person's back to permit standing up straight.

SPIRIT A euphorizing substance, the lack of which is depressing or marks the medium as a fake.

SPITE Another's brutish reaction to your success.

SPONTANEOUS Well rehearsed.

SPORT Fishing, as fora compliment, forthe means to seduction, for successful competition, for favourable testimony, or for the chance to beat the game warden in shooting an errant cow.

SPURIOUS RESULT A result obtained by mistake, varying from the one planned.

SPURT Thesuddenrushofactivitybyahungryratasit approaches its dinner hidden at the end of a maze.

SQUEEZE Gentle confining compression to collapse a structure to its smallest volume. Syn: Squash.

SQUINT Ocular strabismus. It seems better to define ocular squint than the other.

STAMMERING Hammering at words with the vocal apparatus.

STANDARD The conventional commonplace people live down to.

STANDARD DEVIATION A refined way to refer to a shit disturber.

STARTLE To react suddenly with surprise and shock, as when confronted with the evidence that another person has told the truth.

STATIC Electrical activity designated as inactivity.

STATISTICAL ERROR The result of employing statistics, and the main puzzle statistics endeavours to unravel.

STATISTICS The assignment of numbers to themselves by the distaff side to entertain those on the other side dull enough to care about numbers.

STATUS An assumed degree of importance assigned by themselves to those whose power and wealth affords them a special recognition.

STEADINESS A measure of another's degree of tremulousness.

STEREO A means by which what is intolerable to one ear can be amplified by being presented at once to two ears. What horror if we had three!

STEREOSCOPE A device by which one is forced to see with one's good eye and one's bad what one would rather not see with either.

STEREOTYPE Continuous repetition of the same idea or action after it was found worthless when first tried.

STERN Mimicrybythe browof the appearance of the rear.

STIGMA A mark of distinction.

STIMULUS Any energy that excites a receptor, as a touch on the face, a boot on the rear, a tack on one's chair, or a pubic tickle.

STORY Anuntruenarrative.[AB]

STRIKE Ahitwhenonpins;amisswhenonballs;ablow when on a person; an absence when from work; a murderous attack on an objective; immobility when in a pose; displayed when remarkable; and removed from view when a celebrated banner. An act of war performed by unions, armed forces, traitorous baseball players, illnesses and clocks -- as in: '... two mice ran up the clock; the clock struck one, but the other got away, Hickory Dickory Dock.'

STRUCTURE The imposition of disorganization in an edifice or other thing.

STUFF Unspecified things, and the act of cramming them into a space, such as the mouth, barely large enough to accept the amount pushed in. STUPID A pernicious and persistent feature of another who will not learn in spite of your excellent efforts to teach.

STUPOR Unresponsive, but not stupid.

STYLE A barrier used to keep hogs from exercising their own unrestrained individuality.

SUBCONSCIOUS A vast unexplored hinterland purported to be the habitat of many wild and pugnacious carnivores bent on destroying the whole human race with their rapacious and vicious incursions. The subcontinent inhabited by these beasts is closed to exploration by moral edict, for fear that these creatures may be exported into the milieux inhabited by people. However, video cartoon tours of this hinterland are available for viewing, at considerable cost, in your local psychoanalyst's office.

SUBCUTANEOUS Something cute that gets under your skin, as a hypodermic needle or a personal slight.

SUBJECT The object of scrutiny.

SUBJECTIVE The object of your own scrutiny.

SUBLIMATION Lying about the way you feel.

SUBLIMINAL Either lying about what you don't see or hear, or not available to experience -- therefore existence that challenges solipsism.

SUBMISSION Yielding to another something you imagine is yours to yield.

SUBMIT Yielding to superior force or power to achieve a desired end.

SUBNORMAL On the dark side of being usual.

SUBSERVIENCE Indirect means to get what you want through the offices of someone having more strength or power.

SUBSTANTIVE Assigned substance that it does not have. SUBSTITUTE An alternative way to achieve the same thing when you're tired of the means you have been using, or it is tired out.

SUBTRACTION The only mildly pleasant operation of mathematics, yielding fewer things to have to deal with.

SUCCESS The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. [AB]

SUCK See Subservience.

SUDORIFEROUS Another source of noise to the nose, this time, although commonly attributed to hard work, actually from fear of being caught not working.

SUGGESTIBILITY Willingness to perform a desired act suggested by another, that one would not do without the opportunity to shift the responsibility to the other indelicate enough to make the suggestion.

SUGGESTION Innocently positing a possibility without wish for personal gain. It becomes suggestion if the other acts irresponsibly, as suggested.

SUMMATION Unnecessarily adding something to what has already unnecessarily been said in order to say it again, happily in shorter form.

SUPER-EGO An ego bigger than your own that exerts force on your ego to do its bidding or forbidding.

SUPERSTITION Beliefs of those not yet instructed by you in your true beliefs.

SUPPOSITION Another's pretended knowledge.

SUPPRESSION The exercise of tyrannical power to prevent the exercise of free-will. Most often self-imposed.

SURPLUS Excess of anything that creates despair.

SURPRISE The birthday prize for having survived another year, and that you knew about for weeks.

SURREPTITIOUS The under-handed way that your competitor responded to your open and above-board ploys.

SURVEY A careful measurement of the layof the land in order to find the most profitable way to make in- roads and impositions on the largest number of people.

SURVIVAL A disappointing fact about your enemies.

SUSPENSE A temporary hold up of your response when your belt breaks, due to straps over your shoulders.

SUTURE A butcher's way of being a hemmer to prevent becoming a sewer.

SWALLOW A small bird that allows our stomachs to receive their victuals.

SWINDLE Commerce such that the other benefits at your expense.

SYLLOGISM A logical formula consisting of a major and minor assumption and an inconsequent. [AB]

SYMBOL Something that stands for something else [AB], but cannot stand by itself.

SYMBOLISM Systematic use of symbols to create a cacophony of meaningless sounds to stand for nothing.

SYMMETRY Replication by reflection.

SYMPATHETIC Pathetically similar to another's pathos.

SYMPATHY The most hostile of acts, arousing, enhancing and perpetuating another's pain once more.

SYMPTOM Signs acquired by the examination of entrails, by which physicians recognize an opportunity to prolong another's suffering for their own wealth.

SYNAESTHESIA The sensory awareness of sin within.

SYNAPSE A break in the continuity of nervousness, across which knobs grow that, like knobs on a T.V., fiddled with, are supposed to improve the picture -- but don't.

SYNCOPE A swoon or faint, defensively brought about by cerebral anaemia due to a syncopated 'musical' beating on the head.

SYNDROME An aerodrome in and out of which fly specific classes of sins.

SYNONYM A word that, spelled differently, pronounced differently, and having a different meaning, is held to mean the same thing as another word.

SYNTONIC Mutually responsive and complementary, as sin for her/him and tonic for him/her.

SYSTEMATIC A system that automatically fails to operate consistently.

SYSTEMATIC ERROR Carefully engineered error or bias.

SYSTEMATIZED Organized and inter-related delusional ideas, said to be false and in error, commonly about how organizations work to the detriment of all.

TABOO The sweet scent and flavour that Providence has afforded forbidden fruit.

TACHISTOSCOPE A bedeviling instrument for presenting stimuli too fast to be seen, used to prove that people can't see what they don't have enough time to see.

TACHOMETER An instrument for measuring linear velocity by rotation, seldom accepted by the police who tend to be presented with it when it represents zero velocity. The fuel gauge works better to evade a ticket, as in: 'Officer, please hurry up, my fuel gauge is low and I'm rushing to get to a gas station before I run out of gas.'

TACIT The best known way to confound communication.

TACT Mask of the predator; Achilles Heelof the naive.

TACTUAL The toucheur's most valued sense. TAKE To acquire something byforce, but preferablyby stealth. [AB]

TALENT Your child's faculty to do everything wrong.

TALK To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. [AB]

TANTRUM The most natural adult response to the frustration of children who are misbehaving.

TARIFF Taxes on imports designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of the consumer. [AB]

TASTE The response of certain ugly outcroppings of your mouth and nose (absent in most other people) to their acts that you do not identify with or practice.

TEAM Too many people to have a meaningful conversation, directed to expend their energies in following a set of rules, for fear they might hold a riot.

TELEPHONE An invention of the devil that abrogates some of the advantages of distance. [AB]

TELESCOPE A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. [AB]

TEMPERAMENT Those elements of a person adopted to deal with his/her temper about the way other people act.

TEMPORAL Appertaining to time; part of the new brain; things non-spiritual; a bone in the skull; part of the face; and a fleeting event. A word, like any other, depending on the temporal and spacial coordinates of the thing referred to in order to discover its meaning.

TENACITY A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. [AB]

TENSION Being up-tight, as distinguished from being down- loose or down-and-out. TEST A means by which one discovers another's lack of learning or skill.

TESTIMONY Perjuring oneself by providing evidence of personal inexperience about how an event that may have occurred was misperceived while one was looking another way, if present at all.

THEORY A statement of personal belief organized in elegant words, the aesthetics of which are designed to mislead another into adopting said belief, in spite of its lack of meaning.

THERAPY Treatment to alleviate disorders. Its nature is seen in one of its most effective branches, called psychotherapy, in which two people talk, the one in too much pain to listen, and the other too involved in acquiring money to care about the words uttered.

THERMOMETER A needless device to display the condition of the environment affecting a person's hot-cold sensory receptors. It is needless because the person can feel how hot or cold it is.

THINKING Non-vocal conversation with one who will not listen.

THRESHOLD A level, thanks to Providence, below which nothing can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt.

TIC Aninvoluntaryjerk--eachofushasknown several.

TICK The small sound of a clock that torments tropical animals.

TIME Nobodyhasenoughofit,exceptwhenitison his/her hands; it is parcelled out in bits, and reaped as a burden; it is invisible, and is watched constantly. It is the means provided by a thoughtful Providence to ensure that nature's disasters do not happen all at once.

TIMIDITY A wholesome attitude in the presence of one's personal monsters. TOP Apositionthatspinsonitsbottomonacontainer with its point on a pile. Now, that's tops.

TORPOR The natural state of turtles and workers between the hours of 9 and 5.

TOXIN A substance disposed to commit murder.

TRACK The traces left in passage as one moves, which permit another, bent on murder, to follow.

TRADITION That which we are admonished to follow, taught to lead, and most commonly ignore.

TRAFFIC LIGHT A mechanical traffic cop, installed during hard times by an energy-conscious government to ensure heavy gas wastage, and that government employees will be late for work, furious when they get there, and not the least civil as servants.

TRAIN An interminable reiteration propelled by an engine that has a cold (so it repeatedly sneezes) and a tender behind (so it never sits down).

TRAINING The means by which useless habits are hopelessly entrenched in monkeys, dogs, rats and people for the edification of their owners.

TRANCE A state of heightened consciousness occasioned by a boring monologue in which presumptive statements are made calculated to be irrefutably illogical and impossible, to which the person to whom they are directed is expected to respond sluggishly at once.

TRANSFER The means by which a commodity or person is moved from where it most usefully and properly was to where it ought not to be, is useless and doesn't want to be.

TRANSFERENCE Shifting emotional responses and responsibility from their proper source to another target where they are entirely inappropriate. The result of this exercise is considered to represent recovery -- from normalcy? TRANSVESTISM In males, the wearing of female clothing. This condition does not occur in women, all of whom wear male clothing as a matter of course. Transvestism is now lawful. When women attained total control, it became unlawful for men to discriminate on the basis of gender, or in sex.

TRAUMA An injury, wound or shock, commonly arising from the discovery of another's good fortune in not being completely under the control of the one who is thereby traumatized.

TREE Somethingunseen, said to be lovelierthan the bill-board that obscures it or the building that replaced it.

TREMOR Aquiverexcitedbyabarb.

TRENDY An inclination to wear the uniform of the day.

TRIAL A formal inquirydesigned to prove and put on record the blameless characters of judges, jurors and advocates. To effect this purpose, it is necessary to find a contrasting or standard other, called the defendant, prisoner or accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear, this other is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentle-persons a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. [AB]

TRIAL & ERROR Achieving perfection by making mistakes.

TRUCE Friendship. [AB]

TRUST An attribute commonlyfound in one about to be betrayed [AB]; a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working people, widows and orphans, all in the care of institutions, courts and similar malefactors and public enemies [AB].

TRUTH An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. [AB]

TRUTHFUL Dumb and illiterate. [AB]

TRYING Making an effort -- to try others' patience. TUNE A melody, spiteful to the ears.

TURKEY Acountryfoulwearingafez.

TWICE At least once too often. [AB]

TWILIGHT The poetic way of referring to the time of day when it is too bright for comfortable sleep, and too dark for confident vision.

TWIN T' lose.

TWITCH Aticbroughtaboutbythespellof awitch.

TYPE A class of pestilential bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment [AB]; a class of actions that has gone on far too long.

TZETZE FLY A tropical insect whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia. [AB]

UGLINESS A gift of the gods to certain people, entailing virtue without humility. [AB]

ULTIMATUM In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. [AB]

UN-AMERICAN Wicked, intolerable, heathenish [AB], as the U.N.

UNCONDITIONED Unbiased, unblemished, natural.

UNCONSCIOUS By far the preponderant part of the human mind.

UNDERSTANDING A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to tell a house from a horse by the shape of the roof on the house [AB]; a much sought after state of others allowing you to do exactly as you like.

UNEQUIVOCAL Having but one possible meaning, possibly that it has no meaning.

UNIFORM Jeans; Genes.

UNILATERAL High-handed and arbitrary; having only one side, perhaps accomplished with a meat cleaver. UNIQUE Common to everybody.

UNIT Oneofanything,commonlyaplacewherea plurality of people is housed.

UNIVERSAL Appertaining to every part of the corner of the earth I know.

UNPLEASANTNESS A humble way to refer to a personal catastrophe.

UNSPEAKABLE The subject on which most speaking is done.

UNWILLING A man paying his Bills.

URBAN Anareainfestedwithpeople.

URBANE The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to city dwellers. [AB]

URGE A strong, even violent, form of suggestion.

USE Abuse.

USEFUL Frequently abused.

UXORIOUSNESS A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife. [AB]

VALENCE An emptiness that attracts; an emptiness that repels, as something to hide curtain track.

VALIDITY The philosopher's stone of Psychology; pursued with vigour; proclaimed with pride; denied with criticism; as ephemeral as the willow-the-wisp.

VALOUR A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hopes. [AB]

VALUE Aprizedattributeof athingyouwanttosellor to give away; what you consider important. What others consider important is of little worth or consequence -- 'other's tears are just water.'

VANITY The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. [AB] VARIABILITY That which, recognized as characterizing all events, is held constant in experiments designed to discover the sources of variability in the events.

VARIANCE Much loved difference when it is systematic or personal; much loathed when it is error or errant.

VASCULAR A system which, contained permits life, and viewed enforces faints.

VECTOR One of the few magnitudes having a defined attribute. This one has direction -- hopefully, the other way.

VEGETABLE The part of your table that grows in your garden.

VENGEANCE The satisfaction of returning to another, several- fold, the pain you imagine he/she inflicted on you.

VERBAL An attribute of humanity, painful to the ears.

VERIFICATION The process by which A confirms his/her suspicions about C by asking B who claims intimate knowledge of C, where C has never met A or B.

VERTIGO The giddiness found among women and others in elevated positions.

VIABLE Capable of living and working, but fails to do so.

VIBRATION The means by which events impinge on and afflict our senses.

VICTIM The identity self-assigned to perpetrators who assign responsibility for their own crimes and frailties to others.

VICTIMIZER One who makes victims out of perpetrators and those they have wronged for the former's financial benefit. Syn: Lawyer.

VIOLA An instrument for caressing feline viscera mounted on a box to magnify the sound, to offend the ear. VIRGINITY Another highly acclaimed and sought after commodity acquiring its value from the fact that it can hardly be found.

VIRTUES Certain abstentions. [AB]

VISCERA Disgusting things, providentially hidden from view by the skin.

VISIBLE Painfultotheeyes.

VISION The sensory apparatus by which we say we see what we think we see when seeing only waves of energy we think can be seen by using our visual senses.

VISUAL ACUITY A measure of the failure of skill in seeing.

VOCAL Talkingquietlyat the top of one's lungs.

VOCATION The particular way in which one wastes one's time during the working day.

VOLITION The exercise of free-will in deciding that one acted precisely as determined to do by one's feelings, needs, values, beliefs, attitudes and experience history.

VOLUME The extent to which things fill space -- notably, the extent to which noise cannot be escaped.

VOTE The instrument and symbolof a free person's power to make a fool of him/herself [AB] by influence from putative popularity, and by wrecking his/her country in paying attention to the most vocal and enterprising of the villains running for office.

VOYAGEUR An ancient voyeur who travelled by canoe.

VOYEUR One so enamoured of his/her powers of vision that he/she requires but a tiny crack or hole to see through, and so assertive in using them that he/she insists on viewing prohibited visions.

W Twice U. I'm once Unique.

WANDERLUST The appropriate desire not to be where you are. WANT The great leveller among people and animals.

WANTED Discovered, but not yet found.

WANTON Want-ing-everything-you-set-your-eyes-On; a Chinese soup, after eating which you weigh one ton.

WAIST A midsection squeezed out as waste.

WAR A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a prolonged period of international amity, [AB] which depresses money.

WARMTH A measure of the intensity of one's feelings, mostly of rage.

WARSAW A place where it's pointless to watch a football game as you're always sitting behind a Pole.

WAVE Undulating movement, frequently of the hand, to express pleasure at the departure of company. When used in greeting company, it's called a 'wave off'.

WEAKNESS Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of the species binding him to the service of her will and paralysing his rebellious energies. [AB]

WEAN Togrowfromthesucktothebite.

WEATHER The climate of the hour [AB], detected wrongly by reference to certain complicated instruments, but detected more easily by going outside.

WEDDING A ceremony in which two people undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. [AB]

WEIGHT The insupportable something that waiting long enough is likely to produce, especially if the waiting is filled by prodigious eating; something that acquired can hardly be withdrawn. WELFARE The fare paid to you bythe State to keep you well when you are not disposed to keep yourself well with the healthy exercise of work.

WHEAT A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made with some difficulty, and which is also occasionally used for bread. [AB]

WHITE A condition from which all colourfulness has been sucked, by mixing all colours indiscriminately in it. This vapid colourlessness has been afforded to five noteworthy things by a protective Nature to mark their peculiarly insidious and damaging effects on human health. The five things, collectively comprising the White Plague are the whites amongst sugar, salt, flour, milk and people. WILL Astatementofwhatyouwon'tallow.

WILLIES Marks, commonly collectively called Mr. Wright, and about to have no rights.

WILLING A woman fishing for Willies.

WINDOW An unsightly and draughty opening in a wall, provided thoughtfully by architects for the easy entrance of the burglar.

WINE Grape juice used bytea-totalers to whine about.

WISH Awantthere'snotahopeofgetting.

WIT The salt by which American humorists spoil their intellectual cookery by leaving it out. [AB]

WITCH An ugly, repulsive old woman, in wicked league with the devil; a beautiful and shapely young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil. [AB]

WITNESS An unconscious perjurer; one who was not there.

WITTICISM A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted. [AB]

WOMAN An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, having all the offending characteristics with which she impugns Man, but with a rudimentary capacity for domestication. [AB]

WONDER Awful thinking.

WORD-DEAFNESS One of the most enjoyable of our calamities.

WORK Somethingeverybodycan find waysnot to do.

WORRY Baffledmentalactivity.

WORSHIP The specific popular form of abjection [AB] afforded to a mayor, but not to a mare.

WORTH The appreciated valuelessness of something.

WRATH Anger of a superior quality and degree. [AB]

WRITER'S CRAMP One of the most blessed afflictions of others; the sharp pain where one sits down to have to read a writer's work.

WRITING Re-writing as righting, for wronging the language.

X Theunknown,andthusthemostfeared.

XENOPHOBIA The most appropriate of fears, namely that of strangers.

Y The letter that asks the most meaningless question.

YAM A nondescript vegetable, occurring in lettered varieties. A-Yam (Said: Yam Eh): Canadian Yam. B- Yam (Said: Buy AM): Radio frequency Yam. C-Yam (Said: See Yam): Waxed for grocery store display. D-Yam (Said: Damn): Common swear word Yam. E-Yam (Said: 'E Yam): Ungrammatical He Yam. F-Yam (Said: F--Yam): Yam served to one who doesn't like yams. G-Yam (Said: Gam): A way of referring to women's legs yams. H-Yam (Said: Ham): A poor actor Yam. I-Yam (Said: Iyam): as in, 'If you think I'm obnoxious, it's only because I yam'. J-Yam (Said: Jyam): Traffic Jam. Etc. YEAR Aperiodof threehundredandsixty-fiveanda quarter disappointments. [AB]

YOUTH Aperiodoftimewastedonandbytheyoung.

ZEAL A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced; a passion that goes before a sprawl. [AB]

ZERO The point at which something natural naturally turns against its own nature; where something becomes nothing; where nothing becomes something; where a positive becomes a negative or a negative becomes positive; where solid ice becomes fluid water; or where fluid water becomes solid ice. Some think that zero is the fabled philosopher's stone sought by alchemists -- could it have been nothing.

ZEST The subjective state of zeal; the second best soap.

ZIGZAG To move forward uncertainly from side to side. [AB]

ZOO Aplacewherevariouskindsofanimalsare collected to give them an opportunity to ogle and laugh at humans found wandering aimlessly in the vicinity.

ZOOLOGY The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its kings, the House Fly [AB], the Cockroach and the Rat.

ZYGOTE A cell formed bythe union of gametes. Gametes are two creatures that come together for a game- of-tease. The zygote is the unfortunate creature of the union resulting from this game.

ZZZ Zeefinalentryinadictionary;zeesound produced by he/she who has pretended to sleep through zee reading of it; and zee sounds uttered at zee same time by zee mosquito seeking a juicy sip of nourishment. Pronounced Zed, Zed, Zed (British); it' zeasier for an American: Zee, Zee, Zee -- Zee it' zeasier. E: EDIT A BRIEF DICTIONARY OF POLIGAB/MEDIAGAB EQUIVALENCES

ToDebase ToCommenton ToCommend ToStateasis (Opposition) (Indifferent) (On Your Side) (Probably Means)

Abandon, Quit, Missed, Leave

Abandoned, Alone, Friend, Distance

Aberrant, Unusual, Different, Atypical

Abnormal, Atypical, Different, Atypical

Abominable, Rotten, Natural, Impure

Abrasive, Rough, Firm, Scratchy

Abuse,Injure, Hurt, Forceful, Non-empathic

Accessory, Abet, Help, Accompaniment

Accomplice, Co-dependent, Friend, Helper,

Accuse, Complain, Praise, Claim

Acquiescence, Yielding, Acceptance, Passive

Acquire, Augment, Obtain, Increase

Acquitted, Unproven, Innocent, Unproven

Acrimonious, Disagreeable, Respectful, Complaining

Admonish, Execrate, Praise, Disagree

Admonishment, Opinion, Advice, Statement Adversary, Opposition, Friend, Conflicted

Adversity, Difficulty, Opportunity, Natural Events

Afflict, Impute, Calm, Attribution

Affront, Remark, Compliment, Remark

Afraid, Courage, Brave, Avoidance

Aghast, Excessive, Noteworthy, Degree

Agitator, Opponent, Leader, PoliticalActivist

Agonize, Perturbed, Calmed, EffortExpended

Agony, Distress, Pleasure, Subjective State

Alarming, Disturbing, Pleasant, Arousing

Alien, Foreign, Familiar, Source Nationality

Alimony, Support, Endowment, Requirement

Allocate, Apportion, Provide, Give

Ambiguous, Unclear, Unequivocal, Understanding

Ambitious, Desirous, Daring, Entrepreneurial

Ambulatory, Walking, Agile, Active

Amnesty, Forgiving, Approval, Relinquish

Anathema, Contrary, Excellent, Liking

Anguish, Distress, Pleasure, Subjective State

Animosity, Conflict, Warmth, Conflict

Annihilate, Destroy, Reconstruct, Destroy

Anomalous, Atypical, Usual, Different

Antagonist, Foe, Friend, Political Position Antecedents, Ancestors, Parents, Progenitors

Apathy, Indifference, Fascination, Involvement

Appalling Surprising, Exciting, Subjective Reaction

Appease, Accommodate, Approve, Adapt

Apply, Ask, Request, Ask

Appraise, Evaluate, Value, Value

Approve, Allow, Agree, Accept

Arbitrary, Definite, Firm, Unilateral Action

Ardent, Persistent, Strong, Forceful

Arrest, TakeHoldof, Stop, LegalCharge

Asinine, Silly, Wrong, Clever, Evaluation

Aspiring, Wishing, Dream, Hopeful

Assassin, Killer, Judge, Murderer

Assault, Hit, Touch, Offend

Associate, Colleague, Friend, Colleague

Astonished, Surprised, Delighted, Suddenness

Atrocity, Vile Act, Kindness, Abuse

Attack, Enforce, Remark, Offend

Attest, Affirm, Declare, Say

Audacious, Assertive, Bold, Assertive

Austere, Unfeeling, Cool, Reserved

Authentic, Original, Real, Specialized

Authority, Reference, Knowledgeable, Referee Authorize, Permit, Allow, Permit

Autocrat, Manager, Administrator,Superior

Avarice, Greed, Acquisitive, Entrepreneur, Acquisitive

Avenging, Retribution, Fair Returns, Getting Back

Awe, Respect, Reverence, Humility

Awful, Unpleasant, Amazing, OrdinaryProblem

Awkward, Clumsy, Coordinated, Unbalanced

Babble, Talk, Communicate, Speak

Beg, Appeal, Affirm, Request

Bitter, Acidic, Agreeable, Sharp

Blame, Accuse, Approve, Arraign

Capture, Apprehend, Protect, TakeHoldof

Characteristic, Attribute, Quality, Part

Charge, Disapprove, Claim, Allege

Clumsy, Disabled, Agile, Efficiency

Cold, Controlled, Caring, Conventional

Condemnation, Judgement, Adulation, Attribution

Conning, Persuading, Influencing, Influencing

Conspiracy, Alliance, Participant, Agreement

Correct, Amend, Improve, Change

Crazy, Maladjusted, Different, Different

Crazy, Different, Individual, Different

Crier, Appellant, Announcer, CallOut Criminal, Rebel, Independent, Anti-Social

Deafening, Aloud, Dulcet, Volume

Decayed, Aged, Youthful, Development

Declare, Affirm, Assert, Say

Deny, Disaffirm, Admit, Negate

Despicable, Ignorable, Admirable, Disapproved

Destroy, Amputate, Reconstruct, Dismember

Diabolic, Distasteful, Angelic, Attribution

Disagreeable, Dislike, Agreeable, Personal Judgement

Disgusting, Ugliness, Alluring, Attractiveness

Disgusting, Annoying, Attractive, Evaluating

Disgusting, Intolerable, Adorable, Unaccepted

Disparagement, Pejorative, Commendation, Criticism

Dispute, Argue, Disagree, Conflict

Dissent, Dissent, Agree, Ignore

Dull, Unresponsive, Adroit, Disinterested

Enraging, Aggravating, Likable, Attribution

Enslaved, Addicted, Partial, Habituate

Excessive, Ample, Satisfying, Amount

Fat, Adipose, Large, Obese

Fear, Anticipate, Hope, Expectation

Garish Display, Jewellery, Adornment, Accessories

Gloominess, Alacrity, Cheerfulness, Attitude Grandiose, Egotistical, Confident, Expansive

Grievous, Aggrieving, Mild, Degree

Hatred, Disaffection, Affection, EmotionalState

Incomprehensible, Divergent, Interesting, Unusual

Indifference, Inattention, Noticing, Interest

Inflation, Amplifying, Growth, Increase

Ingrate, Appreciative, Gratitude, Acknowledge

Intimidating, Controlling, Leading, Influencing

Intolerable, Acceptance, Alike, Similarity

Lying, Arranging, Considerate, Altering Outcomes

Manipulation, Controlling, Cooperation, Influence

Megalomania, Aggrandize, Important, Self-Image

Molestation, Adultery, Seduction, SexualIntent

Nasty, Abusive, Judgement, Affectionate, Attribution

Noxious, Aversive, Pleasant, Unpleasant

Obsolete, Ancient, Useful, Workable

Offend, Alienate, Likable, SocialAttitude

Opposed, Against, Agreed, Conflicted

Oppositional, Attitude, Affable, Positional

Opulence, Wealth, Comfortable, Wealth

Phoney, Affectation, Honest, Intention

Pig-Headed Fool, Stubborn, Strong-Willed, Unyielding

Poisonous, Toxic, Antidote, Prediction Presumptuous, Assuming, Obvious, Inferential

Promise, Claim, Acknowledge, Affirm

Propaganda, Advertisement, Information, Point of View

Prosecute, Take Sides, Advocate, Conflicted

Publicize, Sell, Inform, Announce

Arrogant, Confident, Assured, Self-Satisfied

Put On Airs, Artifice, Apparel, Appearance

Regret, Apologize, Triumphant, SocialGrace

Reject, Acceptance, Affirm, Acceptance

Rejecting, Cliquish, Reactive, Unaccepting

Remorse, Sorrow, Redeem, Apologize

Reparation, Amelioration, Contribution, Restitution

Restrict, Limit, Delimit, Reduce

Ridiculous, Absurd, Funny, Unexpected

Shame, Guilt Feeling, Righteous, Disapproved

Spendthrift, Expenditures, Affordable, Budgeting

Stance, Attitude, Position, Positioning

Steal, Abscond, Acquire, Take

Superior, Self-assured, Competitive, Self-Satisfied

Take Advantage, Self-Centred, Entrepreneur, Opportunistic

TearDown, Analyze, Examine, Evaluate

Theft, Appropriate, Adopt, Take

Unacceptable, Allowable, Agreeable, Political Position Unprepared, Unexpected, Alert, Preparedness

Vicious, Mean, Aggressive, Assertive, Demeaning

Violent, Aggressive, Assertive, Forcefulness

Wimp, Follower, Dependent, Friendly, Under-assertive

F: FORD ABBREVIATED DICTIONARY Of STREET LANGUAGE (Rated)

AFFLUENT The fluency of excrement mixed with a lot of money.

AIR-HEAD One whose head is filled only with air, and who is therefore rather light-headed, or is crowned with light-coloured hair.

ARSS A means (refined by unequivocal ambiguity) for calling another an ass-hole. It works by failing to call the other an outright ass, while using an adulterated form of Ass as if to avoid using such a crass reference to a person's bottom.

ASS A particularly stupid and oppositional donkey; thus the rear-end of any species.

ASS-HOLE One who is both the rear-end of the species, and vacuous to the point of being filled only with either gas or excrement.

ASININE Appertaining to the attitudes, beliefs and utterances of the one Ass In Nine who is nothing but an ass-hole.

BASTARD A reference, usually made by a woman, calling into question a man's ancestry (and dependability).

BITCH A reference, usuallyto a woman, calling into question the species of which she is a member.

BLAST The way that dynamiter's punctuate their work. BLOW Usedasencouragementatabirthdayparty;a street word used as encouragement for the one addressed to evacuate him/herself as air from the locality.

BOOB A reference to the female mammarygland, but with the additional implication that the target of the remark is stupid (another usage of the term). As with the word Tit, the widespread valuation of the female mammary gland makes the implied connection to stupidity seem strange. Unlike the word Tit, Boob seems to be used most often as an expression of embarrassment by females, and of camouflaged disappointment by males who have insufficient access to the object to which reference is made.

BUGGER An expression discovered by rapidly repeating the chorus: 'I chased a bug around a tree.' Although adopted to represent the probability that the one of whom it is said practices anal intercourse, the term is used largely to be generally derogatory.

COCK-SUCKER An uncomplimentary reference to fellatio, used most often by ostensibly heterosexual males speaking of/to other males. One can only wonder why.

CRAP Excrement; assorted rubbish. Syn: Shit, Bull Shit.

CUNT Adisparagingwaytorefertothevaginaortoits possessor, bewildering to the listener since the apparatus is commonly highly valued by the user.

DAMN A tinker's malediction; sometimes mistaken to refer to a beaver's residence.

DARN A seamstress' way of expressing herself when she pricks her finger, and hence widely recognized as the favourite expression of Snow White's mother.

DICK-TICKLER A disparaging reference to the female as a tease. This pleasant activity of a female is disparaged solely in the hope that, in experiencing the disparagement, she may be induced to become more accommodating. DUPE Onewhocaneasilybeconnedintoanything. Syn: Mark.

DUNCE Now rarely used invective seeking to place the other at the lowest position in the class intellectually. Syn: Dumb, Stupid, Ament.

FART Thestreetwordreferringtonoiseforthenose.

FORD The most reprehensible four-letter 'F' word.

FUCK An interdictory expression used to emphasize an observation; the commonest form of expostulation; an easy way to add emotional power to an utterance; a reference to fornication. Upon being asked for the fifth time to produce onions, the grocery clerk affirmed: 'Onions are spelled O-N-I- O-Fuck-N-S.' The customer demurred, 'There's no fuck in onions.' The clerk replied, 'That's what I've been trying to tell you; there's no fuckin' onions.'

FUCK OFF An invitation to participate in the most popular of recreational activities: sex and travel.

FUDDLE DUDDLE The politically-correct form of the second strongest four-letter 'F' word.

GOOD DAY An Australian expression pretending to be welcoming, but actually expressing the hope that the day might improve following the retreat and absence of the person greeted.

GOOD HEAVENS The strongest of exclamatory utterances, made stronger by redundancy of words.

GOODNESS Sometimes rendered 'Goodness Gracious!'. A meaningless exclamatory expression, usually used when surprised.

HEAVENLY DAYS The charming way that a Molly reproves a Fibber.

HELL A gentle admonition offering admission to the most popular place to spend eternity.

HUMP A reference to sexual intercourse, referring to the imagined appearance of the male's back-side during the act, and to the appearance of the bull's upper back at any time.

JACK OFF Literally refers to climax through masturbation. It's commonest usage, however, is to encourage another to desist from troubling, or to leave. Syn: Buzz Off, Bugger Off, Evacuate the premises.

JERK One who is insignificant and stupid to the point that he/she is capable only of tics -- involuntary jerks, of which each of us has known several.

MOTHER FUCKER Often viewed as the most damning and defamatory remark capable of being used to refer to another - - presumably arising from the taboos relating to Oedipus' pastime.

NAUGHTY Your mother's way of telling you that you're being bad, wicked, evil, trying or inconsiderate.

NINNY Your nanny's affectionate way of telling you that you're being silly, nutty or dumb.

NUT Anaffectionatewayof sayinganotheriscrazy. Syn: Nut-Bar.

OH DEAR An exclamatory utterance used out of consideration for your maiden aunt, who happens to be in ear- shot, and who has a more colourful vocabulary than most people and could make sailors blush.

PISS Waste from a gardening hose, providentially colour coded yellow to permit congressmen and Newfies to discover whether they are coming or going.

PISSED OFF Having lost bladder control and spraying effusions of invective and other waste on another.

PRICK A reference intended to open the recipient to introjection for creative intercourse.

PUKE Undigested oral emanations evoked by nauseating others.

RAT Reputedtobeatimidonewhosquealsonothers. Actually, refers to a responsible tattle-tale who will not be intimidated by more solid and stolid others who are unwilling (cowardice) to accept the consequences of their own actions.

SCREW Enforced intercourse intended or perceived to be to the detriment of the ungrateful recipient; an uncomplimentary reference to a prison guard, as in, 'He/she is the best screw in town.'

SCREWED Inescapably mistreated, disadvantaged and rendered helpless. Although conventional lore and political stance suggest that this usage might be most common among females, it is more frequently adopted by males -- and in its passive or reflexive form.

SHIT A term originally intended to communicate the request that any subsequent remark be whispered softly, as in 'Shh It!' (with index finger gently pressed to the lips). Since such restraint has come to be viewed as excrement, the term's form and meaning have been altered accordingly.

SIXTY-NINE A coded (from the appearance of the Arabic numerals: 69) reference to simultaneous fellatio and cunnilingus.

SON OF A BITCH Abbr: SOB. Although ostensibly calling a man's ancestry into question, in truth the reference is to an idiosyncratic insect. 100 bees all 'got the urge' at the same time. All took off to a B.P. station, except for one. It went at an Esso station. This fact affords evidence that in any group there is always at least one SOB.

TIT Referencetothefemalemammarygland. Oftenused as though it were a defamatory utterance. This usage is strange. The female mammary glands seem to be held in high esteem fairly universally.

TWIT A suggestion thatthe recipientisaboutasbird- brained and inconsequential as the smallest of birds, used as if to imply an insult.

WHORE Prostitute referred to in the most uncomplimentary way, implying the speaker is jealous of other men.

WORK The most reprehensible four-letter 'W' word.

YELLOW A disparaging way of speaking of a coward.

G: GOAL DICTIONARY of BEHAVIOUR: PERSONAL-DEVELOPMENT GOALS (see HOW TO USE IT at the end of the 'G' Dictionary)

To be ... Associated Behaviours (suggested)

ABSTEMIOUS Drank water Drank a soft drink Enjoyed pop or fruit juice Went bowling/to movies/etc.

ACCESSIBLE Left office/home door open Listened to what another said Understood other's point of view Turned toward other as other approached

ACCOMMODATING Did what other preferred to do Asked other about his/her preferences Put aside time to spend with another Invited other to do tasks with self

ACCURATE Noticed a mistake Corrected a mistake Stated something carefully Did a task without mistake

ACQUISITIVE Bought something I liked Accepted something that was free Kept a possession Saved some money

ACTIVE Did something Moved quickly from there to here Reacted quickly to a situation Moved about the place

ADAPTABLE Did something another person's way Adjusted quickly to a new demand Reacted differently to different situation Thought about something in a new way

ADORABLE Smiled shyly Used manly stride / Dressed and Made-up well Held firm opinion / Smiled happily Spoke in soft and gentle tone

ADVENTURESOME Took a reasonable risk Tried a new thing to do Went to an unusual/exciting place Spoke to a stranger

AFFABLE Smiled warmly at someone Assumed relaxed manner and posture Laughed happily Said friendly/affectionate thing

AFFECTIONATE Said friendly/affectionate thing Spent time in close company with another Hugged person/patted person on shoulder Looked warmly/affectionately at other

AGILE Movedinarelaxedandlooseway Bent or twisted body easily Muscles were used in coordinated way Moved body with light/graceful movement

ALLURING Used soft/warm make-up Wore soft, flowing clothing Moved with gentle sway/hips swinging Smiled in warm, happy way

AMBITIOUS Took advantage of an opportunity Used political influence know-how Sought recognition from another Excelled in a task

AMIABLE see Accommodating, Amenable, Affable

AMUSING Toldafunnyjoke Said a bright or witty thing Entertained others with story or mime Enjoyed attention from others ANGELIC Used little make-up / or whitening make-up Was still and calm in manner Said kind thing Ignored dirty/unseemly act of other

APPRECIATIVE Thanked someone for a small thing Commented on goodness/success of another Praised another Accepted other's act with smile and thanks

APPROACHABLE see Accessible

ARDENT Triedtobeincompanyoflovedone Attended intensely to a loved one Said loving things to loved one Expressed passionate feelings to loved one

ARISTOCRATIC Walked in tall, stately way Wore simple, expensive clothes Was polite and courteous in word and manner Used careful, polished manners

ASPIRING Did more than expected (by self/others) Achieved more than objective set Made new goal before last one completed Set a goal beyond expectations

ASSERTIVE Expressed own feeling openly Stood/sat erectly, with expansive gestures Used short, affirmative sentence Spoke clearly and with emphasis

ASSURED see Self-Confident

ASTUTE Took advantage of an 'angle' in situation Found a loophole or a clever solution Acted directly on what needed to be done Did something ensuring future benefits

ATTENTIVE Actively listened to other person's words Complimented another on appearance Commented on a change in another person Maintained focused eye contact

BEAUTIFUL Dressed & made-up well, colour coordinated Styled hair in an attractive way Smiled openly and happily Moved gracefully

BENEVOLENT Did a kindly or helpful thing Smiled happily at other's good fortune Gave some time to a good cause Gave some money or food to a charity

BENIGN Didakindlythingforanother Acted in support of another's initiative Did friendly thing when someone unhappy Agreed with something someone said

BLITHE Acted in happy-go-lucky way Moved in light, airy way Made happy and light-hearted statement Walked with a spring in movements

BRASH see Courageous

BRAVE see Courageous

BRAWNY Walked with heavyand stronggait Tensed muscles while moving Lifted something heavy Played a body contact sport

BRIGHT Found a novel or newsolution to a problem Used language to express a clever idea Talked about an interesting topic Used a difficult word correctly

BROAD-MINDED Listened to someone using strong language Agreed with an unusual attitude of other Considered a number of different ideas Approved of somebody being him/herself Thought about something different

BUSINESS-LIKE Kept attention on task to be done Got right to the point in a discussion Moved quickly and efficiently to a new task Considered the cost and the pay-off first

CALM Moved with limbs loose and relaxed Talked in a steady, unhurried way Sat up straight, but with muscles relaxed Was steady and effective in a crisis

CAREFUL Checked work over for mistakes Worked at a steady, thoughtful pace Considered all possibilities of situation Took time in fine/precise work

CARING Asked about another's needs or wishes Asked to help with another's problem Looked after someone in need Listened for the emotion in another's talk

CAUTIOUS see Careful

CHARMING Smiled attentively at another Used proper manners in a relaxed way Said affectionate thing to another Talked pleasantly about nice happenings

CHEERFUL Remarked on the good or success of another Found a 'silver lining' in unpleasantness Said encouraging thing to another Smiled happily and contentedly

CHIVALROUS Gave place to lady or older person Behaved in a formal, polite way Helped person in need of help Stood up for a weaker person in argument

CHRISTIAN Expressed love and caring for another Helped someone in trouble or in pain Helped someone do or carry something Felt and expressed happiness with life

CHUMMY Was friendly to someone Helped keep a conversation going Spent time with someone Talked about things that interested other

CIVIL Talked in pleasant,friendlyway Told a truth in a kind way Restrained self when annoyed Talked in a polite way

COMFORTABLE Relaxed in a situation Attended to various things going on Felt comfortable and at ease with other Stayed calm and settled in stressful event

COMMITTED Expressed a strong feeling openly Made a promise, and kept it Became intensely involved in a situation Stated a decision flatly and definitely

COMPOSED Stayed calm and settled in stressful event Responded easily to things said Maintained even pace in a situation Responded gently and interestedly to each

COMRADELY see Friendly

CONSCIENTIOUS Did what ought to be done Completed a task that was started Acted precisely in manner of approach Lived up to an agreement

CONSIDERATE Did thoughtful thing for another Asked other what would like (to do) Listened to the other's viewpoint Let another go first (in line, speaking)

CONSISTENT Acted in accord with beliefs or values Did something the way that worked before Kept the same idea or attitude Approached a task same way as before

CONTEMPLATIVE Considered an act carefully before doing Listened thoughtfully to others Thought a long time before making up mind Sat still and thought about something

CONTENTED Commented on good things in a situation Relaxed and satisfied in a situation Quietly enjoyed something that happened Smiled with pleasure at a situation

CONVERSATIONALIST Took time to talk about something Listened carefully to what another said Had a novel/unusual thought to talk about Enjoyed making small talk

COOL-HEADED see Composed CORDIAL Welcomed chance to talk with someone Talked and acted politely to another Acted in a gracious manner Showed was pleased to be with another

COURAGEOUS Was calm in the face of emergency/danger Moved in and dealt with a crisis Did what was needed in an emergency Took a reasonable risk confidently

COURTEOUS Acted in a formal and polite manner Gave place to lady or older person Said 'please' and 'thank you' to other Spoke only after other finished talking

CREATIVE Found novel way of doing something Found novel way of thinking about an event Put something together in an artistic way Found a new solution to a problem

CREDIBLE see Truthful

CULTURED Attended/Saw a display of art/theatre Spoke with a crisp and clear accent Spoke on a wide range of topics Spoke and acted politely/with etiquette

CURIOUS Asked question about other's views Tried out a different way of doing things Asked about the reason for something said Asked about how something works

DAINTY Washed self thoroughly to be clean Wore frilly, light, delicate clothing Used delicate words and manner Walked and sat carefully to stay clean

DASHING Did something in a vital and active way Led others in an activity Dressed in elegant, bright clothing Took a reasonable risk

DECENT Said and did things in a conventional way Subtly avoided dirty talk Considered others feelings in conversation Acted fully in accord with an agreement DECISIVE Acted instantly, without delay Saw and did right thing to do at once Spoke with short, affirmative statement Stated a decision immediately

DEDICATED Committed time to a task or person Completed a task conscientiously Attended to other's need/wish carefully Intensely did a task as intended

DELIGHTFUL Said a witty thing quickly in conversation Chatted happily about an interesting thing Talked and acted in a bright, happy way Added interesting side-lights to a topic

DEMOCRATIC see Fair

DESIRABLE Eagerly gave pleasure to others Displayed a slim, well-groomed appearance Enjoyed the humorous side of an event Expressed interest and feeling for another

DETERMINED Made a forceful and definite statement Did something with energy and strength Persisted in a difficult or heavy task Stuck to a difficult task and finished it

DEVOTED Was very attentive to special other Tried hard to make the other happy Stayed close and with the special other Stayed at a task without leaving it

DIGNIFIED Stood or sat up straight and still Used very proper manners and etiquette Moved in a slow, considered way Stayed quiet until addressed

DILIGENT Worked hard to complete a task Stuck with a difficult task till done Returned promptly to a task when could Worked at a task without asking for help

DIRECT Said what thought clearly and to the point Spoke in brief affirmative sentences Talked to a specific other person Came to the point immediately DISARMING Spoke in a simple, direct fashion Spoke naively and openly about own ideas Affirmed clearly what thought or felt Stated a truth without flattery/criticism

DISCERNING Stated implications behind an action Stated clearly the essence of a situation Distinguished clearly between happenings Analyzed a situation to its detailed parts

DISCRIMINATING see Discerning

DISTINGUISHED see Aristocratic, Dignified

DRAMATIC Spoke with big, extensor gestures Said unusual or unexpected thing Spoke loudly with clear enunciation Placed self directly in front of others

EAGER Tried every allowed task available Offered to do anything needing to be done Attended to every interesting thing Asked to try anything and everything

EASY-GOING Used slow, relaxed movements Agreed with everyone's point of view Went along with others' wishes Found light-hearted fun in each happening

EBULLIENT Was very active and energetic Was positive in each thing said Had a lively and happy manner Bulled way through a social situation

ECONOMICAL Budgeted expenses carefully to income Bought only what was necessary to have Bought lowest priced brand carefully Saved all the money could in the situation

EFFECTIVE Found best way and completed task that way Adjusted actions to those things that work Considered both the product and its effect Balanced accuracy with speed in task

ELOQUENT Used a wide vocabulary accurately Looked up a word to see how to use it Spoke in short organized sentences Spoke with humour without hesitation

EMPHATIC Used strong emphasis in tone and word Emphasized words/ideas that were important Spoke forcefully, in short sentences Made gestures only on key points

ENCOURAGING Commented positively on other's actions Praised other for successes Gave assurance the other would succeed Praised other's efforts

ENERGETIC Moved quickly and actively Took on a task and did it Moved quickly from task to task Tried to find ways to be helpful to others

ENGAGING see Affable, Alluring, Charming, Cordial

ENTERTAINING see Amusing, Delightful, Eloquent

ENTHUSIASTIC see Conscientious, Eager, Ebullient

ENTREPRENEURIAL Sought a new idea and pursued it Found a way to make money Sold self and own ideas actively

EROTIC Watched opposite sex intently Made sexy suggestions or jokes Took opportunity for a sexual contact Noticed self becoming sexually aroused

ETHICAL Followed the 'Golden Rule' Considered other's rights equally with own Related to another to his/her advantage Failed to take unfair advantage of other

EXEMPLARY Acted according to an 'ideal' standard Let another see own good side/behaviour Acted as others expected Showed a good example

EXPERT Studied everything could find in a field Repeatedly practised skills needed in area Offered to give help/advice to others Succeeded in accomplishing task in an area

EXTROVERTED see Outgoing

FAIR Tookownturnandgaveotherstheirturn Gave others equal time to talk Insisted on majority rule (not own way) Played others' game by their rules

FAITHFUL Was interested sexually only in own spouse Told others only about the good in other Told a truth openly to other Kept private secret shared by other

FAR-SIGHTED Stated goal or purpose of an action Laid a plan well into the future Considered consequences of action Thought through future steps of a task

FORGIVING Actively thought about the good in another Realized another is human and makes mistakes Recognized own mistakes - same as others Decided to forget another's mistake

FORESIGHTFUL see Far-Sighted

FREE Spoke openly without defensiveness Was calm and steady in actions, unhurried Was easy-going and comfortable, unfettered Chose what to do with own time

FRIENDLY Smiled warmly at others Talked to acquaintance or stranger Took time to be with acquaintance Approached another for conversation

FRUGAL see Economical

GENEROUS Gave of own time to other Helped another when needed help Created an opportunity for another Shared own things with another

GIFTED Exercised and practised good memory Exercised good problem solving skills Exercised and practised good creativity Demonstrated good drawing ability

GIVING see Generous

GOOD see Ethical

GRACEFUL see Courteous and Composed

GRACIOUS Acted respectfully toward others Attended to/interested in others Moved lightly, gracefully and smoothly see also Dignified

HAPPY Smiledopenly Commented on enjoying a situation Commented on good in each other person Was lively and active

HARDY Tolerated changing event well Acted and felt healthy Performed a manly pursuit Exerted self and muscles strongly

HEALTHY Felt strong and comfortable Had a good sense of well-being Used lots of energy Noticed daily getting better and better

HEARTY Talked and laughed full-throatedly Was courageous in facing an event Expressed self emphatically Laughed and joked with others

HELPFUL see Generous

HEROIC Dreamed an impossible dream Struggled against great odds Jumped in and did what was needed Took on an extremely difficult task

HOMELY/HOME-BODY Enjoyed spending time at home Spent time doing things around the house Spent most income on things for the house Spent time relaxing around the house

HONEST see Truthful HONOURABLE see Ethical

HOPEFUL Looked forward optimistically Expected to do better than really expected Set slightly unrealistic goal Expected something against all odds

HOSPITABLE Warmly welcomed others to home Provided freely for wants of guests Ensured guests were comfortable and happy Provided entertainment for guests

HUMBLE Gave praise and importance to others Said others contributed to own successes Played down own contributions Put self down to others

HUMOROUS Commented on funny aspect of things Told a funny story Laughed warmly at others' jokes/comments Said unexpected things with a twist

IDEALISTIC Thought about what should be done in life Sought out the good and valued thing to do Did something to improve the world Helped another to work toward perfection

INCORRUPTIBLE Tried to accomplish something useful Tried to be useful, ignoring recognition Tried to better self, ignoring recognition Disinterested in material/money gain

INDEPENDENT Accepted consequences of own behaviour Made up own mind Stated own wishes or point of view Told the truth to own disadvantage

INDIVIDUALISTIC see Assertive, Extraordinary, Independent

INDULGENT Praised another Let another have his/her own way Spent money on another Did what another wanted me to do

INGENIOUS see Creative INNOVATIVE see Creative

INQUISITIVE Asked a question of another Read an informational book (Encyclopedia) Tried to understand something Asked about others' private business

INSIGHTFUL see Discerning

INSPIRING see Exemplary

INTELLECTUAL Thought something through rationally Solved a complex problem Used variety of words accurately Read informative book

INTELLIGENT Worked until solved a difficult problem Connected a situation with one remembered Recognized when a word was used wrongly Figured out how to solve a math. problem

INTERESTING Read a book and used/shared ideas from it Talked about something with a novel twist Talked about how others relate to events Talked about current events (from news)

INTIMATE Told private feelings/thoughts to another Listened with interest to personal feeling Kept another's secret which was shared Revealed a personal feeling or need

INVENTIVE see Creative

INVULNERABLE Was self-confident Was strong in the face of trouble Was definite in making a decision Remained involved in uncomfortable event

IRRESISTIBLE see Adorable, Ardent, Beautiful, Caring

JOLLY see Cheerful, Happy, Hearty, Humorous

JOYFUL Sawgoodandfunineverything Was happy Counted own blessings Loved living JUDICIOUS Thought carefully about a situation Weighed information before deciding Took all points of view into account Was fair in dealing with another

JUST see Fair, Judicious

KEEN see Eager, Enthusiastic

KIND Considered another's feelings Said something that made another feel good Was sympathetic about another's problem Accepted another's anger pleasantly

LAUDABLE see Expert, Heroic, Idealistic, etc.

LAW-ABIDING Respected another's property Stayed appropriate distance from another Kept an agreement though other broke it Returned property misplaced by another

LEADER Offered guidance or counsel to other Waited for others to express their views Summarized others' points of view Offered direction and gave instruction

LENIENT see Indulgent

LIBERAL see Generous

LIGHT-HEARTED see Enthusiastic, Happy, Joyful

LIKABLE see Adorable, Cheerful, Friendly

LIVELY see Blithe, Enthusiastic, Joyful

LOGICAL see Intellectual

LOVING Spenttimewithlovedone Sat tenderly and close to loved one Said gentle, loving things to loved one Committed self and time to loved one

LOYAL see Faithful

LUSTY see Erotic MANLY see Brawny, Courageous, Dashing, Decisive

MASCULINE see Manly

MATERNAL Looked after another Supervised another who needed care Made sure others were fed and comfortable Provided for the needs of others

MERCIFUL see Forgiving, Generous

METICULOUS see Accurate, Careful, Conscientious

MODERATE Took the middle road in doing something Ate only enough to dull hunger Used only literate, dictionary language see also Abstemious

MODEST Was a bit shy Was hesitant to take a risk Clothing was neat and covered completely

MORAL Acted in accord with social expectations Behaved well/properly Was private about private things Failed to do anything wrong

NATURAL Was relaxed and easy-going Did simple and normal things Wore ordinary clothes without make-up Spoke using the simplest words

NEAT Wore clean and pressed clothes Had hair combed and orderly Did things in an orderly manner Spoke with crisp, clipped enunciation

NOBLE Satandwalkedtallandstraight Behaved politely and considerately Was punctual arriving and leaving see also Aristocratic, Idealistic

NURTURING see Maternal

OBJECTIVE Considered the evidence before acting Considered the tangible evidence of senses Observed and recorded an event carefully see also Judicious

OBSERVANT see Discerning

OPEN Was open to listen to others' concerns Was open in helping another Was open to hear/accept others' ideas Was open in telling other how I felt

OPTIMISTIC Saw the good/happy/pleasant in things Saw and expected the best in situation Anticipated things turning out well see also Hopeful

ORDERLY Did a series of tasks one at a time Kept things organized in work space Focused attention fully on present task Thought task through in orderly fashion

ORGANIZED see Orderly

ORIGINAL see Creative

OUTGOING Approached another person Smiled while approaching Started a conversation Invited others to join conversation

PASSIONATE see Enthusiastic, Erotic

PEACEFUL Found common factors in a disagreement Was at ease with others Agreed with everyone's positions and needs Played a Peace Game

PERCEPTIVE see Discerning

PERSISTENT Noted own achievement toward goals Continued a task to completion Set goal and action plans Checked off completed action plans

PERSONABLE Dressed neatly and cleanly Spoke and acted politely Acted in socially competent way Was attentive and made conversation

PERSPICACIOUS see Discerning

PERSUASIVE Explained own position carefully Left no steps of argument incomplete Demonstrated advantages to other of view Ensured other could easily agree with view

PHILOSOPHIC Used deductive logic accurately Asked leading question Was thoughtful and contemplative Explained theory behind point of view

PIOUS Acted in a good and honest way Spoke positively about religion Attended church Pointed out others' sins to them

PLACID see Calm

PLAYFUL Found an opportunity to have fun Played game or practical joke Did funny or silly things Took something serious lightly

PLEASANT Was friendly Was calm Reacted to nice things in a situation Smiled and listened to another talking

PLEASING Did something to make another happy Shared a good time with another Was clean, neat and polite Helped another find something liked by him

POLISHED Waspolite Was dignified Dressed and carried self in stately way

POLITE Gaveplacetoladyorolderperson Followed rules of etiquette Waited till others finished before talking Dressed neatly and cleanly

POSITIVE Commented on good and positive things Was optimistic Made affirmative statement Was decisive and sure of self

POWERFUL Learned more about politics and systems Talked last and summarized others' views Stood and gestured tall and broad Demonstrated knowledge and influence skill

PRACTICAL Attended to the details of a task Set objectives well within reach Selected concrete/mechanical tasks to do Found the easiest way to do something

PRAGMATIC Evaluated action for its results Adopted the approach that worked best Considered 'what' and 'how' questions only Stated objective before starting task

PRAISING see Positive

PRECISE Minimized errors in a task Made slow and accurate hand/finger moves Watched everything done cautiously see also Careful

PRODUCTIVE see Consistent, Diligent, Economical, Far-Sighted, Orderly, Persuasive, Practical, Pragmatic

PROFICIENT see Practical, Precise, Productive

PROLIFIC Wrote up each task/activity in detail Accepted and completed many tasks Produced a great many results

PROMPT Arrived for appointment minutes early Responded to action request immediately Met task deadline exactly on time Arrived to do a task exactly when agreed

PROUD Stoodandsattallandstraight Looked another directly in the eye Let others know of own accomplishments Dressed self richly and elegantly PUNCTUAL see Prompt

QUICK Responded immediately to another's remark Was ready with a witty come-back Moved lightly and quickly around an area Answered a question immediately

RADIANT Smiled broadly and easily Was neat and clean, with bright make-up Used differential relaxation Was motile and witty

RATIONAL see Intellectual

REASONABLE see Intellectual

RECEPTIVE see Accessible, Accommodating, Attentive

REFINED see Aristocratic, Polite

RELAXED Muscles were loose Used differential relaxation Mind was still with thoughts organized

RELIABLE Behaved in a predictable way Was honest Behaved in a dependable way Acted as expected

RELIGIOUS see Pious

RESOLUTE see Assertive, Determined

RESOURCEFUL see Adaptable, Creative, Expert

RESPECTFUL Treated another as wanted to be treated Was polite Put another first Was attentive to another

RESPONSIVE Was attentive to another Reacted quickly to another's initiative Acted spontaneously and emotionally Treated another tenderly

RESPONSIBLE Accepted consequences of own behaviour Considered own mistakes before others' Took on a task which needed to be done see also Consistent, Persistent

RETENTIVE Organized information to be remembered Was calm and relaxed during intake, recall Practised remembering things (Reminisced) Recalled something quickly

ROMANTIC Was close to loved one Said soft, loving things Gave loved one nice thing she/he liked Spent time in close, quiet conversation

RUGGED see Manly

SANGUINE see Ardent, Optimistic

SATISFIED Was happy with own life and circumstances Noticed the good and successful in life Experienced relief from distress see also Contented

SCHOLARLY see Eloquent, Intellectual

SCRUPULOUS see Careful, Conscientious, Incorruptible

SECURE see Businesslike, Diligent, Economical

SELF-ASSURED see Self-Confident

SELF-CONFIDENT Sat and stood tall and straight Made affirmative statements to others Offered an opinion quickly and easily Made a decision quickly and easily

SELF-ESTEEMED Presented self in a positive way Talked positively about self and abilities Acted decisively Looked after own appearance carefully

SELF-POSSESSED see Independent, Self-Confident

SELF-RELIANT see Independent, Responsible SELF-RESPECTING see Self-Esteemed

SELF-SATISFIED see Proud

SELF-SUFFICIENT see Independent, Self-Confident

SENSITIVE Noticed another's unhappiness or distress Reacted emotionally to/as others Empathically felt what another was feeling Spoke so as not to hurt another's feelings

SERENE see Calm, Comfortable, Composed

SERIOUS Recognized event's problems and difficulties Frowned with concern about a situation Took something another said seriously see also Careful, Conscientious

SINCERE Acted consistently with beliefs/statements Was consistent in feelings over time Took what other said seriously Committed self to something/someone

SKILFUL Was precise in performing task's actions Kept on practising doing task Continued education in skill area see also Accurate, Businesslike, Careful

SOBER-MINDED see Serious

SOCIABLE Took time for small talk with acquaintance Took time to talk with another Put another at ease quickly Listened attentively to another

SOFT-HEARTED see Caring, Sensitive

SOOTHING Talked in a low, quiet voice Used words with soft sounds Talked slowly and calmly Distracted other from worries/distresses

SOPHISTICATED see Aristocratic, Courteous, Intellectual

SPELL-BINDING Read, retained and used much information (CHARISMATIC) Talked of new and interesting information see also Expert, Eloquent, Ebullient

SPONTANEOUS Reacted emotionally immediately to events Made decision instantly and acted on it Felt and was free in speaking to another see also Outgoing, Sociable

SPRIGHTLY Used lively, springing steps in walking Walked quickly and energetically Responded quickly with a smile to others Talked with an up-beat, happy tone/manner

STABLE see Calm, Persistent, Self-Confident

STIMULATING see Positive, Responsive, Spell-Binding

STRONG Tookthe lead in a relationship Was persistent in a human relationship Was tolerant of other's viewpoints and anger see also Decisive, Self-Confident

STUDIOUS Read several books Took courses to improve knowledge Asked many questions see also Intellectual

SUAVE see Sophisticated

SUBTLE Considered the fine details in an event Made fine distinctions in what said Classified things for their causes Examined other's words for motivations

SYSTEMATIC Organized things carefully into categories Thought and acted in logical order Considered statements in sequential order see also Intellectual, Subtle

TACTFUL Was polite and considerate Offered positives as well as criticism Said only things that were kind Said only things that were necessary

TEMPERATE see Abstemious

TENACIOUS Hung on to an idea in conversation Pushed own point of view persistently Spoke forcefully see also Persistence

TENDER Touched anothergently Expressed warm feelings quietly Was sensitive to another's feelings Was careful not to hurt another's feelings

THICK-SKINNED see Tough

THOUGHTFUL see Considerate, Contemplative, Sensitive

THRIFTY see Careful, Economical, Orderly

TOLERANT Accepted the way another was Enjoyed differences among people Put up with an unpleasantness see also Adaptable, Broad-Minded, Forgiving

TOUGH Was comfortable with other's annoyances Took leadership easily and comfortably Worked-out, developing muscles and strength see also Brawny, Tolerant

TRANQUIL see Calm, Peaceful

TRUSTING Expressed feelings openly to others Shared an emotional experience with others Accepted uncertainty about others' response Committed trust to another

TRUSTWORTHY see Ethical, Faithful, Truthful

TRUTHFUL Told a truth Accepted consequences of own behaviour Talked openly about own views and self Did not try to change life's contingencies

UNCONVENTIONAL Behaved just as I wished Did different sorts of things Wore something other than jeans and tee-shirt see also Creative

UNRESERVED Felt free to say and do as wished Did unusual actions/said unusual things Was almost too outspoken see also Unconventional

VERSATILE see Adaptable, Bright, Creative

VIRTUOUS see Christian, Decent, Exemplary

VITAL Actedaliveandenergetic Worked actively toward valued goals Moved quickly and confidently see also Ebullient, Energetic

VIVACIOUS see Agile, Alluring, Vital

WARM see Loving, Tender

WILLING see Accommodating, Adaptable, Cheerful

WISE Used experience and training in conversation Offered advice based on where other was Tempered speech with experience and care see also Contemplative, Creative

WITTY Madeasharpandhumorouscomment Reacted quickly with novel ideas Made a funny remark Came back quickly making fun of something

WOMANLY see Maternal, Nurturant, Warm

WORKER Expendedeffortindoingatask Did as told by superiors Put in all hours for which paid Directed work toward own and company goals

WORLDLY Kept up with events from the news Got along with people from other culture Learned more about the world's geography Was interested in everyday matters

WORTHY Everybody is worthy - so are you

YOUTHFUL Was physically and facially relaxed Maintained slim body Moved in light, lively way see also Energetic, Lively, Zestful ZESTFUL Enjoyed each second that passed Was happy and contented Was lively, energetic and active Felt youthful

HOW TO USE THE BEHAVIOURAL DICTIONARY

1) Define YOUR IDEAL SELF, using whatever concepts seem right to you (concepts such as those in the left-hand column), but ALWAYS in POSITIVE terms only (i.e., no 'not-' or 'un-' words).

2) Select those behaviours that YOU believe define each of the qualities of your ideal self, using the behaviours listed as examples (definitions in right hand column) to start you off. Make sure the behaviours are OBSERVABLE, for example, by deciding what behaviours you can see in other people that tell you the other people have that quality in sufficient degrees.

3) Each morning, read over the list of BEHAVIOURS to remind yourself what you will be watching for in your own behaviour.

4) Without trying to perform any of them, every time you notice yourself spontaneously doing, for ANY INSTANT in time, ANY APPROXIMATION to ANY ONE of the behaviours of your list, be pleased with yourself and CONGRATULATE yourself as a reward for becoming the person you want most to be. Do NOT be precise about any action you notice to reward. If it SEEMS to conform generally to any defined behaviour on your list, and even if it lasts no more than an a second, reward it. It will grow only if it is rewarded for any approximation to it.

Of course, you can always go through the lengthy and laborious process of self-examination to discover your existing identifying qualities, perhaps with some disappointment. But that doesn't help you become the person you want to be. The method suggested here accomplishes quite quickly both the creation of you as your ideal self (with appropriate pleasure for you), and lets you know your identity that you have pre-defined and become. The method breeds success and pleasure with yourself. You might want to try it. H: HIGH A DICTIONARY OF NATURAL HIGHS or ...

How to get others to ask you: 'What the hell are you on, and can I get some too?'

Most of life's 'highs' are FREE, and none cost as much as street drugs or alcohol. Most DO require you to DO something, and some even require a little planning -- that's awful, isn't it?!

No substance (or action -- actions can be addicting too) of any kind has exactly the same effects on any two people. That is, the experiences you have are exclusive to you -- so many are listed.

Moreover, each person wants or seeks his/her own kind of 'high'. You can determine what kind of 'high' you want or like simply by answering (honestly) for yourself the question: 'What effects do I get from each substance I use?' If you are addicted, and if the answer you give yourself is 'none' or 'it's an addiction', or the like, you simply have not examined yourself carefully or precisely or honestly enough. Addictions ONLY occur to the extent that the substance (or action) has an effect on the person, and the effect is always that he/she 'feels better' in some way. What kind of 'feeling better' (the 'effect') do YOU get, and what do you feel (the 'need' state; NOT the 'craving') BEFORE taking the substance (or doing the action) that, relieved, allows you to feel better? If you can't figure out the 'needs' (or the 'effects') that drive YOU, you might be able to get some help from the N dictionary (about people's Needs) and/or the Y dictionary (about people's Values) and/or the G dictionary (about Qualities of the Ideal Self) that, like this one, are intended to be serious.

There are many possible 'feeling worses' that are relieved to create many possible kinds of 'feeling betters'. For this reason, a variety of types of 'highs' are listed in this dictionary. Please use any or all of these, and feel free to add your own.

ANT A prolific and voracious species of insect that works indefatigably in opposition to everyone and everything, especially humankind and humankind's possessions; hence opposing or opposite.

ANTI-DEPRESSANTS Depressions can be extinguished for ever, if you wish. The method depends on the kind of depression the person adopts ('How do I do that?'), which may have to be identified by a good psychologist. (Stress-) reactive depression is best handled by anxiety/stressor desensitization or assertive training. Anhedonic-joyless depression is best managed by anti-introversion training, assertive, goal-finding or values training. Apathy-depression is best handled using goal-finding, joy training, and time-line work. Grief can be dealt with by means of a brief grief treatment method. Dysthymic (sad) depression can be addressed with cognitive behaviour therapy, rational-emotive therapy, assertive training and transcendental meditation. An introverted element in a depression needs ambiguity desensitization in addition to many of the above methods. A guilt element in any depression is addressed below.

ANTI-GUILT The word 'guilt' has many meanings. It refers here only to FEELINGS of guilt that the person gives him/herself. Guilt feelings can be handled in a programme called enjoying guilt, that includes some desensitization for criticism, time-line work to get rid of first causes in early experiences, and some cognitive therapy to restructure the person's understanding of criticism, guilt, him/herself and reality.

ANTI-INFERIORITY You may think, 'I haven't got a complex; I AM inferior.' Of course, that's rubbish. You are an amazing human being, just like every other. The problem is for you to discover just how good you are. This means that you need to get rid of all the horrors of feeling like a failure in the past. This involves some cognitive therapy (restructuring your understanding of the errors you and others have made in the past), some time-line work (to get rid of the emotional charge left in you from early life experiences), some correction of conflicts in you and the way you see the world (through some work on your values), and some desensitization (for the unpleasant feelings about 'failing' or being 'inferior'), along with some methods to allow you to view some things in a better perspective. You may need to add some retraining of how the body works. For some people, it may also be necessary to do some EEG-SMR biofeedback training (after a brief specialized psychological assessment).

ANTI-TENSION Tense your muscles all over your body, and hold them tensed for as long as five minutes. You'll feel 'nice' and uptight by then. And won't that feel awful ... nice?

ANTI-TIGHTNESS Tighten up your bum tightly, as if you were trying to keep yourself from defecating (shitting) or being flatulent (farting), and hold it as tightly as you can for as long as five minutes. You'll feel in an awful state by then. Lucky you!

ANXIETY: BREATHING Most of us have learned to breathe wrongly. That's right, even how we breathe is learned. To look tough or attractive, we have sucked in our stomachs, and have thus prevented normal diaphragm breathing. To reinstate normal diaphragm (healthy) breathing and to reduce anxiety quickly and easily, all that is needed is to do about 12 long OUT- breaths in a row, perhaps in groups of three or four, with unregulated breaths in between. I'm afraid you read the above wrongly. You thought I said: Take deep breaths, right? Well, I did NOT. Quite the opposite: I said let out long OUT- breaths which are perhaps 3 or 4 or 5 times longer than your UNregulated in-breaths. Better read the instruction above again.

ANXIETY: CALM Any 'calming' methods can be used to reduce anxiety fairly quickly.

ANXIETY: FEARS There are good and efficient ways of getting rid of our fears and anxieties permanently. They are generally called desensitization methods. But they often require the help of a trained psychologist to use these methods. However, you can get rid of your own fears quite easily if you do the right things. You could learn to use one or more of the fast phobia treatments (NLP, Eye-Movement, Swish) for some of your fears. Or you could ensure that you never leave a situation you're anxious in without first having coped in some way with it, and preferably until your anxiety has left you. It is by avoiding or escaping situations we don't like that we (most commonly) train ourselves to be anxious in those situations. Most often, anxiety won't kill you, and you could fairly easily live through it with patience. Do what you can do in the situation if and when you feel anxious.

ANXIETY: REGULARITY We eat, drink, sleep, defecate and breathe at any old times without any fair concern for our poor bodies. Then we marvel at the fact that our bodies scream at us as loudly as they can. The stress or anxiety response is just the body's way of yelling at us to get a little share of our attention. If we were to regularize our habits of these kinds, so the body could come to expect to be looked after according to a regular schedule, it would serve us better and scream at us less. We wouldn't think of forgetting to service our replaceable cars at regular times. How about as much consideration for our irreplaceable bodies?

ANXIETY: RELIEF There is a psychological tranquillizer procedure called Anxiety-Relief Conditioning. To get it 'installed' for you to use, you could consult a psychologist at a big fee. Or you could do it for yourself. Pick a word you could use often, such as 'No' (or 'Know' -- same sound). Pinch yourself until it hurts, say the word you picked (eg., 'No') out loud, and IMMEDIATELY after that let go the pinch. When the pain is gone, repeat the procedure for about 20 pinches at each of about 30 pinching sessions (perhaps done twice a day with at least an hour between). When that has been done, each time you say the word 'No' (or 'Know') out loud, you will experience a slight cumulative (conditioned, automatic) relief of anxiety.

ANXIETY: WHAT IF The main source of anxiety and of worry is the unknown; and the main unknown for all of us is the future. We express our fears and worries about the future through 'What if ...' statements (thought or self-talk), and we INCREASE our fears and worries in talking to ourselves that way. Every time you catch yourself thinking: 'What if ...', start the thought over again and change the 'What if ...' to 'So what if ...'. Enjoy that! AVOID: CRITICISM You probably tell yourself you don't like being criticized. Too bad! You could have lots of fun enjoying criticism. To do this, you might make lots of intentional 'mistakes' to get people to criticize you. Then you could laugh happily at the fact they noticed and cared enough to remark upon what they noticed; laugh with amusement about the unrealistic implication that you ought to go back and change history by doing whatever you did differently; laugh to yourself at the idea that they think you should have been trying to achieve something other than what you set out to (and did) accomplish; and laugh with pleasure, enjoying learning from your intentional mistakes.

AVOID: DATES Avoid your own worries about, for example, how other people might react to you, as when you 'ask for a date'. Decide, as an objective, to accomplish just what you are afraid of or worry about, such as 'to be turned down 20 times per week in asking for dates'. You may succeed in being turned down that often (if so, set the number higher), but you also probably will not have time for the dates you get. Avoid your worries and fears by setting out to achieve the very things you fear.

AVOID: DRESSING UP Wear socks or shoes that don't match, even really clash -- are jarring to the eye. Wear your jacket on back to front. Or wear a stupid-looking hair-do. When you 'conform' too much to others' tastes or styles, you're telling yourself that what other people think of your appearance is 'right', and you are therefore subject to the pain of their scorn. Set out to achieve the scorn, and enjoy it.

AVOID: PINCH If you spend time pinching yourself on any time schedule, failing to pinch yourself could end up making you to feel really good. It's the old story of 'feeling better by stopping banging your head on the wall' (but don't damage yourself that way).

AVOID: POSITIVES It is said that every cloud has a silver lining. Wouldn't it be more fun if every silver lining had a cloud? If it did, you could spend your time finding all the positives (silver linings) to help you find existing problems -- including that the problem exists to give you the opportunity and challenge to solve it. You may not know just how great you are at solving problems. You have been doing it all your life. The more problems and clouds you can find the better, since each poses another challenge to enjoy finding solutions.

AVOID: WORDS Most of the things that we think hurt us are ideas, and ideas expressed in words. Every word can be turned around to 'see' it in another way (called 'divergent thinking'). For example: 'You are self- centred', means that he/she thinks you are 'a person of low taste and narrow interests, more interested in yourself than in him/her'; or 'You're a bore', means that 'you talk when he/she wants you to listen' (see Dictionary for Divergent Thinkers). Enjoy words! They're fun!

BRIGHT/MOVING THINGS Create your own, or expose yourself to brightly coloured displays, particularly coupled with motion or action. You can paint your own, go to art galleries to see those by others, get your own rotating disco reflector ball, watch a kaleidoscope, or go to the movies to get a high.

BUNGIE JUMPING This is a totally senseless, and a possibly self- destructive, source of excitement that is quite equivalent to substance abuse. It is exhilarating for those who like taking risks, and who are sufficiently unrealistic to believe themselves to be indestructible or to lead charmed lives.

CALM: DOWN The quickest way to get yourself calmed down is to learn how to calm yourself down in one moment. That can be done after you have practised Transcendental Meditation for a few months. Meanwhile, Transcendental Meditation (TM) is the fastest way to get yourself relaxed -- it works in about one week, if you practice it for about 20 minutes a day. TM is about the easiest thing there is to learn and to do. But it does require a little more training and information than it is practical to give here.

CALM: HERE/NOW Remember the Taoist saying: 'When you're washing the dishes, wash the dishes'. That is, don't do anything ELSE, like trying to get the dishes clean -- that's a future-oriented idea, since nothing is ever absolutely clean. Take the time to look at the events occurring NOW in the world around you, listening to them, and feeling them. Most of us don't even notice the world as we hurry through it dreaming of impossible futures and made up pasts.

CALM: ONE THING I know, the brain can only do one thing at a time. But we keep trying to do all sorts of things at once by thinking about other things while we are involved in any task. That happens because we make the mistake of trying to keep at anything we are doing TOO LONG. Certainly, by the end of five minutes at any task, we start to get brain-tired into boredom. Then our brains try to distract our attention to other things. To reduce thinking, to stay concentrated on our tasks, and therefore to keep ourselves from getting all flustered and upset and feeling under pressure, divide the day up into LESS THAN 5-minute intervals. Don't do anything for more than five minutes. By five minutes, stop anything you are doing and start doing something else. You will be more calm and less flustered.

CALM: QUIET Do you know what quietness sounds like? I'd bet you don't. We live in a world full of noise pollution, not the least of which is the cacophony combining dentist drills, vibrating wires, pneumatic drills, pile drivers and the human voice mimicking tunelessness that passes these days in place of music. The auditory world is spherical -- its information comes from all directions. For this reason, our ears and hearing have become tuned as the main stimuli for the orienting reflex -- the means by which our autonomic/stress/anxiety nervous systems are most effectively aroused. Listening to quietness prevents us from getting upset, and is thus inherently calming.

CALM: REST We all think we do that -- perhaps we do it too much, we may think. Actually, few of us really rest. We spend our 'recreational' time in activities, entertainments, conversations, playing games, planning and/or thinking. We don't seem to know or be able to rest and relax. Try just going limp some time.

CALM: THOUGHTS Thinking is good, right? Wrong! It is what we do to reduce boredom while we are wasting time. In fact, it is the biggest waste of time we have invented. It is never useful. And it always is concerned with UNreality. It always has to do with the non-existing past or future -- by the time we have thought about the present, the present we are thinking about is already past. But you can't stop thinking. What you can do is think about something that does NOT increase or arouse thought -- that is, about something that doesn't mean anything. To do that, you have to think in a language you don't understand. That takes us back to TM (under Calm- Down), which also serves to reduce the pressure of thought and thus keeps us from upsetting ourselves with thinking -- the main way we upset ourselves.

COMPETITIVE SPORTS Get yourself into some competitive, preferably individual, sport, such as tennis or sprinting (short-distance running), and do it to win -- learning to excel in it. That would be arousing and upsetting, if you want that.

CREATE PAIN Pain is an interpretation by the brain of intense sensation of any kind from a local particular site. Clamp and hold your biceps tensely (kinaesthesia) or pinch or squeeze some part of you tightly (pressure). You can make yourself hurt if you like.

DEPRESS Why would anyone want to be depressed, for heaven's sake? Who knows? But some people seem to wallow in being depressed. Perhaps it makes them feel important, or dependent on others, or martyred. Whatever the reason, if you want to be depressed, it's easy. All depression is self-induced by WHAT depressing things YOU DO (see below).

DEPRESS: BEING NICE Allowing yourself to feel energetic or angry, and then keeping yourself still/inactive or holding back your anger to try to act like 'a nice person' (so that you block or inhibit your own energy, so you don't risk hurting others) is a pretty good way to get yourself depressed. That's how most people who are depressed get themselves depressed. DEPRESS: GRIEVE If you think hard enough, I'm sure you (like anybody else) can come up with several, even many, losses (of friends, relatives, jobs, opportunities, things) you have experienced. If you really put your mind to it, you could likely re-establish a strong grief response and feel just awful and sad. But you may need to work at it.

DEPRESS: IMAGES If you want to get yourself sad, just spend a bit of time (say, twenty minutes) conjuring up, picturing and thinking about all the sad images and events of your life. That ought to help you to get depressed -- well, sad, at least.

DEPRESS: NEWS Reading the Newspaper ought to make you feel pretty sad. The newspaper and all the media feed off the misfortunes and sadness of people, and are filled with every kind of horror to think about.

DEPRESS: POOR ME It's easy. All you need to do is to talk to yourself (that's called thinking) and tell yourself how mistreated, abused, taken advantage of and injured you have been by other people in your life, all of whom you have treated so well, done so much for and given so much to. Really pour it on about 'poor you!' If it doesn't make you laugh, it may help you to cry and feel awful.

DEPRESS: YIELD You could make yourself feel worse and more depressed if, in addition to using other means, you make your body yield to gravity. Let your shoulders sag down and forward, turn down the corners of your mouth and eyes, stare downwards, frown, and pay attention to the stinging sensation of tears welling up to run down your cheeks. That could be a fun way to help you get depressed.

ENHANCE: CREATION The religions of all peoples have included a sense of the need to yield to the karma or nature of the creative force in life. As long as we are 'fighting with life' and its course (a common event among young people), life is a constant battle without relief or happiness. Yielding to be part of life (and not in some way different or apart from it) yields a peaceful feeling that is beyond expression -- or so the story goes.

ENHANCE: LOVING It is hard to become suddenly aware of loving oneself. That would be a real peak experience of this kind. However, it is possible suddenly (and repeatedly) to discover you love all of humankind. And that's the equivalent experience, and probably reflects a shift to loving oneself. Love of others (or self) is accomplished only after you suspend all 'judgements' about others, then when you can find only 'good' and wonderfulness in all others, then when you simply decide to trust all others. After these steps, it is possible to decide you like, are interested in and care for everybody. Suddenly, you may find you love all others. Wow!

ENHANCE: PEAK EVENTS Peak experiences are perhaps the most intense and satisfying experiences people can have. There is no way to tell a person how to obtain such an experience. Each person receives the experience in his/her own way. There are ways to increase the probability of these experiences. Attend high- holiday services in a place of worship, like a cathedral, or go to a cathedral's Christmas candle light service. Lie on your back on a beach on a clear night and, without thinking, stare in wonder at the stars. Walk silently through a majestic forest. Listen in silence to the surf pounding and to the quietness within it. Your choices.

ENHANCE: POWER Again, all religions have recognized a power or a source of power that is far beyond the limits of physical powers or strength. Accepting 'the power' involves a kind of yielding from the struggle to be powerful, important, and the like, and discovering inner resources that are beyond the power of words to express. Accepting the power is not likely to occur (or even possible) until all other calming steps have been completed. However, when it is achieved, people seem to have a personal sense of themselves and life that transcends all ordinary notions about life and living.

ENHANCE: REDEMPTION All of us have felt some guilt feelings. They are unavoidable in growing up. The distress of guilt is relieved when the person has a sense of 'redemption' or (self-) forgiveness. Redemption experiences are quite sudden events in which guilt vanishes. Some people find their sense of redemption at evangelical religious meetings. Others may find their redemption in intense involvement in their work, and suddenly discovering the value to society of what they do.

ENHANCE: VALUES Values are the most general guides for all of our living and, as such, affect everything we do; ahead of action, they are the motivators that decide what we will do and how we will spend our time; after an action, they are the standards by which we evaluate how well we did, and thus select how we feel about ourselves; and they are the best means by which to define for ourselves 'who we are'. Everybody has values, whether or not we recognize them (we notice them when similar to ours). Values are constantly evolving in individuals and societies. Creating a set of personal values that are both satisfying and free from internal conflicts is the best assurance there is that you will feel good about yourself and your life (see Y dictionary of Values).

ENJOY: DISCRIMINATION Strange to say, being increasingly precise in examining what we SEE and HEAR adds to enjoyment in life. But being precise about anything we DO is more likely to rob life of enjoyment. Besides, you ARE precise and accurate in everything you do, right? Right and wrong! We struggle to be precise by AVOIDING ERRORS and MISTAKES. This only adds to the pain and discomfort of life. If, instead, we were to examine some of the things we see, hear or feel in increasingly refined detail (NOT looking for its flaws, meaning, or what we can infer about it, but looking objectively at the many components/ parts of which it's composed), we would tend not only to respond to life with more effective control and with greater accuracy, but also with greater enjoyment. And this approach of examining things for their component detail is NOT what most of us do to be 'precise'.

ENJOY: FOCUSING That's right, your ear as well as your eye has the capacity to focus on particular events. How to focus is another issue. Sharply focusing the eye and ear at all times has the effect of reducing distracting and joyless thought, and of increasing the excitement and arousal of fun from the senses. It is also one of the basic skills required for good listening, good attention and thus also improving relationships and successes in life.

ENJOY: GENERALIZATION The approach of looking for the common properties among things is also NOT something most of us do to enhance the quality of life and understanding. We may believe we do when we generalize far beyond the evidence we have about things. All this does is restrict our freedoms in living, by creating stereotypes for ourselves -- we think in newspaper headline terms about things. Generalizations that enhance the quality of life involve a proper use of conceptual abstraction as a process, which stays within the limits of propriety in generalization afforded by the evidence we have. Training in scientific method (but NOT in the critical functions in which most scientists are trained) is a way to enhance the quality of life.

ENJOY: INCLUSIVENESS Conceptual over-inclusiveness is something most of us do much of the time. It is what was referred to above as the thing that leads to stereotypes, poligab and mediagab. However, if over-inclusiveness is used sparingly, and with a high degree of consciousness that you are doing so, it can make life more fun, if only by increasing the amusement you feel at the humorous things we can make up about life.

ENJOY: NATURE You've heard it said: 'Take time to smell the roses'. All that means is that we are all too inclined to distract ourselves from the glories of nature to our own momentary and quite unimportant preoccupations and tasks. How often do you drive above the speed limit? Every time you do, you fix your attention on driving -- to watch for speed traps and to tell yourself what a magnificent driver you are. In doing so, you arrive where you are going a couple of minutes earlier, so you then have that many minutes to waste in waiting; you cram a couple more things you can do into the day; you think you impressed other people (who didn't notice your driving skills, except when placed in dangerous situations by your lousy driving); you thought you were getting ahead of everyone else (there are always other people ahead of you on the road); and you missed all the glorious things you might have noticed along the way if you had been driving slowly enough not to have to pay attention so much to your driving. We rush through life as though the momentary tasks were important. But we miss the most important thing, life, as it passes.

ENJOY: NOW Of course you are only concerned with the here and now, right? Wrong, if you ever have a thought. In the business of living, the past is generally depressing (for most people), the future is scary (it is unknown), and the present is the only time when there is fun. Eye and ear focusing help to keep us in the present. Tracking movement with our eyes helps too. But almost most important is only spending a couple of minutes at a task (whatever it is) before turning to another -- to keep down neural fatigue and boredom, and the resulting unregulated drifting away of attention.

EXCITEMENTS Lots of things are exciting. Crowds of people having fun, with lots of colour and action can be found at an carnival, circus, local exhibitions (usually held in the late summer or early fall), amusement parks, trade fairs, or places for group entertainment (theatres, the island, museums, botanical gardens, pioneer villages -- just look up the local tourist guides and newspapers). The vast majority of people get their kicks in non-addictive ways by increasing colour, sound and movement.

EXPANSIVENESS A big part of getting excited for some of us is the sense we get of being super-human, above everybody else, extra-special and important. This effect is NOT a result of ANY addictive substance. Those who feel this way after taking some substances start off feeling either depressed and guilt-ridden, or inadequate, inferior and failures, at least to some extent. What substances do is impair a person's judgement (alcohol and some street drugs function as 'de-corticators'; they impair coordination, perception and other 'cortical' functions that result, for example, in the person driving badly and erratically while at the same time believing he is driving particularly well). If you feel special and important when using substances, that happens only because you felt LESS special beforehand. The best way to handle this is to get rid of the 'bad' feelings permanently. Feeling unimportant and/or depressed can be extinguished by means of many methods such as some described in this dictionary.

EXPERIENCE: AMBIGUITY The whole world is sort of like a Rorschach test -- nothing is anything until we make it into something by attaching a label (word) to it. That is, aside from the sense WE MAKE of it, the world is an ambiguous buzzing, blooming confusion. A large part of the suffering people experience in life comes from being unable to tolerate ambiguity or uncertainty. And when someone says he/she needs substances 'to get away from it all' or 'because he/she can't stand the pressure' or 'to avoid the demands of reality', all he/she is saying is that he/she cannot tolerate ambiguity, and is still trying to fight it. So accept and enjoy ambiguity or uncertainty, for example, not being able to understand a lot of what this material is about.

EXPERIENCE: CONCENTRATION If concentration is poor, which may result in believing your memory is impaired, it can be corrected fairly easily. Concentration (and thus memory) is usually impaired because something keeps distracting attention. Attention can be distracted by pain (see there), thoughts (see there), boredom (see there) or anxieties. If anxiety is distracting, there are simple ways to calm yourself down for any purpose, including to increase concentration. One group of methods is called Autogenic Training. It's easy to learn.

EXPERIENCE: IMAGES Creativity feels magnificent. If your creative resources seem weak to you, you could enhance them greatly by considering together all sorts of totally unrelated things and ideas -- called condensations of images -- or by fostering your imagination by any of a number of methods. For example, Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, used to teach his students how to increase their creativity by staring at blotches made up of many colours splattered on a surface. The idea was to find everything they could imagine or see in these random colours and forms -- sort of like doing your own Rorschach test.

EXPERIENCE: HYPNOSIS Hypnosis can be used for a lot of fun purposes. It is a lot less expensive than addictive substances. Besides all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, and so all you need to do is to learn how to use hypnosis to enhance the quality of sex, or eating, or sleeping, or working, or doing recreational things, or even to get rid of the pain, fears, sadnesses and the like of life. It's easy. But now to disappoint you: you are NOT going to learn how to do it here.

EXPERIENCE: MEMORY Do you have a poor memory? You do not. Contrary to popular belief, memory, as such, cannot be impaired. There are various reasons why it may appear to be impaired -- poor concentration or attention deficiency or poor retrieval skills. These can be corrected in most cases, if required. But memory can be enhanced almost beyond belief. If you want to improve your memory, any of the standard 'how to' books about memory (such as The Page-A-Minute Memory Book) should help if you really do all the exercises included in it. Of course, nothing works if you don't DO the things prescribed.

EXPERIENCE: TIME Time is our most valuable possession. We are all time travellers. Much of living involves a kind of dream we construct for ourselves. You can quite easily learn how to enhance life by creating dreams through which to live life and to achieve in life, by means of goal-finding (see G dictionary), image construction and enhancement (see above) creating your own future and future-pacing (see James, T., The Secret of Creating Your Future). However, again, you will not be told here how to do these.

EXTRAVERSION Many people feel awkward and clumsy in their relationships with others, due simply to limited social skills and interests often resulting from their introversion (half the world is introverted, turned inward and thoughtful). Extraversion feels good to many of these people. It's not hard to become at least partly extroverted. It simply requires some practice in a set of acts of will or of self-reward. The acts of will involve making yourself restless, active and doing anything immediately (without waiting to think it through). This does mean you need to trust your wonderfully programmed brain to ensure you do 'the right' things -- you will probably end up doing the same things with or without thought. The acts of self- reward can be learned through the goal-finding programme (see G dictionary). You might include 'Outgoing', 'Spontaneous', and 'Decisive' among your Personal Development goals in that programme to help you increase your extraversion. Also TM might help to reduce your pressure to think.

FREE-FALL PARACHUTE This is always an exciting kind of risk- taking, even although it takes many jumps before the fear, experienced at first in the jump, gives way to excitement. Mind you, I wouldn't do it!

FUN: ENJOYMENT But how does one add enjoyment to life? Using all the methods suggested will help greatly, and taking life lightly is the most important part of this.

FUN: HUMOUR One way to laugh and have fun is to increase the amount of humour in life. Telling and laughing at jokes is one way. But that may restrict the range of one's sociability. Finding funny ways to look at things, and commenting on them, is a better way. But other people may not find the same things as funny as you do. The best way is to practice 'divergent thinking' (see D dictionary). It may help to take some of the seriousness out of life and to let life become more light-hearted.

FUN: LAUGHING Playfulness tends to lead to the social response of laughter. And laughter is one of the most healthy things we can do. It takes the sting out of being serious or angry, and it automatically diminishes anxiety. It puts an appropriate 'distance' between life and the self-importances and seriousnesses we want pompously to impose on it. It expresses fun, and it creates fun. If you think you don't have anything to laugh about, have a good belly laugh anyway. Then, if you must, find a reason for doing so afterwards. Approaching everything in life in a light-hearted way, adds immensely to fun and the quality of life.

FUN: PLAY Play involves enjoyment. And playfulness involves making the most out of enjoyment. If we set out to enjoy our work/play as much as possible, then every work/play day is another part of our annual 6-month vacations we get twice a year.

FUN: SOCIALIZE Just about everybody has developed some fears and sensitivities about how others will react to them. This means that most of us are anxious in any kind of social situation -- even if we have learned ways to ignore our fears and worries. Some few people seem 'naturally' comfortable around others -- easily socializing and conversing in sociable ways. They probably were motivated to learn how to get along well with others by their social fears. And their need to be sociable may be strong enough to counteract the avoidance effects of their fears. Also, they have learned 'conventional' ways of behaving, so they don't have to worry what other people may think (conventional conduct is merely following some imagined 'rules' of how to behave -- if the rules are believed, the conventional person does not need to fear others' reactions). But how is the 'need to be sociable' learned? That's easy. Most of us feel lonely. We think that loneliness is a nasty human feeling that we must deny for fear it consumes us. Actually, loneliness is merely the motivation placed in us by Providence to drive us to be sociable, and to live in social groupings in which humankind has always functioned best. If we use loneliness as a social-participation motive, we may become just as sociable as those who impress us

FUN: WORK Some of us are 'lucky' enough to enjoy our work. If we do enjoy our work, our work is 'play' for us. That is, play is just the things we enjoy doing. Of course, enjoying our work (i.e., our play) is not a matter of 'luck'. It is a matter of valuing what we do, deciding to have fun doing it, setting out to do it in our own way, and making sure that we govern what we do in the service of others (which is what all work is) in such a way that others are pleased, so that nobody has to be our 'boss', to tell us what to do or how to do it. All work can be play. In fact, it is.

GOALS Pick some short-term goals that are important to you (if need be by going through the Goal-Finding programme), and set your mind to work on each in turn, very intensively, to achieve each one.

HIGH Induce any artificial or natural alteration of experience, that you consider a 'high' -- for some it's excitement; for some it's withdrawal; for some it's drifting away; for some it's reduced arousal, anxiety, fear or anger; for some it's depression; for some it's variation of experience from the commonplace; for some it's sleep; for some it's depression; etc., etc. Just do it.

HOLD BREATH Take the silly risk of holding your breath as long as you comfortably can -- such as while swimming under water. You can feel pretty awful in this way too, if you like.

IMAGES: COLOUR Many of our memories of the past and our dreams and hopes for the future are stored in our minds in drab tones of black-and-white-and-grey. When our minds reference those images, our lives feel grey and boring and useless. It is easy to learn how to colour up your images so they are bright and enlivening, and so they 'add colour' and dimension to our lives. Too bad, you aren't going to learn how to do this here either.

IMAGES: HEARING Similarly, many of our memories and future dreams are stored in our minds devoid of the arousing and exciting aspect of sound. They are silent pictures that lie in the uni-directional (non-surrounding) sphere of the visual sense. While you will not be told here how to do this, it's easy to add an auditory dimension to each of your images to make life more exciting and fun.

IMAGES: KALEIDOSCOPIC If you add a touch of confusion or too-much change to your images, so some of them resemble a kaleidoscope, you can add excitement by bewildering yourself a bit. However, to be able to enjoy life by adding such images it may first be necessary to get rid of some fear of ambiguity and complexity (or confusion), and to ensure that only a small selected number of your images are kaleidoscopic in nature. Again, you won't learn how to do these things here.

IMAGES: MOTION As you might expect, what has just been said about colour and sound applies as much, or more, to motion or action. Action is the strongest means by which to attract interest in anything -- that, and not violence, is why we are drawn to action movies. Inactive images are not much fun, and they do not arouse our feelings much. It is equally easy to add action or motion to our images, and thus to enhance the quality of our lives.

IMAGES: NEW Creativity is a natural and automatic consequence of enhancing personal experience in various ways. Creativity demands the creation of new images -- images not given by the language and imagery we derive from our common everyday experiences.

IMAGES: READING Most of us, if we read books at all, read books in order to entertain ourselves -- as a recreational exercise. We think that 'fun' books are the most fun to read. Flatly, although they may be at the time, they are not the most fun books with which to enhance the quality of our lives. The best books are either books about the possible (science fiction involving terrestrial possibilities, scientific reports and philosophy books, and NOT crap about extraterrestrials, horrors, etc.) and books of fact (autobiographies or biographies of special people) in which we can enhance our own images by sharing or borrowing those of others.

INHIBIT Everybody feels they just can't do some things: I can't do that, I'll be charged; I can't say that, my friend will be angry; I can't be that way, I'll get fired; etc. Many also feel that they are confined by rules and forced to act in regulated ways. Also, many of us believe that the control we exercise over our behaviour is required by the world around us. None of these is true. We just are not willing (OUR own choice) to pay the cost of doing certain things, and so we prevent OURSELVES from doing them. All inhibition, control, avoiding comes from within ourselves. BUT, once we have prevented, controlled or inhibited ourselves, we often feel uncomfortable, too-controlled and even claustrophobic. For example, we set ourselves up to abuse certain substances to reduce inhibition -- notably, alcohol and some of the 'dis-inhibiting' other agents like cocaine, speed or LSD. If we want to feel dis-inhibited, the best way may just be to get rid of the unnecessary inhibitions within us permanently. This dictionary shows some ways.

INHIBIT: CRITICISM Related to guilt feelings is the sensitivity in all of us about being criticized. This comes from the mistakes we all make as parents and teachers in drawing children's attentions to their errors and 'failures'. One result is that we adopt the same approach ourselves. We have learned to criticize others and to find fault in others as well as in ourselves. Every time we criticize or find fault with anyone we are making a mistake. The whys and wherefores of this may need explanation. Everybody, including ourselves, is ALWAYS doing the very best he/she can. And, whether or not at any moment we know what our purposes are, everybody is always trying to achieve his/her own purposes, and is doing a remarkable job of achieving those aims and purposes -- to the degree that his/her level of development permits. To criticize another implies (1) that you KNOW what the other was trying to do at the time, (2) that the other was trying to do the WRONG THING and (3) inaccurately or in the WRONG WAY. All three ideas are just plain nuts. The further errors implied in any criticism are the presumptions that (4) the other OUGHT to be trying to do what WE think should be done (our purpose), (5) in the way WE would do it, (6) if we were doing it NOW (as opposed to when it was done). All these errors apply just as much to self-criticism as to criticism by others. Criticism can always be ignored; or it can be enjoyed for its silliness; or it can be put in its appropriate context to take away the importance and distress we often give it. It is great to feel free, and to enjoy criticism.

INHIBIT: EMOTIONS Emotions are a basic part of every person, and are a large part of how we have come to be social beings. Teachers, for example, living in a world of ideas, seem to think that emotions are undesirable disturbances, and they try to teach us to inhibit our feelings and to enmesh ourselves in thoughts. That's too bad, as well as being inappropriate. As a result, many of us think we can't or don't feel any emotions or feelings. That is because we have hidden them by distracting ourselves from noticing them, often by thinking. All the methods used by competent psychotherapists include helping people release and experience their emotions and feelings. The result is often to help the person to feel as if he/she is a human being again.

INHIBIT: GUILT Guilt feelings nearly always come from a method learned in childhood to prevent or block or inhibit aggressive, angry or self-asserting needs. Methods to help get rid of guilt feelings are offered in this dictionary. They include restructuring our thinking about the nature and errors of felt guilt, enjoying guilt, time-line work to be rid of left overs from early unpleasant emotional experiences, desensitization for criticism, joy training, and values' conflict reduction.

INHIBIT: INTROVERTED The commonest inhibitor within us is introversion or too much thought. Thought is the biggest waste of time ever invented. It is almost completely unnecessary. To relieve the inhibitive effect of introversion or of thought on our behaviour, the following methods may needed: desensitization for ambiguity, action, and others' reactions; assertive training to free action; goal-finding to learn to achieve personal development goals such as outgoing, spontaneous, free and emotional; values' conflicts healing with the squash; rational-emotive therapy to review some of the underlying errors of thinking; transcendental meditation (TM) to reduce the pressure of thinking; and some other methods.

INHIBIT: JOY That's right, the reason many of us seem never to feel any joy is that we have inhibited it. The reason why some people get such a rush with the help of some addictive substances is that this inhibition is lifted temporarily by the substance. But joy can be with you every moment of life. Joy (also see Love) is achieved, after much extensive practice, in (1) deciding to respect or 'finding the good in' everything and everyone, (2) deciding to trust and thus feeling safe with everything and everyone, and then (3) deciding to love everything and everyone. Each step is done best by long and repeated practice first with THINGS, then about OTHERS, and then with the one you are with.

JOY: ACTUALIZING After one's survival needs (food, beverage, air, etc.) are met, people have the luxury of being able to pursue their personal 'self-actualizing' needs. Young people tend to look for self-actualization in external events -- in entertainments and 'fun' things to do. They don't work, any more than substances work, for any more than the moment. As they reach the middle years, people think they have to be more sophisticated, and so they may pursue self-actualization through more 'sophisticated' pursuits such as museums, theatres, the arts and the like. Finally, it sinks into many people's brains that the only real way to have persistent or lasting self-actualization is to carry it within them in their needs all the time. At this point they may become involved in the pursuit of self- actualizing needs such as Truth, Beauty, Wholeness, Oneness, Differentiation, and the like (see Needs dictionary). Or, later, they may actually become involved in the pursuit of various kinds of values (see Values dictionary) to enhance life.

JOY: LOVE Loving another is only possible as long as we continue to make the DECISIONS to respect and to trust the other. The next gift we can GIVE OURSELVES is to love others. Loving others involves DECIDING to be interested in and to like the other. If respect and trust are already in place and comfortable, the result of this further DECISION is loving others. It's great! And from this third step springs genuine joy (above).

JOY: MERRY There is nothing wrong with having a good time. Lots of what people do is to try to 'hype' others and themselves up. That's what most forms of entertainment are intended to do -- all the way from concerts and sports events, through pre- or mid-event acts to increase audience participation, to all of the media productions and advertisements. All are aimed at increasing people's 'hype'. It's wonderful to participate and to get all hyped up. It's also not a bad idea to be conscious that when you get hyped up, you pay in sales for commercial enterprises -- including support of professional entertainers, whether athletes or actors.

JOY: RESPECT Respecting another comes from the good in him/her, and disrespecting another comes from his/her faults, right? Wrong! If we DECIDE to disrespect another, WE will see his/her faults -- in a very real sense, we create his/her faults. If we DECIDE to respect another, WE will see his/her goodness and good points. It's all a matter of our own decisions and, in fact, everybody has many, many times more good than bad in him/her. But surely it depends on how well others respect us. Not at all. Also, it's really quite unimportant whether others respect us -- and, anyway, the only way we can control whether another person will respect us, is to decide to respect the other. But why should we respect others, especially if they don't respect us? The answer is simple. It is for our OWN sakes. Contrary to what most of us believe, when we decide to respect others, we are NOT giving any 'gift' to the other -- we are giving a gift to OURSELVES. We find ourselves living in a happy world full of good people with all sorts of good points. Our own lives receive from ourselves the gift of greater happiness.

JOY: TRUST Exactly the same things apply to our DECISION to trust or not to trust others. The only difference between respecting and trusting others is that respect given increases our happiness in a world of good people, while trust given increases our OWN sense of safety in relating to others. In both cases, the gift given is to OURSELVES.

JOY: VALUES What are values? Of course, they are the motives, evaluators, guides and means for self-definition that were mentioned elsewhere. They may even be more spiritual guides for living. Most people are really only very weakly aware of what their values are. Many think their values involve such things as Intelligence, Power, Precision, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Wealth. Are these your values? If so, it only means that you have NOT examined your values very carefully. These are the kinds of 'evaluators' or measuring sticks that we were taught in childhood to measure how well we were doing in growing up and in measuring up to other people's expectations. Your values are much more profound and important than any of these things. We could all benefit from examining and expanding our values greatly (see Values dictionary).

LOUD MUSIC Although no sensible person would ever allow him/herself to damage his/her ear-drums in this way, or to listen to music of any kind at any volume, it is one way which is commonly used these days to help get oneself excited.

MASTURBATE Nearly all males and most females do this at times. It is a fun way to get excited. However, if you have any sex hang-ups (I know, YOU don't, but if you do) that ever got you in trouble with the Law, use any other 'normal' fantasy than your usual one to excite you.

MISC: AMUSEMENTS Go to a crowded amusement park.

MISC: BREAK Break and throw out something of yours you don't like.

MISC: CHARITY Serve as a volunteer to help raise money for needy children or to feed and clothe the poor.

MISC: CLASSIFY Take a big, difficult and complex problem and, by reducing it to tiny parts, solve it a little bit at a time.

MISC: COMEDY Attend a comic movie: even two.

MISC: DANCE Go to a public dance.

MISC: DATE Date a member of the opposite gender. It might be fun. MISC: DAYDREAM Make up a wonderful daydream and enjoy it.

MISC: DEODORIZE Use deodorants.

MISC: DREAM Make up a dream picture, and enjoy it.

MISC: FIXING Painstakingly, fix something that you like that got broken.

MISC: FLOWERS Look at and smell a garden of flowers.

MISC: FOOL Get some attention from others by playing the fool. It's as good an instrument as any other to play.

MISC: FRUIT Eat some figs, berries or fresh fruit.

MISC: FUNNY Think of every funny situation you were ever in. And laugh heartily at each.

MISC: GARDEN Grow a garden, or a window box of flowers.

MISC: HAUNTED Spend a night in an abandoned house that is haunted.

MISC: HAY Take some hay to bed with you to feed your night- mares.

MISC: ILLNESS Read about, and learn how to cure YOURSELF of an ailment from which you suffer.

MISC: JOKE BOOK Read a joke book. In fact, read two.

MISC: JOKES Tell yourself funny jokes and laugh uproariously.

MISC: JUMP Run down a slope, and jump way up into the air and float down again.

MISC: KIDS Raise kids, one of the bigger highs in the world.

MISC: LEARN Learn about something, anything.

MISC: MAKE PEACE Without saying a word about it, in your mind make peace with all those you feel mistreated you.

MISC: MASSAGE Have a body massage, or a body rub if you like. MISC: MIRROR Make faces at yourself in the mirror. That is, look at yourself in the mirror just for fun.

MISC: PARTICIPANT Be a participant on a TV game show.

MISC: PEACEFULNESS Decide to contribute significantly to peacefulness in the world (and in yourself).

MISC: POLITICS Run for a political office -- and continue your crooked ways.

MISC: SCIENCE Do some scientific research.

MISC: SCUBA With a partner, go scuba diving on a coral reef or on wrecks.

MISC: SING Sing to yourself in the shower. We always sound best in the shower, due to the resonating effect of the enclosure and to the masking effect on your voice of the shower noise.

MISC: SMILE Smile, in an ordinary and friendly way, at an attractive other person.

MISC: SPEED Move quickly from task to task, for the sake of the hype.

MISC: STRETCH Place your toes against a curb, push your heel down, and stretch your calf muscles.

MISC: THEATRICAL Try out for a local theatrical production. If you are not chosen for a part, learn how to be chosen, or help with sets or costumes.

MISC: TRAVEL Look at pictures/books of far away, exotic places.

MISC: TV CREW Follow a TV crew and try to get into as many of the shots they take as possible.

MISC: TV GAME Attend A TV game show, for the hype.

MISC: UNIQUE Consider the fact that you are absolutely unique. There has never been anybody before just like you.

MISC: VIDEOS Make silly home videos. MISC: VOLUNTEER Serve as a volunteer to help other people, in a hospital, jail, old folks home, etc.

MISC: WHIRLPOOL Have a whirlpool bath. In fact, have a bath.

MISC: WHISTLING You get the benefit of enjoying the sound, and you are doing LONG OUT-breaths -- and that feels good all by itself.

MISC: WORLD Stand with your legs apart, astride the two halves of the world.

MISC: YUK YUK Go to Yuk-Yuks, or another comedy place, and laugh uproariously.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING Going mountain, cliff or rock climbing is a risk-taking source of excitement and exhilaration for anybody, but particularly so for those who are afraid of heights. Of course, I wouldn't do it!

PAIN: ACCEPT If you had pain you couldn't find any way to relieve, you would (have to) live with it. That is, no pain, however intense, is unbearable. So, the first method for dealing with pain is to accept it as a helpful friend, intended by a providential nature to alert you that something MAY (or may not) be wrong. What we usually do when we feel pain is to tense up our muscles all around the hurting area (to keep it from moving, lest more pain is felt) and we scrunch up our posture and carry ourselves in an unbalanced way (e.g., limping). These are some of the ways we try to defend ourselves from pain (and instead increase or prolong it). If we accept it and refuse to do any of these defensive things, the pain will have a chance to go away. It is the defensive things we do, including taking analgesics (pain killers), that perpetuate and make chronic the pains we have. Accept and enjoy them.

PAIN: EEG-ALPHA Learning how to relax and to increase the amount of Alpha in your EEG is one of the natural ways to get the brain to increase production of endorphins -- internally produced pain relieving chemicals. If you repeatedly stimulate endorphin production artificially (i.e., with medications), the brain will give up trying to produce its own endorphins - - it won't have to produce them any longer. Why not teach it to produce them when they're needed as a new habit.

PAIN: EXERCISE Regular, Gentle, Insistent Exercise (all of those words are important) is helpful. The function of exercise of this kind when there is pain, is to help the muscles increase their tone, and MUCH more importantly, to STRETCH the muscles so they can relax. You may need advice about the kind of exercises to do, from one of the (very few) people (many THINK they do) who know how the muscles work.

PAIN: GAINS If any pain lasts more than a few weeks, or at most a few months, IT IS NOT DUE TO ANY injury or other 'physical' cause. Chronic pain is being maintained by us -- by what we do about it and by what IT DOES FOR US. Some people are lonely, and the only way they think they can get attention from others is to let others know (in what they talk about or how they act) they hurt, in an attempt to get sympathy. Of course, I know you are not that silly. That's not what keeps you hurting. But it is. It is NOT that you talk about or reveal your pain to get sympathy. But you nevertheless think of suffering as something meriting sympathy, consideration and help from other people. And YOU keep REWARDING YOURSELF with this sort of idea, thus keeping the pain habits alive. Tell yourself that you would be offended and upset if anybody ever even thought about or noticed you or your pain, let alone if anybody felt sympathy or was considerate or helpful. It's not their business or concern.

PAIN: MASSAGE Good massage does NOT involve strong pulling, kneading, and thumping muscles in the way that most of us imagine is done in 'athletic massages', or even Swedish massage. Healthy massage first warms the muscles which are to relax, stretches them ever so gently along their lengths (not crosswise), and imposes gentle pressure on the afflicted muscles' trigger points, followed by more gentle stretching. Chiropractors do this task more quickly and suddenly, because they know how to get the joints to stretch out, thus stretching the muscles lying across them. But chiropractic manipulations and massage effects wear off quickly if the relaxation they achieve is not embedded in new habits of use of the muscles. Only you can make such habits.

PAIN: RELAX Most pain comes from a flooding of the brain with sensations from muscle tension (the kinaesthetic muscle sense) and from pressure and friction. The defensively tensed muscles hurt, and so do the joints across which they pull -- creating increased pressure and friction between the bones which continue to move (be used) at the joint. If you can release the muscle tension, so that the pressure and friction on the joint is relieved, not only does the pain go away, but the joints start to regenerate themselves -- they too are living tissue and they too grow cells to heal themselves.

RAPID CHEST BREATHING Start breathing into your chest in rapid, short breaths, where the in-breath and out-breath are the same length (in time), and keep doing this for a few minutes. You should feel awful by then: dizzy, zonked-out, tense all over and having a hard time breathing -- if you enjoy that sort of thing.

REWARDS: EVOKED It's easy to get other people to be reinforcing or positive in their reactions to us. The method is called lion training. Lions will eat us up unless we treat them in such a way that they want to act positively towards us. That means WE need to REWARD THEM for their positive and reinforcing/ rewarding actions. All you need to do is to make a DO list of the actions or behaviours toward you that you want from other people, and another list of all the things that THEY want from you (that THEY would consider to be rewarding FOR THEM). Then, EVERY TIME anybody does anything on the DO list, you apply one of the pre-selected rewards for them you have available to use. The result is that the people in your life and you start fulfilling one another's needs and cooperating in making everybody's life better.

REWARDS: FREEDOM Freedom has nothing at all to do with any place you may be -- in jail, at work, at home, etc. It has to do with your own conscious awareness of your rights to free choice and decision, and actually consciously choosing/deciding. It isn't until you choose for yourself who you will become, what qualities you will develop in yourself, what you will do with your time, and what your own life goals and plans are, that you finally achieve complete freedom. The way this works is too complex to discuss here. However, although we are mostly unaware of doing so, we are all exercising our freedom in all these ways every moment of every day. Of course, we mostly ignore the fact of our choices, and think of others as 'making' us do what they want -- because we have chosen to accept the rewards they give us for doing as they want, just as they have chosen to accept the rewards we give for doing what we want.

REWARDS: GOALS But what if other people don't cooperate with you in giving you the rewards you want from them? If that happens only one thing is preventing it. You are not doing your thing right in rewarding them. You may have figured out wrongly what is rewarding to them -- try again. But even if people continue not to reward you, aren't you lucky? That means that you will be free from their influences on you, so that you are free to decide for yourself what you will be like without their constant rewards for what they want you to be like. If you want to know how to take on your own life for yourself, do the Goal-Finding programme, concentrating on the (D) Personal Development goals to become your own 'ideal self' (see G dictionary of Goals).

REWARDS: OTHERS And you thought that other people were constantly involved in examining you and your actions critically, or in competing with you or trying to be mean to you. Of course, none of these things is happening -- ever. Just like you, people are living their own lives and doing their own things, not really interested in what other people are doing. In fact, about the only time when people are really reacting to or involved in you and what you are doing is when what you do impacts on their lives. This happens when you INVADE other people's property or rights (called crime) when others may want to 'punish' you, or when other people LIKE what you do -- at which time they may try to reward you, or to influence you to repeat the action that they liked. If you avoid crime, all you need ever expect from others is appreciation and other forms of reinforcement or reward. And this we commonly fail to notice in other people's actions. Instead, we tend to distract ourselves from noticing others' positive acts towards us by preoccupying ourselves with watching out for their angry, punitive or mean conduct. Maybe it's time to concentrate attention on the good and the helpful, the friendly and the reinforcing nature of others' actions -- for our own sake.

REWARDS: SELF The Personal Development goals part of the Goal- Finding programme is concerned with the business of being an adult, and of taking over for yourself the definition of who you will be and making sure that only you get to determine who you become -- by rewarding yourself, and by rewarding the emergence of your 'ideal self' (see G dictionary of Goals). It's a great voyage of discovery and becoming.

REWARDS: TRAINED But self-reinforcement goes much farther than that. It is about time that you do some of the things that you really want for yourself. You have the right to do so and to be free to please you. That will happen fairly naturally after some time of working or playing at achieving your self- development goals (G dictionary) and developing some self-actualizing needs (N dictionary). And assertive training might help too.

SCARY IMAGERY Picture yourself actually doing something that would be painful or terrifying to you, and hold the picture for a few minutes. For example, if you are afraid of heights, picture yourself hanging by one hand on a weak rope from the top of the Empire State building. Or, if you are afraid of being trapped in a closed space, picture yourself buried under a collapsed apartment building. If you are just looking for any old image, try: Picture yourself sliding down the razor blade of life. If you picture these images clearly, you're likely to have the additional distress-hype of having related night-mares. SKI JUMPING Ski-jumping and jumping on water skis, and even surfing, is a source of risk-taking excitement for most people, especially if they are constantly challenging themselves to take on more and more difficult skills.

SLEEP BREATHING 'Triangular breathing' is the kind of breath control that fosters sleep. It involves timing your breathing patterns so that it takes the same length of time (a) to breathe in, (b) to breathe out, and (c) then to not breathe (before breathing in again). It helps to make you feel drowsy.

SLEEP-DEFOCUS Fix your attention on some particular object and then let your eyes go out of focus, as though you were looking right through it. Keep this up for ten or more minutes. You will feel a bit 'fogged out' and even drowsy.

SLEEP-EEG-THETA One of the EEG (brain waves) activities associated with drowsiness or sleepiness is Theta waves. You can get a theta trainer for yourself or get someone who has one to help you learn to increase your theta wave activity -- to help you learn how to get drowsy. Mind you, I wouldn't choose this method.

SLEEP IN I LOVE sleeping-in late in the mornings. When you can arrange to do that, do it. It's fun, and bed feels nice and cosy.

SLEEP STILLNESS The best way for anybody to get to sleep is to lie absolutely still (not moving a muscle -- each movement wakens one up again). If you sit or lie ABSOLUTELY still for as long as twenty minutes, you will probably feel more than drowsy -- you will likely fall asleep.

TALKING QUICKLY Start talking just as quickly as you can. In doing so, try to keep anybody else from getting a word in edgewise, and keep this up for about five or ten minutes. You should be in a 'nice' excited and confused state by that time -- if you like or want that.

TENSE LEGS Tense all the muscles of your legs and pelvis (hips), and hold them tensely and still for as much as ten minutes. You might get some sexual arousal in that way, and that might be fun -- of a kind.

WEIGHT-LIFTING I know, this doesn't sound like a risk-taking situation. However, both because of the risk of being injured, and because the person tends to exert himself TO THE LIMIT, activities such as weight-lifting or boxing or wrestling work like risk-taking rush-givers -- if you like that.

Post-logue: Life is just too good to waste even a minute of it zonked out of your skull on bloody chemicals that you allow to control and run your otherwise wonderful life. The trick is to discover it's your life, and that it is what YOU DO that makes for good times. I: IN A DICTIONARY OF INFERENCES (or valueless ideas)

ABSTRACTIONS Abstractions are a part of every instant of our lives. Every word is an abstraction. Each word is a noise (and a bunch of squiggles -- written form) made to represent a group of characteristics of things or events. The characteristics included in the 'definition' of any word are NOT all of the characteristics of that event. They are limited to those that are common to that class of the thing or event. Those characteristics are 'abstracted' from the particular thing or event we're attending to at the time in order to classify it, so we can call it by a name -- a word. Not only is it true that the word is NOT the thing or event (just as a map is NOT the territory); it is also true that the class of things referred to by the word is NOT part of 'reality'. Nobody has ever seen 'cow'. Nuts, right? Actually, 'cow' is merely a group of characteristics (e.g., an udder, two stomachs, a general outline shape) abstracted from the many Bessies and Berthas we have (or haven't) seen in fields. And none of us has ever seen that group of characteristics, separated from individual cows, floating around nebulously in thin air. Also we've never seen the flight involved in 'jump' isolated from the thing or person jumping. Words are just abstractions, and they do not refer to anything real. By means of words, we create a world of our own, partially bereft of motion, change and the confusion we would feel without re-creating the world by the words we use. The reason we use words (abstractions) is to make us feel safe by making it seem that the sensations we have refer to static external objects that are predictable and even understandable. That created world is fiction.

BEING The word-created world around us involves projected 'being'. That is, 'objects' and classified events are created by us and (in our minds) are placed external to ourselves. Then, by assigning them external reality, or 'being', we create a peculiar sort of identity by referring to them as 'being'. This funny statement is intended to communicate that, as Korzybski (Science and Sanity, 1931) said, by using the verb 'to be' we confound ourselves utterly. 'Bessie is a cow', is understood as an identity, i.e., Bessie = cow. But Bessie is only ONE example or case of cow-ness, and may differ in lots of ways from other cows. Bessie does NOT equal cow. By assigning 'being' to events and representing those events by means of the 'to be' equivalence to their word (name), we extend and perpetuate our fictional and mis-representational view of the world around us and its many things.

CONCRETENESS How many times has someone said to us: 'Don't be so concrete,' as though that was a bad way to be? To be 'concrete' is to fail to be 'abstract'. The ability to think abstractly is one of the factors of intelligence. So we are encouraged to be more abstract and less concrete. This is done partly to make it easier for everyone to communicate using words, and perhaps even to 'win' arguments (about things that can be viewed in many different ways through the medium of abstractions). HOWEVER, the ability to be 'concrete', although NOT an indicator of high intelligence, tends to result in greater emotional involvement in life (and thus in greater joy), and it may also result in a better grasp of reality and the real world. Although it is not something in-trained by teachers (who seem to value intelligence -- nobody knows why), it is a skill of considerable value in life (see Robert Browning's description of Lazarus in the poem "Epistle"; or note the aim and method of Zen in seeking to achieve 'real' here-and-now living).

DUMBNESS Dumbness is not only a blessed state in others, it is also a wonderful skill of concreteness in us. It is a skill, well worthwhile developing and nurturing in ourselves, as one route to a complete and joyful life. Enjoy it!

EDUCATION Education is broadening, right? In one sense, it is. It enforces exposure to the represented experiences of others, called 'knowledge'. In another sense, it is quite the opposite. It restricts us progressively in our perceptions, points of view and actions. Think of this. When a child is born, it is capable of all the sounds made in all the languages of the world, and a much wider range than that. When, finally, it makes a sound that a parent recognizes as one from his/her language, the parent leaps upon the unsuspecting helpless infant, hug it and bill and coo all over the poor thing. In this way, they select (by reward) the general range of sounds the child will make. As it grows, the requirements made of it to express itself increasingly accurately in words become more stringent before they will respond to it. Then it goes to school. There it is taught by rote how to reproduce the language precisely in sound and scribble. By the time the child is an adolescent, the wonderful range of sounds it can make have become restricted roughly to those of its language and culture. If, then, it sets out to learn another language, it is likely to be destined to speak that new language with the kind of accent characteristic of its primary language stock. Yes, education is narrowing, restricting and preventing.

FATUOUSNESS The qualities that are most valuable and truly worthwhile in life include: Irrationality, Folly, Absurdity, Oddity, Inconsistency, Giddiness, Eccentricity, Ridiculousness, Imprudence, Dulness, Shallowness, Obtuseness, Childishness, Poverty of Intellect, and sheer Stupidity. Of course, the primary quality of fatuousness is naivete, or a blank wonderment at the marvellous world around us, that is NOT of our making (re-made by us by means of words and their misleading abstractions).

GENTLENESS A much to be sought and achieved quality, commonly ascribed mainly to women -- in whom it is rarely to be found. It may be the most effective survival skill or quality. Gentleness needs to be fostered for effective living in human society -- on which we all depend for our survival and quality of life. It needs to be fostered for effective family living -- and the maintenance of the basic unit of society on which children desperately depend for effective survival. It needs to be fostered, in limiting our consumerism and production of waste, in dealings with nature and the world around us -- on which we ultimately depend for our survival. It needs to be fostered in our own lives, in eating, activity and sleep -- on which we depend for our own personal survival. It needs to be fostered in the market place to limit the warfulness of competition -- on which we depend for peace, security and life. It needs to be fostered individually by each one of us in our everyday lives.

HUMILITY Although we sometimes try to deny Its existence, so that we can maintain ego expansion, we are not God. Although we create the personal worlds we live in by the words we use, we do not know the Plan or the Purpose of creation. Although we live in human- made towns, surrounded by the arid symmetry and line that marks the artificial, so that it is often hard to see beyond the apparent power of the human enterprise, we often fail to notice that each human object/event is constructed from the raw materials of Created nature. In these our human failures, we tend to get puffed up and to exaggerate the power of our humanity -- and thus may rob ourselves of real Power. A touch of humility is a state we might profitably pursue. It is a virtue that can go hand-in-hand with gentleness. And we all richly deserve a healthy dose of humility.

INFERENCE A skill, carefully in-trained by teachers, by which we jump to conclusions from inadequate and insufficient facts. This skill is said to be necessary since we have access to limited amounts of real information and knowledge -- due largely to the fact that we don't care to read about what is known and don't bother to observe things and events carefully. Syn: Cloud-leaping, or the impulse to leap from one nice, fluffy, white insubstantial cloud to another without concern about a foothold for the jump. Syn: Common Sense, or commonly, all too common non-sense.

INFERENCE PRONE A particularly acute skill in making inferences and, thus, drawing faulty conclusions, commonly based on mind-reading (see there). This very special skill is the primary skill and most universal characteristic or symptom found in paranoid people, who are skilled in finding their own most heinous and hostile qualities richly represented in others. JUSTICE By nature, justice is retributional and vengeful. It seeks to mete out to others the pain they may have inflicted. We have all inflicted pain. And vengeance never helped us in any way. If anything it enhanced our readiness to inflict more pain on others. Indeed, all offenders have ways to justify their actions, and nearly always the justifications include pain they have felt was inflicted on them. The difference between perpetrator and victim is really nothing more than the perspective or point of view of the person involved. All retribution is profitless. It does not even diminish the pain of the victim. It may give each victim/perpetrator (for that's what retribution amounts to) a sense of (im)moral satisfaction -- really relish in our indirect aggression, for which we cannot be held responsible. We might be better off seeking PEACE (see there) rather than Justice.

KLEPTOMANIA The commonest form of crime, namely, competitive and entrepreneurial commerce.

LOVE Love is NOT jealousy. Jealousy comes from FEAR that the OTHER will not love ENOUGH. Love is NOT possessiveness. Possessiveness comes from FEAR that it is not safe to love unless the OTHER loves MORE (totally). Love is NOT trusting another. Trust comes from the need for oneself to feel safe, bred of FEAR that the OTHER cannot be trusted. In fact, love has NOTHING whatever to do with whether or not the OTHER loves. Nor does it matter greatly to love how the OTHER feels. Love is nothing more than the yummy feeling within that says: 'I love', and it joys in the existence and happiness of the other, wherever the other is and regardless of the other's feelings. Indeed, the other may have NO feelings at all, as in the case of a loved object.

MIND-READING A universal pastime in which the reader infers what another is thinking (incorrectly) based on his/her own direct personal experience.

NONSENSE 'If a million people believe something, it's bound to be true.' 'Common sense is the best route to understanding anything.' 'What you see in the news [or newspaper] keeps you informed about what's really going on.' All are false, wrong, nonsense.

OPPOSITES The absolute opposites of most NONSENSE (see there) that people mouth is probably much, much nearer the truth. When considering the truth of what anybody says about anything, it certainly seems worthwhile to try it out by converting it to its opposite. That way, you might come closer to a truth quickly.

PARSIMONY The canon of Parsimony suggests that the simplest possible formulation of anything has advantages galore over any other formulation. By 'simplest' here is NOT meant the easiest to put together. By 'simplest' is meant the formulation that uses the fewest number of variables, factors, ideas and, most particularly, assumptions.

PEACE Ifyouwanttothinkofpeaceasanabsenceofwar, ignore the rest of this passage. If you want to achieve a state of serene peace in yourself, in your relations with others, in your community and in the world, you need to set the goal of positive peace as a superordinate goal in your life. As such, other goals, like safety and wealth, have to be subordinated to this basic goal. The goal of peace is achieved by acting in accord with the basic principles that create it. You can find some of those principles listed below.

1. The Golden Rule: in all things, act toward others as you would have them act toward you.

2. The Inclusion Principle: draw an inclusive circle around every person to include everyone in as part of your community.

3. The Consistency Principle: act in ways consistent with your beliefs and principles and how you hope others will act.

4. The Cooperation Principle: be liberal in cooperating and sharing all of your own with others.

5. The Conservation Principle: be conservative in the use of all resources and in the production of waste.

6. The Resource Exchange Principle: use your energies to serve others in communal exchange, and accept their's in return.

7. The Consideration Principle: accommodate to the rights, joy and survival needs of others including all possible future generations.

8. The Political Principle: share power equally with all people keeping no extra power for yourself or anyone else.

9. The Accomplishment Principle: achieve the best and most worthwhile you can, limited only by others' rights and needs.

10. The Respect Principle: give respect to each person (and yourself) to foster awareness of the good in all people.

11. The Trust Principle: trust every person (and yourself) in order to feel safe with everybody.

12. The Love Principle: exercise love and caring for all others as widely as possible to maximize your own joy.

13. The Positive Reward Principle: look for the positive in everything and acknowledge and praise it so you feel good.

14. The Agreement Principle: find common/shared elements in all viewpoints and merge them inclusively to find agreement.

15. The Common Purpose Principle: seek in all things common purpose to ensure cooperative pursuit of co-existence.

16. The General Principle: all other considerations, means and approaches are subordinated to these principles in the active pursuit of peace -- if peace is our primary purpose in life. QUANTIFY Number may be the ultimate abstraction. It is also the best means by which we can keep ourselves honest, and with our observations focused on the directly observable. That way we can minimize the likelihood of getting lost in clouds of speculation and fantasy. If you can count and measure things or events, you can collect data to test a truth, or at least the pragmatic validity, of your most cherished (and therefore most hazardous) beliefs.

RAIN Youhavehearditsaidthat'intoeverylifea little rain must fall'. It is as though it is intended to say that rain is an undesirable. Oh yeh!? Perhaps we would rather live in a parched and blisteringly hot desert. Perhaps we would like to live with drought. A sunny day is nice. But a rainy day is a whole lot better. It replenishes our drinking and bathing water; it nourishes the crops and animals we need for food; it revives our gardens; it shades us from the blistering sun. The only unwelcome things it does are to restrict the distance we can see, and to get us wet. Perhaps you think that these remarks are just trying to look optimistically for the cloud's silver lining. To the contrary, a cloud IS a silver lining in life. It is not only possible to find the good in everything; it may just be true that everything is absolutely and inherently good.

SCIENCE The approach used in science offers a fairly good basis for much of our own lives. That is NOT intended to mean that the results of science, that offer a very limited and one-sided view of the universe, give much of a basis for daily living. It is intended to say that scientific methods (analyze a problem, find out what is known about it, find means to objectify whatever is to be studied, quantify observations, collect data and subject the data to statistical analysis) can be used to solve and resolve most of life's problems. It's worth the training and discipline.

THINKING And the reasoning it fosters is probably the single greatest waste of time ever invented. It is like internal television watching. It may be even more destructive in that it really does mislead us into believing what we think (or reason). I know, these statements are both counter-intuitive and contrary to everything we have been taught. Still, the idea may be worth considering. Doing is really all life is about. And it seems very likely that if you were to act without thinking, and in the same situation with ample preparatory thought, you would act in exactly the same way. Your brain is already marvellously programmed from all the years of your development to respond instantly and well to almost any situation. Perhaps you could trust your brain.

UN Didyouevernoticehowmany'un...'wordsthere are? They take a perfectly good word and negate or undo it. Each one creates a 'not that' word that affirms and denies something. Pooh! You can't do a not-do; you can't not-think or think a not- thought; you can't be a not-be; you can't undo a do. Let's NOT use UNusable UN-words. If we must use the prefix 'UN', let's limit its reference to the United Nations.

VIOLENCE Violence is the worst thing there is, right? If so, it ought to be important enough to know where it comes from. Do you know? It is NOT a human attribute lodged deep in our individual or collective unconscious ids. It is NOT something we inherited, or that evolved in us. It is a simple result of having been trained by everyone in our pasts NOT to be too energetic. We were warned about running through the house, restlessness at school, playing too forcefully with our friends, and even working too hard at our jobs. Each of these warnings increased our fear about too active energy use. Energy with fear conditioned to it is anger -- energy for action with a bitter taste to it. That fear also became associated with the risk of feeling anger, as if that might be dangerous. That, in turn, made it necessary for us to exercise 'control' over ourselves. The 'control' served as a kind of cork jammed in a heating bottle. It can't hold forever. Eventually, the control cork pops, and violence can be the result. If we were to become less fearful of energy, we would likely be much less prone to violence. WANTS Wants are NOT needs (see Needs Dictionary). Wants are just things we want because we are naturally greedy. There's nothing wrong with being greedy, unless we think that the wants it breeds HAVE to be met or realized. They don't, you know.

X Is the symbol used to represent an unknown. The unknown, uncertain or ambiguous is the major single source of fear in people. It is the motive that underlies the development of language, philosophy and science, and a host of other human initiatives. But the motive of fear is totally unnecessary. Fear of any kind anticipates danger ('what if ..'). There is NO danger. We live in a society that has been provided with carefully engineered means to free us from all dangers -- if we simply use a few obvious ways to regulate our actions. We live in houses with lightning rods and stout tiger-proofed doors; high places are provided with railings to prevent falling; roads and side walks keep cars and pedestrians apart; traffic lights and road signs keep cars from interfering with each other. We are safe. All fear is merely fantasy or fiction.

YOUTH Youth is not just a commoditywasted on the young. It is also a heavy burden from beneath which, as we grow older, we emerge. Contrary to conventional wisdom, youth is an affliction. Age is a blessing. If you let yourself, you will get happier as you get older. Enjoy the accomplishments of advancing years. You earned them.

ZEAL Zealisthemostpreciouskindof energyinpeople. It can be found in the young ... or in the old. It is the source of commitment to doing something useful. It is created by values (see Y-values dictionary), needs and an appreciation of what ought or needs to be done. Keep it. Use it. J: JUST A DICTIONARY ACCURATELY REPRESENTING JUSTICE

ADJUDICATE To judge whether one miscreant is a greater villain than another, while the three greatest villains (the judge and the two attorneys) stick close beside the designated miscreants in the hope that their villainy will remain unnoticed.

ADVANTAGE A priority of exemption from persecution under the Law. Politicians pass laws that exempt themselves (or at least members of their own party) from sanctions under the laws they pass. Judges are exempt as the final authorities concerning the Law. Legislative lawyers are exempt as the writers of the Law. Prosecuting attorneys are exempt because they are utterly virtuous and righteous to serve as contrasts against which to measure miscreants. Defense attorneys are exempt as the friends of other attorneys. Law enforcement officers are exempt being those who detect, apprehend and charge miscreants. The rich are exempt because they can afford attorneys who are safe from the Law to represent them. The other half of the population is not exempt, and bears a double share of the Law to average out the justice meted out under the Law.

APPREHEND Grasping and holding an understanding that the person grasped and held is a miscreant.

APPROACH The approach adopted by the justice system is said, euphemistically, to seek 'proof' and 'evidence'. The uninvolved observer might note, however, that it actually involves the use of DEDUCTIVE LOGIC and dubious testimony based on WITNESS PERCEPTION. It might be nice to replace these approaches with some 'inductive logic' and 'assessment' of individual differences of participants to objectify the search involved in the proceedings.

ASSUMPTIONS The assumptions employed in the justice system are said, euphemistically, to include the ideas that the unrestrained 'self is harmful', that the alleged felon is 'innocent until proved to be guilty', that the 'felon is opposed to (and by) society', and that the 'offender should be excluded from society' for a time. The observer might be inclined to note that the real assumptions are that HUMANITY IS EVIL, that external controls must be exerted over the EVIL IN THE SELF, that it is necessary to DISCRIMINATE the overtly evil from the rest, and to SEGREGATE those found to be overtly evil. It might be nice to foster 'self interest', to assume that people are 'good' (closer to fact), to recognize human 'response differences', and to 'include' the offender into society to help enhance his/her socialization 'learning'.

ATTENTION The focus of attention of practitioners in the justice field (i.e., lawyers), is touted to involve 'professionalism', 'proper restraint' and a sense of self 'importance'. More accurately, it involves PERSONAL INFLUENCE, a ROBOTIC IMAGE and the pursuit of WEALTH. It might be nice to empower others by allowing them to be sources of influence', to foster an 'image of a team working on a task', and to achieve 'adaptation and friendship'.

ATTITUDE The attitudes assumed in the justice system are manifestly JUDGEMENTAL, EVALUATIVE and CRITICAL. It would be nice if humans could find ways to be 'supportive' and 'respectful' of one another.

ATTORNEY A masker who pretends at one and the same time to be the trustworthy confidant of the one charged, a friend of the prosecutor, and a friend and officer of the court (another name for the judge). It is no surprise that everyone would like these maskers AT once TORN apart from the kNEYS up (and down).

BAIL Asumof money,paidtothebailiff,sufficientto bribe the court temporarily to turn its back on an accused so that the accused can escape long enough to put his/her affairs well enough in order to pay a further bribe to the court at a later date.

BAILIFF One who guards the doors of a court, and transports a prisoner from court to prison -- unless the prisoner is wise enough to sneak past the bailiff, accomplished by distracting the bailiff's attention by bribing the court in paying the BAIL.

BENEFITS The benefits achieved from the justice system are said to involve 'public protection', 'keeping the peace' and 'fair judgement'. The disinterested observer might want to suggest they really involve social RESTRICTION, social ORDER and INCREASED WARFULNESS and CRIME. It might be nice to achieve the 'good of individual collectives' and increase people's 'peacefulness, pleasure and comfort'.

BLINDNESS 'Justice is blind'. Consequently, it notices only the divergent and unusual, that stands in contrast. The commonplace good of people is ignored.

COURT A place where a king or his representative sits to be entertained by a jester (recrimination of whom takes centre stage), several officials (who compete for attention and approval from the king) and a host of petitioners (who, under the guise of being honest citizens, seek to advance their own private interests at the expense of the fool).

DECORUM The presumed to be decorative, but actually inane and disgusting, displays of clothing, speech and manner employed by courtiers who seek to curry favour with the court and those foolish petitioners who imagine that the court is an important part of the real world.

EFFECTS The effects that can be observed from the several aims of the justice system seem to be that intended 'protection' results in human DISEMPOWERMENT, the assumption of 'responsibility' by the court creates an EXTERNAL LOCUS of CONTROL, the desire to be 'fair' reduces to MEDIATION of human relationships by an arbiter, and the claim of 'retribution' affords NO RESOLUTION for the complainant. Just as easily, it could achieve client 'empowerment', an 'internal locus of control' in people, actions that are 'self-directed and 'resolution of distress'.

EQUALITY The public and political view of courtiers concerning the applicability of the Law to the entire population, when seeking to obscure the advantages (see there) enjoyed by themselves.

EVALUATION Evaluation in the justice system, euphemistically, is said to be 'impartial', and responsive to demonstration of 'necessary and sufficient' cause. The observer might prefer to note that it is really based on AUTHORITATIVE EDICT and on ABSOLUTE statements and PRECEDENT. It might be nice to evaluate results in terms of 'effectiveness' found empirically, perhaps using 'scientific methods' to obtain at least probably true or valid statements.

FREEDOM The condition of being unharassed by the justice system, subject only to a host of regulations and laws enacted by every imaginable level and type of government and administration working full-time to invent restrictions to subjugate the citizenry. Only those who are found unwilling or unable to subjugate themselves to all these regulations and laws are said to be (or about to be) unfree.

GAVEL Ahammerusedbyajudgeorotherautocrat,asif it were a bludgeon, to beat upon block-heads with such a clatter as to alarm all those present into silence so the gaveller can be heard.

HERITAGE The heritage from which the justice system springs is said to involve values of 'tradition' and of 'precision', for 'protection' by 'superior force'. The cynical observer might wonder if these might better be expressed as ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIAN and CHAUVINISTIC protection of the 'weak', based on EVALUATIVE values from tribal or KINGLY traditions. Surely, we could advance to a more 'egalitarian' heritage, to 'empower' others and enhance people's human and social 'resources'.

HUMOUR The one thing that is abhorred above all others in the justice system. It is unacknowledged common knowledge that there is nothing as ridiculous as the justice system. Therefore, it is unacceptable to express any humour in the precincts of the justice system, for fear that everyone present will dissolve in mirth at the whole proceedings.

IGNORANCE The condition of everyone when seeking to contemplate or comprehend the Law, and the universal condition that is held to be no excuse under the Law. The fact that lawyers and politicians create the Law so that nobody can understand it, provides them with some of the advantage (see there) over the rest of us. The principle that ignorance is no excuse before the Law makes it appear as though all were to be treated with equality (see there).

INNOCENCE A state under the law assumed to characterize the defendant except by the police, prosecution, the judge, the defending attorney, the jury, the other court officers and everyone having any knowledge, however limited, of the trial.

JURISDICTION The particular area in which a statute can be enforced to limit freedom. Since all parts of the earth have been divided up to make jurisdictions, there is no place left to which a person can escape in order to avoid limitations of his/her freedom.

JURY A number of persons appointed by a court to assist the attorneys in preventing law from degenerating into justice. [AB]

JUSTICE The enactment and enforcement of prohibitive laws to govern people born to freedom. The whole system is inappropriate, illogical, flawed, and saddening to the point that it is hilariously funny.

KNOWLEDGE One of two things that are anathema to the justice system. The other is justice.

LANGUAGE The language employed in the justice system is said, euphemistically, to be 'unassailable' in the assemblage of 'evidence'. The uncommitted observer might want to notice it is really only PRECISE and EXCLUSIVE, NOMINAL and nomothetic. Can't we reach the point of using 'general', 'inclusive', and 'idiographic' language, employing 'adjectives and verbs' to represent the emotional qualities most characteristic of humanity, in communicating with one another.

LIBEL Having been sufficiently indiscreet as to write down and publish a truth about another. Acceptable in law only when it is practised by the justice system. MATRIMONY A legal process by which the courts formally become accomplices of women in crime, wherein a man foregoes all future wealth, property, relationships and time in favour of a woman. When slow-witted man finally began to notice the consequences of this process, he began to exempt himself from the formalities of matrimony. The courts and their accomplices, however, have made steady inroads to extend the consequences of matrimony, first to common-law relationships and then to any brief periods of co-habitation.

MEANS The means employed by the justice system are said, euphemistically, to involve 'codified law', public 'protection' and maintenance of 'order'. In fact, the honest observer will note that it employs such means as PROHIBITIVE statements, institutionalized POWER and external means of ENFORCEMENT. It seems probable that 'permissive instructions', client 'enablement' and personal 'internal empowerment' would work better to achieve societal goals.

METHODS The methods employed by the justice system are said, euphemistically, to involve 'reasonable' consideration, in 'conflict' between 'advocates'. The conscious observer will note that the methods really involve the application of LOGICAL analysis applied ANTAGONISTICALLY in an ADVERSARIAL process. It seems likely that 'cooperative', 'emotional' or affective 'relationship-founding' methods would prove more advantageous.

MORAL LEVEL The level of development of moral reasoning in the justice system is said, euphemistically, to involve 'fairness' and 'justice' employing 'standards of acceptable actions'. The observer might want to restate these as reasoning levels from Kohlberg's Level I, Avoidance of Punishment, to Level IV: Law and Order mentality. Many offenders attain moral reasoning Level III: 'Good Boy/Girl' mentality. Would it be asking too much for the justice system to function a couple of notches beyond offenders in moral development? For instance, it might strive to reach at least Level V: 'Social Contract'.

NECROPHILIA The erotic pursuit by the justice system of the reinstatement of capital punishment.

OFFENCE The natural behavioural tendency of officers of the court, whose guilt leads them to project this trait on a handy citizen, designated the offender.

OUTCOME The outcomes in society euphemistically claimed by the justice system are 'detection', 'deterrence' and 'retribution' (punishment). The observer might be inclined to restate these as DISCRIMINATION, SEPARATION and EXCLUSION or isolation of certain people. We could achieve 'identification' of those at risk, for social 'integration' by 'inclusion'.

POLITICIANS These, along with practitioners of the Law and their accomplices in the media, are the most false, offensive and disreputable members of society.

POWER Power in the justice system is, euphemistically, said to be 'impersonal' and 'benign'. An observer might be inclined to wonder whether it is not, instead, VESTED and invested in POLITICAL and COURT authority that is highly sensitive to retributional pressures through the MEDIA. Power could as easily be invested in the 'individual' to achieve a better end, if it were to be done carefully.

PROCESS A document by which events or people are transported from one state to another -- from freedom (see there) to court, from court to prison, or from anywhere to anywhere else where they can be abused with ease and impunity at the hands of the justice system.

PROTECTION Protection in the justice system is self-focused, and involves the caution: Cover Your Back Jack! One might be more pleased if it were at least a little other-focused. Protection might be enhanced by focusing on 'others' and by 'empowering' and 'accepting' them.

PURPOSE The express, if euphemistic, purpose of the justice system is 'public protection'. There is limited evidence that any part of it protects anybody. Its actual purpose can be seen by those who open their eyes to be CONTROL and REGULATION of the citizenry -- held to be 'free'. Equally valid purposes might be 'freedom', 'comfort', 'joy' and a high level of individual and societal 'morale'.

REGULATIONS The fabric and binding tape that subjugates any person to freedom (see there).

ROUTINES The routines employed in the justice system are overtly EVALUATIVE, CRITICAL and ATTRIBUTIONAL. How about 'understanding' and commendation or 'praise' as alternative societal routines.

STATUTE Ultimate authority in the justice system by which anyone can be subjected to harassment and abuse.

STANDARDS Standards employed in the justice system are said, euphemistically, to be based on defined standards or 'guidelines', and to be possessed of a high degree of 'generality'. The observer might notice they are actually designed to minimize or AVOID the UNACCEPTABLE, and are based on highly mutable POLITICAL or MEDIA notions of acceptability. How about 'maximizing desirable or ideal' conduct, and basing guidelines on 'scientific knowledge'.

TESTIMONY A statement by a liar whose word is accepted that he/she will tell the truth, requiring only that the person affirms that he/she was present in the place and time of the event -- whether or not he/she was conscious at the time.

TRIAL One attempt to subject another to the harrowing and hazardous experience of trying, against all odds, to learn a bitter lesson, or to defend him/herself in court.

UNFORTUNATE Anybody who is forced into any kind of dealing with the justice system. In some settings, such a person is recognized as disadvantaged.

VALUES The values apparently adopted in the justice system include those of 'safety', 'equality' and 'public good'. Cautious observation might view its values as involving AVOIDANCE of error or danger, focus on externalized REFLEXIVE expression, and judgemental RATIONALITY. How about 'approach' to 'freedom', 'emotional closeness' among people and personal 'fulfilment', using 'affirmative' expressions.

VERITY A word that implies that truth is involved. Since it is commonly known that truth is never involved in the justice system, the word truth is avoided in favour of verity, unless another restriction is to be placed on a citizen serving as a witness.

WITNESS An actor who was playing the role of Justice at the time of an event. Having been at the time blind- folded, with his/her hands busy balancing scales and holding a retributional sword, while dressed in drag, he/she is called upon to give true testimony about what he/she saw, did and believed concerning the matter being debated.

K: KNOW A DICTIONARYOF KNOWLEDGE

ALL knowledge is illusory. Therefore, there is no dictionary of knowledge. There is a story to illustrate the basic unstated principle of knowledge.

The students in a monastery were housed in two dormitories. One day, while the favourite student was away on a journey, the students were arguing about which dormitory owned the cat. They brought their argument to the chief monastic teacher. He listened to their arguments, but could find no basis for a decision. He said: 'If anyone can utter a true word, the cat will be spared.' The students were unable to say a true word. Finally, the chief monk drew a sword and cut the cat in half, giving half to each dormitory. The students were appalled.

That evening, the favourite student returned from his journey. He met with the chief monk to report and to hear about events while he was away. The monk recounted the events concerning the cat. When he reached the part about 'uttering a true word', his favourite student removed his sandals, put them on his head and began to walk away. In sheer delight, the chief monk said: 'Oh, if you had only been here, the cat would have been spared.'

The suggestion that a true word could be uttered could only be greeted with a non-verbal expression to the inappropriateness of the request, and by terminating speech. It is not even necessarily true to say that a true word cannot be spoken.

L: LOVE ADICTIONARYOFLOVE

LIKE knowledge,LOVEisnotrepresentedinwords. Itis not a cognitive or rational state. It is not subject to precise or even imprecise definition or limitation. It can only be lived.

UNLIKE knowledge, LOVE is pure emotion. It does not need reason, justification, understanding, or cause. It is a part of living, experience, attraction and expression, but it is not limited to any of these.

WAYS OF WISDOM Like wisdom, LOVE is concerned solely with the happiness and best interests of the loved one (person or thing), and never (or last) with self- interest. It is carefully in-trained into children who are to be concerned first (or only) with the wishes of adults. Since the male child is to learn how to be and what to do to please the (most often female) adult, he learns to love the other. Since the female child is to learn how to appear in what she does to please the (mostly female) adult, she learns to love herself (first, often only) and the appearances in what she is and does. One evidence of this learning is the tradition that, in a ship- wreck, the women and children are saved first, the men being expendable. The fact that the accepted reason for this (that the children have their lives ahead of them and need the care of the women) is pure justification, is seen when one considers the discrimination by gender that is involved in the actions and at each stage of the reasoning.

WISDOM dictates that pure love is silent. It is onlythat love which is self-love, seeking political power, or personal gain, experience and gratification, that clamours to be heard. If the world's many religious revelations and accumulated knowledge do not reveal the nature of love to the seeker, he or she will not learn more of love from a dictionary. Thus, it is the part of wisdom here to refrain from further clamour, and to be silent.

M: MAR A DICTIONARY OF MARRIAGE, with No Bull

ACCIDENT-OF-BIRTH See Rhythm Method of birth control; bastard.

ACRIMONY The bitter part of matrimony.

ADAMANT A mineral frequently found beneath a skirt, but soluble in solicitate of gold. [AB]

AGGRESSOR That participant in a quarrel weak enough to allow him/herself to be held responsible for the first move.

AGILITY Nimbleness in avoiding the finger of guilt.

ALLURE A shiny bright sales-plug with which a woman goes fishing for a Bachelor (see there) fish.

AMANUENSIS A devilishly attractive young woman whose sister had the misfortune of averaging out the family's beauty -- the latter being your secretary, while the former is your competitor's secretary.

ANNUL To declare today that yesterday's lawfulness is illegal. [AB] The surprise of the good fortune to be able to forego marriage after having committed accidentally to it.

APART Separated,asinmarriage.

ARBITRARY The capricious exercise of personal will, as is characteristic of the actions of traitors and arbitrators (family-tree traitors).

ARGUMENT A discussion or debate in which the attempt is made to reason to a conclusion that is both unreasonable and contrary to all evidence. ATTORNEY A mis-representative who, having acquired power over your goods and wealth, disposes of it in small part to others, and in large part to him/herself.

ATTRACTIVE Having the power to cause another to draw near, usually to self-destruct.

BABY A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion, and the meaningless babble produced by, at and about it. [AB] Said to be characterized by a loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other. Akin to infant that, along with child, denotes a dreadful human ailment from which those of judicious understanding seek, with all haste, to cure the afflicted into normal adulthood.

BACHELOR A miscreant who has eluded custody, but who has been detected preparatory to apprehension.

BATH A mystic ceremony, employinga large basin, by which the vast unwashed multitudes become transformed and made fit for social and other forms of intercourse.

BEAST See Husband.

BED Standing furniture for reclining; reclining space to nurture standing; bottom of a body of person or water. Used to cultivate intimacy between people or flowers.

BIGAMY An offence against common decency and the law, found most commonly among males of most species. Bigamy was explained most succinctly in the expression: Higamous hogamous, woman is monogamous; hogamous higamous, man is polygamous. Bigamists are heard to use the term in the form: Big-of-me.

BRACELET A gaudy adornment for the wrist, signifying captivity or slavery, sought after with rapacious vigour by the unfair sex; sometimes available as a gift or prize for male or female crimes. BRIDE A woman with a fine prospect of happiness, behind her. [AB]

BRUTE See Husband. [AB]

CHARM The magical power of something about another that forces you, against your will, to be drawn to the other. Thus, the initial cause of hopelessness, despair, shame and divorce.

CHASTE Onewhohasneverbeenchased.

CHEEK A light and impudent sauce with a moral flavour constraining it to be beaten on both sides before it bites back.

CHILDREN The original, now obsolete, reason for marriage. There is now no reason for marriage.

COMMON LAW That part of the Law that is commonly understood by women, unknown to men, and is commonly used to abuse the latter in court.

COMPATIBLE A state of harmonious association immediately preceding open warfare.

CONJUGAL Living with a jug or jughead, with much juggling -- everyone knows how to marry them; nobody knows how to live with them.

CONTRACT An enforceable agreement entered by mistake, from which both parties commonly shrink.

CONVERSATION A period of time wasted in making inarticulate sounds, to create misunderstanding and controversy.

COSMETIC Paint to cover skin to create an impressionistic painting purporting to improve on nature's art- work.

COURT A place where games are played, commonly seduction of the opposite sex or of judges.

COURTESY An artificially polite manner adopted in court or courting. COURTING The established customs in which a bachelor is induced to entertain a woman in order to have the opportunity to grovel while begging for intimate access and to convince her that she should accept him, his manifest foibles and all his worldly wealth in exchange for favours that benefit and interest her more than him, and that she has been trying to acquire from him for years.

CRITICISM The art of putting another down. The exercise of moral judgement based on the perspectives, values and objectives of the critic, without considering those of the object of criticism; planning a guilt- trip; the unfounded faith that you know better than me what I'm trying to do and how I should do it.

CRY Inarticulatesoundsmadebyababyofanyage.

CUSTODY The established right of the woman that can be transferred in small and transformed (called Access) part to the man in exchange for all his present wealth plus most of his future subsistence.

DAINTY The word between Daily and Dairy in the dictionary.

DANCE To leap about in alarm at deafening noise pervading the environment, sometimes while clinging for protection to a neighbour's wife or daughter. [AB] The female of the species appears immune to the clatter of noise so that she both tranquillises the male with her participation, and receives her share of the torture by placing her feet under those of the stampeding male. One evidence to contradict the Calvinist view that dancing is a vertical position with a horizontal desire is that the leaping stampede remains for a while in ear-shot of the noise instead of moving at once out the exit.

DESERVING Worthy, meritorious, commonly of a swift kick in the pants.

DESIRE The Achilles or other Heel of a bachelor.

DIAMOND Valueless, indestructible bauble worn by women as though it were an ornament, but really used to preserve the fingernails in scratching out the eyes of other women.

DIVIDE To separate into parts, implicitly of equal size, as dividing the wealth of a commonwealth into parts assigned to its people. Hence the division of wealth between the husband and wife is commonly held to be equal, so that the weak wife, unable to support herself, is granted in perpetuity twice the amount of that received by the husband plus, as her fair share, all the wealth and property acquired in the marriage.

DIVORCE Woman's favourite crime using the courts as accomplices; women's commerce, in partnership with lawyers, following which the partners go their separate ways to their banks to deposit all the ex- husbands' worldly goods, past present and future; dissolution (see there) in marriage, in which the dissolutes agree to disagree on everything while remaining at a great distance from one another -- while the courts assign the commonwealth to the distaff side in order to pay at least one lawyer.

DOMESTIC House broken and properly civilized; at least prepared and willing to be introduced to a prospective mother-in-law.

DOMINANCE Seeking control over others who are seeking someone to control them.

DOWRY Oneofthemeansusedbyuglywomentomake themselves more attractive and appealing.

ECLIPSE One celestial body obscuring another, as in falling in love with one to forget another.

ECSTASY A dementing process frequently a precursor of gamous change, either from polygamy to monogamy or from monogamy to polygamy.

EFFEMINATE Another example of the irregular and genderist character of the English language. Effeminate means to evidence and increase one's feminine traits; emasculate means to dispossess and reduce one's masculine traits. That is, effeminate means emasculate. There is no equivalent word with which to disparage women.

EGOTIST A person of low taste and narrow interests, more interested in him/herself than in me. [AB]

EMANCIPATION A bonds-person's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of him/herself. [AB]

EMBARRASSMENT The natural feeling accompanying usual conduct.

EMBRYO The object that forms the ugliest stage of human development.

EMOTION A prostrating disease caused by subversion of control from the head to the heart. [AB]

ENDURE The not-yet-divulged secret of living.

ENGAGEMENT A period of time between proposal and marriage, deemed insufficient to destroy desire, but sufficient to permit (but not to condone) one or both to back out.

ENVY Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. [AB]

EPIDERMIS The wrapping paper that makes disgusting contents tolerable, if not attractive.

EQUAL In democracy, the relative power assigned to every person, from which is derived the egalitarian state of affairs in which a few rule, fewer control the rulers, and the rest are ruled with varying degrees of injustice.

ERECTION Something that stands out from its surroundings in proud disdain of the laws of gravity, achieved with manipulation, rigidifying devices and firm implantation in soil that may or may not be fertile.

EXAGGERATE Another's statement of his/her virtues.

EXCITE To stimulate to inactivity.

EXHIBITIONIST One who deems his/her privates to be a public and interesting affair. EXPECT To acquire a disappointment.

EXPECTATION The hopeful anticipation that you will win the lottery of your choice. The hope is supported by the slogan: 'You have to play to win.' Its obvert is more accurate, namely, 'You have to play to lose.' In marriage, it's better not to play.

EXTINCTION The process by which a useful habit decays for want of recognition or reward.

FAIR A public exhibition to demonstrate that justice is for modestly good people with light coloured hair, of the lesser sex.

FAITH Belief without evidence, in what is said without knowledge, of things without parallel. [AB] Thus a name given to many women.

FAMILY A group of things or people clinging together for mutual protection.

FATHER The malefactor in child breeding.

FATIGUE A state produced by continuous exposure to the uninviting.

FAULT An attribute found exclusively in your neighbour.

FEELINGS A much valued narcissistic emotional driver in women, valued by them for its self-interest, and fostered continually by women, in altered form, in men, the better to control men and to convert them into sub-female versions of themselves. Women's commonest complaint is that men are devoid of feelings. By this they mean that their men have not declared their love for the complaining women. The complaint is expressed in a standard form that will be used continuously in marriage, calculated to evoke the complained of behaviour by arousing man's well-tutored guilt feelings, learned at his mother's knee. The purpose of arousing the man to a declaration of 'his' feelings is to gain control over his future actions by using future complaints in the form, 'If you loved me, you would ...' FEMALE One of the opposing, or unfair, sex [AB]; the bitter half.

FEUD Interactive entertainment for rural families.

FIB Aliethathasnotcutitsteeth;thehabitual liar's nearest approach to the truth. [AB]

FIDELITY A virtue peculiar to those about to be betrayed. [AB]

FLAW Singular:the defectin oneself. Plural:the defects in others, notably spouses.

FLEECE The act of taking the coat, and maybe the shirt, off sheep or those created in their image.

FOREFINGER The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors. [AB]

FORGIVE To excuse another for a minor fault on the understanding that many of your major ones will be excused reciprocally.

FORNICATE (4NIK8) Coupling, deplored and practised by all.

FREEDOM Transferred from bondage of which we are aware to one more subtle of which we are not aware.

FUGITIVE One who, unliked is sought after, disapproved is wanted, and disparaged is pursued.

GENDER The division between men and women, which assures their mutual incompatibility.

GENEALOGY An account of one's descent from ancestors who did not particularly care to trace their own. [AB]

GENTLENESS A quality peculiar to those about to be abused.

GRASPING Ostensibly an automatic reflexive response of the fingers to a desired object in contact with them, and justified by the need for security.

GROOM Oneemployedbyabridetotreatherasahorse. GUARANTOR One who provides the assurance that a debtor will be in default, and the insurance to cover the cost without benefit of a premium by which to recover the loss.

GUEST One who isinvited to rob you blind and destroy your house.

GUILT A much complained of and often used female weapon, in which appeal is made to any available authority to show that another (the man) is deficient in his consideration and duties, for which he ought to feel deep shame. The substance of the complaint and the appeal by the woman is usually an item of behaviour she considers precious (since that is how she acts, speaks or feels) and that every 'real' human being obviously considers precious also. Examples include: not changing clothes when home from work, using chairs as repositories for non- human objects, or not expressing opinions and feelings with the specific syntax expected (and sometimes used) by the other.

HALF The lesser of two portions, and that share to be given to the other.

HAREM A warehouse in which an entrepreneur collects the women he has captured to enrapture himself with his collectibles.

HEART The part of the body blamed for irrationality.

HEAT A commodity for which vast sums of money are paid during half of the year (or of marriage) to obtain it, and during the other half of the year (or marriage) to get rid of it. Children are taught early by their mothers to prepare for this conundrum with a poem they must memorize: 'As a rule, a man's a fool. When it's hot, he want's it cool; when it's cool he wants it hot; always wanting what is not.'

HELPMATE A wife, or bitter half. [AB]

HEM The stitch whose length adapts to fashion. HEREDITY Transmission from parents to their offspring of characteristics the latter despise in the former.

HERMAPHRODITISM A word, degenerated from Hermanphroditism or, earlier, Hermanfraudism, referring to a person who can fraudulently pass as a member of either gender by the good fortune of having both gender's genitalia under-developed on his-her body.

HERMIT A female person whose vices and follies are not sociable. [AB] Masculine: Hismet. This gender separation is one of the reasons for the unsociability and isolation of each.

HOME Thisyear'sexpensive nest fora wife and herdolls.

HOMELY The attractiveness of a person destined to be cloistered at home.

HOMICIDE The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy. But it makes little difference to the person slain whether he/she fell by one kind or another. The classification is purely for the pecuniary advantage of lawyers. [AB]

HONESTY A vicious virtue, found mainly in the hostile.

HONEY A sickly sweet commodity accompanied by a vicious sting. Therefore used to refer to the bitter half.

HONEYMOON A period of time following a wedding in which the man, by custom, is induced to believe that, at last, he has free access to sexual liberties with his wife, divested of her family and its protective influences over her. In truth, it is an opportunity for the woman to get away from the oppressive influences of others to express herself as she wants, and to establish, at the most opportune time of her life, her absolute control over the man -- divested of his ordinary means of escape (to work or to his companions).

HOURI A comely female inhabiting Islamic heaven [AB] who joys only in giving all pleasure that a man might want, and in the quantity desired. The concept, though seductive, makes one wonder whether it has been thought through thoroughly. Superabundance, followed by satiety, might lead the faithful to wish to attend elsewhere. However, that might serve to keep the population of heaven under control, thus preventing over-work from these most seemly harem-mates.

HOUSELESS Having paid all taxes on household goods. [AB]

HUSBAND One who, having eaten, is charged thereafter with the care of the plate. [AB]

HYSTERIA A condition involving a wandering uterus, arising from repressed impulses and tendencies, resulting in scattered social behaviour and little awareness of personal libidinous desires; the idealized image of the western female as presented in the media -- thus repressed and deplored by women's libertines.

IMPOSITION A kindness in which I permit you to expend time and effort on my behalf; a presumptuous invasion by you of my time and effort.

IMPOTENCE A condition of less power than the circumstance demands -- in controlling the universe.

IMPROVEMENT Rearranging or making your things better to suit my tastes.

INCEST Afamilyaffair.

INCOMPATIBILITY In marriage, a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. [AB]

INCOMPATIBLE The ability to pat all the family income in her purse.

INCONSISTENT Your position as measured against mine.

INCONSOLABLE A consequence of injury or slight deemed to be of such proportions that any attempt to make it right would be insufficient, though the offending person is certainly expected to try.

INDECISION The chief element of social success. [AB] INDISCRETION The guilt of a woman. [AB]

INEQUALITY The complaint used to re-allocate the three- quarters of the advantages and one-quarter of the disadvantages in life originally consigned to females, so nine-tenths of the advantages and one- tenth of the disadvantages have been secured as her moral and legal prerogative. Syn: Feminism, Politics, Law.

INFAMY Famousforbeinga scoundrel.

INFANT A loud noise at one end, and no sense of responsibility at the other.

INFERIORITY A complex set of ideas I have that make me feel less than I am. You don't have a complex, you are inferior.

INJURY An offence next in degree of enormity to a slight. [AB]

INJUSTICE A burden which, of all those we load upon others and carry ourselves, is lightest in the hands and heaviest on the back. [AB]

INNATE Natural, inherent, inborn -- as innate ideas, that is, ideas we were born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths in philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof. Among innate ideas might be mentioned the belief in the superiority of oneself, one's gender and one's country, the importance of one's personal affairs, and the interesting nature of one's diseases. [AB]

INTERIM Permanent; final.

INTERMEDIARY The target of a cross-fire.

INTIMACY A relationship into which fools providentially are drawn to their mutual destruction. [AB]

INTIMATE The danger of close proximity and sexual contact. INTRODUCTION A social ceremony invented by the devil to plague his enemies for the gratification of her servants. It attains its most malevolent development in north American democracy where every person is the equal of every other, from which it follows that everyone has the right to know everyone else -- which implies the right to introduce without request or permission. [AB]

INTROSPECTION Discovery of all that is vile and reprehensible through the simple operation of examining the contents of one's own mind.

ITCH A seven year long disaffection afflicting monogamy, which is said to recur each seven years.

JEALOUS Unduly concerned about the preservation of what can be lost only if it is not worth keeping. [AB]

KINDNESS A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction. [AB]

LADY A(nowunlawful)term of respectforwomen,usedby men still under the spell of illusion created by their own gonads; sometimes used (with emphasis) as reproof to women whose actions don't merit respect. LATE Thetimewhenthingsneededaredone.

LAW An artificial construction of words deemed to possess final authority in the conduct of the universe and in human affairs; formulations derived from interminable debate and brow-beating, by which people seek to reconstruct the universe to suit their own selfish wishes.

LAZINESS Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. [AB]

LIBERTY One of imagination's most precious possessions. [AB]

LIBIDO An anagram used to refer to the life force or vital energy, taken literally by Freud. The term derives from the words: 'do libel id'.

LITIGANT A person about to give up his/her skin in the hope of retaining his/her bones [AB]; a rapidly propagating species of wolverines.

LITIGATION A machine you go into as a pig, and come out of as a sausage. [AB]

LOOKING GLASS A vitreous plane on which to display a fleeting and disillusioning show of people's givens [AB], and upon which is seen the given form, altered to suit by enterprising art-form or by misperception.

LOQUACITY A disorder rendering the sufferer insufferably unable to curb his/her tongue when you wish to talk. [AB]

LOST Privationofthatwhichwehad,orhadnot. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he/she 'lost the election', or of any man or woman that he/she 'lost his/her mind'. In the former and more legitimate sense, consider the epitaph: [AB] 'Here Huntingdon's ashes long have lain, Whose loss is our eternal gain; For, while he exercised his living powers, Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.'

LOVE A temporary insanity, curable by marriage. [AB] An emotional state occurring exclusively in men, in which the lover is concerned solely with the happiness and best interests (as she sees them) of another. Although women declare themselves to be 'in love', their feeling is entirely narcissistic and instrumental, created from fear of the loss of satisfaction of their dependency needs. Its positive and gratifying element comes from a secure sense that they are loved and their dependency needs will be met. The purpose of her need for the feeling (see there) of love from the man is to ensure that she will get whatever her heart desires for herself, and that the man will serve and protect her, even to the cost of his own life.

LUNATIC One whom the moon inhabits, subject to twitches and cycles from the moon; a tense tic attributed to the moon.

LUST Appetiteforthatwhichisimaginedmosttobe desired, most commonly (since there are more women than men) for gold, and next most commonly for the female/male least likely to be accommodating.

LUSTRE Brightness, sheen or attractiveness born of the bright light of imagination concerning an object of lust, but subject to fading in the light of day.

MAIDEN A young person of the unfair sex, addicted to clueless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus is widespread (geographically too), found wherever sought, and deplored wherever found. [AB]

MALADJUSTMENT A French sickness of adjustment, requiring re- adjustment at great cost to the ears and to the pocket-book. The French, in their wisdom, call it a Malady, having discovered it occurs most frequently in a lady. They have also noted, however, that re-adjustments made tend to be temporary, and are followed by re-adjustments made by a male -- called Male-adjustments.

MALE A memberof the unconsidered ornegligible sex. The genus has but two varieties: good providers and bad providers [AB] -- the latter being referred to with various uncomplimentary names.

MALEFACTOR The chief factor in the progress of the human race. [AB]

MAN An animal so lost in contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is in the extermination of other animals and his own species -- which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. [AB]

MANIPULATION Handling of an object. If the object is a person, since it is indiscreet to handle it, manipulation involves a clever disruption of the other's normal indifference to induce cooperative behaviour from the other.

MANSLAUGHTER The sexist crime performed by a man laughing. MARRIAGE A master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all two. [AB] A woman's favourite investment in her future security and against her decline; a man's socialized acceptance of the inevitable, in the slavery of working for another.

MATURATION A long and boring process through which one waits in order to begin the even longer and more boring process of growing to decline.

ME The objectionable case of 'I'. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. [AB]

MEAN The most commonly occurring degree -- banal, commonplace, boring, vile, hostile, iterative. However, it doesn't mean this degree in sadists who obstinately refuse to be mean to masochists, though they mean to be.

MEEKNESS Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is deemed worth the effort. [AB]

MISOGYNIST One who has been married.

MISTRESS Something between a Mister and a Mattress.

MISTRUST A quality peculiar to those about to betray.

MORPHOLOGY The masculine branch of biology that examines the form and structure of organisms. The feminine branch of this science is called Aesthetics.

MOUSE An animal that strews its path with fainting females. [AB]

MOUTH Inman,thegatewaytothesoul;inwomen,the outlet of the heart. [AB]

MUSCLES What a man mayhave in place of beauty.

MYSOPHOBIA Morbid dread of dirt, found most frequently in luminaries while holding press conferences, and in women while holding brooms. MYXOEDEMA One of the many excuses for obesity, this time blaming the thyroid gland for its deficiencies in restraining the person from eating, and having the advantage also of accounting for the person's mental deficiency.

NARCISSISM The most widely practised 'ism', especially among females.

NARCOLEPSY Uncontrollable inclination for sleep during the daylight hours, common among husbands when there is house-work to be done.

NAUGHTY Feminine for wicked, sinful, criminal. In the wisdom of female teachers, affectionate reference to misdeeds having naught of consequence.

NECROPHILIA Sexual arousal and excitement when the partner is immobile, unresponsive and offers no resistance -- most perfectly realized when the partner is dead.

NEGATIVISM Another's resistance to your suggestions. Your resistance to another's suggestions is called Constructive Criticism.

NEIGHBOUR One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does everything in his/her power to make us disobedient. [AB]

NESTING A deplorable instinct of birds, which keeps those of the animal kind around to mess up the yard, and those of the human kind driving their mates to over-burden with mortgages and debits.

NUCLEAR FAMILY Those close derivatives of relativity that one might wish engulfed in a nuclear disaster.

NYCTOPHOBIA Morbid fear of the darkness of night.

NYMPHOMANIA One of the most pleasant attributes of some females that presents itself to man's imagination. The discovery that it is non-existent in the specific, and rapaciously present in the general, marks the beginning of man's experience with hell on earth.

NYSTAGMUS A jerk who can most easily be recognized by movements of his/her eye.

O UsualabbreviationfortheObserver,andfor his/her reaction to what he/she observes.

OATH In law, a solemn appealto Deity, made bindingupon the conscience by a penalty for perjury [AB]; in life, a casual appeal to Deity, often arising from the discovery of perjury.

OBSESSED Vexed by an evil spirit [AB]; preoccupied with a thought or chain of thoughts to the despair of others who think the thinker should think their thoughts; impaled on a spit of thoughts of no interest to the thinker (or his/her therapist).

OBSTINATE Inaccessible to the truth as it is most gloriously manifested in the splendour and stress of our advocacy. [AB]

OPPORTUNITY A favourable occasion for grasping a disappointment. [AB]

OPPOSE To assist with obstructions and objections. [AB]

OVEREAT Todine.[AB]

OVERLAPPING Two individuals who have the indiscretion to occupy the same space, commonly a bed.

OZ Aplacewheremenhaveeverythingtheywant,though manifestly lacking those things, and women are afforded the opportunity to return to their nests from which they never departed. The whole thing is run by a wizard who is a klutz. Some doubt that Oz exists. However, as any child can tell you, he/she has seen it. It is located in a box at home.

PARANOIA Another's suspicion that you are out to cheat, or otherwise to injure him/her; noteworthy difficulty in trusting that another can be trusted to be mean, hostile, bitter and untrusting.

PARAPLEGIA A nightmare, in which you seek to escape but cannot, come true. PARAPRAXIS A bit of underwear or a slip manufactured and marketed by Freud.

PATIENCE A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. [AB]

PECKING ORDER The order (established in science but not in law) in which chicks and old crows, turkeys and old geezers, owls and vultures, peck at one another.

PENITENT Undergoing or awaiting punishment. [AB]

PERFECTION An imaginary state or quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of critics [AB]. A hostile act directed at that evaluated for it.

PLATONIC A euphemism for the relationship between a disability and a frost [AB]; play as tonic.

PLAYING-FIELD Bed.

PLEASE To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition. [AB]

PLEASURE The least hateful form of dejection. [AB]

POLITENESS The most acceptable form of hypocrisy. [AB]

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB]

POLYGAMY A house of atonement or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance; as distinguished from Monogamy, that has but one. [AB]

PORNOGRAPHY The poetry of the masses.

PRECOCITY My child's cleverness; your child's good luck; his/her child's involvement in misdemeanours.

PRESENTABLE Hideously apparelled, but conforming to the mode, after the manner of the time and place. [AB]

PRESERVATIVE Brandy. PRODIGY The excuse you give for liking your child in spite of him/herself.

PRONE The preferred position in marriage.

PROPAGATE A method by which things proliferate; a reference to the fun they have in doing so.

PROPOSITION A scientist's statement of a judgement; a woman's statement before a judgement; a man's judgement that his statement ought to have but a brief sentence attaching to it.

PROSECUTE To persecute another publicly without offering recourse to revenge.

PROSPECT An outlook, usually forbidding; an expectation, usually forbidden. [AB]

PROSTITUTION Offering a service for pay, as working for a living. Used pejoratively only with respect to such actions by women, who are not supposed to work for a living. Syn: Marriage.

PROTECTION That which is offered to another as an excuse to control the other. Operationally: Police.

QUEEN A woman through whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and by whom it is ruled if there is not [AB]; a piece with all the power and advantages.

RAPE The ultimate indiscretion in the system of laws written to remind men of women, and to protect women from the desires they wish men had.

RAPPORT A state in human relationships that salesfolk and other influence peddlers seek unremittingly to create, that is itself nothing more than the willingness or acquiescence of the other who wishes to be influenced.

RASCAL A crook considered under a lesser aspect. [AB]

REASON To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire; a propensitate of prejudice. [AB] RECONCILIATION A suspension of hostilities; an armed truce to [AB] provide time to find new bases for war.

REFUSE Relegating to the garbage something desired or undesired. Refuse takes several forms. Refuse Absolute: absolute garbage. Refuse Conditional: a definite maybe. Refuse Tentative: let's wait and see. Refuse Feminine: sometimes called the Refusal Assentive [AB] -- although the case has been reported of a woman saying 'no', meaning NO!

REJECTION Refusal to accept. The type of good fortune that is commonly complained about and avoided as disheartening and dejecting. People seem to suffer from this state even although it presents us with nothing but advantages and an opportunity to be self-sufficient and free of the bothersome other.

REJUVENATION The alchemy of lead paint; the illusion of cosmetics; the hope of Faust; the despair of the wise.

RELATIONSHIP Kinship; mutuality of causation; association; all the things that bring people together for their mutual disgruntlement and destruction.

RELATIVE One of the three desolating and inevitable absolutes; defensively implying denial of the absolute necessity by the connotation of comparative determination.

REPENTANCE The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment, more visible in the approach of the latter than in its retreat. It is usually manifested in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin. [AB]

REPRESSION The process by which that which is inferred becomes visible to all but the repressor.

REPRODUCTION The disagreeable process by which something undesirable perpetuates itself.

REVENGE The commonly recognized prerogative of one who imagines he/she has been injured by another, as burning down one's own house, which caused one injury through the offices of the tax collector.

REVOLUTION In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. [AB]

RHYTHM Another kind of beat than that one would like to do to the person producing the beat; in contraception, the cause of parenthood.

RIDICULE Words designed to show that the person to whom they are directed is devoid of the dignity and character distinguishing the one who utters them. [AB]

RUMOUR A favourite weapon of assassins of character. [AB]

SAINT A dead sinner, revised and edited. [AB]

SALESMANSHIP The essential feature that converts rape to seduction, seduction to wedlock, and wedlock to robbery -- to form the circle of crime.

SARI The most dignified and attractive of costumes to adorn women, and the most daunting to men.

SATIETY Feelings for a plate after eating its contents. [AB]

SATIRE Literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies are expounded with imperfect tenderness. [AB]

SATISFACTION The feeling accompanying success in destroying an adversary, suppressing a competitor, silencing a critic, coming before another, or picking a pocket without reciprocation.

SELF-ESTEEM An erroneous appraisal. [AB]

SELF-EVIDENT Evident to one's self, and to nobody else. [AB]

SELF-DETERMINED Misled.

SELFISH Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. [AB]

SELF-OBSERVATION The process by which we find ourselves to be perfect.

SEX A ridiculous state, in uncomfortable positions, requiring exhausting effort, effecting a fleeting pleasure, at exorbitant expense. [SC]

SEXISM A misnomer for Genderism, used for its advertising value by female genderists.

SIN Thecompensationwhilelivingfortheagonyof dying; man's nature; woman's opportunity; children's play.

SINGLE Unique; individual; one having, so far, eluded the ball-and-chain.

SINISTER His/her purpose.

SKIN A covering, providentially supplied, to hide disgusting things; a type of entertainment that is deplored and denied, by edit of women, to husbands and other prisoners, in order to ensure that such persons retain their sexual perversions for the continued entertainment of the editors.

SKINNY The preferred condition of the female.

SOAP A slippery, luxurious substance designed to enforce sitting down while bathing.

SOAP OPERA Tales of short-legged Amazons designed to make up for the indignity of sitting down while bathing.

SOCIABILITY The tendency to seek the company of other people in lieu of working.

SOCIALIZATION Process by which a person ceases to be him/her self and becomes another others might find acceptable.

SOCIETY A group of individuals of any species, living together in a community and interacting with one another, the better to protect themselves from the enemies they have made, and the better to rob others of their means of subsistence.

SUBMISSION Yielding to another something you imagine is yours. SUGGESTIBILITY Willingness to perform a desired act suggested by another, that one would not do without the opportunity to shift the responsibility to the other indelicate enough to make the suggestion.

SUGGESTION The innocent positing of a possibility to another without hope or wish of personal gain. It becomes a suggestion if the other responds as suggested by acting irresponsibly.

TABOO The sweet scent and flavour that Providence has afforded forbidden fruit.

TALENT Your child's faculty to do everything wrong.

TALK To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. [AB]

TANTRUM The most natural adult response to the frustration of children who are misbehaving.

TELEPHONE An invention of the devil that abrogates some of the advantages of distance. [AB] A device used by women to foster social activities, and used by men as a means to perform a task -- another rarely understood source of incompatibility.

TRANSVESTISM In males, the wearing of female clothing. This condition does not occur in women, all of whom wear male clothing as a matter of course. Transvestism has ceased to be illegal since women achieved ascendance and insisted that it be unlawful for men to discriminate on the basis of gender (or sex).

TRUTH An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. [AB]

TRUTHFUL Dumb and illiterate. [AB]

TRYING Making an effort -- to try others' patience.

UNDERSTANDING A quality of mind absent in everyone but me; claimed as a credential by women to qualify them as mothers and to bedevil naive men; a cerebral secretion that enables one having it to tell a house from a horse by the shape of the roof on the house [AB]; a much sought after state of others allowing you to do as you like.

UNEQUIVOCAL Having but one possible meaning, possibly that it has no meaning.

UNIFORM Jeans; Genes.

UNSPEAKABLE The subject on which most speaking is done.

UNWILLING A man paying his Bills.

URBAN Anareainfestedwithpeople.

UXORIOUSNESS A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife [AB] from one's mistress or others.

VENGEANCE The satisfaction of returning to another, several- fold, the pain he/she inflicted on you.

VERIFICATION The process by which A confirms his/her suspicions about C by asking B, claiming intimate knowledge of C, where C lives far away and has never met A or B.

VERTIGO The giddiness found among women and others in elevated positions.

VICTIM The identity self-assigned to perpetrators who assign responsibility for their own crimes and frailties to others.

WAVE Undulating movement, frequently of the hand, to express pleasure at the departure of company.

WEAKNESS Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of the species binding him to the service of her will and paralysing his rebellious energies. [AB]

WEAN Togrowfromthesucktothebite.

WEDDING A ceremony in which two people undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable [AB]. A ceremony in which a woman gives all she has or will have (notably her body) to a man, reserving only the right to charge him with a criminal offence if he takes her body or other property without her full consent; and one in which a man gives all he has or will have (body, mind, property, slave labour and pension) to a woman, without recourse to any complaint about what she may choose to do with her property (old or new).

WEDLOCK Gridlock. Two people trapped together in a home, unable to move, stalled and over-heating.

WIFE Thepowerbehindthedrone.

WILLIES Marks, commonly collectively called Mr. Right, and about to have no rights.

WILLING A woman fishing for Willies.

WINDOW An unsightly and draughty opening in a wall, provided thoughtfully by architects for the easy entrance of the burglar.

WOMAN An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, having all the offending characteristics [from the earlier phrase: Woe (to) man.] with which she impugns Man, but having a certain rudimentary susceptibility to temporary domestication. [AB]

Z Thereisnothingafterwomaninthedictionaryof marriage. She is the bitter end.

N: NEED A DICTIONARY OF PERSONAL NEEDS

Everybody has needs. No two people's needs are exactly the same, or even meaningfully comparable. Consciously to know what one's needs are, and how strong each is relative to each other, affords the opportunity to pursue each purposively and to enhance the probability of the realization of each. Here is a selection of needs to browse through.

Some Survival Needs (required for effective survival, roughly in the order of possible duration of postponement) Need for Air (oxygen and carbon dioxide) to breathe Need for Fluid (water) to drink Need for Food (nutrients) to eat Need for Elimination (of body wastes) Need for Warmth (protection from weather extremes) Need for Health (absence of debilitating illness) Need for Safety (from real dangers) Need for Sleep (rest, rejuvenation) Need for Activity (doing things, exercise) Need for Change (variety in life's experiences) Need for Sex (sexual gratification) Need for Social Contact (other person(s) for interaction) Need for Nurturance (being nurtured/someone to nurture) Need to Control or Dominate (in some area of living)

Some Self-Actualizing Needs (sought after Survival is assured)

Need for Accomplishment (to Accomplish tasks) Need for Achievement (to Achieve purposes/goals) Need for Affiliation (with Others) Need for Aggression (to Assert self strongly) Need for Aliveness and Energy (to feel Alive/Energetic) Need for Beauty (to experience Beauty) Need for Certainty (to 'Know') Need for Change (for Variety) Need for Closeness (to be Close to others) Need for Completion (to Complete tasks) Need for Consistency (to be Consistent) Need for Contentment (to be Content) Need for Control (to Control; to be Controlled) Need for Creativity (to be Creative; to Create) Need for Dependency (to Depend, Rely) Need for Discovery (to Discover) Need for Diversity (to see events Differently) Need for Effort (to expend Effort) Need for Enjoyment (to Enjoy) Need for Excellence (to Excel) Need for Goals to Pursue (to be Goal-directed) Need for Goodness (to be Good) Need for Gratification, Fulfilment (to be Fulfilled) Need for Growth and Expansion (to Grow) Need for Happiness (to be Happy) Need for Harmavoidance (to avoid Dangers) Need for Health and Feeling Good (to be Healthy) Need for Identity (to Identify self; to be like others) Need for Importance (to be Important) Need for Justice and Fairness (to obtain Reciprocity) Need for Love and to Love (to be Loved; to Love) Need for Mastery (to Master things) Need for Meaningfulness (to find Meaning) Need for Necessity (to be Necessary; to have Needs) Need for Nurturance (to be Nurtured; to Nurture) Need for Oneness (to feel One with the universe) Need for Orderliness (to find Orderliness) Need for Perfection (to achieve Perfection) Need for Playfulness (to be Playful) Need for Power (to acquire Power) Need for Purpose in Life (to find Purpose) Need for Recognition (to achieve Recognition) Need for Recreation (to Procreate; to Exercise) Need for Respect and Honour (to be Respected) Need for Rest (to Rest) Need for Richness of Life (to achieve Rich experiences) Need for Safety (to be Safe) Need for Security (to be firmly Secure) Need for Self-Esteem (to like Self) Need for Self-Reliance (to Rely on Self) Need for Simplicity (to find Simplicity) Need for Success (to achieve Success) Need for Truth (to find Truth) Need for Understanding (to achieve Understanding) Need for Uniqueness (to be Unique) Need for Wholeness (to feel a Whole person)

Examples of other learned needs, with an analysis of each

NeedLabel Type* ActionDilemma ObjectDilemma

Affect Avoidance Nd Sensitive/Insensitive Ugly/Beauty AffectDenial rf Avoid/Approach Body/Mind Aggression Inhibition Nd Avoid/Approach Active/Passive Allergy Stress rf Sensitive/Insensitive Body/Mind Anger, Hostility Rf Power/Impotency Active/Passive Assert Confidence Nd Approach/Avoid Active/Passive Authority Rebellion Nd Approach/Avoid Unreal/Real Avoid Attractiveness rf Avoid/Approach Beauty/Ugliness Avoid Depression Rf Avoid/Approach Passive/Active CalmNervesNeed Nd Avoid/Approach Pain/Pleasure Comfortable Inhibition Rf Precise/Error Good/Bad Communication Need Nd Together/Separate Other/Self ControlEffort Rf Power/Impotency Mind/Body ControlOthers Rf Power/Impotency Mind/Body Dependency Inhibition Nd Power/Impotency Change/Persist Different Experience Nd Gain/Lose Change/Persist Disturbed Feelings rf Anxious/Depressed Mind/Body Dogmatism rf Good/Bad Persist/Change Easy Going Enjoyment Rf Change/Persist Learn/Rigidity EffortStrain rf Power/Impotency Impede/Enhance Event Self Enhancement Nd Power/Impotency Gain/Loss FastLaneLiving Nd Approach/Avoid Power/Impotency FeltRejection rf Separate/Together Other/Self Forget Failures Nd Lose/Gain Failure/Success GroupEnjoyment Rf Approach/Avoid Social/Self Group Satisfaction Rf Satisfy/Dissatisfy Group/Self Guilt Intolerance Rf Avoid/Approach Passive/Active Guilt Proneness sD Passive/Active Power/Impotency Grief sD Power/Impotency Loss/Gain Hedonism Rf Sensitive/Insensitive Pleasure/Pain Hungry Heart Nd Active/Passive Mind/Body Hypoglycaemia rf Insensitive/Sensitive Body/Mind Immediate Satisfaction Rf Power/Impotency Change/Persist ImpairedSelfEsteem rf Lose/Gain Other/Self ImpairedSleep sD Impede/Facilitate Sleep/Awake Joyless Depression sD Impotency/Power Forward/Backward Loneliness rf Passive/Active Social/Alone Masked Disappointment sD Lose/Gain Other/Self Metabolic Disorder sD Avoid/Approach Power/Impotency Oppressive Inhibition Rf Precise/Error Good/Bad Pain Sensitivity sD Sensitive/Insensitive Pain/Pleasure Paranoid Sensitivity rf Sensitive/Insensitive Social/Alone Paroxysmal Energy sD Impotency/Power Enhance/Impede PepUpEffect Rf Power/Impotency Enhance/Impede Physiologic Anxiety rf Power/Impotency Body/Mind Punitive Rewards Rf Bad/Good Learn/Rigidity Put Down Others Nd Dissatisfy/Satisfy Other/Self Rationality Defence rf Sensitive/Insensitive Social/Alone Reactive Depression sD Passive/Active Dis-/Integration Reality Denial Rf Avoid/Approach Real/Unreal Relaxation Wish Nd Facilitate/Impede Calmness/Tension Rigid Habits sD Persist/Change Habit/Learning RigidMoralization sD Good/Bad Self/Other Rigid Self Image sD Unchanging/Learn Purpose/Random Rules Intolerance rf Impotency/Power Impede/Enhance SelfDepreciation rf Bad/Good Self/Other Sensitivity Control Rf Sensitive/Insensitive Beauty/Ugly Social Anxiety rf Avoid/Approach Social/Self Social Contact Wish Nd Active/Passive Social/Alone Social Influence Nd Learn/Unchanging Social/Self SocialWithdrawal rf Bad/Good Social/Alone Somatic Depression rf Passive/Active Body/Mind Stimulus Hunger Nd Active/Passive Integration/Dis- Subcultural Values sD Good/Bad Social/Alone Substance Dependency Nd Passive/Active Self/Other Substance Excitement Nd Approach/Avoid Up/Down Vivid Imagery Nd Power/Impotency Forward/Backward WishToBeDifferent Nd Bad/Good Persist/Change

* 'Type' is a theoretical construct. It refers to the presumed 'Main Causal Function' involved in the need, or its function in the person's need system. Some learned human needs function as 'primary' needs (designated Nd), pursued for their own sake; and some function to create sensations or 'drive stimuli' (sD) that arouse pursuit of an altered state. Some learned needs function mainly as sources of arousal that demand relief or 'reward' or function as primary sources of 'reinforcement' (designated Rf). Some relief-demanding arousal creates further states that seem to demand secondary relief or secondary reinforcement (rf).

In analysing needs (only some of those involved in addictions are displayed here), in order to present a balanced grasp of how each works, it seems necessary to offer approximately equal numbers of examples of each kind of Main Causal Function, as well as some of the probable communication (verbal) dimensional or 'polar' concepts involved in constructing questions bearing on each need or reinforcer -- hence the 'verb' and 'object' columns presented to the right of the listing.

O: OLD ADICTIONARYFOROLDFOGIES

ACCOMPLISHMENT Standing up.

AGE Twenty-nine, for the last sixty or so years.

ALZHEIMER'S Wasn't that the Pharmacy we delivered drugs for as children?

ANCIENT My first new car; my present car (if I have one). ATTENTION SPAN What was the question?

BASKET WEAVING The newly acquired skill.

BEND Theelbow.

BOREDOM Waitingforsupper.

CATASTROPHE Falling down.

COMPUTER An abacus.

CONVERSATION Eh!? What was that you said?

CONVEYANCE Wheelchair; ambulance.

CRIME Somebody else sitting in my chair.

DANGER Taking a bath; standing up.

DEATH Anytimenowthere'llbeanexcusetoliedown.

DECADENCE A little extra jam on my bread.

DIAPER Hand-me-downs from the grand-children.

DINNER Wherearemyteeth?

EDUCATION A well-deserved, darn good thrashing.

ENTERTAINMENT Television.

ERECTION Standing up after sitting down.

EXERCISE Going to the front door to see if somebody's there.

FAMILIAR Pain.

FIGHT Lifting a grocery bag.

FOREPLAY "Hey, old fogey, undress and let's see if you can remember how. I can't."

FRIEND Ohyes. Hadoneonce. Whatwashis/hername?

FUTURE Tomorrow. GOAL Togetuptoday.

GOLF A game, tolerable to watch on television since it doesn't proceed too fast to follow.

GRASP To comprehend an idea, at least generally.

HAPPINESS Waking up.

HAT Thanksforthereminder. Nowwhereisit?

HEALTH What's that? My doctor never mentioned that to me.

IDIOSYNCRASY Youth.

IRRITATION Noise.

JAGUAR Somesortof apantherorleopard.

KNOWLEDGE Life is a butterfly. Well, isn't it?

LAUGH Wheeze.

LIFE Stillgotit,touchwood.

LOCOMOTION Craziness, or going loco, in doing any activity.

LONELY The feeling accompanying each twenty-four hours.

MAKE-UP Skin-coloured paste to cover patches of skin dis- coloration betraying one's age.

MEMORIES Events that happened when we were five.

MOTOR Anoisymoderninvention.

NAMES Whatarethey?

NEWS Don'tknow. Can'tseetoread,orheartolisten.

OLD Overninety-nine.

PAINS In my head, eyes, nose, throat, neck, fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, chest, back, stomach, hips, thighs, knees, calves, shins ankles, feet, toes, shoes, genitals, thoughts, ideas, and wishes, to mention a few.

PENDANT A breast.

PLAY Chesterfield rugby with today's partner.

POSTURE Bentover.

QUEER Young folks' hair styles.

RAGE OhPooh!

RANGE The local mall.

RAPTURE Seeing a bluejay or a cardinal.

REFRAIN 'I've got a toothache, a gum boil, a belly ache, a pain in my big toe, and a pimple on my nose.'

REGULAR The hope of a bowel movement each day.

RELIEF Sittingdown.

REPROVAL That's for being naughty, isn't it?

RESPITE Atrafficjam.

RETIRE Retread with a heavier tread; acquire a spare tire.

SENIOR Older than dirt.

SENSATION A sneeze.

SIGHT An almost remembered function of the eyes -- now used mainly to produce tears.

SIN Forgot your constitutional; swearing: Oh Fiddle!

SKATING A kind of fishing.

SOAPS Serialized stories about unbelievable women able to sell laundry detergents.

SPEED LIMIT Twenty-five miles per hour. STOPPED The normal and best state of locomotion.

STORIES Lots of them to tell, if I could remember them.

STRONG The coffee they serve at that restaurant, whatever it's name is.

SUPPORT Pension; a walker; a walking stick; an arm.

TEETH Mastication aids that are best taken out at night.

TELEVISION The world in a box.

TEMPERATURE Cold.

TOUCH A kind of football, isn't it?

UNDERWEAR Diapers.

UNCOMFORTABLE The body.

VALUE Living.

VEINS Varicose.

VISION Atbest,blurred.

WALK Tostumbleallthewaytotheicebox.

WET A used diaper.

WISE Rich -- the condition of the three wise guys.

WISH An uncomplicated, quick demise.

WORK Gettingup.

WORRY That new ache.

WRITING Can't quite make it out. You read it, please.

X-RAY Twomorethismonth.

YEAR Aboutthetimethatusedtobetakenbyamonth.

YEARN The wish to have somebodyvisit me thismonth. YOUTH Younger than sixty.

ZEST What's that? A kind of soap, isn't it?

ZOOLOGY Knowledge of the location of the nearest zoo.

P: POST A PERFECT DICTIONARY FOR PERFECTIONISTS

ANGER An unacceptable emotional weakness, to be avoided at all cost.

AMBIGUITY A condition found among events creating indecision, ambivalence and uncertainty. It is the most terrifying and unnecessary state of existence.

AVOIDANCE The most natural response to the plethora of life's manifest and covert dangers and fears.

BITCHINESS The natural response of complaint and criticism necessitated by the countless errors made by others every day and in every situation.

CALAMITY Mistake.

CLEANLINESS The attribute next in importance to godliness.

CONSIDERATION The most commonly manifested sin of omission found in other people.

CONTEMPLATION The main constituent in the passage of time found in those who seek to act as good people.

CONTROL The most necessary attribute of human conduct, and commonly the most noteworthy in its absence.

CORRECTNESS The result of meticulously following all the rules laid down for human life.

CRITICISM The one thing that I cannot stand, and that you richly deserve.

DANGER The anticipation of what lies around every corner. DESTRUCTION The most private and terrifying repeating day- dream.

DIRT The single most prevalent constituent of everything and everybody in the world, and the main object of the daily battle with the world.

DISAPPOINTMENT The commonest experience in dealing with others.

EMOTIONS The commonest sources of errors. Thus to be avoided at all costs.

ERROR The most deplorable phenomenon in others. More horrifying than 'sliding down the razor blade of life'.

EXCUSE Other people's attempts to justify their errors.

EXPECTATION Mine: One hundred percent lack of error. Yours: To muddle through trying to follow my instructions.

EXTREMES Degrees to be avoided at all costs, in order to maintain moderation and control.

FAILURE An error in undertaking a task, brought about by insufficiency in thought, planning, grasp of 'the right' strategies, and following my directions.

FAULT The constant companion of others; the occasional burden of self.

FRIENDLINESS Paying attention to others when they speak.

GOODNESS The most cherished goal, resulting in saintliness. That this goal is a product of an early (Level III) stage of moral reasoning development is irrelevant, and only demonstrates that maturity entails the assumption of errors and faults,

HUMILITY The only socially acceptable mask to wear.

INEVITABILITY My minor errors.

INTERRUPTION The unpardonable social sin.

INTROVERSION The rarest of human traits, and the most desirable. JUSTICE Making sure others get paid back for the damaging and careless things they do.

KINDNESS A necessary act, put on to maintain social order and to avoid irritation with others.

LABOUR The burden life bestows on all who pursue goodness.

MISTAKE A major form of error, avoidable with careful fore- thought and organization.

NICENESS Proper social conduct.

ORGANIZATION The most necessary thing to spend time doing.

OVER-SIGHT The result of thoughtlessness.

PERFECTION The continuing absence of error, failure, fault and other imperfection. The ultimate value and goal in life. Also, the ultimate (vicious) expectation of others, breeding constant disappointment.

PRECISION Lack of error.

RATIONALITY The essence of humanity; the basis of survival.

REGULATIONS The means by which peace is maintained in human relationships. Without regulations the result is anarchy.

RELIABILITY An essential ingredient in perfection.

RISK The totally unacceptable chance that others might be hurt (or that I might be criticized or blamed).

RULES The secret bases of human interactions that must be sought out and followed precisely.

SOCIALIZATION Proper acquisition, application and concern for all the rules of conduct in social interactions.

THOUGHT The organizing and planning faculty whose purpose is to prevent over-sight and error.

UNEXPECTED The inevitable and pervasive danger that lies around each corner. VIOLENCE The worst of all possible crimes against humanity.

VIRTUE Perfection.

WORRY The constant preoccupation of life.

Q: QUAIL A DICTIONARY OF QUALITIES AND QUANTITIES

Maximizing effectiveness, accomplishment or (self or other) change involves clear observation of progress over time in relation to definable QUALITIES. Clear observation requires both indicators to be recorded, and a means to record the changes observed in them. That is, to maximize anything we set out to do, we need to decide upon the QUALITIES to be addressed, analyze them to relevant CLASSES, select relevant QUANTIFIERS to be observed, and adopt a method for RECORDING observations made. The last involves 'trend' RECORDINGS such as cumulative frequency charts, or trend analysis across a series of recorded measures. The listings below offer a sample of QUALITIES, their common CLASSES, and some means by which to QUANTIFY each.

QUALITIES Class QuantifiersforObservation

ACQUISITIVE Avarice Number Owned; Cost of Owning

ACTIVITY Extraversion Size & Number of restless movements

AGGRESSION Violence Force applied; Victim Down time

APPROACH Approach Force toward; Acts/Reacts Initiated

AROUSAL Arousal Physiologic Changes; Tension; Actions

AVOIDANCE Avoidance Force away; Acts initiated/avoided

AWKWARDNESS Grace Steadiness; Deviance: linear, angular

BEAUTY Aesthetics Orienting Rs; Time viewed; Symmetry

BOREDOM Fatigue Time on Task; Attention shifts CALMNESS Arousal Tension; Orienting Rs; Kinaesthetics

CLOSENESS Distance Others' Distance; Unpalatable Rs

CONCRETENESS Generality Abstraction of Words; Concretizations

COURAGE Anxiety ApproachWithArousalindicators

COURTING Sex Approach/Attraction Acts; Posing

CREATIVITY Novelty Stereotypes; Divergent Acts/Words

DANGEROUSNESS Violence Harm done; Force used; Impulsive acts

DECAY Decline Age; Functioning; Fluid content; Rust

DELAY Inhibition Lapsed Time; Reasons/Intervening Acts

DEPENDENCY Following Habits Rs; Needs; Decision Delay

DESTRUCTIVENESS Violence Harm/Damage; Paroxysmality; Intensity

DISINHIBITION Inhibition Control Level; Rationalizations

DIVESTING Give Time Wasted; Mourning; Socializing

EMOTION Affect Force Approach/Avoid; Arousal/Feeling

ENERGY Energy Force applied; Activity/Thought

ENVY Greed Defaming/Extolling/JealousPhrases

ERROR Error Ineffective/Random Acts; Imprecision

EXTENSIVENESS Size Size All Dimensions; Volumetric size

FAIRNESS Reciprocity Reciprocity/Returning; Balance

FEELING Sensation Psychophysiological (Analog) Measures

FLEXIBILITY Flexibility Stereotypes; Adaptation/Modification

FOLLOWING Following Decision Delay; Habits; Leader-search

FREQUENCY Number Occurrence Count; Median Deviation FRIENDLINESS Approach Approach Frequency; Interest; Manner

FULLNESS Sufficiency Approach Decline; Boredom; Inactivity

GENERALITY Generality Distribution Platykurtic; Extensivity

GRACE Grace Act Discontinuity; Symmetry; Viewing

GROWTH Amount 3-Dimensional Size; Skill Increase

HUMILITY Self-Esteem Self-Demeaning; Deference; Assertions IMMOBILIZATION Inhibition Activity; Restraints; Rules Accepted

IMPOVERISHMENT Amount Income/Social/Skill Amount; Strength

INDOLENCE Energy Activity; Time Wasted; Boredom; Lack

INHIBITION Inhibition Stereotypy; Variety; Restraints

INSUFFICIENCY Sufficiency Seeking/Restless Activity; Need/Want

INTEREST Affect View/WithTimeSpent;ApproachActs

INTERFERENCE Inhibition Restraints; Energy; Countering Acts

IRRITABILITY Arousal Arousal; Expletives; Avoidances

JUDGEMENT Evaluation Moral/Amount Evaluations/Decisions

JUSTICE Reciprocity Reciprocity; Judgements; Equality

KNOWLEDGE Information Information Breadth; Task Skill

LEADING Leading Initiating; Influencing; Position

LOVE Affect Force Approach; Arousal; Feeling

MAXIMIZING Amount Exponential Growth; Insistence

MINIMIZING Amount Exponential Reduction; Compression

MISERY Affect ArousalandInactivity;PainAnalog

MUTING Inhibition Restraining Acts; Inattention

NOMINALIZING Generality Reduce Deviations; Forced Equivalency OBSCURING Inhibition Masking Acts; Inattention; De-focus

OPPOSITION Inhibition Force Against; Criticism/Objection

PAIN Sensation PainAnalogMeasure;Mapping;Senses

PAROXYSMALITY Energy Visual-Angle Errors; Energy Periods

PEACEFULNESS Arousal Arousal; Subjective Serenity; Speed

POWER Force KineticEnergy;Influence;Strength

QUESTIONING Information Questions; Uncertainties/Doubts

RESILIENCY Adaptability Adaptability; Strain; Flexibility

RESTRAINT Inhibition Conflict; Inhibitions/Freedom

RICHNESS Sufficiency Subjective Satisfaction; Imagery

RIGIDITY Flexibility Stereotypes; Adaptation; Modification

SATISFACTION Sufficiency Subjective Satisfaction; Inactivity

SENSATION Sensation Psychophysical Analog Measures

SIZE Amount ExtensionAmount;VolumetricAmount

SPECIFICITY Generality Discriminations; Microstructure

STRENGTH Force Force Applied; Influence

SUBJECTIVITY Awareness 'Insights'; Self-Differentiations

SUFFICIENCY Sufficiency Subjective Satisfaction; Inactivity

TENSION Tension Muscle Potential; Tension; Conflict

THICKNESS Amount Volumetric Amount; Speed; Cleverness

THOUGHT Cognition Inactivity; De-focus; Problem Solves

UNRESERVED Inhibition Restraints; Control Level; Variety

VALIANT Anxiety Arousal and Approach; Mission Focus VALUE Value Energy;Arousal;Preference;Actions

WEAKNESS Force Force; Strength; Following

ZEAL Energy Energy; Arousal; Preference; Persist

R: RUT ADICTIONARYTOFEELREJECTEDWITH

ADIEU Infact,ADiel--tothedevilwithyou.

AU REVOIR Until I'm forced to see you again.

BE BACK I'll be back unless I can avoid it; you be back if you absolutely must, say in ten years.

BUZZOFF Goaway;beabsent.

CATCHING A TRAIN? ... I wish you were. Hurry up and leave.

CHEERIO I'll be much cheerier as soon as I'm out and away from you.

COME BACK SOON If you must. At least that way, maybe we can be done soon with your irritating company.

DO I KNOW YOU? I hope devoutly that I don't. Then I won't have to have any dealings with you, at all, ever.

DON'T CRY To me; other people's tears are just water.

EVAPORATE Buzzoff.

FAREWELL Somewhere else than around me.

GO HOME Haven't you got a home to go to; leave me alone.

GOODBYE Andgoodriddance!

HERE'S YOUR HAT and your coat, and there's the door. You're not leaving are you? Just leave. HOW FAST CAN YOU RUN ... Away. Buzz off.

I'M A SOLIPSIST I would rather be absolutely and forever alone than to have to put up with your company.

I'M LEAVING Since you insisted on arriving, I'm leaving, alone.

I SAW YOU EARLIER Thank goodness you were far enough away that I didn't have to greet you.

JUST LEAVE Buzz off.

KNOCK ON WOOD I'd love to knock on your block-head.

LIFE'S A BITCH Especially because I have to interact with you.

LOOK AT MY BACK And, if you must hang around, keep looking at it.

MERCI Have mercy, please, and leave me alone.

NEVER DOUBT That I can't stand your guts.

OH DAMN! You again; must you hang about.

PREFERENCES ARE PAINFUL I'd prefer to be with anybody other than you, but I seem to be stuck with you.

QUEER THING ... That you are!

RIDICULOUS That I have to waste even one moment of time with you.

SEE YOU If I really must; not if I see you first.

SO LONG Though that won't be long enough.

SO NICE TO SEE YOU ... Leave.

TA TA Hurray! You're leaving at long last.

TWIT You're about as important as the smallest of birds and bird-brains.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN ... I'll not give you another thought -- well, maybe a few irritated ones. VAYA CON DIOS That's the quickest way I can think of to get rid of you.

WHERE'S MY HAT? I'm leaving now that you're here. One nano second with you seems like an eternity.

WHY IS IT YOU? Every time I see you, I rediscover why I hate all humanity -- especially you.

X AND O Here's a kiss with my fist in your kisser, and a hug to hold you until my contract person does you in.

YOU AGAIN! You are a painful irritant in my life; I'd be better off without you around.

YOU HAVE A TIC You're an involuntary jerk. One of those in a life-time is enough. I know too many.

YOUR NAME IS? Do I know you? Where did we meet? Equivalent to the more socialized form: How do you spell your last name?

YOU'RE A BORE Go bore somebody else's head; shut-up, can't you, so I can talk.

S: SEX ADICTIONARYOFSEXANDITSANALOGS

It was deemed inappropriate to make light of any sexual sensitivities people might have. Therefore, this dictionary is limited to serious commentary.

AUTO-SEXUAL See Masturbation.

BESTIALITY One who enjoys courting and sexual activity with one or more kinds of non-human animals -- usually domesticated animals.

BUGGERY Sexual introjection into the anus of an acceptable (not necessarily preferred) sexual partner.

CONVENTIONAL SEX By convention, sexual activity is designated as conventional when it is rather narrowly associated with reproductive activity -- that is, at least culminates in introjection and coitus between a male and a female.

COURTING The activities performed in the presence of an erotic preference object calculated to entice the person owning the object to welcome, or at least accept, sexual activity.

COURTING DISORDER Any 'non-conventional' courting activity.

CUNNILINGUS The erotic activity of using the tongue to stimulate the clitoris and/or vagina.

DOMINANCE The courting disorder in which the person cannot become fully aroused unless he/she dominates, and perhaps humiliates, the sexual partner. One of the features commonly found also among paedophiles.

EROTIC That collection of pastimes that tickle the fancy and arouse a felt need for sexual climax. Syn: Sex

EROTIC PREFERENCE The type of object, person or part of a person that arouses erotic sensations.

EXHIBITIONIST One who deems his/her privates to be interesting and suitable objects for public display.

FELLATIO The erotic activity of using the mouth to stimulate the penis.

FOREPLAY The courting activities involving visual, auditory and/or tactile sensations to arouse the sexual partner and the self to prepare for introjection in sexual intercourse.

FRATTEUR One who obtains erotic pleasure from pressing or rubbing his/her genitals against strangers in a crowded public place. Part of the excitement seems to involve both the surreptitiousness involved, and the hope of enticing interest in the other.

HETEROPHILIA Erotic preference for a member of the opposite gender from that of the person. Syn: Heterosexual.

HAEMOPHILIA Erotic preference for a member of the person's own gender. Syn: Homosexual, Gay, Lesbian.

INCEST A family affair, in which a parenting one is sexually involved with a child.

MASTURBATION Auto-erotic self-stimulation or arousal toward sexual climax by use of the person's own hand or other mechanical device, usually accompanied by fantasy or visual or auditory sensations.

PAEDOPHILIA One who reprises his/her childhood exploratory experiences, having been so enamoured of them that no subsequent adult sexual experience quite matches up to them.

PARAPHILIA Any non-conventional form of sexual arousal.

PHALLOMETRY The measurement of amounts of (volumetric or circumference) erectile changes in the penis, using a penile plethysmograph, in response to various types of visual and auditory stimuli depicting the various recognized erotic preference objects and courting disorders. The purpose is to discover the present erotic preferences of the person tested. The method is used most often with male sexual offenders.

PYROEROTIC Sexual arousal in the presence of fire, most often set for the purpose by the pyroerotic person.

SEX That collection of pastimes that tickle the fancy and arouse a felt need for sexual climax.

SEXUALITY Sexual/erotic arousability.

SEXUAL MASOCHISM The courting disorder of being unable to achieve full erotic arousal without experiencing some pain or humiliation at the hands of the sexual partner.

SEXUAL SADISM The courting disorder of being unable to obtain full erotic arousal without inflicting some pain on the sexual partner. Sometimes the partner must display pain to create the arousal. Not all sadism is sexual sadism.

SUBMISSIVENESS The condition of being most readily erotically aroused by becoming passive and overtly submissive to the wishes of the sexual partner.

TOUCHEUR One who prefers private touching especially in crowded public places.

VOYEUR One who prefers to employ his/her visual powers to peek undetected (or even detected) at the unclothed privates of an erotically preferred person.

T: TELE- A DICTIONARY OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS MEDIA

ADVERTISING The golden grail pursued by the mass media, and the controlling and defining essence of its enterprise and commerce.

APHONIA A blessed state in which media people demonstrate total loss of voice, probably due to a prick from the conscience of the single individual psychopath that is shared collectively among them.

CAMERA An instrument to record for repeated review scenes that were painful enough to be vividly retained in memory without it; a miraculous device that, in the twinkling of an eye, permanently recreates the world bereft of size, depth, smell and touch.

COMMENTATOR A tater that is in every respect more common than the rest of us spuds.

COMMERCE Being bereft of other human values, the media are defined, motivated and evaluated by their ability to influence large numbers of citizens to dispose of their money to the commercial marketplace. The commerce of the media, by which it acquires its wealth, is restricted to political, commercial and personal manipulation of everybody to the benefit of the political and commercial interests of the media personnel.

DEAF A blessed condition following closely upon exposure to modern or rock 'music' and other media clamour. DECIBEL One tenth of a bel, the latter being l less than a bell. A kilobel is the contemporary unit of measurement of intensity in modern music, and its lowest known value is one thousand kilobels, or a megabel -- the point at which hearing is already dead and the auditory system committed to hell.

EFFLUENCE Sewage and other media contents.

FACT One of three paramount things that are expressly excluded from participation in any media contents. The other two are constructive socializing values and depictions of ordinary human experiences of worthwhile, good and peaceful human interactions.

GRATUITIES The gratuities afforded media personnel by the populace, in addition to the commercial costs paid, are understood to be the public recognition and importance assigned to those who are sufficiently indiscrete to dispense with anonymity and to allow their faces (faeces), voices (vices) and identities (inanities) to be exposed overtly in the media.

HIGH-FIDELITY Another excuse for increasing noise pollution. This time it is increased by ensuring that deafening stimulation will affect the full spectrum of the vibrations (and then some) to which the human ear is attuned.

INFORMATION One of the essential ingredients of communication that is carefully and systematically censored and expunged from the mass communications media.

JUSTICE There is no justice in the media.

KNOWLEDGE By edict, precedence and training, an element that has been expressly prohibited to personnel of the mass media as a possession or as something they may impart. This is one of the few rules these people observe and practice scrupulously.

LENS A pestilential object engineered to make appear closer, larger and more fully visible objects that you didn't want to see at all.

LUX A soap used to measure illumination, said to be equal in quantity to the density of luminous flux on a surface at right angles to the rays, at a distance of one foot from a point source of one candle-power. This saying is false, since a foot from a point source is either a heel or the tip of a toe-nail. Anyway, soap film dims luminosity.

MAGNIFY To increase the magnitude or visibility of something in order to observe the better that it was of no interest in the first place. Self- magnification is a prerequisite to achieve the public status of a luminary.

MANIPULATION Covert, malignant and unconscionable, political, commercial and personal influence exerted over us that is carefully in-trained in media personnel, and is richly rewarded with heavy expenditures in recognition, wealth and position.

MASS MEDIA A set of amplifiers that make commerce out of a vacuum filled with braying, lies and disgust in the consumer. The amplifiers are increased by shocked and angry attention to them. The only known way to cure this malignancy is by complete quarantine.

MICROPHONE A tiny device to magnify a tiny sound -- the means by which mice can roar.

MUSIC Media 'music' is selected to drown out awareness, and to amplify the effects of the political and commercial manipulation undertaken by the media.

NEWS Political rubbish reviewed, recycled and reused; an acronym for the main points of the compass used to mislead the unwary into believing that it describes real events from real sources.

NEWSPAPER Paper covered with all manner of distortions, lies and defamations, whose main purposes and uses are to wrap up garbage and light fires.

NEWSWORTHY Anything that is at the same time false, shocking, distorted and defamatory, and that can be expressed in brief sentences comprised of one-syllable words.

OZ Aplacewheremenhaveeverythingtheywant,though manifestly lacking those things, and women are afforded the opportunity to return to their nests from which they never departed. The whole thing is run by a wizard who is a klutz. Some doubt that Oz exists. However, as any child can tell you, he/she has seen it. It is located in a box at home.

PHONOGRAPH A irritating toy to restore life to dead noise.[AB]

PHOTOGRAPH A picture painted by the sun without the benefit of instruction in art. [AB]

PITCH An affliction to the ear brought about by throwing away a sound at a given speed.

PROPAGANDA Publicly funded advertising on a grand scale, intended to lie to the public.

RADIO A device that denies one seclusion from the noise and clatter of music and news, even in the wilderness sought for seclusion.

REPORTER A writer who guesses his/her way to what seems a plausible truth, confirms the guesses by misquoting what inappropriate authorities did not say, and dispels the whole in a tempest of words, confirming his/her own virtues and the vileness of others.

RESPONSIBILITY A human attribute required to be totally lacking in media personnel, as a qualification and condition for employment.

SCALE Abrasive roughness on the skin of a fish, offering means to weigh or measure, which, when used to scratch a tensile object, creates vibrations of varying pitch, forming a basis for so-called music.

SCRIPTING Scripting for media contents is assigned value only in so far as it creates attention from the consumer and supports the media people's degenerate values. Within those limits, script costs are minimized. Accordingly, scripts are written quickly, with a minimum of characterization and human values, and a maximum of attention-getting noise, colour and motion -- achieved most easily in depictions of acts of violence. SOAP OPERA Fictitious tales of short-legged Amazons designed to compensate for the indignity of sitting down while bathing.

STEREO A means bywhich what is intolerable to one ear can be amplified by being presented at once to two ears. What horror if we had three!

TELEPHONE Genus: Bellicoses Telephonus. Sometimes called (much too often called) The Devil's Own Invention. This instrument of torture comes equipped with an alarm calculated to damage the ears, create utter confusion (the better to give commercial advantage to the caller), and commandingly interrupt any other useful, urgent and pre-appointed task that is in progress at the time. The unthinking masses attribute to it the capacity to foster good and close human relationships. Actually, it is an instrument of the devil designed to abrogate the advantages of distance [AB]. Its inventor, sellers and users deserve to be plagued by every available disfiguring disease. Means must be found to get rid of the pest. To date, a satisfactory method to eradicate it has not been found. Its flesh is not even edible.

TELESCOPE A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Gratefully, it does not come equipped with an alarm bell [AB] -- yet.

TELEVISION A device to present visual and auditory sensations simultaneously. As such, it reprises the means by which we verify fact and truth. Although a potential source of information and education, it has been appropriated by a collective comprised of the world's most proficient liars, hyper-dominant politicians, and assorted other malefactors. It has made insidious inroads into daily human life. It has even been invited into their homes by those sufficiently sheep-like and naive to welcome being duped and commercially-raided without the usual benefit of the caveats of commerce. VICIOUS A noteworthy quality of media personnel.

VIOLA An instrument for caressing feline viscera mounted on a box to magnify the sound -- the better to offend the ear.

VIOLENCE The common element of fiction characterizing the vast majority of media contents. Although this was carefully in-trained in the populace by the media, the erroneous belief is now widely held that acts of violence form the diet most appealing to us and most demanding of attention and interest. While that may now be true, it is a habit to which we are easily susceptible only because noise, colour and movement (most characteristic of violent acts) are the means by which anyone's attention and interest is aroused and focused.

VIRTUE A quality utterly lacking, but implicitly claimed, in media personnel. The implicit claim is made in the contrast afforded during questions directed at those naive enough to allow themselves to be duped into interviews where they will be defamed.

VOLUME The extent to which things fill space -- notably, the extent to which noise cannot be escaped.

U: UNDIES A DICTIONARY OF VALUELESS ENTITIES

ACADEMIC One who, in declining work, teaches. We decline work as follows: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers how to teach; those who can't teach teachers, administer; those who can't administer, politic; those who can't politic, collect welfare; those who can't collect welfare, work.

ADVICE Smallest coin of the realm [AB]; add vice to virtue.

ALDERMAN An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding -- taxation. [AB] APOLOGIZE To lay the foundation for a future offence. [AB]

APPLAUSE The echo of a platitude. [AB]

ARISTOCRAT From the roots, Aristoc, appertaining to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, and Rat, which is an over-grown and disgusting rodent responsible as the carrier for the Black Plague of mediaval times. Hence, Aristocrat is an ancient Greek philosopher rat which, although vermin, has the distinct advantages of being dead and obsolete.

ATTORNEY A mis-representative who, having acquired power over your goods and wealth, disposes of it in small part to others, and in large part to him/herself.

BARRISTER A lawyer who, having been admitted to the bar, expects to be paid for each drink he/she takes.

BOX Pugilism to protect offensive and defenceless objects from view, itself without a container to hide it from view.

CAPITAL An excellent seat of mis-government; a top-of-the- line action of a system of justice that serializes murders to afford fiscal advantage to the media in titillating its victims, the public.

CENSORSHIP An unlawful task assigned by government to naive others to ensure that information in the media paints a picture of life as composed solely of dangerous, sensational and shocking events.

COMMENTATOR A tater that is in every respect more common than the rest of us spuds.

COMPROMISE Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he/she got what he/she ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing that was justly his/her due. [AB] Resolution that gives nobody satisfaction.

CONFRONTATION A process in which A (see Ass), having connected his/her headset to the microphone into which he/she speaks, turns up the volume to his/her headset and instructs B in the error of his/her ways -- B being a complete stranger. Confrontation is held to be the proper process by which a criminal (actually an innocent) is converted to a clear appreciation of the errors of his/her ways and is led to correct them. This position is tenaciously held by the righteous who, having been expelled from convents or monasteries for their extero-punitive insistence on a return to the Inquisition, and for dogmatism and rigidity scores exactly equivalent to those obtained by the most serious criminal offenders, have obtained employment in the media.

CONTEMPLATE To ponder or consider deeply -- commonly the application of common sense to achieve an instant impression.

CONTROVERSY A battle of wits among the witless, to revoke existing wisdom and replace it with a smoke screen of banalities, the better to glorify the contestants in an imaginary history of thought.

CREDENTIALS Papers purchased by A, signed and attested by B, purporting to show that A is pre-eminently qualified to meddle in the affairs of others. The papers are purchased, at high cost in time and money, from B who never met or knew A.

CRITIC One who boasts him/herself hard to please, nobody tries to please, and has no capacity for pleasure [AB]; one who boasts him/herself reasonable and correct, whose task in life, while denying the desire to give pain, offers nothing but pain.

CRITICISM The act of putting another down. The unfounded faith that you know better than me what I'm trying to do and how best I should do it.

DAYDREAM A type of mental activity in which the mind is permitted to wander aimlessly in pleasant imagery, gratifying wishes the person thinks only he/she possesses, and which therefore cannot be permitted to be experienced in real life. More correctly understood, if daydreams were acted out in reality, people would soon experience a surfeit of pleasure with themselves, and become utterly bored with everybody else for having wishes identical to their own. Daydreaming is thus a construction devised by the devil to tempt people with the possible, the fact of which makes the possible impossible, the more desired, and the less acted upon.

DEBATE The basic operation and skill in the practice of law and the media, in which two automatons, having no interest, belief, values or ethics, adopt, for the sake of their personal amusement and presumed entertainment of others, opposing points of view. Each defends the adopted view for a time before giving up and going home, with no concern for the effects of their enterprise on others.

DEMOCRACY From the roots Demo or commonplace, and Crazy or nuts. Hence, the craziness of elevating the commonplace to a valued and sought after position.

DIAGNOSIS A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse. [AB]

DIALECTIC Argument, purporting to be reasonable, but really interminable.

DIAMOND Valueless, indestructible bauble worn by women as though it were an ornament, but really used to preserve the fingernails in scratching out the eyes of other women.

DOCTOR One who, having completed the highest degree of training in the highest institution of learning, is found qualified to read, and maybe write, a book. Commonly restricted in its use to those who, having completed a lesser degree of lesser education, hold themselves out to be able to refer to the diseases and distresses of the body by their Latin names.

DOCUMENT A device invented by lawyers and administrators to allow them to entertainment themselves by reading so they can ignore what's going on around them.

EDIT Systematically to destroy a composition by revision, extirpation, and punctuation by a method of random assignment. Syn: Decompose. EDUCATION That which discloses to the wise and disguises for the foolish their lack of understanding. [AB] A process where knowledge is systematically and wilfully refined out of existence -- seeking to extinguish the capacity to learn from experience.

EMANCIPATION A bonds-person's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of him/herself. [AB]

ENTERTAINMENT Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by dejection. [AB]

EXHORTATION To put the conscience of another on a spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort. [AB]

FACULTY Literally, an ability. A term purloined by groups of academics to acquire the illusion that they are possessed of abilities instead of just possessed.

FASHION A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey. [AB]

FORBID Edict to ensure that a prohibited action will be performed.

GUILD Toputagoldensurfacesheenonanoldtyranny.

GUILT A sense of wrong-doing, most frequently encountered in the innocent.

HONESTY A vicious virtue, found mainly in the hostile.

HONOURABLE Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach.

INNATE Natural, inherent, inborn -- as innate ideas, that is, ideas we were born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths in philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof. Among innate ideas might be mentioned the belief in the superiority of oneself and one's country, the importance of one's personal affairs, and the interesting nature of one's diseases. [AB]

INTELLECTUAL One who bores your head with his knowledge. LAW An artificial construction of words deemed to possess final authority in the conduct of the universe and in human affairs; formulations derived from interminable debate and brow-beating, by which people seek to reconstruct the universe to suit their own selfish wishes.

LAWYER One skilled in the circumvention of the Law [AB].

LESSON Something to be learned that lessens our options of conduct, thought and feeling; to be left with less on the ball than we started with.

LIBIDO An anagram used to refer to the life force or vital energy, taken literally by Freud. The term derives from the words: 'do libel id'.

MASS MEDIA A set of amplifiers that make commerce out of a vacuum filled with braying, lies and disgust in the consumer. The amplifiers are increased by shocked and angry attention to them. The only known way to cure this malignancy is by complete quarantine.

MEDICINE Any of a number of chemical compounds, and the commerces that exploit them. Its proponents claim remarkable effects from it in dispelling devils that inhabit humankind and create diseases of one unkind or another.

MICROPHONE A tiny device to magnify a tiny sound -- the means by which mice can roar.

NEGATIVE The result of taking something from zero, creating the illusion you can get something from nothing -- even better than alchemy. No wonder negative funding, negative rewards, negative values and negative attitudes are among humankind's most popular pursuits.

NEWS Political rubbish reviewed, recycled and reused; an acronym for the main points of the compass used to mislead the unwary into believing that it describes real events from real sources.

NEWSPAPER Paper covered with all manner of distortions, lies and defamations, whose main purposes and uses are to wrap up garbage and light fires.

OEDIPUS COMPLEX An attempt to give the American sport of baseball a history. The game pits the entire world against a young man, wielding a phallic object much too big for him, who is intent on warding off another man's missile aimed at a gloved cup.

OPIATE An unlocked doorto the prison of identity. It leads to the jail yard [AB] or to a bedroom in which to sleep and dream.

PALMISTRY The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in reading character in the wrinkles made by closing the hand, which, if fully closed could not be read nor offer money. Character can be read very accurately in this way. In the wrinkles of every hand examined for this purpose can be read plainly the word 'dupe'. The imposture consists in not reading it aloud. [AB]

PARLIAMENT From the roots, Parle or talk, and Ament or lack of a mind. Hence, Parliament is (de-)composed of senseless and mindless talk.

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB] From the roots, Poly or a plurality, and Tics or involuntary jerks. Hence, Politics is comprised of many involuntary jerks.

PRIDE A family of devouring lions defending a region replete with self-inflating obstacles over which the presumptuous trip and fall; a family of lions that, possessed, will devour the possessor.

PROGNOSIS The prediction that a lamentable state of affairs will continue indefinitely.

PROPER A modifier adopted as self-description by those concerned solely with controlling and manipulating others without achieving anything but restraint.

PSYCHIATRY The study of the id by the odd. REMORSE The tiresome business of pretending sorrow for somebody else's faults.

REPORTER One skilled in creating primitive sentences, comprised of one-syllable words having the maximum sensationalism, to describe, as though it were fact, fictions about what dangerous horrors might have transpired if anybody had bothered to notice what some perfectly ordinary person, depicted as a savage miscreant, experienced or did in a perfectly ordinary way. A writer who guesses his/her way to what seems a plausible truth, confirms the guesses by misquoting what inappropriate authorities did not say, and dispels the whole in a tempest of words, confirming his/her own virtues and the vileness of others.

REPUBLICAN From the roots, Re or to do again, Pub or public house, Lick or caress with the tongue, and Can or a person's backside or the place where it can be enthroned. Hence, Republican refers to repeating the act of licking someone's bottom in the toilet of a bar; or public house brown-nosing.

REVENGE The commonly recognized prerogative of one who imagines he/she has been injured by another, as burning down one's own house, which caused one injury through the offices of the tax collector.

RUBBISH Worthless matter, such as the philosophies, literatures, arts, sciences, politics and mass communications of the tribes infesting the regions south of the North Pole. [AB]

SOCIABILITY The tendency to seek the company of other people in lieu of working.

STATUS An assumed degree of importance assigned to those whose power and wealth affords them a special recognition.

TASTE The response of certain ugly outcroppings of your mouth and nose, absent in most other people, to their acts that you do not identify with or practice. TELEPHONE An invention of the devil that abrogates some of the advantages of distance. [AB]

THINKING Non-vocal conversation with one who will not listen.

VANITY The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. [AB]

V: VAN A DICTIONARY OF VANITY'S ACCESSORIES

ABSORB Thoughtfully to suck in -- as in sucking in one's stomach at the approach of an attractive member of the opposite sex, to consume the other's attention and interest, with the hope of combining forces.

ACCESSORY A road agent who assists another road agent in nefariousness [AB] -- as a lawyer or other salesperson of jewellery, clothing and other adornments.

ACTING Performing a series of actions precisely as one would do them if he/she were being him/herself. The commonest of human activities, namely, that of suppressing one's character, personality, habits and feelings, and reprising those of others imagined to be more acceptable, appropriate or entertaining than one's own self.

ACTOR A person of no particular gender (the designation 'Actress' is now considered politically incorrect) who accepts money or critical acclaim in exchange for suppressing his/her own personality (if there ever was one) and displaying all manner of foul, indecent, noisesome and tiresome exhibitions in public, for anyone enough interested to notice.

APPLAUSE The echo of a platitude. [AB]

APPRECIATE The process by which increasing value is assigned to the valueless.

ART Aproductinvestedwithvaluebythosewhowillbe deprived of their fortunes as a fine for having valued the product.

ARTIFICIAL Unnatural, feigned, non-genuine, as anything made or done by people.

AUDIBLE Distressingly, demanding attention from the ears.

AUDIENCE Spectators or listeners who feign enjoyment of grotesque spectacles or noise for personal reasons independent of the purposes of the performers.

BASEBALL A sport, indigenous to the United Mistakes of America, that plays out the national Oedipus Complex. In the game, the entire world cheers the efforts of a young male person who seeks, with the aid of a medium sized phallic object, against an entire opposing force, to prevent a projectile from being lodged in a gloved cup.

BOOK A collection of pages already stained with ink, and without space for further staining -- it is therefore useless.

BRILLIANT Our own random collections of grunts and whines, clothed in the shining vivid colours afforded by our own attention to them.

CANVAS A white fabric that is commonly defaced with ugly patterns of messy paints. The thus destroyed fabric, reused to evade the garbage, is offered at high price to sophisticates to be displayed as honest evidence of how easily they can be duped.

CELEBRITY One who has become well-known for doing something in public that nobody else would care or dare to do, even in private.

CENSOR One who undertakes the duty of preventing others from exposure to media contents that he/she enjoyed.

COMMENDATION A tribute we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own. [AB]

COMMENTATOR A tater that is in every respect more common than the rest of us spuds. CONGRATULATION The civility of envy. [AB]

CORSET A means for creating fiction, falsification or fantasy, allowing the user to alter the shape of the unimaginable universe to create an image closer to what one imagines others imagine it ought to be.

COSMETIC Paint to cover skin to create an impressionistic painting purporting to improve on nature's art- work.

CREATIVE A term employed to refer to works in order to account for their high cost in light of the fact that they don't represent anything in the universe, don't mean anything and have no use.

CREDITS Accomplishments claimed by A as credentials (not signed by B or anybody else) displayed, but never scrutinized, as public record, conforming in detail to a format presumed by all to be prescribed.

CREDULOUS Disposed to believe that the creativity claimed by another enhances the value of the other's work.

CRITIC One who boasts him/herself hard to please, nobody tries to please, who has no capacity for pleasure [AB]; one who boasts him/herself reasonable and correct, whose task in life, while denying the desire to give pain, offers nothing but pain.

DANCE Toleapaboutinalarm atadeafeningnoise pervading the environment, sometimes while clinging for protection to a neighbour's wife or daughter. [AB] The female of the species appears immune to the clatter of noise so that she both tranquillises the male with her participation, and receives her share of the torture by placing her feet under those of the stampeding male. One evidence contradicting the Calvinistic contention that dancing is a vertical position with a horizontal desire is the fact that the leaping stampede remains for a while in the presence of the noise instead of moving at once out the exit.

DECORATE To cover the beauty of simplicity and the natural with flamboyant ornamentation and raucous colours. DEMOCRACY From the roots Demo or commonplace, and Crazy or nuts. Hence, the craziness of elevating the commonplace to a valued and sought after position.

ENTERTAINMENT Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by dejection. [AB]

ENTHUSIASM A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance with outward applications of experience. [AB]

EXHIBIT By a magician: a cunning stunt; spoonerized for an actress.

EXHIBITIONIST One who deems his/her privates to be a public and interesting affair.

FAMOUS Conspicuously miscreant, miserable or mistaken. [AB]

FAN A source of appreciable wind supporting an air- head's showing-off.

FILM Slimethroughwhichoneseestheworldasseen through the eye of a photographer.

GAG A blessed obstacle to speech.

HONEY A sickly sweet commodity accompanied by a vicious sting.

HUMOUR Vile bodily fluids spewed on others to dissolve them in laughter.

IMMODEST Possessed of a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of the worth of others. [AB]

LECTURER One with his/her hand in your pocket, his/her tongue in your ear, and his/her faith in your patience [AB]; a lecher whose seductions are reserved for university students.

LOOKING GLASS A vitreous plane on which to display a fleeting and disillusioning show of people's givens, and upon which is seen the given form [AB], altered to suit, either by misperception or enterprising art-form.

LUMINARY One who is noteworthy for casting light upon a subject, as an editor by not writing about it. [AB]

LUSTRE Brightness, sheen or attractiveness born of the bright light of imagination concerning an object of lust, subject to fading in the light of reality.

LYRE An ancient instrument of torture for the ears. [AB] The modern version is called Liar or, more recently, Guitar.

MAGNIFICENT Having a grandeur or splendour superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass to a rabbit, or the glory of a glow-worm to a maggot. [AB]

MANUSCRIPT Abbr: M.S. Expansion: Multiple Sclerosis; by which it can be deduced that a manuscript is a document that cannot support itself, can barely be understood, and is generally weak due to ineffective executive function and diseased communication with the parts.

MASS MEDIA A set of amplifiers that make commerce out of a vacuum filled with braying, lies and disgust in the consumer. The amplifiers are increased by shocked and angry attention to them. The only known way to cure this malignancy is by complete quarantine.

MUSIC A cacophony of noises created to be abrasive to the ear.

NARCISSISM The most widely practised 'ism', especially among females.

NEWS Political rubbish reviewed, recycled and reused; an acronym for the main points of the compass used to mislead the unwary into believing that it describes real events from real sources.

NEWSPAPER Paper covered with all manner of distortions, lies and defamations, whose main purposes and uses are to wrap up garbage and light fires. NOTORIETY The fame of one's competitor for public honours; the kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. [AB]

NOVEL A short story, padded. [AB]

O UsualabbreviationfortheObserver,andfor his/her reaction to what he/she observes.

OEDIPUS A jolly fellow from Greek mythological history who had the misfortune of being blind to the point that he could not distinguish between his wife and his mother -- the sighted mother's role in the story is discretely omitted.

ORATORY A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. [AB]

PAINTING The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic [AB]; a pain from a t'ing afflicting the eyes.

PANTOMIME A play in which the story is told without violence to the language [AB] or to the ears.

PAPER A material commonly created pure and white, provided by Providence to fill empty drawers and shelves, usually to hide it after it has been covered with unsightly ink stains.

PARLIAMENT From the roots, Parle or talk, and Ament or lack of a mind. Hence, Parliament is (de-)composed of senseless and mindless talk.

PHYSIQUE Something we are pleased to have and to exhibit, but that common decency demands others who have it hide under thick clothing.

PIANO A parlour utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience. [AB]

PICTURE A misrepresentation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three. [AB] PIGMENT Colour for the artist's pig-hair brush, meant to be lavished therefrom to deface a surface.

PILLORY A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction -- prototype of the contemporary newspaper -- operated by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. [AB]

PLAGIARISM Literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honourable subsequence. [AB]

PLAGIARIZE To take the thought or style of another writer you have never, never read [AB]; to use your eyes.

PLAUDITS Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it. [AB]

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB] From the roots, Poly or a plurality, and Tics or involuntary jerks. Hence, Politics is comprised of many involuntary jerks.

PRESENTABLE Hideously apparelled, but considered to conform to the mode, after the manner of the time and place. [AB]

PROMOTE To lift, raise up, levitate or elevate -- an act which, performed by another, we call theft.

PROMPT To tell another what to say; to operate on one's own time schedule.

RECOGNITION The Golden Grail sought by all who are obscure; the blight of those who are not.

REPUBLICAN From the roots, Re or to do again, Pub or public house, Lick or caress with the tongue, and Can or a person's backside or the place where it can be enthroned. Hence, Republican refers to repeating the act of licking someone's bottom in the toilet of a bar; or public house brown-nosing.

SOAP OPERA Fabricated tales of short-legged Amazons designed to compensate for the indignity of sitting down while bathing.

TALENT Your child's faculty to do everything wrong.

TALK To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. [AB]

TASTE The response of certain ugly outcroppings of your mouth and nose, absent in most other people, to their acts that you do not identify with or practice.

TELEPHONE An invention of the devil that abrogates some of the advantages of distance. [AB] Genus Bellicoses Telephonus. A tool for rumour and defamation that comes equipped with a loud alarm to ensure that any worthwhile, scheduled and ongoing activity is interrupted rudely and without consideration for any other. It is essential that this beast be rendered extinct as soon as possinle. Sadly, its flesh is inedible, and it is devoid of taste.

THEATRE A privately funded prison in which are held show- offs convicted of possessing no personal identity to keep them off the streets.

THEATRE-GOER A competitor in social commerce seeking public recognition for his/her sophistry -- which he/she is pleased to call sophistication.

TRENDY An inclination to wear the uniform of the day.

TUNE A melody, spiteful to the ears.

VANITY The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. [AB]

WRITER'S CRAMP One of the most blessed afflictions of others; the sharp pain where one sits down to have to read a writer's work.

ZOO Aplacewherevariouskindsofanimalsare collected to give them an opportunity to ogle and laugh at humans found wandering aimlessly in the vicinity. W: WAR ADICTIONARYOFWARFULNESS

ACCOMPLICE One associated with another, usually in crime; having knowledge and complicity, as a defence attorney in a criminal case. [AB]

ACCORD Enforced agreement and harmony.

ACCUSE To affirm another's guilt and unworthiness, most commonly to obscure the fact that you have wronged him/her. [AB]

ADMIRAL That part of a warship that does all the talking, while the figurehead does the thinking. [AB]

AEROPLANE A far from plain machine that defies the laws of gravity and, without landing in court, wins its case.

AGGRESSOR That participant in a quarrel weak enough to allow him/herself to be held responsible for the first move.

ALLIANCE A union of two thieves who, having their hands so deeply inserted into each other's pockets, cannot separately plunder a third. [AB]

AMBITION An overpowering desire to be vilified by enemies while living, and to be made ridiculous by friends when dead. [AB]

ANGER Keen displeasure usually attributed to injury by another, but more commonly caused by impatience.

ANOINT To grease one already sufficiently slippery [AB] from greasing his own palm.

ARBITRARY The capricious exercise of personal will, as is characteristic of the actions of traitors and arbitrators.

ARGUMENT A discussion or debate in which the attempt is made to reason to a conclusion that is both unreasonable and contrary to all evidence.

ARISTOCRAT A rat in lion's clothing. ARMISTICE A brief pause in war, agreed by all sides on the assumption made by each that it will gain the advantage in the time to reinforce.

ARMS The weapons of the body; the weapons directed at somebody.

ASSAULT A narrowly defined range of actions from touching another to murderously attacking an entire army.

ATTACK Rape, pillage and murder authorized by the military hierarchy to prune the ranks of the soldiers they have to pay, while richly rewarding those who survive without an additional drain on tax dollars.

BASE A soothing and sweet substance that forms the lowest and most inferior position at the bottom and supports other edifices, such as the location from which armed forces conduct war.

BATTLE A method for untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue. [AB]

BELLOWS An instrument for directing a strong current of air, to create a draft and ignite a fire. The most valued possession of a politician in whom is implanted a bellows to ignite and fan fires in the hearts or personal interests of others.

BLAME Censure assigned to another for one's own fault.

CANDID Impartial, fair, straightforward and open, as any utterance by a politician.

CANNON An instrument employed for the rectification of national boundaries. [AB]

CAPITAL An excellent seat of mis-government [AB]; a top-of- the-line action of a system of justice that serializes murders to afford fiscal advantage to the media in titillating its victims, the public.

COMPROMISE Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he/she got what he/she ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing that was justly his/her due. [AB]

CONFISCATE To seize private property for the public treasury -- one example of magic in law, whereby an unlawful act is transmuted into a lawful one.

CONFRONTATION A process in which A (see Ass), having connected his/her headset to the microphone into which he/she speaks, turns up the volume to his/her headset and instructs B in the error of his/her ways -- B being a complete stranger. Confrontation is held to be the proper process by which a criminal (actually an innocent) is converted to a clear appreciation of the error of his/her ways and is led to correct them. This position is tenaciously held by the righteous who, having been expelled from convents or monasteries for their extero-punitive insistence on a return to the Inquisition, and for dogmatism and rigidity scores exactly equivalent to those obtained by the most serious criminal offenders, have obtained employment in government.

CONSUL One who, having failed to secure an office from the people, is given one by the administration on the condition that he/she leave the country. [AB]

CORRUPT Immoral, perverted, decaying, putrid; that is, government.

DEFENCE Any means by which to avoid dealing with that which is not there but, being invisible, is presumed to be there and dangerous.

DEFENCELESS Unable to attack. [AB]

DEMOCRACY Government of the people, purportedly by the people. Democracy doesn't exist. If it were by the people, there would be no need for government, since the people would regulate themselves. Democracy (degeneration of Demon-Crazy) comes into being because people will not effectively govern themselves. This results in the need to be governed by others, which is Autocracy or Poligocracy or Bureaucracy -- the only real forms of government. DIPLOMACY The patriotic art of lying for one's country. [AB]

DIPLOMAT One appointed by his/her government to perform diplomacy in public. Diplomats are selected at government poker games, and are exiled (see there) for being winners.

DRAFT Awindusedtolureyoungmentotheirdeath.

DREAD An appropriate emotion in the face of a better armed adversary.

ENTHUSIASM A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance with outward applications of experience. [AB]

EXILE One who serves his country by living abroad, yet is not an ambassador. [AB]

FAULT An attribute found exclusively in your neighbour.

FLAG A coloured ragborne above troops and displayed on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as a red cape waved at a bull, or as a sign on vacant lots in London that reads: 'Rubbish may be shot here.' [AB]

FUSE Forced connection between things that would rather be apart; the prologue to an explosion.

GENERAL An officer of high rank who is commonly widespread in the rear, who is lacking in precision and detail, and who applies him/herself to nothing in particular.

GOVERNMENT Mis-administration of public funds and needs, and faulty exercise of power, all obscured under the euphemism of: 'for the public good.'

GRAFT The commerce of government.

GRAVE Aplaceinwhichthedeadarelaidtoawaitthe coming of the medical student. [AB]

GUN Man's fabricated approximation to his own reproductive organ. It falls short of the mark by terminating life instead of creating it.

GUNPOWDER An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. [AB]

HATRED A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. [AB]

HISTORY An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, using soldiers, mostly fools [AB], from a time, mostly fictitious, when men, mostly mistreated, thought their initiatives, mostly instigated by women, and their exploits, mostly to acquire replacement women, worthy to report, mostly to acquire dust in hysterical libraries.

HOSTILITY A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth's over-population. [AB]

INSURRECTION An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government. [AB]

INVASION The patriot's preferred method of attesting his/her love of his/her country. [AB]

LEAD A plentiful substance precipitated in great quantities at the point of meeting of two opposing patriotisms [AB], and which, by virtue of its active power of 'going ahead', is adopted by greedy alchemists and others to convert their impoverished states to possess others' gold. Its 'going ahead' powder was invented by the ancient Chinese who, bereft of patriotic values and alchemist's desires, used the powder to entertain children.

LIBERTY One of imagination's most precious possessions.[AB]

MILITARY People carefully trained as assassins who, having demonstrated their willingness and ability to perform murder, have been sentenced to death. They are paid from the public purse to sit around awaiting their execution by foreigners whose duty it is to carry out the sentence. When the foreigners finally materialize, the military persons are assembled to receive the missiles the foreign executioners elect to use for the purpose.

MINE BelongingtomeifIcanseizeandholdit[AB]; apt to blow up in my face if I can't or if I don't notice it in time.

NEIGHBOUR One we are commanded to love as ourselves, who does all in his/her power to make us disobedient. [AB]

NON-COMBATANT A dead Quaker. [AB]

OCEAN A bodyof water occupying two-thirds of a world made for humans -- who have no gills [AB]; that part of the world suitably equipped to sink ships.

OFFENSIVE Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy. [AB]

OFFICER One who, having no office of his/her own in which to work, is appointed to office and assigned authority and responsibility to follow another's orders in giving orders to others.

OPPOSE To assist with obstructions and objections. [AB]

PATRIOTISM Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his/her name. [AB]

PEACE In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting [AB]; a greeting or salutation whose intention is ambiguous when it is uttered alone. Is it intended to say: 'may peace be with you', 'gimme a piece of you or yours or your action', or 'peess on you'?

POLITICS A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. [AB]

POSTERITY A race who are going to reap the wild oats which the world is now sowing. [AB]

PROPAGANDA Publicly funded advertising on a grand scale, intended to lie to the public. REAR Thatpartofanarmythatisexposedbybeing nearest to the politician [AB]; that part of the body that advances backwards; that part of your credit prefixed with ar-.

REBEL Aproponentof anewmisrulewhohasfailedto establish it. [AB]

RECONCILED Surrender to superior force.

RECONCILIATION A suspension of hostilities; an armed truce [AB] to provide time to find new bases for war.

REPARATION Satisfaction paid for a wrong, and deducted from the satisfaction in committing it. [AB]

REPUBLIC A nation in which the thing governed and the thing governing, being the same, permits authority to enforce an optional obedience; it arises in despotism, and leads to anarchy. [AB]

REVOLUTION In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. [AB]

SILO Alargetubeinwhichisstored,andoutofwhich is cast, food for animals or missiles for people.

TAKE To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth. [AB]

ULTIMATUM In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. [AB]

UN-AMERICAN Wicked, intolerable, heathenish [AB], as the U.N. even although it's located in America.

U.S. AmarkplacedonobsoleteAmericanweaponstobe supplied to allied countries; a mark placed on obsolete British weapons to indicate that they are un-serviceable. The Russian army used to extend their markings to U.S.S.R. to identify their own obsolete, unserviceable and exportable weapons.

VALOUR A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hopes. [AB] WAR A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a prolonged period of international amity [AB], with its accompanying economic depression.

YELL A vocalization calculated to arouse emotions and participation in any patriotic or athletic activity. The attendant hype is hoped to create willing self-sacrifice on the part of the various participants, whether troops, athletes or spectators. The more meaningless the vocalization, the more powerful its likely effects. Witness the O.C.I. Yell: Icky, Acky, Ucky, Yicky, Yacky, Yucky, Oci, Oci, Yucky!

ZANZIBAR A fabled middle-eastern city, purported to exhibit all manner of vile and miscreant people and pastimes. When no other enemy is available against which to conduct war, Zanzibar stands ready to serve as the despised victim for an attack.

X: X A DICTIONARY OF UNKNOWNS (A Book of Essays)

A ACRONYMS PROBABLY MEAN SOMETHING by F.A.C. True, The Second

Acronyms: An office memorandum presented the following facts:

DrB.A.CASASARx$RSINIB. ICD. CDrvARCD. DO. IRMv FM2OMACCccCPSO. CL. BSrccvFAX. ST. YKWLA.

Expansions: The obvious interpretation of these facts follows:

Doctor Bachelor of Arts Children's Aid Society Acetylsalicylic Acid Prescription dollars Registered Survivor Number One National Institute for the Blind. Number One Compact Disc. Compact Disc Receive via Arrest Compact Disc. Do! Number One Registered Masseur via Frequency Modulation Two Ontario Mechanics Association Main Carbon Copy carbon copy Canadian Pacific Service Organization. Closet. Bull Shit Receive carbon copy via Fax. Street. Youth Knowledge and Work Lessening Association.

A message, slightly closer to the intended, might have been:

Doctor Bachelor of Arts Children's Aid Society Acetylsalicylic Acid Prescription dollars Registered Stripper Number One National Institute for the Blind. Number One Complaints Department. Complaints Department Receive via Audio Recording Compact Disc. Disinterested Observer. Number One Refer Matter via Formal Memorandum Two Ontario Medical Association Main Carbon Copy carbon copy Canadian Psychological Service Organization. Comic Line. Barristers/Solicitors Receive carbon copy via Fax. Source Trouble. Youth Knowledge and Work Lessening Association.

Intended Meaning: As if anyone cares, the intended meaning follows:

Doctor Benjamin Addlebert Cas' prescriptions' costs for aspirin stripped me blind. I complained. The complaint was received by audio recording on a compact disc. It wasn't interested. I referred the matter by formal memo to the Ontario Medical Association's Complaints Committee, with a copy to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. They laughed. The lawyers got hold of a facsimile. That started the real trouble. You know what lawyers are!

Commentary: Acronyms are probably necessary means by which to abbreviate addressing, stating and typing of communications in this age of computers. I certainly wouldn't argue that point. The question relating to this issue that I haven't heard many people address is: are computers necessary? I'd better ask that question again, as it is an almost unnoted element in life. ARE COMPUTERS REALLY NECESSARY?

B BEACHED

Have you noticed the sharply increasing number of whales that have become beached lately? I suppose some bleeding hearts will be alarmed on behalf of the poor whales. Others may be worried about the resulting decline in the numbers of an endangered species. Still others may take the increasing number of beachings as a sign that the whale population must be increasing so that there are more whales to do their beaching thing. Some think it must be the diseased or excess whales that beach themselves -- although that doesn't appear to be true. Some might even think it's the anti- social or unaccepted whales that are driven by their society to commit suicide on the beaches -- although this doesn't appear to be true either.

The truth is, we don't know the causes of whale beachings. So everybody can have a field-day by using these newsworthy events to push his/her own guess based of his/her own pet peeve. Well, I have a pet peeve too. I don't care about the population of whales, or about the number of them that die due to whaling operations or beachings. Something else preoccupies me about these beachings.

The whale is the largest mammal. In fact, it's the largest animal. As such, it is at least as well provided with survival resources as we humans are. It's a tough old being. Beachings are not the best thing, or the most survival-supporting thing that a whale can do. Indeed, for a smart old thing like a whale to beach itself, it must have lost some of its survival skills. That is, it must have gone cuckoo or bonkers. How come?

The thing that worries me is our own survival. What if the level of pollution in the oceans has reached the point that the water has become sufficiently toxic to drive even those huge beasts nuts. We wouldn't notice large numbers of other fish going crazy because their behaviour wouldn't be enough 'newsworthy'. Maybe it's the toxicity of the oceans, rather than over-fishing, that has been depleting the fish stocks everywhere. If true, what might this mean to us?

If the oceans, that occupy more of the earth's surface than the land, have become too toxic to support survival, what has been happening to the land -- from which the toxicity we produce has been drained into the oceans? For better or for worse, we are land animals. If the most hardy ocean creatures are being driven nuts now so they don't survive, what is happening now to the toughest, most effectively surviving land creatures -- us? I don't pretend to know. I do worry about this question. If it is relevant to our present survival, it may be something all of us need to consider. If you conclude that we might be close to the point of poisoning ourselves, it might be time NOW to change your priorities and to stop consumerism's buying, commercialism's industry (using up raw materials and dumping wastes), garbage production, and the other things we do to poison the earth -- for OURSELVES, NOW.

C STAUNCHLY DEFENDING THE CAUSE OF CAUSALITY (not Coffee) The word 'causality' is a generic term referring to the cause of any thing or event, and not to a political 'cause'. Of course, everybody knows that the cause of any thing or event is that other thing or event that regularly precedes (occurs before) it in time. So what more is there to say about causality? If that were all there was to say about causality, this essay would not have to be written, and this letter of this dictionary could have been devoted to something interesting, like Coffee. Unhappily, there is quite a bit more to say about causality.

First, even in the physical world of spatially-distributed things, there are other causes than just those antecedent or initial causes that occur before the things they cause (their 'effects'). It is true that the main type of cause acting in the physical world (with which we have most training and experience) is antecedent or initial causality. However, there are also some perpetuating causes acting in the physical world, that occur at the same time as their effects. The tendency of things to remain in their states of motion or immobility until a force is exerted on them, or inertia, is also found in the physical world. Inertia is a perpetuating cause that goes along with a thing to keep it doing what it is doing until an initial cause changes the thing's state.

However, there is another world with which we all have long and intimate experience. That world has to do with temporally- distributed events, called behaviour. Physical things have no life or action of their own. Living beings have physical bodies that are governed by the laws of causality affecting physical things. But their 'life' is evidenced by their self-induced actions, or behaviour -- whether that behaviour is external and visible or involves internal and invisible actions or functioning. Change the anatomical structure or the chemical composition of a dead body all you like, and it does nothing more to the body than subtract or add the changes made. To make use of the changes you make in the body's functioning, the body has to be alive and behaving. When the body stops doing anything, the body is said to be dead.

In the behavioural world, things don't work in just the same ways in which they work in the physical world. Even causality works differently. Oh sure, initial causes may be needed to start events up. You may need to learn how to do something before you can do it accurately. But even that kind of initial cause works in a funny way.

Learning isn't caused at all in the same way as initial causality works in the physical world. In one sense, learning is caused by its effects. That is, the results or consequences, that happen after the action, achieved by the behaviour-being-learned decide or cause the learning accomplished. And they tend to occur at about the same time or immediately after the learning they cause. That is, the consequences, effects or rewards that 'cause' learning work like perpetuating causes rather than initial causes. It's true that the next time (which may be seconds or years later) the habit is used, the previous learning done forms part of the effectiveness or accuracy of the behaviour performed, and thus might be said to cause the resulting habit strength. But even the existing (let's say) initially caused habit strength may or may not be used at the later time, either effectively or in the fashion in which it was laid down at the time of learning. How it is used is based on another kind of causality.

It's true that initial causes operate to provide the physical body with the energy needed to do any action. However, whether or not the available energy will be used, and how it will be used is decided or caused by the person's purposes. And purpose is a kind of cause that happens after its effects in a person's behaviour. For example, you may be reading this now, caused by the purpose of acquiring some information or having some fun -- which happens only after you have done the reading that the purpose causes. That is, the purposes of actions, occurring after the effects they cause, serve as 'final' (not initial) causes.

If this is bewildering, it's not surprising. We've been taught to think exclusively in terms of the initial causes that govern things of the physical world. So we tend to apply the same kind of initial cause thinking when we consider the events of our daily behavioural worlds. When we look at our lives to find the causes of our behaviours and experiences, we automatically tend to look to our past experiences to find the causes. We assume that experiences from the past that are similar to present experiences must be the (initial) cause of our present experiences. While that sort of assumption has a grain of justification in it, the truth likely mainly lies elsewhere. Perhaps it would help if we were to pick an example of a fairly simple and ordinary bit of behaviour to see the kinds of causes operating to control its various aspects.

Let's pick the action of throwing a ball. The physical action of the arm is caused (initially) by the genetics of inheriting the arm's bones (for rigidity), muscles (contraction and extension), blood vessels (to feed the arm's parts) and nerves (to send the messages to the muscles about what to do). The physical action is also caused (as more recent initial causes) by the nutrients and oxygen to be metabolized (for energy-production) in the various kinds of cells of the arm. Finally, the physical action is also caused (initially -- just before the action) by the electrical message sent from the brain, along the nerves, to the muscle cells, telling them to contract in a certain way. Although there is self- induced behaviour here, so far that behaviour is equivalent to that of a robotic arm's functioning.

Some 'robotic' arms produce more speed, strength or accuracy than others. These characteristics are (initially) caused by the genetic predispositions to actions of particular kinds, by the level of development or fitness accomplished, and by the amount of learning or practice previously undertaken. And there is something else involved in the causation of these characteristics. That other thing is the concentration, or will, of the person involved. This might be initially caused, as when a mother finds in herself the strength to lift a car off her child -- caused initially by her love and fear for the child. But it might be caused by something else in the person that he/she turns off or on voluntarily.

The things about a throw that are beyond robotic action of an arm include the decisions when, where and how to throw. These might be programmed into a robot, but that would have to be done by a set of human instructions implanted in the robot's computer brain. These decisions are NOT caused in humans by initial causes.

The decisions when, where and how to throw are (finally) caused by the purposes of the living being. That is, the causes that shape the when, where and how decisions relate to events that happen only after their effects in the characteristics of the throw. Let's keep it simple and ordinary.

If the ball is perceived as a basketball, or the person wants to use it as one (regardless of its 'real' nature), the ball is likely to be thrown when the person is near an elevated hoop, in a direction toward where the hoop is located, using an over-hand throw in a generally upwards direction (how). If the ball is perceived as a bowling ball, or is to be used as one, it is apt to be thrown when the person is at some distance from a set of pins or other balls, toward where they are located, using an under-hand throw in a generally horizontal direction (how). It is the purpose of putting the ball through the hoop, or striking the other objects, that decides or causes the when, where and how of the throw. And that purpose is not realized or achieved, or does not occur until after its effects in when, where and how the throw is made. The final cause, or purpose, of behaviours is the main thing deciding what will be done with the throwing arm. But even that isn't all there is to say about how the throw is done.

If the person's throwing arm is well-practised in throwing in ways that are similar to the action to be performed, the final cause, or purpose, is more likely to be realized or achieved than if it is not. Learning the habit of throwing in a particular way is based partly on initial causes such as genetic inheritance, level of human development of the person, and previous learning resulting from practice. But there is something else involved in the action performed by a skilful thrower.

There is a kind of barely aware (kinaesthetic) muscle awareness that tells the person how well the throw-in-progress is being done, and that allows him/her to make adjustments in how the throw is being made, while the throwing action is being done. This is based on previous experience with how the throw is done and its results in achieving its purpose. Partly, this is initially caused by prior learning. Partly, it is caused by the moment-to-moment anticipation of the satisfaction of succeeding in the throw. That anticipation of satisfaction is occurring while the throw is in progress. As such, it functions as a kind of perpetuating cause that goes along with the behaviour. And the outcome of the action in achieving (or not) the purpose, providing satisfaction (or not), serves as a further perpetuating cause called 'reinforcement' or 'consequence' or 'reward'. So, in the behavioural world, there are perpetuating causes operating too.

In summary, the points being made are these. (1) In the physical world of things, the main kind of causality operating is initial or antecedent cause that occurs before its effects. (2) Another kind of causality, perpetuating causes that occur at about the same time as their effects, also operate in the physical world of things, as well as in the behavioural world of events. (3) The perpetuating causes acting in the behavioural world of events mainly involve sensations of satisfaction, internally anticipated or externally perceived, in achieving the purposes of actions (the outcomes, consequences, reinforcements, rewards or gains involved). (4) In the behavioural world of events, the main kind of causality operating is final cause or purpose that occurs after its effects.

To blame the past for our actions is probably inappropriate most of the time. Usually, what we do is done for our own personal purposes and outcomes (final and perpetuating causes) that we pursue and gain from -- even if what we gain, and perhaps what we pursue, is not always clearly represented in conscious awareness. The nice things about thinking about ourselves in this way are that (a) we control our own destinies and our lives, and (b) we are empowered, and no longer need to feel at the mercy of others and of the life circumstances we have experienced. Now, that may not always be entirely satisfying, since some of us like to feel that others are responsible for the pain and horror in our lives. That makes some of us feel important and specially singled out. But to need to feel that way defines another kind of purpose we pursue, and another set of 'satisfactions' we obtain -- in this case too in what we, ourselves, do, experience, pursue or feel gratified by.

D DANGER!

The world is full of dangers of many kinds, right? WRONG! There are essentially NO dangers. We live in a society where all 'real' dangers are engineered out of existence, with all sorts of checks and counter-checks in place to ensure that NO 'real' danger is allowed to exist. We are SAFE! Then, where do our fears of dangers come from, if not from the real world around us?

The images of dangerous events we carry around with us come largely from television. Wait a moment. We watch two kinds of television. The first kind is outside of ourselves and is in boxes we keep in our homes -- out of our own choosing. Of course, we get images of danger from other sources too, such as newspapers, books and the radio. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the external sources of images from which we come to imagine dangers are 'the media'. The second kind of television we watch is inside ourselves (that we keep in our brains), and it is made up of the thinking and imagery (imagination) we do -- out of our own choosing (although we sometimes think we can't regulate our thought all that completely). Both these sources of images of danger provide us with ideas or anxious anticipations about what is possible, or what might happen -- if we don't stay vigilant and protect ourselves. These images are fictitious stories dreamed up, respectively, from other people's (authors') and our own imaginations.

But, surely, they refer to real events happening out there. Oh, yeh!? Sure, some planes crash, some traffic accidents occur, and some people get assaulted and murdered. But, contrary to the impression created by dreamed-up media contents, plane crashes are extremely rare events, and murder nearly always is done between intimates and almost never randomly and capriciously. Plane crashes are minimized by careful controls in all organizations involving flying -- that are required and exercised. Traffic accidents nearly always are due to incautious maintenance and/or operation of vehicles -- so that most people are never involved in accidents. The risk of assault or murder exists based on how we select and interact with our friends and intimates -- most of us never experience any kind of assault or dangerous interaction. Yes, a few people fall off cliffs due to taking silly risks. Yes, a few houses get broken into by thieves due to their owners' failures to maintain ordinary security precautions -- that require no worry and limited fore-thought. Yes, many people get criticized or put-down by others, if that's any meaningful kind of danger.

Still, there is one reason for imagining danger. The reason is that all animals come supplied with an Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). It is there to support survival by recognizing potential dangers and getting the body ready with extra energy to deal with those dangers if they materialize. When our ancestors lived in the jungle with the other animals, the ANS was a necessary apparatus for the sake of survival.

But humankind is the animal that best can learn from its experiences, can record them for others to share indirectly, and can develop and use tools or means to protect against or prevent those experiences from recurring. So humankind has erected railings at all high places to prevent us from falling, roads with centre markings, traffic lights, speed limits and side walks to prevent cars and people from colliding, safety regulations for maintenance and operation of aircraft, and socialization training in simple notions about how people might select and interact with their intimates to minimize offending to prevent assaults or worse. Even if criticism and demeaning acts are viewed as dangers, there is no 'real' danger from these features of social interactions. Moreover, the idea that they might be 'dangerous', and indeed how to evoke these kinds of social exchanges, are learned by us, and are imagined as though they were dangers to be avoided.

Indeed, 'real' dangers are fabricated by us in our own minds, reacted to with the ANS (anxiety) response, and the resulting distress so marks those particular thoughts that they tend to be repeatedly revisited to increase our sense of the pervasiveness of danger around us. The ANS arousal experienced also imparts a kind of 'importance' to these imagined dangers that enhances our vigilance about the dangers so that we notice and remember them more that the multitudes of ordinary things experienced every moment of every day. The resulting attention to and memories of these 'danger' events peoples our sense of 'the nature of reality' as dangerous, and crowds out our awareness of the real, quite banal, events that really comprise reality in life.

Moreover, the ANS response we give ourselves from our fabricated thoughts increases our anxious arousal in just those kinds of situations where we believe danger to reside. The arousal in turn makes us tense and vigilant (communicating to others our sense of vulnerability and distress -- which may turn them off or irritate them), and tends to distract us from the real events in the situations to which we 'ought' to be reacting (blinding us so we don't notice all the good and wonderful things and possibilities around us). In this context, we are quite apt to make mistakes (of regulation or adaptation) and thus create the very dangers with which we preoccupy ourselves.

The ANS response was an adaptive survival response in the jungle -- before we learned how to anticipate and prevent dangers by engineering our societies for safety. Its outward-directed (NOT its inward-directed auto-immune) responses have become largely a source of distress and maladaptation in our contemporary societal living. And these responses are created, fostered and maintained by our internal television watching (thinking), which is increased greatly by the extended imaginings of others experienced through our external television watching (the media).

To diminish our sense of danger, we would be better advised to deal with our own internal imaginings than to bother about reducing the 'dangers' in the world about us. AND anxiety can be unlearned.

E ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment is an important part of living. We need some entertainment, if only to compensate for the commonplace and ordinary in daily life. At least that's what most people think. Of course, most people don't think about what they do nearly as much as they think about what's going on around them and what others do. Even when they speak of OTHER people's reactions, all of these dictionaries are really concerned solely with what WE do. The same applies to this essay on entertainment. It is mostly concerned with OUR own pursuit of entertainment, rather than with entertainers and what they do. Sorry if that's disappointing.

By entertainment is meant any activity or experience that falls short of creating dejection (see D or V dictionary). This means that entertainment is sought to diminish something akin to dejection, or an absence of full enjoyment in living. There is another part of the definition of entertainment. It carries the implication that something going on external to one's self is the source or cause of feeling less dejected.

Some people never need to be entertained by an external source. These are people with a preponderance of 'Active' values (see Y dictionary) among the things they consider to be important to them. Those with a preponderance (or even a fair number) of Reflexive values (see Y dictionary) among the things they consider important are prone to feel they require entertainment (or to be entertainers). Reflexive values (see Y dictionary) and/or needs to be Dependent on others (see N dictionary) 'set people up' to feel the need for external events to drive their feelings, what they do and how they experience things. And that's OK. However, Reflexive values or Dependency also 'set people up' to feel disempowered, 'at the mercy of others' and 'abused victims'. And that may not be OK from the perspective of the person him/herself. But, please note that it is the values and needs inside the person him/herself that decide how he/she will act and how he/she will feel about and perceive what is going on in the world around him/her.

Basically, the need for entertainment (or to be entertained) is largely a result of focusing on and needing 'external' drivers to arouse and pleasure one. That need is itself a result of some internal values or needs espoused by the individual. And those internal values and needs, that are self-maintained, have a number of other kinds of consequences in the person's life that may not be experienced as desirable, pleasant or even acceptable -- and may, in fact, actually increase the probability that the person will be mistreated or abused by others (see X dictionary, S essay).

If, for some reason, a person wanted to reduce the influence on his/her life of Reflexive values or Dependency needs, it's not too difficult to accomplish. Values and needs can be changed if the right strategies are selected to do so. However, now for the disappointment, you won't be told how to do that here.

F ON FREEDOM

Everybody knows what freedom is. It is the state in which one is NOT in jail, NOT mortgaged to the hilt, NOT broke, NOT having to work but also NOT unemployed, NOT married but also NOT unattached, NOT living under the thumb of parents or other tyrants, and NOT without means for transportation to go any place he/she wants. Oh, let's be more positive. It is the state of being free to go where you like, when you like and with whom you like, saying and doing whatever you like. So it is a state of anarchy. Of the seventeen million people surveyed in one imaginary poll, whose error was stated to be under 1 percent, not one was found to possess freedom.

If you have ever enjoyed freedom, you might usefully examine your freedom to find out what it entailed, how you accomplished it, and what its limitations or boundaries (i.e., non-freedoms) were. When they do that, most people declare that they are NOT free. They may notice the constraints acting on them, the things they felt they could not do, and the laws, rules and regulations under which they lived. Oh dear, is nobody free?

Actually, of course, everybody is free ... all the time. The only real tyrants that rob us of freedom are OURSELVES. Of course, to say that is to be absolutely nuts, right? Still, the idea may be worth considering.

What is freedom? It is really nothing more exciting than being free to decide for yourself what you will do. We are always at liberty to decide for ourselves. It's just that we can't always make the decisions we would like to make. The question is, who keeps us from deciding freely?

'If I told my boss what I think of him/her, I might lose my job.' 'If I did some things, my wife/husband would leave me.' 'If I broke the Law, I might end up in jail.' 'If I said that, my friends would have nothing more to do with me.' And, of course, each of those possibilities might occur; or they, just as easily, might not. The truth is, we never know for sure. Your boss might develop a hearty respect for you; your spouse might like it; you might win your case, or even get the Law changed; and your friends might even seek to spend more time with you. We just don't know.

However, the real issue is NOT how the boss, spouse, lawyers or friends react. The REAL issue is whether or not YOU are willing to risk whatever reactions they have. In weighing what you want to do against what 'might' happen if you do it, YOU decide whether or not you are willing to take the risk. If you are NOT willing to take the risks, YOU decide to impose the limitations on yourself. And that's just another aspect of the FREEDOM YOU have, and that you exercise every moment of every day.

My goodness, YOU ARE FREE. And so is everybody else. What a rotten shame and disappointment that is! G ONGAYGAIETY

Even although it's a rather boring topic, let's consider what it is that 'causes' some people to be gay -- that is, homosexual, not carefree and happy. Lots of people consider themselves to be homosexual. Some of these people prefer to use the term 'gay' to describe their sexual preferences. Let's make up an explanation for the preference for the term, gay. For a long time, homosexual behaviour was widely considered to be wicked, or at least sick or deviant. People tried to hide their homosexual impulses 'in the closet'. Eventually, homosexuality achieved a degree of acceptance or, at least, tolerance. Homosexuals could now reveal their sexual preferences more openly, without as much censure. They could come 'out of the closet'. They felt free. And that made them feel gay.

However, homosexuals are far from being gay people. They may be flamboyant, or excited, or apparently able to flout traditions and other people's inhibitions. But that's a different thing.

What do we know about what 'causes' homosexuality? The most common assumption is that some people inherit homosexuality through some genetic factor. Since homosexual behaviour is, by its nature, non-procreative, if homosexuality was a genetic phenomenon, it would soon become extinct -- it would not survive as a quality of human beings. Some people assume that it must be a result of some hormonal or other chemical state in some people. The hormonal variant or other chemical has not yet been found. And, anyway, if one is there, where did it come from? Are we forced back to a genetic assumption again? A sneaky way around the question has been found in (mostly European) psychiatric theory. It has been suggested that it is due to a 'constitutional' factor in some people. Again, however, there is no indication of the source or 'cause' of this constitutional factor. Indeed, there is little reason for believing any of these explanations.

A better explanation is a bit convoluted. Homosexuals are people who have some definable elements (below) as a result of their histories of development (growing up). (1) Originally, they tended to be more introverted than extroverted -- that is, more involved in their heads with words and thoughts. (2) Therefore, they tended to be more socially isolated, and tended to have more childhood sexual exploratory experience with, easier to understand, same-gender, rather than opposite-gender, friends -- which may have been assigned special importance as early experience. (3) Being relatively alone socially, they tended to ruminate rather bitterly, even angrily, about the meanness of others -- commonly of the opposite sex. (4) Having developed the last two characteristics, they were more prone to exercise their sexual needs with same- gender partners during the so-called 'normal homosexual period of development' -- a period just around puberty when nearly everyone feels awkward socially, coupled with beginning, unformed and weakly regulated sexual drives, and during which both genders tend to have mainly same-gender friends. (5) Being prone to 'fixed' ideas and filters, due to introversion, once they have developed a 'personal identity' as homosexuals, it is well-nigh impossible for them to shift that identity, or to see others through any other kinds of perceptual filters. (6) And they learned a particular set of feelings, which we'll call 'X' -- explained below.

The last (6) of these qualities, 'X', involves several parts. (a) For everyone, drives (hunger, thirst, elimination, fatigue and sex) vary up and down over time -- sometimes we're hungry and then sometimes we are not. (b) Also, for everyone, drives cumulate or add to one another -- if we were hungry and thirsty at the same time, we would feel each more acutely. Now you might think that the cumulation would keep on growing indefinitely. It doesn't. (c) For everyone, the relationship between strength of drive and 'turn on' is found to fit an 'inverted U curve'. As drive strength increases, so does desire ... at first. As drive increases more, desire or 'turn on' flattens out. Then, as drive gets stronger still, desire or 'turn on' turns off or diminishes. If we were hungry, thirsty, tired and sexy, all at once, we would feel none of these things -- we would just feel 'blah'.

(d) The next statement to be made is an assumption. It is assumed that, if sexual drive had developed without complications through early life, for both genders the high-drive sex preference would be for the other gender. That is, for the male, the female would be the preferred sex object, and the male might be a possible but unpreferred sex object. If this assumption were true, then, for the male, the female object would be high (toward the middle) on the 'inverted U', and the male would be low (toward the start) on the 'inverted U' relationship between drive and 'turn on'.

(e) Now, let's add a quantity of drive to the person's sexual drive. Let's call this quantity an 'X' drive. If we added to the person's overall sex drive an amount 'X', the drive would be added to both the female and the male objects. The female object would be moved forward and down the 'inverted U', and the male object would be moved forward and up the 'U curve'. If enough 'X' drive is added, the female becomes a 'turn off' object and the male becomes a 'turn on' object, and the man is likely to experience himself as a 'homosexual'. You might plot the picture for yourself to see how it works, if you like.

(f) Let's change our focus for a moment. When the level of excitement at various stages of approach to the sex act is plotted in relevant experiments, we discover two rather different looking patterns of sexual arousal or 'turn on'. For most people, the arousal grows greater with each stage, from seeing an attractive potential sexual partner at a distance, through approach, greeting, socialization, courting and foreplay, to intercourse. For people who think of themselves as homosexuals, the pattern is different. There is a rapid growth of excitement, reaching its first peak just the moment before social contact (greeting). Then the excitement drops off through socialization, reaching a low in courting. It builds again quickly through foreplay to climax. Some researchers note this difference, and make little more of it than that it is one of the differences between haemophiles and heterophiles.

(g) If we examine the difference, however, relatively common characteristics of homosexuality come into focus. The two relevant characteristics are (i) a rather 'showy' or ostentatious manner, perhaps revealing some anxiety about being noticed and/or being attractive (see Reflexive values in Y dictionary), and (ii) a rather contractual or non-courting approach to enticing sexual interaction, with little by way of expressions of love. Indeed, in homosexual unions, the more love is expressed, the less frequent sexual activity is likely to be.

(h) Is it possible that the unknown 'X' drive that we added to the sex drive of the person in step (#e), is merely anxiety drive concerning personal sexual attractiveness (that excites arousal at the point just before social contact) plus anxiety about expressing feelings of love (that inhibits courting and the excitement that might accrue to it in the pattern described in #f and #g above)? That is, might sexual drive be increased (#e) by anxiety of these two types (#f, #g) to change the relative positions of the two sex objects on the 'inverted U curve'? One way to answer this would be to desensitize or remove by unlearning homosexual people's anxiety in these two areas (being noticed and expressing love).

Well. does it work, to desensitize those two kinds of anxiety? Clinical experiences in doing just that, plus reducing the person's introversion (#1) and the fixity of the perceptual filters (#5), seems most frequently to change the person's 'turn ons' and personal identity from that of 'being homosexual' to that of 'being heterosexual'. However, as with everything else in life, this method does NOT achieve the change in 100 percent of homosexuals who try it. Still, the chances of succeeding in achieving the modification are increased if the person seeking change is assessed in detail at the outset, and appropriate other measures introduced to address the individual's special features.

It is true that the above explanation is not as simple and straight-forward as some might wish. Nor is it particularly easy to understand. It is also NOT the predominant view among 'experts' in the field. Nor is it the favourite position among homosexuals. However, it does have some pragmatic advantages over most other, fatalistic, views. It does have the benefit of some experimental evidence in its favour. It does offer hope that change is possible for those who wish it. And the method of intervention derived from it has proved effective in quite a few people who called themselves 'gay'.

H ONHOSTILITY

Hostility refers to events running all the way from feeling a bit irritable or resentful, to open warfare between nations. One of the perennial questions that worry people is 'what causes hostility', or 'where does it come from?' Many people, considering the almost endless history of wars between people, as individuals and as nations, assume that hostility, violence and warfulness must be an integral part of humankind's nature and inheritance. Strange to say, examination of all the information we have about people's basic make-up indicates that there is no evidence to support that assumption. If that's true, where does hostility come from?

The answer may be unexpected. But before giving it, we need to discriminate among the various types of anger, each usually coming from a different source. There are different words to refer to extremes of the different kinds of anger. Rage is often a result of a minor electrical malfunctioning affecting a small spot in the 'old' part of the brain (from an evolutionary point of view). Violence and aggression most commonly result from delaying or postponing the expression of anger due to too strong efforts at control over it ('heating a bottle after putting the cork in too tightly'). 'Blowing up', as a lesser variety of violence, usually comes as a result of too long suppression of anger by means of thoughtful (introversive) controls. Anger, as the felt component in both of these reactions, is merely the learned association between feeling energetic and feeling anxious ('careful', 'don't run in the house', 'don't raise your voice', 'be careful not to hurt your friend', etc.) -- when anxiety has been learned to be aroused by felt energy, the experience of the energy is felt as anger (energy with a bitter taste). Hostility is most commonly a private experience of seething resentment, although it tends to be experienced by others as a rejecting or brittle or sarcastic manner on the part of the hostile person. That is, hostility tends to be expressed covertly, so the hostile person is apt to be unaware that he/she is expressing hostility -- it is recognized most easily by others in sarcastic or rejecting verbal abusiveness, all the way to surreptitious acts of vandalism or even insurrection or terrorism (whether or not rationalized or with moralistic principles).

One might assume that Rage and Violence are the most dangerous states of people. And on a private or individual level, and since these reactions tend to be unpredictable, there is justification for such an assumption. On the whole, however, Hostility probably represents a greater threat to society as a whole, and likely also in day-to-day human living. So what causes hostility?

Picture a test tube, into which has been poured all your love feelings in order to measure them up the side. These feelings include your love of others, your caring for others, your needs for others, and the like. The absolute amount of your basic 'love' feelings probably differs little from anybody else's. However, as we grow up, a funny thing happens to those love feelings. You're lying in your crib. You get hungry. You cry. Your parent is outside and doesn't hear you. You cry louder, clenching your little fists and waving and kicking your limbs. This just means that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been aroused -- its arousal will later be called anxiety. Each time the situation repeats itself, a little more (ANS) anxiety is learned, associated with what you are feeling at the time, namely love of the 'need' variety. You're a bit older. You feel loving toward a parent and try to climb onto his/her knee. But the parent is too busy, and you feel rejected. And more anxiety is learned to be associated with your love feelings. You tell a friend a secret. The friend blabs it around to others. You feel betrayed, and more anxiety is learned about loving. You like another person, but he/she goes off and plays with someone else. You learn more fear about loving.

By the time you reach puberty, like everyone else, you have learned to react to your love feelings with a fair amount of fear or anxiety. Let's picture each bit of anxiety you learned as a kind of sticky substance poured into the test tube on top of your love feelings. It is additional substance because it increases the amount or strength of your feelings (by adding some felt anxiety to them); and it is sticky because it's result, effect or function is to prevent the expression of your love feelings (anxiety is a motive to avoid things). So we find ourselves with stronger felt emotion, but with less freedom to express our emotions.

Now, let's change our perspective and look down through the neck of the test tube to see its contents from the top. Way off at the greatest distance is a little circle of 'love' feelings at the centre. Radiating around that is a set of spokes or spines of felt anxiety. Their task is to keep us away from (avoiding) others in case we feel the uncomfortable love feelings. The 'keeping away' defenses can be seen closest to us as the large circle at the top of the sticky anxiety substance. These are the 'defenses' we use in order to avoid feeling anxious.

If the central circle is love feelings (that tend to draw us toward other people -- approach), the defensive outer circle is comprised of psychological 'distancing' defenses. These might include being a loner (isolating yourself), being very intellectual (that ought to keep people away), being suspicious and mistrusting (paranoidal, if you wish), or acting tough or hostile (who can relate to that sort of thing?) -- people differ in the defenses they use. All of these distancing defenses, however, tend to be experienced for what they are by others, and tend to be thought of by others as 'hostile' actions.

The surprise, then, is that in most instances 'hostility' is nothing more than a result of being afraid to love, care for or need others. It does have two other features. Inside, the person usually thinks of him/herself as a very LOVING person, who is perhaps TOO considerate and TOO trusting. But the fear focuses the person on a 'dangerous' quality in others, so that he/she comes to believe that it is the OTHERS who are mean, rejecting and hostile.

I ONIDENTITY

Did you ever take the time to stare vacantly at domestic animals and their owners? Nor have I. So let's pretend we have. If we were to do so, we might notice some similarities between the pets and their owners. Now, you might think that the similarities grew over time, so that, like spouses, the animals changed their appearances to mimic that of their owners'. Until yesterday, I thought that was the way it happened.

Yesterday, I was driving aimlessly in the remote countryside. By and by, I saw a lovely young woman, sitting in front of her house, sunning herself in a wondrously brief outfit. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a For Sale sign posted on the property. That afforded the excuse I needed. To enjoy a closer look at her, I drove up the driveway to where the woman was sitting, ostensibly to inquire about the price being asked for the property. Indeed, she was possessed of exceptional qualities of face and body. My admiration was such that I would have forgotten the 'reason' for my invasion of her domain, were it not for the deep-voiced barking of her huge and carnivorous St. Bernard. It had stooped down to sniff at my elbow protruding from the car window, as if in preparation to chew on its lunch. The contrast between that monstrous, shaggy and slovenly creature and its shapely and seemly mistress puzzled me. It was only then that I noticed a large wedding ring on her finger. It occurred to me that the dog must have been chosen by her husband. Fortunately, that probable monster man was not in view. These thoughts sped through my mind in the twinkling of an eye (plus a twitch of the ear), so I inquired about the asking price of the property, obtained her answer, and then hastily withdrew from the property before the dog's lunch bell had time to ring.

Having nothing better to do during the long drive home, I allowed a series of images of pets and their owners to pass through the vacant premises of my mind. The first thing I noticed was that most pets are carnivores. It was then that it occurred to me that 'pets' are really creatures held in such dread by people that they are allowed to survive only in captivity. But why would any person select this or that one of these terrifying beasts for captivity and enslavement? The mental images flitting through my head paired rat-nosed dogs with rat-faced people, podgy dogs with fat people, long-legged haughty dogs with skinny stuck-up people, and flat- faced people with flat-faced Newfoundland dogs -- Newfoundland dogs have flat faces due to chasing parked cars. Cats posed a greater problem for my attempts to identify them with their owners. It occurred to me that most cats are lazy, furry creatures, owned most often by house-wives without children (living at home) to care for.

I was about to forget these tiny minions of my brain when, with a long, impatient honk of the horn, a car sped past me. It was a small, flashy sports car, and the cargo it protected was a stunning young woman, immaculately made-up and groomed, and barely avoiding complete exposure in a carefully selected bathing suit. Once she was no longer in view, new images crowded through my mind. This time, the pairings were between cars and their drivers. Why is it that women who obviously concern themselves in detail with their appearance tend to drive small sports models, and young men on the prowl seem to drive long, sleek and penetrating vehicles? Then I noticed my car. It is old, broad and lumbering, like its owner. Mind you, we are also ruggedly handsome.

When I was a child, and my parents were about to abandon me to reside in a far away land, my father gave me a book. Being curious about the purpose of the gift, I read it. It contained stories from Scottish history. Now, nobody in my family was Scottish. I puzzled about my father's purpose in giving this book to me. At last, I noticed that one of the characters depicted was 'The Black Douglas' -- a notorious guerilla fighter who used to spring from ambush upon his unsuspecting victims, until the English ladies in their castles would rock their babies to sleep, singing to them, 'hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye, the Black Douglas shall not get ye' (though he usually did). My name is Douglas. This provided me with an ideal 'identification' character, and I relished the idea that I might be similar in some ways to this noteworthy person.

It occurred to me that pet owners and drivers might have been denied the simple, everyday experiences of childhood (such as mine) with which they might acquire a sense of their personal identities. Perhaps, I thought, in searching for their identities, they were forced by an irresistible fate finally to fall back on the things they feared and prized as ways with which to represent themselves. I remembered Marshall McLuhan's dictum that 'the medium is the message' (whatever that means). It didn't seem to fit here, but it did appear to offer the idea that the things people select with which to surround and reveal themselves might just be ways by which to communicate qualities of themselves to others -- as if anybody else might be interested. These accoutrements of daily life might include, pets, cars, clothing, ('elegant') nick knacks in the home, make-up, grooming, and mess or cleanliness of the home.

As these random thoughts passed through my mind, another two occurred to me. First, I noticed that it had taken me until I was old enough to retire to figure out this simple observation that, I supposed, everybody else knew by the time he or she was twelve. I was over-joyed at this further evidence of the fact of my slow- learner status. Second, I noticed once more that I kept having thoughts that didn't interest me. And that just re-confirmed me in the view that thinking (inner television) is little more than a boring epiphenomenon with which to waste time to fill idle hours. Having just achieved these scintillating conclusions, I reached home -- where I could find other ways to fill time with idleness.

J ON JAM ON THE CAT

Mark Twain wondered why the kids put the jam on the cat. As I look back over my life, I wonder why I dyed my sisters' cat a bright unsightly pink. A friend of mine (who shall go unnamed -- nobody wanted to name him anyway) and I wondered the same thing. People do wonder about the strangest things, don't they? Anyway, why did the kids put the jam on the cat? Twain didn't tell us. But we figured it out in spite of him. Mind you, we had some help. At the time, my friend (yes, I actually did have a friend, once) ran a residential care setting for emotionally disturbed, pretty messed up young delinquents. [Oh dear, I let slip how we met.]

We noticed that some of these young people were pretty fixed in their crazy and rebellious actions. They repeatedly did all sorts of unlikely things, like putting jam on the cat. At first we thought that it was 'just to be difficult'. I'll bet that's what you thought too. Well, that might have been the source of the problem. However, never being quite satisfied with the obvious, we did a whole lot of experiments to find out just why they were 'so difficult'.

In one experiment, the person was seated in front of a battery of three lights, a red, a yellow and a green one -- like traffic lights. The person had two telegraph keys. He/she was instructed to hold down one key (like a `brake') while the red light was on. As soon as the red light went off and the green light came on, he/ she was asked to let that key go and move quickly to press down on the other key (like an 'accelerator'). 'However,' he/she was told: 'if the yellow light comes on, DO NOT touch the other key.' The instruction was a kind of 'Go or No-go' (or a 'don't do') one. All the non-delinquents who tried the exercise were able to stop their action in flight from the one key to the other when the yellow light came on just after the green. NONE of the delinquents were able to stop their action in flight (or, at least, none did so). All completed the motion, pressed down on the second key, and then, as if surprised and guilty, released their touch sharply.

They didn't seem to be trying to be difficult. They seemed to be trying to follow the instructions. Our problem was one of how to explain these interesting findings. (1) Perhaps the delinquents had slower reaction times than the non-delinquents, so they reacted slower to the yellow light. No, their reaction times in getting off the first ('brake') key when the green light came on were just as quick as those of the non-delinquents. (2) Perhaps the myelin sheathing on their nerves extended up into the grey matter of their brains. That would prevent quick change in their ongoing actions. But if that were true, the bulk and weight of their brains would be increased to the point that they would have to carry their heads around in wheel-barrows. Their head sizes and weights were not distinguishable from those of their non-delinquent counter-parts. (3) Perhaps they were just 'putting on an act' of appearing upset by their intentional failure to inhibit their actions in the presence of the yellow light. Their acting skills were found to be just as weak as those of the non-delinquents. Neither group could act convincingly worth a darn. (4) Perhaps there was a difference between the two groups in the reactivity of their retinas, or of their perceptions, to yellow as compared to green colours. There were no differences between the two groups on colour-blindness tests, or in their responsiveness to reds, greens and yellows on tests like the Rorschach.

(5) Perhaps there was something about the instructions to which the two groups reacted differentially. It was fairly obvious that the non-delinquents were reacting to the instructions as if they were 'or' instructions, while the delinquents were reacting as if they were 'and' instructions. That is, the non-delinquents were responding as though they understood they were to react one way if green, or another way if green and yellow; and the delinquents were acting as though they had been told to press if green, and to not- press if also yellow. Thus, the latter were both doing and un- doing the actions instructed. This possibility has kept us wary of ALL NOT-do instructions and interactions ever since that time.

(6) Perhaps there was something about the brains of these delinquents that impaired the effectiveness of their processing of information and instructions. Their intelligence quotients were indistinguishable from those of the non-delinquents, except that they tended to score better on non-verbal (performance) tasks, while the non-delinquents tended to score better on the verbal tasks. Verbal tasks, on the whole, require more interactive processing between areas of the brain than the (more directly responding) performance tasks. Perhaps there was something that affected the interactive processing of information among the brain's parts. The main place where such interactive activity might be interfered with would be the fatty tissues involved in neural conduction (glia). Since there was no satisfactory evidence of genetic differences between delinquents and non-delinquents, how might the delinquents have acquired a difference in the functioning of their fatty tissues? Some accessory bits of information are needed at this point.

[One thing that can go wrong in fatty tissues is that they tend to be the body's repository for copper -- while other heavy metals cumulate in other kinds of tissues. Why would delinquents have more copper in them than non-delinquents? One reason might be that delinquents tend to come from the lower socio-economic levels of society. These people tend to be part of a 'fast food' culture. Fast foods are characterized by the five elements of the 'white plague' -- white sugar, white flour, white salt, white milk and white people. All the elements of the white plague are associated with increased amounts of thirst. After western society moved from lead to copper domestic plumbing, crime rates increased. Perhaps that would account for higher copper levels in delinquents than in others, if there were such differences. We sent hair samples for copper assays -- hair is one of the body's excretion routes. There were no differences between the two groups in copper output.] [At about this time, we also found that, on the same diet, our delinquents were spilling much less ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in their urine than our non-delinquents. To try to find out why, we put both groups on a heavy vitamin C push. It required up to 17 grams of supplementary 'C' a day for most of the delinquents to spill it in their urine. However, during this initiative, the hair assays of the delinquents started to reveal massive increases in the output of copper, in contrast to small increases among the non- delinquents. It would seem that vitamin C is a safe way to chelate copper out of the system. But it also seemed clear that these delinquents had stored much more copper in their fatty tissues than those who were not delinquents.]

What possible use could all these facts and theories have? Well, we were interested in the nature of delinquency and crime. Perhaps part of any inefficiency in the brains of the delinquents might be due to excesses of copper stored in their fatty tissues. And this might help to account for their poorer verbal intelligence scores, and perhaps for their relative inefficiency in processing the verbally contradictory 'Go and no-go' instructions.

So, what did we learn about 'why the kids put the jam on the cat'? First, although it seems unlikely that excesses of copper got into the brains of the kids Mark Twain talked about, many of our jam-putting delinquents seem to have been afflicted by too much copper in the fatty parts of their brains (hence the phrase 'fat heads'?). This may have interfered with their ability to use complex verbal instructions. Second, they may not have 'heard' the instructions in the same way that others heard them. They may have 'heard' or understood the instructions as 'Do and Not-do', rather than 'Do or Not-do' statements, and they may have responded in accord with their understandings. Third, whatever the reason for the often-noted relative infacility of delinquents in handling verbal materials, their difficulties in this area would tend to focus attention on the fact that 'NOT-do' instructions are a whole lot more difficult to follow than 'Do' instructions. Verbs are action words whose effect is to stimulate the specified response in another. In most instances, the only way to prevent a specific act is (i) to use the verb, and (ii) to negate it. The resulting 'Not- do' command is a compound instruction, which, having greater complexity than its un-negated form, seems bound to create more difficulties for those with relative degrees of verbal infacility.

Now for the real punch line. The problem for people subject to the above kinds of personal limitations is that ALL Law, and many of the verbal interactions against which some people rebel, are expressed in negative format terms. They tell people 'not to do so and so'. And then we're surprised when they do the very things that are so explicitly and clearly prohibited. Are they just flaunting the authority of Law in society? If so, what bad people crooks are! Or is it WE who continue to try to prohibit actions by 'Don't do' instructions, even after they have been known for centuries to be ineffective? Perhaps someone told 'the kids' NOT to put jam on anything but their bread.

K ON KNOWING

State something you KNOW. How do you know you know that? Most of what we think we know is based on guesses from our own experiences and on statements that other people have made, who speak as though they were authorities. It would be impossible to challenge the truth of everything we think we know. But let's take a couple of examples of 'common knowledge' and examine them.

Pain is a sensation from stimulation of pain receptors in the body. Few would contradict that statement. Indeed, many medical textbooks identify the 'free nerve endings' in the body as the pain sensors in order to locate the anatomical bases of pain. However, over sixty years ago it was found that the 'free nerve endings' are not specific pain receptors, but form part of the kinaesthetic sensory system that carries muscle tension sensations to the brain. These muscle senses tell us when body parts are being moved by the muscles without having to look at the moving parts or to listen for creaking joints. Three types of proprioceptive (proximal) sensory receptors are located in and under the skin. They are temperature (hot-cold), pressure (touch) and muscle tension (motion) sensors. So where does pain come from, if not from one of those receptors? The answer is a bit more complicated than most of us would like our knowledge to be -- but not too much more.

The body has more than the usually recognized five senses. In addition to seeing, hearing, smelling (the 'distance' receptors), tasting (a 'peripheral' sense) and touch, there are the temperature and kinaesthetic muscle (the last three are 'proximal') receptors, plus other internal visceral sensors for chemical changes (such as acidity) and visceral pressure (which form the 'internal' sensors). When any sense is stimulated intensely, the body has evolved ways to arouse motivation to do something about the source of the sensation. If the 'distance' receptors are strongly stimulated by intense focus on a relatively distant (therefore, not immediately dangerous) event, the motivating arousal is relatively weak. It is fear or anxiety. When 'proximal' receptors are strongly stimulated from a local source on the body, the danger is that the body's integrity and survival are threatened NOW (such as in the jaws of a predator). The resulting arousal is more urgent and demanding. The experience supersedes fear. It is the demanding experience of pain, requiring immediate action to deal with it. That is, pain amounts to an interpretation by the brain of intense and local floods of sensations from any proximal sensory receptors, just as fear is the equivalent reaction to intense flooding from distance receptors. 'Things aren't always what they seem.'

Of course, there is one item of knowledge that everybody knows to be true. Second hand tobacco smoke, like cigarette smoking, does cause cancer and heart disease in non-smokers. Not only have the media reported all sorts of studies confirming this fact, but governments have enacted legislation to protect the public because of this item of knowledge. The trouble is that, in contrast to the indisputable evidence on the effects of smoking cigarettes, there is NO evidence at all that second-hand smoke has these effects.

We have accepted uncritically the initiatives of the anti- smoking lobby just as the media and the government have done. There are lots of reports in the 'scientific' literature that sound as though they confirm the idea that second-hand tobacco smoke leads to fatal conditions. However, if one examines these reports carefully and critically, NOT ONE demonstrates satisfactory levels of significance of the effects. One of the studies does report a statistically significant finding. It uses meta-analysis, and combines the results of eight other studies. But when the results of two more studies are added, the statistical significance washes out. This means the reported significance was spurious.

If this is true, why are there so many studies that seem to support the belief in the deleterious effects of second-hand smoke? The answer is simple and obvious. Research facilities require lots of funding to support them. The best way to gain access to public funding is to jump on a political and media band-wagon and report results that seem to confirm popular beliefs. Medicine is the main source of research in this area. It has become highly politically and economically sensitive, and is now a political-economic system driven largely by where money is to be found. The strategy, in this situation, is to create the impression that second-hand smoke is dangerous. High-sounding labels have been invented to refer to it, and they are referred to with capitalized acronyms calculated to impress the reader. Arguments are made, drawing in evidence from analogous or related fields of study, such as cigarette smoking and air pollution. A study's results are then presented in terms of relative proportions of the rare conditions investigated, and differences are expressed in statistical terms that are hard for those not trained in science and statistics to understand. The NON-significant findings are then buried in the confusion created by the associated discussion. While absolutely unethical, such reports have the advantage of fostering continued funding.

Somebody once said that science is nothing more than a set of methods by which we can find out what we KNOW in contrast to what we THINK we know. But scientists are boring people who split hairs interminably, and who talk in ways that nobody can understand. That's probably true. But it is likely also true that knowledge is the main source of power in society, and it has the benefit of reducing our fears, errors and disappointments in life. Certainly, in every decision we make, we all depend on what we know. Perhaps it would be to everybody's advantage to take the time to learn something about scientific methods. Then, even if we don't go to the trouble of subjecting every bit of what we think we know to scientific experimentation (if you want to do that, you might find the Q dictionary helpful), we might be well-advised to go to the primary sources carefully to confirm our knowledge -- rather than to the secondary (technical books that summarize others' work) or tertiary (media accounts) or quaternary (political beliefs) sources we usually use and reference. L CONTRASTING PRACTISES IN LAW AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIP by Douglas Quirk, A.H.B.*

Table: You scientists, trained in restraint and criticism, like to have tables to examine in detail. A breakfast table, displaying a cat's breakfast, might have been exhibited. However, this idea was abandoned for want of satisfactory photographic equipment. Instead, a scientific table was constructed, from available block-heads' practises, to show some contrasting elements in the Practice of the Law and ordinary and appropriate forms of Human Interaction or Relationships. A few of the euphemisms used to obscure the real fundamental bases of the Law are presented to illustrate the abyss between political utterances and actual practice.

CATEGORY The PRACTICE Of LAW LEGAL EUPHEMISM Ordinary HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

PURPOSE Regulation, Control Public Protection Comfort, Freedom, Joy/Morale

MEANS Prohibitive Statements External Enforcement Institutional Power Codified Law Order, Regulation Protection Permissive Statements Internal Enablement Personal Power and Rights

METHODS Adversarial Antagonistic Logical Advocate Contest Reasonable Relational, Direct Cooperative, Friendly Affective, Emotional

ASSUMPTION Must Control Human Self-Interest Basic Humanity is Evil, Guilty Discrimination among People Separation of Bad from Good Self is Harmful Innocent Until .. Felon vs. Citizen Exclude Offender Fosters Self-Interest People are Good, Innocent Human Response Differentiation Include the Learner in Society

EVALUATION Authoritative Edict Absolute, Precedent Impartiality Necessary/Suffice Empirical Effectiveness Probabilistic, Scientific

STANDARDS Minimize/Avoid Unacceptable Political/Media Acceptability Standards** Generality Maximize Ideal/Desirable Human Knowledge/Acceptance

APPROACH Deductive Logic (syllogisms) Witness Perception (faulty) Proof Testimony Inductive Logic Assess Individual Differences LANGUAGE Precise, Exclusive Nominal, Nomothetic (nouns) Unassailable Evidence General, Inclusive Adjectival, Idiographic (verbs)

VALUES Avoid Error/Danger Rational, Judgemental Reflexive Expression Safety Public Good Equality Approach Freedom, Closeness Emotional, Fulfilment Affirmative Expression

EVOLUTION of Values Evaluative Values Tribal Leader/Kingship Values Precision Tradition Self-Actualizing Values Personal Power Values

HERITAGE Chauvinistic, Protect the Weak Antidisestablishmentarianistic Protective Superior Force Empower Weak, Enhance Resources Egalitarian

POWER Invested in Government/Court Impersonal Invested in Individual MORAL REASONING I: Avoid Punishment ...to... IV: Law and Order mentality Avoid Unaccepted Social Regulation III: Reward Good ...to ... VI: Universal Principles

PROTECTION Self: Cover Your Own Back Jack Cautiousness Other: You're OK - Empowerment

ATTENTION FOCUS Personal Influence 'Professional' Image Achieve Status/Wealth 'Professionalism' Restraint/Avoid Importance Other as Influence Source Team/Task Friendly Image Achieve Friendship/Adaptation

ROUTINES Attribution, Criticism Evaluative Understanding, Praise

ATTITUDE Critical, Judgemental Judge Acceptance Supportive, Respectful

SOCIETAL OUTCOME Exclusion, Isolation of Person Separation from Population Punish/Deter Detect/Enforce Encourage/Integrate Person Identification in Populations

BENEFIT ACHIEVED Social Order/Containment Increased Warfulness/Crime Keep the Peace Judgement Good of Individual Collectives Increased Pleasure/Comfort

EFFECTS OBSERVED Person Disempowerment: - External Locus of Control - Arbiter/Mediation Necessary - No Personal Resolution Protection Court Responsible Fairness Retribution Person Empowerment: - Internal Locus of Control - Self-Directed Action - Resolution of Distress

* An H.B. (pencil); American Humanistic Behaviourist; A Hateful Bum; A Hostile Blimp.

** If 'Justice is blind', it will notice the divergent and unusual; the commonplace good is ignored. NOTE: Under the Law, we must watch what we do/say, how we appear. This is self- (NOT other-) concern.

Obviously, the pointlessness made in the above table might as easily (and quite a bit more understandably) have been made in a textual statement. What possible reason could there have been to fail to do it that way? The answer is at least three-fold. First, some peculiar people seem to believe that 'variety is the spice of life' (in structure, format and nature of presentations too). Second, readerships vary in the kind of material they like, understand and examine -- I grant you, not by this much. Third, the tabular format (hey, that sounds high-class) permits contrasting features to be juxtaposed against one another most conveniently -- now, there's a weak excuse in flowery language for you! Still, there might be something worthwhile in the above table.

M MIRACLESSTILLHAPPEN by F.A.C. True, P.A.*

For forty-one years I have been practising as a psychologist. I was just getting the hang of it when, in long-suffering impatience, and to give another quite minor (probably politically proper) aspirant a job, they exiled me for the infraction of having survived to maturity. They said I was being retired.

One of my retirement gifts was a wonderful new automatic bread maker. I had complained often that the bread I bought would become noticeably green and stale by the time I got around to eating it a week or two later. And I had displayed obvious pleasure when I was served bread that was fresh-baked by my friends. Also, I had been boasting about the exponential growth of my culinary skills. I suppose that was why they thought the bread maker would make an admirable gift.

Thoughtfully, they even included a set of measuring cups, a spatula and a bread knife with the gift. I already had a bread board, which had served as a base for a bust of a bust that I keep at hand. Apparently the designated gift givers were less than confident about the range of devices with which my kitchen might be equipped. Surely, they knew that I prepared turkey and roast beef dinners for myself. And then there was my varied fare of rice and curry dishes. All were deliciously cooked from carefully selected frozen dinner packages. Nevertheless, I accepted the rejection, the implicit disparagement and the compensating gifts with becoming dignity and grace, and perhaps a touch of avarice.

I watched the instructional video twice in both English and French. I didn't understand the latter, but I wanted to find out just how bi-lingual (forked tongued) the instructor might be. I read the instruction book cover to cover. Strangely, the French part was written upside down, back to front and in a foreign language. Upon consulting my language dictionary, I was appalled to find that the French call their mothers mares, their fathers pears, their brothers friars and their sisters sewers -- all improperly spelled to add to the affront.

Then I checked my supplies. I hurried out to find the few things I was missing. After several tiresome trips to innumerable stores, I finally assembled the things I needed to bake my first loaf of white bread. They included a set of measuring spoons (not included with the gift), flour, powdered milk, dry yeast, sugar, salt, margarine and oven mitts. I already had the water that was required. There's a thing in my kitchen, and when you turn a knob attached to it water comes out. It's marvellous!

The great day came. I had all the supplies, and I was ready to become a superlative baker. I set everything up in the right places. I removed the baking container from the oven compartment and installed the kneading bar. Using all the discipline of my long years of training and experience as a scientist, ever so carefully I measured out each of the ingredients into the baking container, in the order and way the instruction book specified. Then I lowered the baking container into the oven compartment, closed the lid, plugged the machine in, set the programme and pushed the start button. Just as the instruction book promised, a red light came on, indicating that the process was truly taking place. I was excited!

For a while, I watched through the window in the lid. Bubbles began to appear on the surface of the mixture, indicating that the yeast was starting to do its job. I was perplexed by the fact that no lump of dough was developing. However, my inexperience probably accounted for that failure of the machine to meet expectations.

The whole process was supposed to take a bit over four hours. After about three hours, I peeked through the window again to see what was happening. I was bewildered. Surely the bread should have started to rise by now. Instead the bubbles on the top of the mixture were still there. But more disconcerting was the fact that, instead of an expanded bulk of dough, the quantity of the ingredients I had put in seemed to have shrunk marginally.

Undaunted, I returned to another task at which I was working. By and by, the full baking time had elapsed and, in addition to the bakery smell that now permeated the kitchen, the machine gave off a string of beeps indicating the bread was ready.

With the true delight of an explorer-adventurer, I struggled out of my chair and limped off to see how my bread had turned out. I lifted the lid. There was no loaf of bread sticking out of the top of the baking container the way the video had shown. I peered down into the cavernous container. The now severely shrunken bubbly liquid was still there, and still bubbling. I pulled the container out of the oven, and gazed down into the compartment.

There was a pile of flour caked all through the compartment, white in the centre and charred black around the sides. Alarmed that my new treasure might be ruined, forgetting the warnings about the compartment's heat after baking, my fingers plunged into the compartment to lift out great hunks of caked flour.

Now, as all my friends know, I'm a very slow learner. I kept lifting out charred chunks of flour until my fingers found the metal parts of the oven and announced to my brain their displeasure with having been consigned so repeatedly to hades. Even a slow learner's brain can achieve a clear understanding if stimulation is strong enough.

I spent the next four hours cleaning up the machine until it looked sparklingly new again. Finally, I got around to trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

There had been no flour or other substance on the inside of the viewing window. So the flour could not have jumped up and out of the baking container to get into the oven compartment -- unless it was designed to jump out accurately between the container and the lid. Also, the fluid remained inside the baking container. With characteristic clarity of thought, I reasoned that it should have been the fluid ingredients that escaped if there was a leak in the container. Still, just to make sure, I filled the baking container with water and let it sit. There was no leak. Not even moisture escaped to the outside from the bottom or the sides.

I was unable to discover what had happened. Finally, in my accustomed confused but optimistic state, I decided that I should at least consider what had been accomplished by the four hours of baking and the subsequent four hours of cleaning. The outcome was clear. My kitchen and I must be possessed by spirits. The bread maker had performed a miracle. By alchemy, using transmigration through the thick metal, water-tight skin of the baking container, it had transferred out the solid part of the mixture (the flour) to be baked in the oven compartment. And it had left the fluid part of the mixture in the baking container to ferment. It was an intoxicating experience. See, 'miracles still happen! And when my lucky star begins to shine, with one lucky bake I'll make bread that's mine.'** ------* Pa (opposed to Ma); Pastry Apprentice; Peculiarly Artificial; Possibly Articulate; Presently Abandoned; Perfectly Accurate; Presumptuously Arrogant; Pyknically Asthenic; Psychologically Afflicted; Probably Amented. Pick Any.

** You young things probably won't remember that song. Quoted from Omar, The Tent-Maker.

*** This space reserved in case I promised another footnote I forgot to mark. My bust of a robust bust was too busy to undertake the proof-reading, and I'm too blind.

N ON NEURONS

Once upon a time, in a tiny dwelling in the teaming city of Cerebrum, there lived a lazy neuron. He/she loved to lie on his/ her divan, surrounded by soft cushions, his/her dendrites crossed and axons stretched out, watching television -- obviously, he/she lived in the suburban area of Occiput (not Lilliput). Slaves brought nourishment and entertainment, and carried out his/her orders. Life was comfortable and pleasant for our hero/ine.

One day, while basking in the decadent capitalistic luxury to which he/she was accustomed, there was a sudden and intense shock. The television and all the lights went out. The shock was so sharp that it knocked him/her off the divan, and drove him/her to his/her axons. Alarm registered on his/her nucleus. What had gone wrong? Was he/she being engulfed in a nuclear holocaust?

In the dark that surrounded him/her, he/she stretched his/her arboriferous dendrites, trembling with arousal and anticipation, to feel out the cause of the calamity. Shock after shock racked his/ her body. Finally he/she was able to locate the dendritic digit through which he/she was being thus assaulted. Which slave was it that had lost control and was behaving in this unlawful manner?

He/she surmised that the shock was due to a thunderstorm or other calamity afflicting the city and all the country in which it thrived. But the miscreant slave was not one bringing nourishment and television service from international sources. The slave was a domestic concerned with shopping in the city and tidying up his/ her quarters and the neighbourhood. From this fact, he/she deduced that the shock was from a source within Cerebrum city, perhaps of a criminal nature, possibly involving a calamitous explosion. Now, our neuron was a detective, in this city called a sensor. It should surely be his/her job to detect the perpetrator of any such criminal action, no matter what distress he/she might be in at the time. Unfortunately, he/she was a challenged citizen, impaired in the auditory and motor spheres. The only functioning sensory system to which he/she had access was vision (hence the interest in being able to tel-e-vision). But he/she had been blinded by the unlawful interference with his/her electrical and video supply. How could he/she possibly perform his/her duties in detecting the nature of the crime, or in apprehending the felon?

Between shocks, he/she pondered his/her dilemma. Perhaps the slaves communicated with each other. He/she summoned the miscreant slave and subjected him/her to the 'third degree'. Since the slave was also subject to the repeated uncomfortable shocks, he/she was all too willing to confess, if he/she could only find a way to get the message across between the debilitating jolts. Finally, the slave managed to gasp out the (inadmissible third-hand) story he/ she had heard through scuttlebutt on a party line. And what a story it was!

It seems that a citizen of the neighbouring, though older and inferior, city of Diencephalon, through which the electrical and television signals had to pass, had become deranged. He/she had divested him/herself of his/her clothing, and was performing all manner of indecent acts in clear view of everyone. Perhaps because the slaves carrying the electrical signals secretly shared the wishes of the deranged neuron, they were profoundly affected by witnessing these acts. Anyway, they joined the orgy. Such a riot of escaping electrical charges had ensued that the whole television network had been blacked out.

The slave agreed to serve as a witness if questioned in court, and if his/her hear-say testimony was deemed admissible. However, our hero/ine was now in a quandary about how to apprehend the demented neuron. Remember, he/she was challenged in the motor sphere too. He/she was unable to travel to Diencephalon city to observe (and maybe participate in) the orgy stimulated by the naked dement. He/she puzzled about his/her course of action.

An idea occurred to him/her. Even although the fitness nuts in the Output and Motor suburbs of Cerebrum city would be too busy to be aware of the interference with the television signal, the C.E.O. and the other executives in the downtown office areas would have experienced the blackout and would be worried about it. All he/she needed to do was to wait out the riot and, when power was re-established, he/she could use his/her axons to kick the control switches to change the television channel to the local network of the cable system concerned with events going on in Diencephalon city. This uncommon practice might alert the C.E.O. and the executives to the source of the problem so that, if they wanted to, they could do something about it. Since he/she could discharge his/her obligations in that way, all he/she had to do now was to twitch, squirm and suffer through the barrage of shocks.

However, when, at last, the shocks subsided, the power did not come on for some time. He/she surmised that the Motor neurons controlling the eyelids must be lying down on the job. So he/she relaxed on the divan for a while considering how he/she could, in court, identify the offending and demented neuron for the C.E.O. He/she also wondered what the C.E.O. could possibly do about the demented neuron. At last, the lights came on, and the television flickered for a while until the picture was clear and bright.

He/she kicked an axon to change the channel. It changed to display the inner city of Diencephalon. Then it abruptly changed back to the international network. 'Damn!' Of course, the C.E.O. had the master switch. He/she kicked the axon again and again, and the picture flipped back and forth between the local cable network signal and that from the international channel. 'Blast!' 'Aha!, I know what to do', he/she thought.

He/she instructed the miscreant slave to re-establish the party-line link-up with his/her dendrite, along which the slave had heard the gossip from Diencephalon city, but to activate it only on command. He/she got ready. He/she knew that the C.E.O. had never managed to learn morse code. However, he/she might be able to get the Chief's attention by a series of flashing channel changes that the C.E.O. was not controlling, in order to focus the C.E.O.'s interest on the crime scene in Diencephalon city. But what should the flashing channel changes present to get the Chief's attention?

The neighbourhood in Diencephalon city where the exhibitionist had performed his/her crime was not only peopled by extremely attractive citizens. It was also a neighbourhood in which there lived a group of citizens of a guild responsible for being able to detect orientational changes in visual angle of the incoming video picture. Our hero/ine had been involved in several jurisdictional hagglings with this guild in the past. Perhaps he/she could use them now. Surreptitiously, he/she arranged, though a hook-up set up by another dendrite and its slaves, for off-angled pictures to be available on the television feed. He/she was ready. The commands were issued. The axon kicked the channel switch back and forth between the international channel and the local cable network's signal, with the latter appearing at various deranged angles of orientation. As this disorienting and confused sequence continued, a small earthquake shook the area. That had happened often enough that our hero/ine was not distracted from his/her task. Still, out of curiosity, on a guerrilla line he/she wasn't supposed to have, he/she rang up an executive, with whom he/she had shared some interesting experiences, to find out what was going on. The executive reported that the C.E.O. was confused about what was happening in his/her video feed, and had ordered the motor neurons controlling the arm and fingers to scratch the back of the head.

Eventually, worn out by all this unaccustomed work, our hero/ine gave up on the exertion, stopped the switching back and forth, lay down on the divan, and returned to his/her usual video viewing practices. You will want to know the sequel to this story.

It seems that the C.E.O. did get the message flashed by our hero/ine. The views of the local scene in Diencephalon located for the Chief the source of the problem. The disoriented pictures told the C.E.O. which neighbourhood was involved. The 'flashing' signal had told the Chief that the offence involved was an exhibitionist 'flashing'. And the sharper earthquakes following the small ones were from pats on the back of the head to congratulate our hero/ine for his/her brilliant detective work and solution-finding.

A couple of weeks later, the C.E.O. made an arrangement with an international body, named Sterman, to connect electrodes to the scalp in the area between the Parietal and Motor suburbs. The electrodes were to detect activity of the clothiers in the State so that their productivity would be enhanced by soothing sounds on the audio channels. The idea was that, if they produced enough new and beautiful clothing, the naughty neuron might stop his/her offensive acts of 'flashing'. He/she did. O ONOBSOLESCENCE

Ten years ago, I bought a second-hand car. It still works just fine to get me from here to there. I even love it. Still, I keep wondering whether it's obsolete.

Ten years ago, I bought my first computer. It too was second- hand. It worked just fine. I wondered if it had been turned in by someone else because it was considered obsolete. When I considered it obsolete, I gave it to a friend. He still uses it. I replaced it five years ago with a brand-new one. It had more power and capacity than I would ever need -- or so I thought. The other day I had some trouble with my computer. It ran out of space in its 210 mega-bites of hard drive. I began to wonder if it had finally become obsolete. Still, when my car misbehaves, I get it fixed. Why should I treat my computer any differently?

After 41 years of practising my trade, this year I reached sixty-five years of age and I was forced to retire. I wondered if I had become obsolete. As far as I was concerned, I was just as good and smart in my work (maybe quite a bit smarter) as/than the younger people working in my trade. Certainly, it seemed to me that I often knew what to do when they seemed puzzled about what to do in understanding and dealing with a problem. Mind you, some of them had taken to scowling at me lately, as if there was something wrong with me. But then, that might just have been because I am inclined to go around scowling at everybody all the time -- and they might have come around at last to noticing me and my habits.

How do you know when something is obsolete? Are the pyramids obsolete? They are the next oldest things, after me, my computer and my car, that I know about. There can be little doubt about the obsolescence of the New World. But how about the Old World? Is it obsolete too? Perhaps obsolescence is not so much a matter of age. Perhaps, after all, it is a result of something else. Maybe the reason why we assume that obsolescence is a matter of age is simply because we keep misleading ourselves by asking the question at the beginning of this paragraph about 'when' something is obsolete. That automatically assumes that the passage of time is involved.

In the ordinary course of events, things are called obsolete when (there I go again!) something else has been invented, built or created that fully replaces it and performs more things better than the previous things. The pyramids are not obsolete because nothing has been produced since them to replace them in their job of being enormous and useless. My car is not obsolete because nothing has been produced since it was built to replace it in its job of being big, clunky and square, and to get me from here to there. And my computer is not obsolete since it still does all the things I want of a computer, and because I refuse to call it obsolete. Maybe I'm not obsolete, in spite of my uselessness to others, since I refuse to call myself obsolete. After all, I've collected a huge array of trivia and nonsense to try to share with you. Who else did that? P INSEARCHOFPEACE

If you ask almost any body (in contrast to a somebody with no body) what is the ultimate need and value in life, he/she will probably lie to you. The answer may refer to things like money, sex or security. Fortunately for this discourse, money and security have been sufficiently demeaned in the Y dictionary (of Values). And everybody demeans sex in one way or another, often just by practising it. In case it needs to be demeaned further to satisfy you, Samuel Clements' remark may prove sufficient. I think he said something like this about sex: 'The position is ridiculous, the pleasure is fleeting, and the cost is exorbitant.'

So what is the ultimate need and value in life? I'm glad you asked. Although war affords moments of sexual and aggressive fun and excitement, and stimulates the economy and the reprehensible human appetites, it does so only in spurts and spasms for tics and other kinds of jerks. It does not afford any other more lasting benefits, other than death. And even the death benefits of war in population control tend to be short-lived in view of the following increased birth-rate due to its stimulation of the more errant forms of the sex drive.

In truth, the ultimate need and value in life is for peace. The need and value of peace takes several forms. Everyone yearns for peace and serenity within him/herself. Everyone strives to achieve peace and cooperation in his/her interactions with others, or at least those others with whom he/she has close relationships. Everyone dreams of peace within his/her community, if only to ensure security at home and safety on the streets. And everyone hopes for peace between nations, to ensure the survival of his/her family and friends, and of his/her culture and heritage.

However, peace is just like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it. Now that may sound a wee bit unfair to those who strive to avert war. Unfortunately, by trying to stop/prevent/avoid war, they actually enhance the risk or probability of its occurrence. It's sort of like telling a two- year old 'NOT to do that [anything]'. That's almost the best way known to ensure that the child will do it. In the case of peace, it seems that most of us assume that war will occur no matter what we do, and that peace is a matter of fate, beyond our control. And that's too bad. It means that we all tend to sit back and let our self-interested politicians look after things for us. We all could do things to help to achieve peace, if we wanted to. The first thing to do would be to DECIDE for OURSELVES that peace will be our primary purpose and our first priority -- so that nothing gets ahead of that aim. The second thing to do would be to SELECT for OURSELVES a set of principles to govern our daily behaviour. They should NOT be principles seeking to AVOID conflict or war. They SHOULD BE principles CONSISTENT with peace, or Peace Principles. Peace Principles seek to achieve and perpetuate peace. Since that is our first priority, all other purposes and goals, and even ways of interacting with one another, would be subordinated to that single-minded purpose. Possible principles might include:

1. The familiar old Golden Rule: in all things, act toward others as you would have them act toward you.

2. The Inclusion Principle: draw an inclusive circle around every person to include everyone in.

3. The Consistency Principle: act consistently with your beliefs and principles and how you expect others to act.

4. The Cooperation Principle: be liberal in cooperating and sharing all of your own with others.

5. The Conservation Principle: be conservative in the use of all resources and in the production of all wastes.

6. The Resource Exchange Principle: use your energy to serve others in communal exchange, and be willing to receive from others the gift of their energies in return.

7. The Consideration Principle: accommodate to the rights, survival and joy needs of others, including all future generations, both your children's children and theirs.

8. The Political Principle: share power equally among all people, keeping no extra power for yourself or any other.

9. The Accomplishment Principle: achieve the best and most worthwhile you can, limited only by the other principles and by the rights and needs of others.

10. The Respect Principle: give respect to all people, and to yourself as a person, in order to foster your awareness of the good in everybody.

11. The Trust Principle: give trust to all people and to yourself as a person, in order to feel safe with everybody.

12. The Love Principle: exercise love and caring for all others as widely as possible, to maximize your own joy.

13. The Positive Reward Principle: look for the positive in everything and acknowledge and praise it, in order to help yourself feel good inside.

14. The Agreement Principle: find common and shared elements in all viewpoints and merge them inclusively to achieve agreement as the route to finding solutions.

15. The Common Purpose Principle: seek in all things common purpose to ensure cooperative pursuit of co-existence.

16. The General Principle: all other considerations, approaches and means of interaction in the search for solutions are subordinated to these principles. The primary purpose of life, if we are to achieve peace, is directed toward the achievement and maintenance of the goal of peace.

All of these principles are pursued by active giving on the part of each individual. Respect, trust, love and positive reward, in particular, cannot be earned by anyone. They can only be given freely by each individual. And, in giving them, most of their benefits are gained by the giver.

Finally, the goal of the Peace Principles is to achieve agreement among all participants, with everybody's contribution included as having equal value. It might even be fun to invent a Peace Game in which to practice these (or other) principles, both to develop habits in their use and to find solutions to the problems confronting peace.

Of course, all this is just 'pie in the sky'. It will never work. And it won't, if it is not tried. If the goal of peace is ever going to be achieved, it will only be achieved if EVERYONE does what needs to be done to accomplish it. But, hey, let's wait to see what the OTHER person does. Of course, he/she is similarly waiting to see what YOU do. There is an old saw that goes: 'Let there by peace in this world, and let it start (and continue) with me' ... How about you too? Q ONQUESTIONING

Everyone asks questions. Heck, if we didn't ask questions, how would we ever learn and get the information we need? So we all believe that questioning is a necessary part of life. The trouble is that we forget to ask ourselves about the who and how of the questions we ask. Most of us ask our questions of 'recognized' 'authorities'. Parents, teachers, books by authorities and the media are commonly quoted sources of our answers. So they are apparently commonly the 'who' to which we direct our questions. But when we use others as sources of our answers, we don't know how they obtained their answers. They may make up a story about how they 'know' the answer. But the story will be a rationalization that may well miss the mark in showing how the information really was derived. Let's ask ourselves some basic questions about questioning.

Actually, most of us have three kinds of 'whos' to whom we direct our questions. We ask others -- 'what do you think about this or that?' We ask ourselves -- 'what do I know about this or that?' And we ask our experiences -- 'what is going on there?' All three of these sources of information are subject to serious limitations.

Even those few 'others' who are 'authorities' tend to have very limited ranges of information concerning which they are, properly speaking, authorities. Each might be in a position to give really informative answers to a couple of questions we might ask. However, we are prone to ask one said to be 'an authority' questions far beyond his/her expertise; and most of those who are questioned as though they were authorities, being ready to believe that their opinions are true, will tend to give answers.

When we question ourselves, at least two kinds of distorting influences act upon us. The first is our common readiness to rely on what is commonly called 'common sense'. Common sense refers to opinions and judgements reached by impressions after a couple of seconds (or hours) of thinking -- really, imagining related events with which we have had some experience (personal bias) and how they might hang together and what their outcomes might have been. Too often, too, the impressions reached by 'common sense' are charged with both personal and situation-related emotional elements. This always has a distorting effect on the conclusions reached, and it tends to result in (paranoidally) fixed ideas usually created and made inflexible by negative expectations and feelings. The second distorting influence is the effects upon us of other people's reactions to our opinions. If others happen to agree (we usually don't remember the instances of disagreements -- they're just wrong), it confirms us in our opinions, helping to make them inflexible; if others react emotionally, it tends both to distort the opinion with emotional content and to help fix the ideas even more inflexibly. Our notions of reality are heavily influenced by social interactions with others, understanding of which may itself be distorted to create new effects on the temporally-related expression of personal opinion.

When we question our experiences, we are all too prone to pay attention to less meaningful aspects of the experiences (such as their emotional context) and to process the experiences either too concretely or too abstractly (conceptually). The effects of either of these influences is to distort the answers we give ourselves. Part of the problem here is that few of us approach our experience (or other's statements) in a methodical and evaluative way, even those of us who are specially trained to do so.

Just as we have several types of 'whos' to whom we address questioning, we approach questioning in several different ways (or hows). A few of these 'hows' deserve comment.

Most of us don't trust our own judgement very well. This is probably due to humankind's long period of development as we grow toward adulthood. Most of us continue to feel like kids long after we are mature adults. All kids discover how little they know, and the wonderful, if hateful, sources of knowledge to be found in the adults around them. We are all too inclined to develop a rather dependent manner, asking questions of others, and trusting their judgement better than our own. Of course, we also reserve the right to consider others to be idiots, especially in adolescence and young adulthood. The 'how' involved here in our questioning is that we prefer the safety of depending on others' opinions, if only so we can blame them if an opinion is challenged. The problem is that if we model our actions or views on those of others for any length of time, by virtue of having committed ourselves to those actions and views, it is very hard to change them later.

Most of us are inclined to be intellectually lazy. Even if we have been trained in careful and evaluative questioning as scientists, and even if we start off subjecting a question to a proper formal investigation, we rarely have started out in such a way that we complete the formal investigation. We may fail to examine the full range of what is known before starting, and so become fixed too early on a particular course of action. We may fail to design the whole study at the outset to ensure that we know when the study is really completed. We may fail to keep formal records in sufficient detail to keep us in doubt until the results are analyzed formally. As a result, we may accept impressions too early or change the records kept in mid-stream so the results can't be analyzed later. There are several things we can fail to do to limit the value of the questioning we undertake.

Many of us believe in, and rely on, reason as a route to knowledge. Even those of us trained in using this method from philosophy tend, when not constrained by written records, to be quite lazy in this task too. We may fail to state our assumptions clearly at the outset, so we forget the extent to which our reasoning is based on assumptions. We may fail to make our statements in precise and formal ways, so that error progressively creeps into our forming conclusions. We may fail to apply the rules of logic fully in drawing our inferences, so that more error insinuates itself into our thinking. Afterwards, we may carelessly satisfy ourselves that we reasoned the matter out, forgetting the sources of uncontrolled error affecting our reasoning.

Questioning is surely a necessary part of everybody's life. But, given that the results derived from it will determine much of our knowledge and affect what we do every day, perhaps we ought to examine our questioning rather more carefully than we usually do. Such an examination might well include a critical evaluation of who it is we question, and how we ask our questions (and get answers).

If we ask questions of others, in nearly every instance we will get answers that are no more appropriate than answers we could obtain from ourselves. And when we get our answers from others, we lose complete control over 'how' the question is asked by the other of him/herself, and how the answer is obtained by the other. Also, when we ask our questions of others, we run the risk in ourselves of being bound in a dependent way to others' opinions and habits of thought, and of demeaning our own judgement even further.

If we ask our questions of ourselves, we probably ought to be vigilant to ensure that we obtain our answers in ways that enhance the probability that we acquire the best information we can on which to based our decisions. Each person has his/her own kind of epistemology. Perhaps we ought to be absolutely clear about the nature of our own theory of knowledge. Then, it would probably be advantageous to carry out in detail the demands of the approach to questioning required by that theory. If we don't, the knowledge on which we base our daily opinions and actions will be subject to immense amounts of error, by our own standards. When that happens, most people find themselves depending on others to answer their questions, and affirming that they rely on 'common sense' and on whatever they consider at the time to be 'reality'.

Questioning is an essential part of living. How we formulate our questions will decide in large measure how good the answers turn out to be. Who we ask for answers to our questions will greatly affect the value to us of the answers we receive. And how the answer is obtained to our questions will severely limit (or enhance) the value of the bases we use to govern our lives.

R ON REALITY

What is real? In fact, what is reality? What a silly question to ask! The real world of reality is the world of objects out there that we can see, hear and touch. What else is there? If you believe that, I have some wonderful swamp land down in Florida that I'm sure you'd like to buy. It's full of real alligators and mosquitos that pick fights with hawks and other large birds. It comes equipped with quick sand on which to build your house, and on which you can lie to get a sun tan. Its price is low because it does have one minor drawback. Your house will disappear over-night and you will have only a few minutes to get a tan before you get a mud-bath from which rescue is impossible. Still, it's a real bargain, and in Florida too.

Even physicists, the most reality-bound scientists, no longer hold the view of reality offered above. They are aware that even if there is a world of real objects out there to form reality, in order to detect and know that world there have to be ways to record its qualities and a being to assemble the resulting information, and to make 'meaning' out of it. In a very real way, if all living creatures were to cease to exist the universe would cease to exist, or at least knowledge of its existence could no longer be affirmed. And physicists tend to be rather conservative about the role of the required sensate being.

But let's assume for a moment that there is a 'real' world out there. How do we get to know about it? Waves (or particles, if you wish), of light, sound, heat and the like, emanating from the objects of that 'real' world, impinge on those sensory parts of our bodies that are able to detect, each its own kind of, energy. The ability to detect a relevant kind of energy just means that the given kind of energy is sufficient to activate particular kinds of nerve fibres to de-ionize in order to transmit an intermittent electrical signal to the brain. The energy transmitted is no longer the energy from the objects. It is electrical energy created within the body by metabolism in nerve cells. The brain receives these intermittent tiny electrical shocks. It then interprets the information received as light or sound or other sensory quality.

But how does it perform that interpretation of its sensory data? First, of course, it references the source of the tiny electrical shocks it receives. The nerve fibres from the different senses travel to different centres in the brain, even although they also, along the way, get muddled together with other nerve fibres. The location in the brain of the electrical stimulation tells the interpreting brain about the source, and thus the type, of the activation. Second, the sensory data is processed through other brain areas where memories of other sensory data are stored. The search through this storing library is first based on the type of sensory information received and on the amount of emotional arousal picked up along the way from the other 'muddled together' fibres. This starts the interpretation, as it were by establishing some guesses about the nature of the event sensed. Third, those guesses are checked by output commands to the muscles around the sensory apparatus (e.g., the eyes) to scan or check the energy coming from 'out there'. This allows confirmation or dis-confirmation of the guesses. Fourth, the surviving guesses are classified by reference to formerly established groupings of commonalities among objects, experienced as 'concepts' and assigned words. Finally, further command feedback is obtained to 'check out' the presence of the essential defining features of a concept against further scanning of the energy impinging on the receptor from the object. When the object passes this final test, its identity having been confirmed, the person attributes to him/herself 'knowledge' about the nature of the external object.

Of course, all of us know there doesn't have to be an object out there for us to have a full sensory experience of one. Humans dream about 24 percent of their sleeping time. If we happen to wake up during a dream, and lie still long enough for its traces to be recovered, we can remember having clear, and often convincing, sensory experience without any energy from an object to evoke the sensations. This occurs because the brain sends out its own activating electrical shocks to itself, mainly to keep the body's vegetative functions repeatedly re-aroused. Along the way, these tiny electrical self-stimulations trigger off (recently revived) sensory experiences that the brain interprets in the same way that it goes about interpreting 'real' sensory data.

So, what is reality? Of course, it is an interpretation of electrical stimulation of the brain from various sense receptors. But the story isn't quite finished. The interpretations are made in the brain of ongoing 'external' energy impinging on receptors. However, by the time the interpretation has been made, the energy from the 'external' sources have finished impinging on the sense receptors, and new energy is impinging on them -- perhaps of the same kinds from the same sources, or perhaps of the same or different kinds from another source. We may not be aware of it but, even if we check back for the same kind of energy from the same source, at least minute changes have taken place in the original source and in the energy coming from it. Everything is constantly changing. This means that we are never able to examine precisely the same object for a second time. Then why do things seem the same from moment to moment?

The thing that creates continuity in experience is the step in the brain's interpretations of selecting a concept or word. The concept ignores many of the changing elements of sensory awareness of the object, and focuses attention on those features of it that are (defined as) common to the members of that 'class' of objects. That is, selecting a concept (word) for an object, focuses the attention on unreal and static qualities of the thing. The purpose is to 'make sense' of the world around us. And the 'sense' made, by being reformed to fit the defining qualities of the class or group of objects that form the concept, distorts, changes and fixes (in space) the object perceived. That is, the purpose of concepts and the words used to refer to them is to create static meaning in the constantly changing sensory data reaching the brain. So, by the time we 'know' about something it no longer is exactly that which was sensed as an object.

Moreover, although we are able to distinguish the existing sensory images from those in memory, all we have by way of a real world is a series of images comprised of sensory qualities. Some of these images are memories from the past; some are dreams of the future; and some refer to things going on 'out there'. However, the past memories no longer exist 'in reality', the future images do not exist (yet), and the future is constantly pouring into the past through a razor-thin present that is gone before it can be appreciated.

Our slim grasp on the world of real objects out there is rapidly shrinking. If there are real objects out there, all we know of them comes from a limited range of a few types of energy emanating from them to which our limited senses are sensitive. That energy merely evokes new electrical impulses from within our bodies that are transmitted to the brain. The brain adds emotional and conceptual-verbal (based on the initial guesses) increments or decrements to the incoming signals. The result is interpreted by the brain through guesses and classification acts. This requires selection and distortion of the incoming data in order to create an altered and static image of the external object. The images we then have within our brains are nearly all made up of non-existent past or future events, between which are experienced a fleeting sensory awareness of the presumed 'reality' external to ourselves.

In trying to depict the nature of the real world, William James said that the world of the infant is a 'buzzing, blooming confusion'. The infant has not yet acquired concepts and language with which to make the world appear relatively unchanging and more or less knowable. The need to know and to assume a static external reality that all of us feel is merely a result of the wish (need, if you wish) to be able to predict what will happen in it. This wish to predict is based upon the fear that danger will spring on us when we are unprepared. So, the need to create meaning in our worlds is a derivative of fear of unknown dangers. To discover that we don't really know much about the world 'out there' may evoke fear in some people. However, that is only necessary to the extent that the 'real' world contains danger. It does not. The dangers out there are created as quite unnecessary anticipatory fears invented as 'what ifs' out of our own imaginings.

Reality is unknown. And both the real world and knowledge that we don't know it are safe and free of dangers. Wouldn't it be fun to live in a real world replete with exciting and yet to be known possibilities?

S ON SADISM (and Masochism)

Sadism is not nearly as interesting as it sounds. Too bad! Sadism is merely the experience of pleasure (in sexual sadism the pleasure involves sexual arousal too, and may be needed in order to experience much sexual excitement at all) in contemplating or experiencing suffering and/or pain on the part of something else (person, animal or object). Let's limit ourselves to talking about sadistic people enjoying suffering or pain of other people.

Some of the people whose pain or suffering a sadist might enjoy, also enjoy experiencing pain and suffering. These people are called masochists. Of course, when a real serious sadist (see D dictionary) encounters a masochist, the sadist is apt obstinately to refuse to inflict pain on the masochist. Whether or not that's true, that's NOT what we want to talk about here. The important or interesting thing about sadism or masochism is what causes these 'unusual' and, for some, horrifying characteristics. Generally speaking, there are three kinds of things to be said about this.

First, sadism is NOT all that uncommon. Everybody is capable of sadistic behaviour, or at least thought. How often have you, or anybody else, thought with relish about some nasty person losing friends, being hurt, or even dying. Hey, for each of us, there are some people who we might think (at least at one time or another) of as doing the world a favour by becoming extinct. If not that, at least there are bound to be some whose suffering we might enjoy. In that kind of thought, we are all being sadistic. But, you may say, I wouldn't make the person suffer by what I do; whereas real sadists do something about it. That is, the question of cause in sadism might really reduce to the causes of acting out impulses.

Second, that brings us to the causes of masochism. Masochism is NOT nearly as common as sadism, to the sorrow of us sadists. Some people possess a number of Reflexive values (see Y dictionary) and/or fairly strong Dependency needs (see N dictionary). These people may appear as though they were masochists in that they may seem to tolerate (and even to evoke) pain, suffering and abuse. Their apparent masochism is probably not real masochism at all. Masochism involves enjoyment of pain and suffering, just as sexual masochism may require pain or suffering to create sufficient degrees of sexual arousal (to be exciting). Masochism comes about in a way analogous to how paedophilia develops. In the masochist's early development, the first strong excitements experienced likely involved experiences where there was some pain or discomfort. If this was followed by enhanced pleasure, coupling pain reduction with a following pleasure, the roots of masochism may start to be established. This is most likely to happen in introversive kids who don't have a lot of fun in life due to excesses of thinking about life and its failures to give joy. What happens is that the fleeting fun they have may be preceded by an enhancement of the distress of ANS arousal (see X dictionary, D essay), probably from some pain, that is relieved when the pleasant experience occurs. This, like most habits, is likely to be self-strengthening by virtue of attention to that sequence of events (pain -- arousal -- enjoyment) fixed on the sequence by the occurrences of ANS arousal. This habit can develop into masochism. And if the following source of pleasure is sexual excitement, from childhood exploratory acts or self-stimulation, the result may be sexual masochism.

Third, it is now possible to understand how sadistic thoughts can move toward acting out sadism. We don't have to explain the acting out of masochistic impulses. They can easily be fostered by selecting and relating to anybody with (much more common) sadistic impulses. The question about how sadistic impulses progress from the common fantasies to acting them out has been investigated by scientists most intensively since World War II. The problem that has engrossed these scientists was how it was possible for large numbers of a nice and civilized people to treat their victims in the concentration camps in such brutal, destructive and sadistic ways. The answers were not that hard to discover. Three factors seem to account for the emergence of sadistic actions in anybody.

(1) If any other person behaves in a passive, subservient and apparently vulnerable way, the sadistic impulses in another person are apt to be stimulated or evoked. This has been seen in all sorts of studies, notably the Stanford 'Prisoners and Guards' experiment. This does not ensure overt expression of sadistic behaviour, but it does arouse sadistic feelings and fantasies.

(2) If the cultural or societal setting in which the person is living provides some permission or encouragement for sadistic behaviour, the chances of sadistic behaviour are increased. With the social restraints of taboos lifted, the taboos don't work as well to impede or inhibit expression of sadistic impulses. There is a special case of this factor. It may not be necessary for the surrounding society to lift its taboos against barbaric actions. The person may do it for him/herself. This is accomplished by finding justifications or rationalizations to diminish the felt in- trained prohibitions against such behaviour. That is, the person releases him/her own inhibitions by justifying his/her conduct.

(3) If the cultural or societal setting in which the person is living accepts, approves or rewards such conduct, sadistic actions can quite easily be induced. We all come to believe at least some of the beliefs of those around us. Changing our own beliefs to accept sadistic behaviour as 'right' reinforces the effects of the last factor (#2) appreciably.

Recognition of these causal factors in sadism have led many to reject passive submission by anyone in any setting and to enhance as far as possible each person's sense of personal empowerment. For example, in the case of rape, all authorities now seem to agree that the victim should fight off the attacker with loud, ample and often repeated refusals, and many kinds of reminders of societal disapproval of assault in any form. Still, 'an ounce of prevention in place, appearance and conduct is worth a pound of cure.'

T ONTELEVISION

Television is one of the miracles of the present age. Without any visible connection to a recording instrument for events that occur far away, it can recreate those events in vivid colour with all their associated sounds. What a wonder!

Moreover, it presents to us facts using the very sensory data with which we are inclined to verify fact and reality. It thus gives us means by which to experience directly anything occurring anywhere in the world (or beyond it) and, at the same time, to verify the truths presented as events of the real universe.

Of course, we are all aware that much of what we see and hear on television is re-enactment, and often of fictional events. But the credits tell us clearly when the action depicted is fictional (e.g., 'From the novel by ...') or a re-enactment (from the listing of 'actors' who participated in the main action). So, since we are all acutely tuned to all the credits displayed, we are always fully aware when what we see and hear is fictional.

Television merely expands our range of experiences to include events from elsewhere that we would not ordinarily know about. It presents these other events as equivalent to the events of our own daily lives. Consequently, television cannot possibly have effects on our lives even as great as the daily realities we experience.

And a majority of people seem to believe these statements. Unfortunately, the truth lies somewhere else. Literally, many hundreds of scientific experiments have been performed and reported concerned with the effects on us of the media, and particularly of television. If referenced at all by them, media people are likely to focus on one of these by a reputable scientist named Feshbach (whose study was replicated twice by other scientists).

In these three studies, the television 'diets' of young people living in group homes were systematically varied by prescription. In one setting, there was no limit placed on the television the young people could watch. In another setting, moderate amounts of violence were permitted. In a third, the amount of violence to be viewed was severely curtailed. The subsequent aggressiveness of the young people in the three settings was recorded and used as the measure of the effects of these three varied 'diets'. The amount of aggressiveness was found to be greatest among those whose exposure to violent programming was severely curtailed. There was no measurable difference between the other two groups.

These results were heralded as evidence that watching violent programming on television has a 'cathartic' effect, using up the aggressiveness of viewers, and making them more cooperative than they might otherwise be. HOWEVER, being a reputable scientist, when Feshbach saw that his results were sharply at variance with those from the rest of the growing scientific literature, he reviewed what had happened in his study. In the scientific literature he later reported what he found. He found that the young people in the setting with the severely restricted television 'diet' had rebelled against the restrictions imposed. Their care- givers had capitulated to their demands, and no restrictions at all had been imposed on their 'diets'. In fact, they not only received the same (or greater) amounts of violence in their 'diet', but they had additionally received the 'reward' for their rebelliousness of getting their own way. The scientific literature would confirm that these two factors taken together would, indeed, increase their aggressiveness significantly over that of people experiencing only one of these factors -- as Feshbach had originally found.

The foregoing, rather long-winded account of one study was made necessary by the wide publicity it obtained, and by the fact that its initial results seem intuitively 'right' to most people who expose themselves to television. But this study also needs to be put in its context. It and its two replications are the ONLY studies in the immense scientific literature that fail to show reliable deleterious effects from exposure to television.

The effects of television on people's subsequent behaviour and personality have been examined in a host of different ways, using an astonishing range of different means to measure personality and behaviour. Characteristically, it is found that exposure to media (especially television) contents increases aggression and violence in people's behaviour, and impairs the development and maintenance of their personality resources (ego functioning). A few examples of method and findings from this enormous scientific literature might serve to illustrate its breadth and the effects noted.

In one set of studies, villages in the Rocky mountains were found which differed only in access to exposure to television -- the mountains either interfering or not with incoming television signals. The youth of the villages were found to differ in the adjustment or health of their personalities, as represented in clinical interviews and psychological tests. Those in settings without television displayed markedly better adjustment and health than their counterparts who were exposed to television.

In another study, a group of children was divided at random into two groups. One group was exposed to five minutes of 'informational' television, and the other to five minutes of violent television. That was the only identifiable difference between the two groups. Their playground behaviour was observed for the next several weeks, and checklists of aggressive behaviours were recorded. The group that had been exposed to the five minutes of violent programming displayed significantly more aggressive behaviour than the other group, and that effect was observable for up to two weeks after the five-minute television exposure.

In yet another study, a host of developmental variables was assembled for a large group of 18 year-olds, and the effects of these earlier events in their lives were examined to find what might best predict their current delinquent or non-delinquent status. By far the single best predictor of delinquency among these 18 year-olds was their television diets ten years earlier when they were 8 years old.

This sample of studies only illustrates the range of factors that have been investigated and the variety of ways in which exposure to television contents has been controlled or measured. With the exception of the Feshbach studies, ALL of the reports indicate clearly the destructive effects of television viewing, as well as some of its causal characteristics and the types of effects it may have. How are these effects achieved? Are the experiences of every day life, as represented on television, that damaging?

It is the violence on television, and not (as far as is yet known) consensual sex, that has deleterious effects on us. There are several reasons for this fact.

First, television does supply us with the kind of data by which we commonly verify fact. It does not matter whether 'we know' (on some level) that it is presenting fiction. Exposure to it makes us feel as though we are receiving factual information about the real world.

Second, the media are commercial enterprises, in which costs must be minimized and profit maximized. Easily and quickly written scripts cost less than those more laboriously written. Character and plot development can be ignored only if there is something else to capture audience interest. The things that capture interest are colour, sound and action. These can be maximized in the context of violent events, such that the story can be carried by its violence without concern for other script details. One result of these two features of television is that we have all come to believe that the world around us is peopled with violent acts and dangerous others.

This is because, third, the measured amount of violent content in television varies between 75 and 85 percent of all contents. Does this 'represent' in any way at all the day-to-day experience you and I share? It is true that, of every 200 Americans born, one will be murdered; in Canada the figure is closer to one in each 700 born. That means that a few Canadians and most Americans, during the entire course of their lives, will personally know one (or at most a few) person who was murdered. During one day of television exposure, we would be lucky if we witnessed only twenty murders. Moreover, unlike in the real world, much of the murder depicted on television is performed between strangers, and commonly for profit. And that adds to the imagined danger out there, and helps us feel helpless to do anything to protect ourselves.

Fourth, violent characters on television frequently appear to be painted as hero/ines, valued for their murderous prowess, and rewarded by being presented as rich and the object of adoration by members of the opposite gender. We learn, not only by doing and receiving rewards for ourselves, but also by witnessing others performing their acts and being rewarded for them (this is called modelling). In fact, it has become clear that television has so widely affected people's expectations of life that any disaffected person who seeks recognition and importance needs only to perform a violent act (that achieves public media coverage) in order to obtain recognition, and very often to achieve public sympathy for his/her violence.

Fifth, television presents most of its characters are being relatively rich and famous. Most of its characters seem to live in the lap of luxury, whether or not they are shown to work for it. This feature of media characters tends to structure the viewer's expectations about the quality of life he/she can properly expect. Most viewers do not participate in life styles in any measure similar to those of media characters. Rationalizations of all sorts are offered by media personnel to justify this fact. But for most viewers, the consequences tend to be self-demeaning disappointment and even angry bitterness. 'The world gives this standard of living to everyone else (as experienced in his/her television world); why don't I get my share?' This sort of view of self and the rest of the world seems to justify criminal conduct for many people.

Of course, there is a counter-argument offered by some. Some argue that it is desirable to train people to be aggressive in the pursuit of their goals in personal and social life. This attitude is shared by those who believe in (or value) the primary importance of 'winning' in anything, especially in competitive enterprises such as commerce. I would certainly not wish to deny anybody his/ her right to pursue his/her values. However, one wonders whether those who pursue these values have really thought through the many implications of them. A couple of these implications might be worth noting, merely to illustrate some of the difficulties we can, perhaps unwittingly, create for ourselves.

Some forms of aggressiveness are non-harmful by-products of competition. One trouble with accepting these forms is that they tend rapidly to generalize themselves to other forms of aggression, regardless of the care and vigilance exercised by the person. A proscribed form of aggressiveness in business is likely to enhance success. The reward value of the success is likely inadvertently to extend aggressiveness, first to subtle shifts in the ethics of business dealings, next to subtle forms of domestic violence, then to borderline criminal business practices, and perhaps finally to overt domestic or social violence. The progression is likely to be gradual and barely noticeable.

Competitiveness may be necessary in business. So it may seem necessary as a trait to be fostered in children to prepare them for the world of commerce. This is accomplished, intentionally or otherwise, by competition for grades in the classroom, and for success in games and athletic endeavours. But not everybody is able to achieve success in classroom grades or other competitive activities. The majority are losers. Some, considering the winners, might say 'that is how it should be'. The trouble is that the 'losers' will also seek to make a livelihood for themselves, and will also learn the values of competition. And it is from among them that we tend to find those who will see themselves as able to succeed in crime and/or warfulness. There is some fairly convincing evidence that adoption of competitive values fosters crime and war in the long-run, by these means or those described in the last paragraph. Part of the reason why competitiveness fosters crime and war lies also in the disaffection of those inclined to 'lose'. Their controls in personality functioning tend to be impaired by their 'failure' experiences. This serves to enhance the risk that they will act out the frustrations they feel. Also, any aggression emanating from their frustration and/or weak controls, tends to be intimidating to others. This tends to result in unearned social 'rewards' from others. In turn, this tends steadily to foster and enhance the use of violence as a social tool, eventuating in crime.

The consequences of both competitiveness and aggressiveness fostered in our children are many and varied. And nearly all of them increase crime, warfulness and the danger in our streets. And most impair the quality of our own lives. As a single example of the latter, one might consider the hard-driving Type A personality. It used to be believed that it was the competitive nature of this personality type that accounted for its proneness to early heart attack. It is now known that the operative feature in heart disease deriving from this personality type is the aggressiveness and tension characterizing those who possess it.

It is not just the Type A personality that fosters tension and aggressiveness. Exposure to television accomplishes the same outcome in vastly larger numbers of people. And it does so subtly and surreptitiously.

But, if all this were true, surely governments would take steps to regulate the media much more thoroughly. Governments have tried to do so in censorship and regulatory practises. However, politicians depend upon the media for their initial and repeated successes in getting elected. They cannot afford to offend the media at all. Being comprised of politicians, governments' hands are tied.

So what is the solution? Who knows? One way to regulate the media might be to recognize that they are purveyors of perhaps the most hazardous substances that exist. Other purveyors of hazardous substances (pharmacists, physicians and surgeons, lawyers and most professions) are subject to licensing to be permitted to practice. Pre-conditions for licensing include proper and thorough education in the systems they use and their effects, requirements to up-date knowledge with continuing education, stringently applied codes of ethics and of conduct, and sternly applied disciplinary action against those whose actions risk harm to others. Maybe we could license media personnel too. U ON U-V RAYS

Excessive exposure to ultra-violet (U-V) rays is believed to increase the risk of skin cancer -- the only kind of cancer that physicians claim they can reliably cure. Since U-V rays increase the risk that you might have to comply in servitude to the control of medical practitioners, U-V rays pose a horrible threat to each of us and to the quality of our lives. Hence, these rays should be avoided at all costs.

Unfortunately, it is hard to avoid them if you ever take one step outside. You might arrange to have a garage at the terminals of your every trip, so you can drive out of and in to garages, thus avoiding exposure to sunlight -- assuming your car's windows are fully covered so you can't see out and the sun can't see in. Of course, you had better be sure that you don't use products like Sunlight soap or a Sunbeam razor.

The problem, of course, is that it's only recently that sunlight has become bad for you. It used to be good for you. How the change came about is a story known to every school kid in Australia, and even to some in America.

Mars, Dateline 2,200 A.D. (Earth Time) Once upon a time, on a planet named Earth (because it was mainly comprised of mud), there lived a breed of creatures called Humans. They had evolved to the place where they had lost all their fur, feathers and scales, except for the disgusting hair they used to hide their genitals. The sun shone down on them and baked them to various shades of brown. Since they were all brown-o-philes, they spent all the leisure time they could being baked by the sun. Sometimes it made them a bit too hot. So they invented all sorts of clever devices with which to cool themselves, their tempers and their nutrients.

They developed air-conditioners to cool their homes and their conveyances, refrigerators to cool their food, and various types of products to spray on themselves and at their homes, ostensibly to enhance their own freshness and beauty. Nobody bothered to wonder what harmful effects the coolant and propellent chemicals might have. Besides, who could see the atmosphere? In those days, the earth's air was neither visible nor crunchy.

By and by, some humans became aware of the ionosphere as a part of their atmosphere. They discovered that it filtered out much of the ultra-violet radiation from the sun. And they even figured out that too much exposure to ultra-violet radiation would be harmful to the skin. Then they discovered that great holes were appearing in the earth's protective ionosphere, and that the damage was being done by exhaust fumes and by the coolants and propellants that they had released into the air. But it was too late to do anything about it. The earth became parched. Its Humans died off in agony. And that occurred only a while ago, as they approached their new and (all too) bright millennium.

V ON VIRTUES

I know, you are absolutely virtuous. I know, I'm completely bereft of virtue, and utterly degenerate. Besides, everybody else would agree with you in the two insights I just offered. Should I make an heroic effort to lift myself from the mire and to rise to as close as I can approximate to your virtues?

Before I do anything so energetic and demanding, I think I'll just lie down for a while to consider what virtues are all about. If I take long enough in that enterprise, perhaps my commitment to the task will vanish and I can continue my degenerate ways. So, what are virtues, and how are they expressed?

Virtue is a quality identified in one, and valued as a highly worthwhile and commendable commodity. Of those who judge our worth and commend us for our virtues, there are two types of evaluators, namely, ourselves and others. The one evaluates our intentions from within, and the other judges our conduct from without.

Now, everybody is always doing the very best he/she can. This applies to our output of actions to achieve our intentions or purposes, and to our selection of purposes to accord with our values. That means that everybody, even those who appear to others to be degenerates, is always utterly virtuous, when viewed from the inside. For the sake of argument, I would accept that I might be the exception that proves that rule.

Viewed from the outside, however, some people's conduct appears to be less than virtuous. In fact, some people's conduct is just plain outrageous and unacceptable. How does that happen? The answers are that the outside observer does NOT share the values, and thus the purposes or intentions, of the vile other; or that the outside judge does NOT share in the views or understanding and/or the strategies employed by the despicable other. This failure to share common internal states with the other is as much a failure on the part of the observer/judge as on the part of the miscreant other. That statement needs to be considered further.

Have you ever noticed that some people are 'bad', some are 'hateful' and some are just 'mistaken'? Have you ever considered what creates these differences among others -- who do NOT share in your values, understandings and strategies? 'Bad', 'wicked' or 'despicable' people have values and/or understandings of the world that are anti-social in nature. That is, their approach to living tends to be unconcerned with the needs, feelings and best interests of other people -- if you wish, they have elevated selfishness to a value. 'Hateful', 'frustrating' or 'angry-making' people have values and/or understandings that are diametrically opposed to your own -- they are oppositional and contradictory, if you wish, to the 'correct' and 'true' ways of looking at life. 'Mistaken', 'wrong' or 'stupid' people have either 'primitive' values or understandings and/or strategies that are poorly taken, weakly conceived or based on inexperience, in order to achieve the goals or pursue the values that you think they are or ought to be trying to accomplish -- in truth, they are more likely to be after quite different things from those you think they are after.

Who is wrong? Is there but ONE set of correct and proper values, understandings and strategies that ALL should follow, and that you just happen to have discovered? Many would answer the last question in the affirmative. They are the critics of the world who pursue the perfection that they alone have grasped. And that's OK. Everybody has the right to pursue what seems right to him/her. Of course, if we are to grant that right to our critics and perfectionists, perhaps in fairness they might want to grant the same right to others. However, that would be the wrong thing for them to do, because they have found the right ways to conceive of things and to perform actions. Others need to be educated in what is right.

There is one small fly in the ointment used as a balm above. If ALL of us were to follow but ONE set of values, understandings and strategies, we would all perform all the time in exactly the same way. We would function as automatons, and our society would reprise that of the ant. There would be no need for communication or thought, no possibility of creativity, and very limited division of labour in society. In fact, we would all be clones of YOU. I know, what a perfect and joyful world that would be! It would also be free of crime (except of the kinds you practice -- you know, the kinds used by critics), and utterly free of joy and the unsightly smiles on people's faces. Moreover, those most prone to find fault in others' behaviours (and intentions) tend to believe in socialized and cooperative values. Thus, everybody would be out to serve everybody else in being helpful (the most hostile of acts) and (superficially) friendly, and in abiding (rigidly) by all the rules of 'correct' human conduct (even those that are ill-conceived and destructive).

The rejoinder might be that at least then people's actions would be tasteful and acceptable, and would cease to be deplorable and disgusting as they now are. I, for one, find 'proper', 'nice' and 'tasteful' actions deplorable, and feel disgust, approaching nausea, when exposed to such conduct. Personally, I prefer human beings over automatons. In fact, the pervasiveness in the social world of robots, artificially constructed in the image of lawyers and prissy hypocrites, so offends my sensibilities that I have found myself driven to interact almost solely with computers -- which at least have the honourable nature of pretending to be nothing but what they are.

Rather than serving the whims of a society comprised largely of self-satisfied hypocrites who wish only to control others, I think I prefer to remain free of virtues as seen through other people's eyes, and to continued to be vile and degenerate. Well, perhaps I can now rouse myself from my reclining 'considerations'.

W ON WATER

Water covers the major part of the earth's surface. An even larger percentage of our body is comprised of water. Isn't it lucky that there is so much water on this planet! And it's even the right kind -- our bodies are comprised largely of salt water. However, have you ever tried to drink salt water? Yuk! It's OK for fish, but land animals like us prefer 'fresh' water. However, again fortunately, Providence has afforded us a means to obtain the 'fresh' water we need. The sun evaporates salt water into steam, free of its salt content. It rises, forms clouds, they blow over the land and the water falls on us as rain. Isn't that great!

Well, it used to be. Have you tried the ancient practice of collecting rain water in a barrel to get fresh and soft water? If you have, you know about the results now-a-days. It used to be that if you left rain water in a barrel for a short time, the dust in it settled to the bottom, and nice, clear, clean drinking water filled the rest of the barrel. This no longer happens. The water collected is discoloured a kind of oily brown. And that acid- tasting discolouration doesn't settle out, no matter how long you wait. What has happened to our rain water?

We have all heard about 'acid rain' that is supposed to be killing off our forests. But who cares about the silly trees? Heck, if their foliage drops off, it's easier for them to be harvested by lumber companies to fill our needs for construction and paper products. Of course, as we all learned in school, the foliage of the world's trees, by means of photosynthesis, is the only source of the oxygen most of us like to breathe. So, as their foliage drops off, our decreasing number of trees provide us with doubly reducing supplies of oxygen. So, who cares? There's lots of oxygen around for our needs. Besides, if we need more, some way will be found to make oxygen from water, even if we have to wear oxygen masks all the time to get the oxygen we need. So, forget about the survival needs for oxygen of animals and nocturnal trees. As for the oily acidity of rain water, isn't it lucky that the soil serves as a filter to clean out the oily acidity from our drinking water supplies! And, if we want to purify our drinking water further, we can always filter it or buy bottled drinking water. So what's the problem?

Of course, there is no problem just now, if we adopt the rather cavalier attitudes expressed in the foregoing. But I have a problem, and I keep wondering if I'm doing enough to deal with that problem. In fact, I wonder, no matter how much I do, what happens if the rest of us don't do everything possible too. My problem is this. An Eden was created for us, amply supplied with all the survival and joy resources we might need. If we destroy that world, and ourselves with it, how will we face ourselves in that eternal moment as we pass from life? I don't know. Do you? Or does it matter to you?

X ON X

X is a horizontal axis -- possibly first used, as a way to refer to their former enemies, by the Allies after their victory in World War II. X is a kiss -- an incomprehensible salutation and an uninviting prelude, required by the unfair sex, before permission is granted to begin fore-play. X is a variable -- any variable, it doesn't matter which one. X is a value -- defined as any value of any variable in any equation or any computation. X is an unknown -- any unknown variable, value or event that is to be discovered in any game of chance, whether algebraic exercise, experiment or theory. X is a way to refer to any unknown -- such as the unknown rays, called X-rays, that magically penetrate any body and, without leaving any visible injury, pass through it, with the passage being evidenced by shadows of body parts left on film, and by causation and cure of cancers. X is indeed a magical, mystical and powerful unknown entity.

Do you know why they picked on the lucky letter 'X' to stand for all these marvellous and fascinating things? I suppose it would take one who has tried to write a dictionary to grasp why that was. Think of it this way. Try to think of a word that begins with 'X'. Not only is it an unknown letter, it is also almost unknown as a letter with which to begin a word. Some use had to be found for it. Even the Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary was able to find only 18 words beginning with 'X'. They were words nobody ever heard of. And to get that number they had to cheat quite a bit. For example, the first entry just counted the letters of the alphabet and noted that 'X' is the 24th letter. Also they included the degenerated form of Christmas, as Xmas, to get one of their words. Hey, you have to watch out for some of these high- faluting sophisticates. They can be awfully sneaky.

But why am I interested here in the letter 'X'? The truth is that I am not. I just thought you ought to be exposed to the real meaninglessness and uselessness of the letter for a while. And I thought you might be interested in considering why it is used so rarely.

Think about how the letter 'X' sounds. Its sound could have been carried by 'kz', 'gz', 'z', 'ksh' or 'gzh'. So it isn't a necessary letter, except that lacking an 'X' might making spelling a little more difficult. The sound it usually makes most closely resembles that produced when you have gritty sand between your teeth and you're trying to spit it out, or the sound you might make trying to reproduce that of squeaky chalk on a blackboard. No wonder so few words use 'X', or at least emphasize it.

Of course, it is used in some cuss-words, although in that context it's sound is usually buried in the middle of the word. Consider such cuss-words as axe, exercise, expected and uxorious. All are aggressive 'You' words (see there) bereft of all pity. Think of that, if you care to!

Y ON'YOU'TALK

Think about how other people talk. There's no point here thinking about how you and I talk -- we talk only appropriately. However, other people talk in ways that vary from the ideal in certain respects. Some of their utterances are door-mat-like, obsequious, and under-assertive. Some of their utterances are angry, obnoxious and aggressive. Only a small minority of their utterances are considerate, assertive and appropriate.

Even those who exhibit the proper consideration to address us in appropriately humble and self-effacing ways periodically change their pretended chameleon-like colours, and become objectionable, vicious and aggressive. Why is that? The reason seems to be that maintaining the pretence of being appropriately accommodating to us is such a burden for them, building such amounts of tension and anger in them from their self-imposed restraint, that periodically they must blow up aggressively. That is, restraint or control over their manifest selfishness (see there) is maintained by means of anxiety (i.e., anticipation of the danger of not being likable). That anxiety cumulates with their energies, both of which are inhibited until control is over-whelmed and aggressiveness erupts.

In truth, under-assertiveness and aggressiveness are not only the two extreme poles of assertiveness, they are also the two sides of the same coin in human interactions. You and I occupy ourselves with the healthy and socially-effective middle ground, using the value of the coin itself without gambling with its heads or tails. And, although we often forget how we do it, we do notice when other people are being aggressive or under-assertive -- with the latter merely being a predictable precursor of the former. How do we know when others are (or are about to be) aggressive?

The way we recognize aggressiveness in others is in the form of the phraseology used by them. Aggressive people use 'You' talk. In such talk, they attribute to us and others the causes of their own feelings of bitterness, anger, unhappiness, fear, pain and disaffection. 'You hurt me', 'You injured me', 'You took from me something that (I imagined) was mine', and the like illustrate this way of talking -- to others and THEMSELVES. Having thus satisfied themselves that the responsibility for their pain or loss has been 'justifiably' externalized to somebody else (the 'You'), they then add the phrase (often under the breath), 'and you shouldn't have done that'. By this means they talk themselves into the feelings they attribute to the others, of bitterness, anger, and so forth. The final form of the phraseology then comes out as things like, 'You hurt me and (so) I hate you', 'You rejected me and (so) I am sad and depressed', or 'You didn't look after me and (so) I am fearful [or I'm turned off on everything]'. Of course, nobody else causes anybody's negative feelings. We cause them ourselves. And, we not only tell other people the cause and the effect in 'You' talk, but, in hearing ourselves talk in this way, we confirm and extend our negative feelings in accord with our self-instructions.

Z ON ZED

I think it was Bertrand Russell (whoever he/she was) who was supposed to have said that Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language. The clearest example of this fact is to be seen just as we are about to be done with their common alphabet and their respective misspellings.

Their alphabets, which provide any language with its basic building blocks, display subtle differences. Although the two alphabets appear to be identical, they are not. This fact is obscured until the last letter of the two alphabets is reached. The last letter is pronounced quite differently. Americans, quite correctly, pronounce this letter ZEE; the British, also correctly, pronounce this letter ZED. No wonder the two countries have such difficulty communicating with each other.

Anglophiles argue their case based on historical precedence. Americans point out that, having won their fight for independence, they are free to talk any language they choose. And the latter point to the greater accuracy of their spellings using their alphabet. After all, Behavior and Color are pronounced the way the words are (correctly) spelled, and U is the better way to address another. They are not pronounced Behaviour or Colour as the British (incorrectly) spell these words, nor is You a reasonable approximation to the pronoun in the second person. The British rejoinder, of course, is a rather negative one. They point out that the words Real and Precious are not pronounced Ral or Praishus, except by American expatriates living in Texas.

Indeed, in response to the allegations made concerning the Texan expatriates, the Americans hasten to point to the uses common among the Scottish expatriates of Britain. They note that when a Scottish immigrant saw a moose on the bank of the St. Lawrence river, he/she was heard to reply, 'Ach mon, if thaat's a moose, I don't want to see a rat!'

The controversy simmers on, with neither side willing to give an inch or a letter. Perhaps it is time to come to a satisfactory resolution of this burning issue concerning the common language that is said to separate the two nations. It may be time at last to admit that the two nations speak different languages, although possibly based on the same root language stock.

Now that the controversy is resolved, there only remains one question to be answered. We know that the English speak English. We know the Scots speak Scottish. We know the Newfoundlanders speak Newfoundlandese. We know that the Chinaers speak Chinese, just as the Bu-he-he live in U-he-he and speak Mu-he-he, He-he-he. But what language do the Americans speak, write and spell. Surely, although they repeatedly affirm it is, it can't be English. If it were, don't you zee, we could end with a Zed and not with a Zee.

Y: YELL A DICTIONARY OF VALUES (taken seriously)

ACCEPTANCE Acceptance, being by others, tends to serve as a Reflexive value requiring others to do the accepting of oneself to permit satisfaction.

ACCOMPLISHMENT Accomplishment tends to be an Approach value, at least where it seeks self-satisfaction in personal accomplishments.

ACCURACY Accuracy, like precision, tends to be an Approach Evaluative value, unless it is sought in order to avoid criticism (a Reflexive and Avoidance value).

ACHIEVEMENT Achievement is equivalent to Accomplishment (see there).

ACTIVE VALUES In contrast to Reflexive values, active values are self-initiated and self-determined. As such, they depend for their gratification only on the individual assumee. They provide active personal fuel to pursue values, and are evaluated after the fact by the person him/her self. They tend to create individualists, perhaps even isolationists, who seem to be independent and entrepreneurial. ADAPTABILITY Adaptability may act as an Approach or an Avoidance (if it avoids inflexibility), or as an Active or Reflexive (if it is judged by others, or requires change in others) value.

ADVANCEMENT This is an Approach value, but it may be an Active or a Reflexive one depending on the agent (self or other) deciding advancement.

APPRECIATION Appreciation is commonly by others, and thus is usually a Reflexive value. If it is of others, it is an Active value.

APPROACH VALUES Values that drive the assumee to approach the sources of joy and fulfilment in life. They are expressed in 'positive format' terms, valuing love, joy, peace and the like. They are the values that most enhance the quality of life, being experienced for their own sake and for no purpose other than themselves. They are best and by far most satisfactorily experienced if they are concerned with personal active initiatives, and less (or not) with reflexive (see there) wish or intent.

APPROVAL Approval is equivalent to Acceptance by others (see there).

AVOIDANCE VALUES Values that drive their assumee to avoid the multiform and manifest imagined dangers, pitfalls and distresses in particular areas of importance in life. They are often expressed in 'negative format' terms, valuing 'NOT' ... trusting, being in danger, being accepted and the like. However, they may travel incognito under labels that state their opposites (i.e., trusting, security, acceptance and the like). These covert, most insidious, values can best be unearthed by repeatedly asking 'why is that important?' or 'what purpose does that serve?' These values represent conflict between the drivers that motivate people to approach and avoid, at the same time. They tend to keep those who assume them vigilant, on edge and under stress, watching for any isolated, but expected, instances of their negative poles that are to be avoided. The more of these values a person adopts, the more life is unhappy, troubled, miserable and joyless.

BEAUTY BeautycanbeActiveif'Ienjoybeauty',or Reflexive if beauty is judged by others in me.

BEING ATTRACTIVE This is very likely to serve as a Reflexive value (see Beauty).

BEING CONTROLLED Being controlled depends on who is doing the controlling to decide whether it is an Active or Reflexive value. It is always avoidant.

BEING LIKED Being liked is almost certainly a Reflexive value, although it can operate as an Active one if the pursuit involves liking oneself.

BEING IN LOVE Being in love is a fantasy abstraction, and probably not a value. If a value it involves both Active but, more commonly, Reflexive elements (see being loved).

BEING LOVED Being loved is a Reflexive value pursued more often than actively Loving (I love).

BEING RESPECTED Being respected is obviously a Reflexive value. It is also a covert Avoidance value, since it is mostly concerned with avoiding not being respected or being disrespected.

BODY FITNESS Body fitness as a contemporary value may be an Approach value when it is concerned with achieving self-evaluation of attractiveness. When it is concerned with health, it is an Avoidance value seeking to avoid ill-health.

BODYSHAPE SeeBeauty,BodyFitness.

BUILD Bodybuildusedtorefertothemaleanalog for beauty (see there). Like everything else, it has recently been usurped by females. See Beauty, Body Fitness.

CARING Caring is mostly an Active Approach value. However, it may sometimes be intended as an instrumental act to obtain reciprocal response from the other, especially as in caring about or for animals or things.

CLOSENESS Closeness in human relationship, although potentially expressing the Active desire for Approach to others, tends to function as a Reflexive value requiring approach from others, at least reciprocally.

COMMUNICATION Communication, usually implying a reciprocal demand, is apt to be a Reflexive value, and perhaps one involving Avoidance of any lack of communication from the other. It can be an Active and Approach value if it involves only garrulousness on one's own part.

COMPANIONSHIP Companionship usually requires responses from and the presence of others. In addition to that Reflexive quality, it often serves as an Avoidance motive to avoid loneliness.

COMPATIBILITY Compatibility is concerned Reflexively with the nature and responses of the other, and is usually an expression of the need that the other Avoids being/acting incompatibly.

CONSIDERATION Consideration may be pursued Actively by one's self, although usually for covert instrumental purposes. It is much more often a Reflexive value, requiring consideration from others, usually to Avoid inconsiderate behaviour.

CONSISTENCY Consistency can be of any type, depending on who is to be consistent, and for what purpose.

CONTINUITY This is usually a Reflexive (someone or some thing else continues) and Avoidance (of any discontinuity) value.

CONTRIBUTION Contribution sounds like, and often is, an Active and Approach value. However, that depends on who evaluates the contribution, and whether or not it seeks to Avoid the guilt of failing to make a useful contribution. CONTROL Thismayrefertoself-control,ortocontrol of others. In the latter case, the dominance need underlying it is likely to lead to effort in the arenas of politics, the media, or other forms of crime.

COVERT VALUES The form or purpose of values may be overt or covert. Although all expressions of values that include a 'NOT' are overtly Avoidance values, there are many Avoidance values that present as though they were Approach values -- with their essential Avoidance nature obscured or Covert. Security, Trust, Kindness and Precision all sound like Approach values. They rarely are. They are assigned importance (value) in order to maintain vigilance to avoid their opposite poles, and only instances of their opposite poles are apt to be noticed. Thus, these kinds of Covert Avoidance values are likely to serve the purposes of avoiding Insecurity or danger, Untrustworthiness or Mistrusting, Unkindness or 'abuse', and error or Imprecision. The relevant question to discover Covert values asks about the purpose or the instrumental nature the value serves for the person.

CREATIVITY Creativity has been used as an excuse for primitive or incompetent products. As such, it is an Avoidance value. It has been used to represent the attempt to extend the realm of personal experience. As such it can be an Active and Approach value.

DECISIVENESS Decisiveness, as a personal quality, is almost certain to be a Covert Avoidance value. It is important largely to Avoid the indecision arising from excess thought. If required from others, as leaders, it is also Reflexive.

DEPENDABILITY Dependability functions just about exactly as Decisiveness (see there).

DEPENDENCY Depending on others is obviously Reflexive. It is also Reflexive when others are required to be dependent (see Control). In either case it seeks a Covert Avoidance purpose, to avoid independent action with its risk of 'error'.

DEVELOPMENT This may involve Growth (see Evaluative values) or Use. In the latter case, it may well be an Active and Approach value.

DIGNITY Dignity seems to involve self-directed action. However, it involves Reflexive recognition of the result, and it Covertly implies Avoidance of Undignified acts.

DOING Doing,orafocusonACTIVITY,ifelevatedto a value, is likely to involve Covert Avoidance of Inactivity or torpor (and even depression). It can be Active (doing own things) or, more often, Reflexive (doing things together, doing the job well -- who judges?).

EFFECTIVENESS Effectiveness is an Evaluative value, is usually Active, and may or may not be an Avoidance (depending on purpose) value.

EFFICIENCY Efficiency (of self or product) is always an Evaluative and Avoidance value. It can be Active, depending on who serves as judge.

ELEGANCE Elegance sounds like an Approach value seeking 'richness' as a personal experience. It rarely is that. It almost always intends an Avoidance of the Inelegant and the mundane; it is usually Reflexive with others' opinions serving as the source of judgement; and it tends to be an Evaluative value as well.

ENERGY ThisisusuallyanActiveandApproachvalue, although its purpose and locus (who provides the energy) need to be considered.

ENJOYMENT Enjoyment functions much like Energy (see there), with the same caution.

EVALUATIVE VALUES These are really measures or evaluators with which we assess our approach to some ideal (the real value). These include 'values' such as Growth (in size)[this value is one of the 'causes' of anorexia], Skill (intelligence), Precision, Power, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Reliability and Wealth. They are assigned the importance of values from childhood. They are adopted by children as if they were the values of parents, because children note that parents seem to value these things -- given that they praise and celebrate the child's advancing age and size (birthdays), mastery and academic skills, acquisition of work and wealth, and achievement of precision, power, efficiency, effectiveness and reliability in doing tasks. These evaluators may be carried into adulthood as values without critical examination. When adopted, they tend to result in a sense of chronic dissatisfaction and despair -- as growth in each wanes and declines with age (one factor accounting for debility in aging). EXCITEMENT This is probably always an Active and Approach value. However, its pursuit runs the risk of contributing to personal tension.

EXHAUSTION Exhaustion could be a value, related to using up energy. However, it tends to involve an attempt to Avoid tension arising from energy.

EXPECTATION Some would callthisa value. If so, it is likely to be a Reflexive one.

EXPRESSION Expressing oneself is inherently Active, but the purpose needs to be examined to establish its other qualities.

FAIRNESS Although more like a self-actualizing need and/or a belief, Fairness can serve as a value. It nearly always involves Avoidance of Unfairness, and is much more likely to be Reflexive than Active.

FEAR Fearmaywellbeavalue. Ifitispursuedor perpetuated, it is because the person believes that it is necessary as a learned motive to maintain learned Avoidance of imagined danger. It is an additional support for Avoidance values cherished by those who Avoidance values have created excessive cautiousness. FEELINGS There are allsorts of feelings that people might value, including the fact of being a 'feeling person'. In truth, all values create feelings for their relevant issues, whether Approach or Avoidance feelings or feelings of awe, excitement, and the like. The values the person has adopted (or adopts) will decide in large measure the kinds of feelings the person experiences. The feelings the person wants to adopt are determined partly by the relative preponderance of Approach and Avoidance values in his/her hierarchical repertoire, and partly by a rich interaction among his/her values and self-actualizing needs.

FINANCIAL See Money.

FREEDOM Freedom is a fairly basic Avoidance value, seeking to avoid Enslavement, Inhibition or Restraint. It can be experienced from time to time as a Active Approach value.

FRIENDSHIP Friendship functions in much the same way as Companionship (see there).

FUN FunnearlyalwaysfunctionsasanActiveand an Approach value.

GOODNESS Goodness nearly always functions as Avoidance of Badness or evil, and tends most often to be evaluated in terms of others' judgements of the good (hence, Reflexive). It can be Active and Approach focused, yielding highly positive experiences. The difficulty with Goodness as a value or a need is that most of us have learned to notice or recognize our faults, errors and badness (criticality) at the sad expense of our appreciation of our vastly greater goodness.

GRIEF Griefisavalueforsomepeople. Itusually serves as a kind of propitiation for guilt, or as an Avoidance of Forgetting a loved one.

GUILT Guilt can also be a value. When it is, it functions much like Fear (see there). HAPPINESS Happiness can involve Avoidance of Sadness or depression. However, it usually is partially Active (and partially Reflexive), and it is most commonly an Approach value.

HONESTY HonestytendstobetakentobeanApproach value, in the sense: 'I seek honesty'. It is not. It is always a value seeking to detect and Avoid Dishonesty. And it is nearly always a Reflexive value, either seeing one's own honesty through the eyes of others as judges, or seeking honesty in/from others.

HOSTILITY Hostilityisrarelya value. It ismost often a need. When it is a value, it functions, like fear (see there), defensively to Avoid closeness with others. Although usually perceived as a Reflexive response to others' rejecting and mean ways, it serves Actively to push others away to Avoid fear in closeness.

HUMOUR HumourmaybeanApproachvaluebreedingfun in life; or it may serve as an Avoidance of either Depression or Social anxiety.

IMPORTANCE Importance is the essence of values. However, as a value, it is Reflexive, since it usually involves 'importance' to others. And it may involve Avoidance of feeling Defamed.

INFLUENCE This clearly is a Reflexive value. Otherwise it is similar to Control (see there).

INSIGHTFULNESS This is surely a Reflexive value, seeking recognition from others. It may serve to enhance life as an Approach value, or as a means to Avoid feeling stupid.

INSPIRATION Like Enjoyment/Energy (see there), this value is very likely to contribute to joy.

INSTRUMENTAL VALUES Values, like actions, are said to involve instrumental properties when they function to achieve another purpose than the action or value considered for itself. That is, does the action or value serve as a means to some other end?

INTELLIGENCE This value is clearly a residual of childhood as an Evaluator value. It probably functions in a manner very similar to Dependency (see there), from which its manifestations likely emerge.

INTUITION Intuition sounds as though it ought always to be an Active and Approach value. It can serve as a Reflexive and Avoidance value to account to others for knowledge that cannot otherwise be justified.

INVOLVEMENT Involvement (with tasks or others) operates like Energy (see there).

JUSTICE Justice mainly functions instrumentally to justify retribution. It can certainly be pursued Actively, though it almost always involves Avoidance of harm or loss. See also Fairness.

LEADERSHIP See Control. Leadership is meaningless unless there are others to be led -- that is, it is always Reflexive.

LEARNING Valuing learning is a great route to having some enjoyment. Since learning is an automatic and characteristic feature of all human beings, all the time, valuing it results in constant pleasure -- if one is tuned to recognizing its constant occurrences.

LIVELINESS This is a value essentially equivalent to Inspiration/Energy (see there).

LOVE Loveisprobablythemostworthwhileandmost powerful value. The reason for this is that, as an Active value (i.e., NOT Being Loved), it is an Approach value, and it both engenders strong and positive feelings and serves as the glue that connects one to other people and things. Its lesser form is called Liking.

LOYALTY Loyalty is, in every way, entirely equivalent to Honesty (see there).

MONEY MoneyisanotherEvaluativevaluecarriedinto adulthood from childhood. It may be necessary to have this in one's Work-related values. But, even there, it should likely NOT be at the highest priority. Being Reflexive, if it is the first priority, it is likely to create disappointments, or at least a boring person.

MORALE Moraletendstohavebeenappropriatedasan evaluative measure for groups. It can be a value for the individual's own life, where it might represent liveliness, goal-directed initiative and purpose. However, as such, it serves an Instrumental means to these ends.

MOTHERLINESS Motherliness/Fatherliness function as values instrumental to nurturance. They have a Reflexive quality in that they require a kind of acknowledgement and acquiescence from some others.

MOTIVATION Motivation is equivalent to Morale (see there) with an additional implication equivalent to that of Energy (see there).

NON... Anotherformof'Not'(seethere).

NOT... Thereisnopointlistingallthepossible 'Not ...' values. All are overtly Avoidance values, whether or not they are Active.

OPPORTUNITY Opportunity, although a Reflexive value, tends to involve Approach activity in a pleasantly challenging way. As such, if opportunities are sought actively, this value can be a fine source of joy.

OTHERS ... Concern with Others automatically marks a value as a Reflexive one (see there).

OWN Recognizing 'Owning' concerning a value moves it automatically toward involving Approach.

PARTICIPATION Although clearly having a Reflexive element, this value implies Active involvement with others, and in an Approach way. It has the potential for providing lots of joy.

PEACE Peace can involve Avoidance of conflict and war, even Reflexively by/among others. But it can also be a value Actively seeking to Approach peace as a paramount purpose in human life and interactions. Taken in this latter way (only) it is achievable.

PLAYFULNESS Playfulness, as a value, involves Active Approach to fun. However, it would ordinarily be thought of as a self-actualizing need.

POSSIBILITIES Possibilities are even more potentially joyful than Opportunities (see there). Although they might be sought to Avoid concern about the uncertain or ambiguous, they can also be pursued to employ the excitement of any fear of ambiguity in order to add to joy.

POWER SeeunderEvaluativeValues.

PRECISION See under Evaluative Values.

PRESENTABLE Presentable is, fairly obviously, a covert Reflexive value.

RECOGNITION This is about as explicit a Reflexive value as there is. It illustrates as well as any other the process by which Reflexive values lead to disappointment and a victim stance on the part of the assumee.

REFLEXIVE VALUES Values that drive the person to obtain from others the things in life deemed to be important. They are identified by inquiry that seeks to discover who is the active agent in the valued experience (I appreciate versus I am appreciated -- R; I approve of others versus Others approve of me -- R). Although these values may temporarily afford high levels of joy, happiness and well-being, they tend to be short-lived. Also, these values tend to make their assumee feel at the mercy of others, and (if also avoidance values) victims abused by others. Whether Approach or Avoidant in nature, the insidious character of these values is noted when it is observed that receipt of the valued qualities from others is followed by (i) control by others, (ii) a steadily expanding expectation until the values cannot be met, and (iii) frustration and heart-break when the values are not encountered.

RELIABILITY See under Evaluative values.

RESPONSIBILITY This is one of the most complicated concepts (and values) in the human repertoire. It is at the same time Active and Reflexive, an Approach and an Avoidance value, and an Evaluative and Qualitative value. Although almost everybody would claim to be able to specify what he/she means by this concept, no single and satisfactory specification has yet been found for universal application. Since it is also both Attribution and Judgement, it might almost best be abandoned as a concept.

ROUGHNESS Roughness, along with its many cognates (such as Tough, Hard and Scratchy) are Qualities. However, they could be adopted as Active Approach values for instrumental ends.

SECURITY SeeunderEvaluativevalues.

SEPARATENESS Separation is most likely to involve Avoidance of closeness or union, and may involve the Reflexive cooperation of another. However, it can also involve Active Approach instrumental to self-sufficiency, task performance, or analysis as an operation.

SEXUALITY Sexuality is highly valued, and assigned great importance, by many people. However, it would ordinarily be considered to be a need. As a value, it is likely to be viewed Reflexively and Actively as an Approach pursuit.

SHARING Sharing is likely a basic value, equivalent to Participation (see there).

SOCIABILITY This is another complex value. Essentially it elevates habits of social interaction to a place of importance, seeking to Avoid faux pas and censure.

STATUS Statusisaninsidiousvalue. Itsharesthe Evaluative nature of Power (see there), the covert Reflexive nature of Recognition (see there), and the covert Avoidance of Honesty and Fear (see there).

TRANQUILLITY SeePeace.

UN... Theprefix'un...'usuallymarksanAvoidance value. It functions like 'Not' (see there).

VALUES Values are highly abstract expressions of what is IMPORTANT to the person. Values are (1) the most general and pervasive aspect of any person, (2) before-hand, the sources of the motivation for any action, and decide what we do, (3) afterwards, the means by which we judge or evaluate how we have done, and thus, cumulatively over time, decide how well we will like ourselves and our actions, and (4) provide the best means by which to define ourselves -- to afford our self-definitions or identities. Each person's values are based upon various kinds of emotionally-involving life experiences. Thus each has a kind of emotional 'charge' attaching to it. The emotional charge provides the main basis for the establishment of the hierarchy or ranking or priorities among each person's values. It has been estimated that, although all his/her values affect each person's behaviour, only the top six to ten in any given 'area' or setting of life affect feelings and behaviour to a noteworthy degree.

WARMTH See Caring. Z: ZEEEEED ANY ORDINARY DICTIONARY (will do)

You might be one of those who abhors ordinary dictionaries. If so, it will offend you that there is NO 'Z'-style dictionary -- not even one written by Zorro, zee Mexican who slashed a 'Z' on every surface he could find to express his regret for not having written a dictionary. So, in order to avoid disappointing you, it seems necessary to produce a Z-stylish dictionary. Here it is ...

Z: ZEEEEED A DICTIONARY OF MISSPELLINGS AND MISUSES

It'zeasy to misspell a word. It's hard to confirm misspellings since the dictionary doesn't include them (according to common, but false, belief). It'zeasy to write a dictionary of misspellings. All you have to do is to list all the words you spell differently from my spellings. I won't attempt to list all your misspellings here. You could do the job much better than I could.

It'zeasy to misuse a word. It's hard to confirm a misuse because the dictionary pretends not to present misuses. It'zeasy to write a dictionary of misuses. All you have to do is make up whatever uses you think a word OUGHT NOT to have. If you are looking for such a dictionary, give up. Of course, some wrong-headed non- thinkers (stinkers) might believe that the Dictionary for Divergent Thinkers (see there) qualifies as a dictionary of misuses. Those who understand life and refuse to be misled about it, know better.

The Telephone Directory was considered as a possible source of mis- spellings and misuses. In it you can discover the unlikely states of affairs that there are more rivers than streams, more hills than valleys, and more roses than dandelions. Also Broom may be spelled as Brougham, Jenny's kin folk may be rendered Jenkins, and John's son may come out as Johnson, or his town may be represented as Johnston. However, the Telephone Directory keeps being changed. That's no basis for a definitive dictionary such as those displayed here. By means of this meticulous process of reasoning, it was deduced that a proper one would have to be provided.

The zeasy dictionary of misspellings and misuses appears below.

ACHOOWALLY This word, achoowally, has only peripheral relevance to Wally's behaviour when he has a cold. It achoowally has more general reference to the healthful attempt to keep a wall between yourself and others lest you are infected by the many virulent social diseases they are bound to have. Syn: Anti-social, Isolation, Quarantine.

ACRIMANIOUS A matrimonial term, correctly spelled in this way by the distaff side. Marriage counsellors misspell this word Acrimonious. Needless to add, the term is also mis- spelled by husbands, taking the form Acrimatrimonialous.

ADDMINUSTRAITORS These Traitors are specially trained agents, surreptitiously inserted into the ranks of institutional personnel to Add to their bulk. They are offered high wages to infiltrate and undermine the operations of their unsuspecting fellow employees in order to baffle their understanding and sabotage effectiveness in achieving the apparent or advertised institutional purposes. The practice is to close those few institutions where these Traitors subtractive or Minus-ing efforts are found to be ineffective and where the institutional purposes continue to flourish in spite of them. In order to obscure their ravaging incursions, addminustraitors commonly misspell this term as Administrators to imply that they exist to Minister to and Rate employee needs wrongly.

ADVARSITY A spelling commonly used by the usually illiterate students at universities in seeking to depict their imagined circumstances. In some circles, this word is wrongly rendered Adversity. The correct spelling and meaning is Adversary, referring to the courts where the maximum amount of advarsity is to be found lurking.

AKNOWLEDGE This term refers to a bit of information that is given to another. It is commonly misspelled Acknowledge due to a confusion between this noun and singular forms of the Newfoundlandese verb, Toseeknowledge, which is declined as Icknowledge, Ucknowledge, Ecsknowledge, Ercsknowledge. The root word Knowledge, always correctly spelled, comes from Newfoundlandese, and refers to knowing which rock ledge to stand on when fishing so as to catch precisely the local jurisdiction's designated quota of fish. That rock ledge was called A-Those-In-The-Know-Ledge, later shortened to A-Know-ledge. Since the word's origins have largely been forgotten, the word has been absorbed into English, and is used even where there is No-ledge.

ALLHISMONEY Another acrimatrimonialous invention to strip a man of all life support systems. Lazy writers, especially those from the Caribbean, misspell the word by shortening it to: Alimony. The term is misused by the courts to imply that only a small subsistence share of the ex-husband's opulent fortune is to be used to support the ex-wife, but only after the lawyers have acquired the lion's share.

ASURE This term is used to modify A statement of Sure truth. It is wrongly spelled Assure by those less sure of the truth than they ought to be. They created their faulty term by shortening their modifying statement from As- Sure-As-I-Can-Be, so it sounded more asured. Another group, this time of Caribbean ocean-gazers, who did not yet have a dictionary by which to confirm spellings, mis- spelled the word as Azure. They sought to declare to insects in the immediate locality their asure-ants about the colour of the water they were contemplating.

BENOVIOLENCE Originally a command issued, for the sake of self- preservation, by kings, lords and tribal leaders who had armies to protect them and to enforce their wills. Those enforced, to feel at ease with their deplorable state, converted the tyrants' identities from kingly to kindly. Then, by the congenital magic of wedding languages, this time English with the liturgical Latin of the day, conceived a misspelling of the command as Benevolence, now transmuted to mean generosity and kindliness. It is commonly surmised that this transmutation amounted to a wish-fulfilling fantasy. It has not yet changed the ways of tyrants who seek to keep the peace for the sake of self-preservation, whether they be co-habiting partners or the contemporary kings' courts of justice.

BJECT See Ibject.

BREAST Often misspelled Brest. A channel port on the coast of France whose name was adopted from women's mammary glands -- reflecting the portly and peripheral status of sex in France. In men the dissimilar things are called Chests to refer to their valuable contents. In proper society, these valued attributes are called Busts to create the illusion that reference is made to beheaded statues, that were created busted.

COHABITUSHUN This term refers to a state reiterating bachelors and spinsters. It is comprised of four parts. Co. is the abbreviation for Company. In this case Co. most often refers to the company of the opposite gender. Habit is a kind of clothing commonly worn as one's behaviour. U is used here to refer to you. To Shun is to avoid or to push away. Thus, the word refers to your unwillingness and avoidance repeatedly to put on the conduct of keeping company with one or more members of the opposite gender. It is sometimes misspelled as Cohabitation, and is commonly misused to serve as its own antonym.

COMMANDNATIONS There are some nations that command, while others obey. Diplomatic niceties demand the word be misspelled as Communications. The real word was coined as a result of the following international incident in which radio messages were exchanged between two nautical sources: Radio #1: We have you on our radar. Alter your course 15 degrees to avoid collision. Radio #2: You must alter your course 15 degrees to avoid a collision. Radio #1: We are a United States naval warship. Alter your course by 15 degrees. Radio #2: We are Canadian. Alter your course by 15 degrees. Radio #1: We are an American Aircraft Carrier with nuclear weaponry. Alter your course by 15 degrees. Radio #2: We are a lighthouse.

CONINVENTION A modern invention in which many innocent bystanders mill about con (a foreign language word for With) the intention to con one another into buying each other's inventions. The word is often misspelled Convent-ion to obscure the fact that its frequent sexual misdemeanours, like its connings, are usually performed Inside, as well as on the side and under-cover. Ant: Contrainvention, refers to another invention that opposes all inventions.

CONSTABLEWARY Alt. CONSTABLEWEARY A term (either form is correct) appropriated by poleicepersons (see there) with which to refer to themselves. The term is comprised of three parts. The first part, Con, was taken without permission from a foreign language. It intends to communicate With (it doesn't say with whom or what, probably the horse). The Stable part refers to places where horses are in- stalled. The third part, Wary or Weary, refers to the condition required to be adopted by the poleiceperson depending on the time in his/her shift. At the beginning of each shift, the poleiceperson is commanded to be Wary lest he/she falls off his/her horse onto an innocent bystander (Amerind word: Tonto, see there). At the end of the shift, he/she is required, by union edict, to be Weary. The misuses, of course, include the failure to include the horse in the word, and the meaning sometimes implied that the term should be composed as Con's Table Wary/Weary. The latter misuse is fostered by poleice- persons to imply a warning to miscreants unwilling to pay the price of poleice after it has been so courteously delivered. In some jurisdictions, however, non-payment is rewarded by poleicepersons who give free bracelets.

COWBUOY A cow, floating at anchor in a lake, to serve as a buoy. Its horns make convenient mooring devices for boats. The term is sometimes rendered Cowboy by women's libertines to express their political opposition to nature's gender division. At the same time, these politicians object to the usage Bullgirl to refer to the female counterparts of cattle-herders -- the people to whom they mistakenly refer their misspelled term. Is it any wonder that the world is being reshaped into confusion and anarchy ever since these libertines invaded man's hitherto honest and virtuous domains?

DISTILL Syn. Untill. See there.

DOCKAISLE This interesting word has been formed by the identical process as that underlying neologisms (symptoms found in fulminating schizophrenia). Two concrete objects, the Dock in which a prisoner is housed in court and the Aisle by which it is approached, are combined to represent the attitude it is expected (or hoped) the prisoner will adopt when entering the Dock from the Aisle. The term is commonly misspelled Docile, and its use has been over- generalized to refer to expected conduct in the presence of anyone having power or authority.

DOMESTICCITY Have you ever noticed how hard it is to remember whether given words are spelled with single or double letters? This is one of the words often misspelled due to this difficulty. It is commonly spelled Domesticity. The word, of course, refers to living in a City state in which everyone is a Domestic. Somehow a misuse has crept into common parlance using this word. It is usually used to depict the condition of people and other tame animals while playing 'House', indoors or out.

EXCELAUNT A word used to express the superiority of anyone in anything, where the standard beyond which the term applies is the performance of your spinster aunt. She is known to excel in nothing. Consequently, anybody's performance in anything can be designated Excelaunt. This has the convenient advantage of permitting anyone to praise anyone for doing anything -- the propensity to praise being the mark of high degrees of socialization. The word is often spelled incorrectly as Excellent, and is used rather too sparingly.

FREEDUMB This word is commonly misspelled Freedom, as though there was a Domain in which people are Free. Those who believe in such a domain are said to possess Freedumbness. Those who do not, are dumb when it comes to speaking of being free. Hence, everybody is said to possess freedumb in one form or another.

GUTSAVAULT A device for throwing a brick at another's house, to aid in its reconstruction. It is commonly misspelled as Catapult, and misused to refer to a device to destroy castles and the people in them. The misspelling is understandable. Some who use the word are loathe to appear crass enough to speak of the elastic animal guts used to propel the bricks. They prefer instead to refer to the cat from which the guts came. Having become hung up about the guts part, these people then confuse the forward action of A jumping Vault part with a backward action of A Pull It, later shortened to Pult. The common 'A' between the parts was taken, without prior consent, from the French word for 'To'. The misuse is harder to understand, and is utterly reprehensible considering the violence implied in it.

HARDVARCK A Cockney's misspelling for a mythological creature often wrongly spelled Aardvark. There is no correct spelling for this word since, like all myths, references to it are always in orally transmitted stories.

IBJECT The first person singular of the word Bject. This word is commonly misspelled as either Abject, Object, Deject or Reject. The regular verb, Bject, is declined as: Ibject, Ubject, Ebjects. It is commonly used in sentences such as: 'Ibject to feeling bjected', 'Ubject are because Ibjected U', 'Ebject is because Ebjectionable is'.

JAUNEDICE A pair of dice, yellowed with age and use (from the French word jaune or yellow). The term has been appropriated by physicians, and misspelled, Jaundice, in the process. The term is used, in place of a proper diagnosis, for people whose eyes are non-congenitally yellow. The idea to use the term in that way suggested itself to physicians casting dice while playing their usual games of chance in diagnosing people's health.

KILTUPPHILIA This word, commonly misspelled Scoptophilia, refers to the universal erotic fascination of both genders to see the nudity of a Scotsperson when his/her Kilt is lifted Up -- doubtless out of curiosity about the Scots- person's gender. In proper society, a common injunction states, 'You can look, but don't touch.' The degenerates who are prepared to brave this injunction's sanctions are called Kiltupfeeliacs, which may account for why some have difficulty in spelling the word correctly.

KINDMESS This word was originally rendered Kingmess. It is often wrongly spelled Kindness. It referred to the Mess of things Kings usually made out of subjects' lives. It was largely as a wish-fulfilling fantasy or a rather futile prayer that the word was changed to Kindmess in the hope that kings would be so Kind as to make a different Kind of Mess while messing around with ordinary people's lives. The present-day courts have continued the kings' firm opposition to practising Kindmess.

LE'AVENOT Giving another person permission to depart or to be absent from your presence. The word originated from a mixture of French and the Cockney dialect. In French, 'Le' is the indefinite article, referring widely to anything or anyone. ''Ave' comes from the Cockney 'abit of dropping the 'hH', hunless the hword doesn't 'ave one. The 'Not' is to negate the having, thus indicating not- having. Le'avenot, sometimes rendered Leavenot, is often misspelled Leave (or Le'ave), perhaps because some people are afflicted with the wish to have others around. It then becomes Le'avenot's antonym, and it means Stay.

MYIDIOSYNCRAZY This word, used to represent My creativity that you might think crazy or idiosyncratic, is commonly misspelled as Mediocrity. That word is used wrongly to refer to your passive voice misjudgment of my behaviour as Mediocre and/or subject to Criticism. Of course, my conduct is never either of these. Still, out of feigned humility, I would be willing to accept that, from your limited perspective, My behaviour might appear to involve a minor degree of Idiosyncrasy or individuality, as is appropriate to a real individual -- if there was another one. The word is composed of several parts that, expanded, state: 'My Id, I Observe, (might incorrectly be thought to seem a possible) Synonym (for) Crazy'.

MOONRAY An emanation of light Rays from the Moon. The term is often misspelled as Moonbeam. The misspelling is understandable. Moonbeams leave some people moonstruck, afflicting those exposed to them with temporary insanity, called Lunainanity, equivalent to having been struck on the head with a Beam and knocked senseless. Luna-inanity has been misspelled Lunacy by physicians, in order to line their pockets by having another ailment to diagnose in people. A similar confusion exists concerning the sun. Sunrays merely bake the skin to a beet red or a nut brown, perhaps eventuating in skin cancer. However, a blow from a Sunbeam is a sun-stroke, and can be fatal.

NEIGHBORE Commonly wrongly spelled Neighbour. The word comes from the fact that in olden days one's most proximal company was a horse. It was found to be difficult to teach any horse to speak English, in order to become interesting company. From this fact, it became common practice to refer to the thing or person living closest to one as a Boring Neigh, or Neighbore. An historical coincidence created an extension to this word. Robin Hood lived in, and dominated, the local environment of the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff began to refer to his living environment by adding Robin's name to it, calling it the Neighborehood. Since courtiers, such as the Sheriff, have always tended to set the fashion, the extended word was widely adopted to refer to one's surroundings.

OPURICH This word is commonly misspelled Opulent, and is taken to mean the person referred to is poor enough to need to be loaned property and money (even during Lent). This misspelled and misused term was always intended to be spelled and to mean Opurich. No dictionary will ever unravel the mystery of why that intention was not carried out. Opurich is an exclamatory remark, collapsing into one word the phrase: 'Oh P.U. (Phogbound University, made famous by Al Capp)! That [person or thing] is Rich!'

PERSONSLAUGHTER This is the contemporary, politically correct, way to refer to what used to be called Manslaughter. It is the crime of which a person (formerly only men) can be convicted for having been caught convulsed with laughter. This act was proscribed under the Criminal Code due to the political influence of court judges on law-makers. Judges were offended by the prevalence, in their courtly premises, of mirth directed at the ridiculous ceremonies and procedures practised there. The worst that can be said of Personslaughter is that, since some of those who convulse with mirth die, it can serve as a self-directed form of population control or client-centred euthanasia.

PICKULIAR This word refers to other people's idiotssincraziness where the wish is to carry a pejorative flavour with the option for the other to try again to choose an acceptable opinion. It is sometimes misspelled Peculiar, although the incorrect spelling seems a bit strange.

POLEICE This term, commonly wrongly spelled Police, refers to a particular form of ice. This form of ice is imported from that section of the polar arctic regions annexed by Poland. It is held to be highly efficacious as a means to dilute substances used for their euphorizing and disinhibiting effects on human conduct. This kind of ice is commercially available, and it is delivered in white or black-and-white vehicles using uniformed chauffeurs. The chauffeurs used to be called poleicemen. Out of fear of (euphemistically called deference to) the politically active libertines, they are now called poleicepersons.

POLEICEPERSON See Poleice.

POLYTICCURS Valueless Curs, comprised of many Tics (involuntary jerks), among whom brain is so highly valued that it is exempted from office and from consultation. Physicians have adopted the term as another diagnosis from which to acquire wealth. As usual, they have altered the word slightly to obscure their marauding. They use the word in the form, Polyticquers, to refer to the multiple tics that characterize this sub-human species. Polyticcurs commonly misspell the term as Politicians, seeking to imply that they are Patricians by virtue of having been selected by the populace through Polls. Although those referred to are the same, both the spelling and meaning they assign to the term are wrong.

POSITIONS This word is commonly spelled correctly, but it is used incorrectly. It obviously refers to opinions offered by certain theoretical physicists who Posit the existence of attractive or repulsive electrical charges on tiny parts of particles that they call Ions.

QUEERK Originally, this was an architectural term, used to refer to a crafty swirl on a column. The word was extended to refer to a number of Queer Kinks, including a twist of a phrase, a clever evasion of the truth, and an high output wind generator. The word is commonly misspelled Quirk, even by the author's father -- who took one look at his infant son and pronounced him a Queerk.

REPELTOONE This useful word is regularly misspelled as Repulsion. It has not one Ion to do with the Pulse, though misused as though it does. The word alludes to the assumption that the wish to push away, or Repel, the thing or person referred to is general To every other One there is. The assumption is not without merit where the repelling object is another person.

RESTCUE This word, often misspelled Rescue, refers to the stimulus Cue afforded by the uniforms of Emergency Service personnel signalling imminent Rest from the rigors of having to deal with a crisis.

SKIMPEE The least bjectionable way to refer to apparel barely sufficient to filter the contents of the kinds of bodily apparatus almost obscured by them.

SUESDOORIFOPEN This interesting term has both a precedent and a subsequent. It originated because a woman named Sue, who was remarkable for her impoverished personal and domestic hygiene, used to leave her front door open and stink up the neighborehood (see there). Recently, the courts have accepted suits (lawyers) that sue others possessed of Sue's habits. Hence the word adopted is Sue'sdoorifopen, or subsequently Suesdoorifopen (how one sues a door is unclear). The word is frequently wrongly spelled as Sudorific. Somebody badly needed a dictionary. TACTTICKLE A few degenerate and disgusting people are said to possess the quality of Tacttickleness. Apparently, they like Tact. It Tickles their fancies. The rest of us ordinary and sane people are said to be Tactfull (often misspelled Tactful). We've had our Fill of the enormous excesses of Tact we've been called upon to accept, swallow and regurgitate. Military and para-military organizations use the word in an adulterated form. They spell the word, Tactical, to obscure the Tact they use in support of their oppressive and suppressive strategies. By camouflaging their use of Tact, they hope to intimidate those they oppress and suppress, in addition to the manipulation they hope to achieve by using Tact.

TONTO From the American-Indian word for Landing Place. One can only surmise that the term originated as an abbreviation of the phrase, To-Land-Onto. Although this would not be the best English usage, you can't expect very close co- existence between good grammar and foreigners, no matter how good their intentions are. The word has been adopted as the name for a Canadian city. Unfortunately, it is wrongly spelled, Toronto. Allowances must be made for this error. After all, one cannot expect newly landed English immigrants to be as familiar with the Indian language as the Lone Ranger. The latter had the Indian, Tonto, as his friend, and as his landing place when he was thrown off his horse.

TOPLESS One of the strangest words in the language. When spelled correctly, it refers to the absence of apparel from the body's waist to the neck, the head remaining covered, in place and intact. When spelled incorrectly as Topples, it is used correctly to refer to anything in the process of becoming bereft of its upper or top section(s).

U Perhaps the funniest letter in the alphabet. It refers to anybody except me. It has been hidden under many misspellings. Commonly, it is rendered You. Sometimes it is misspelled Ewe. This may account for the mass suicide of the rams in the Rocky Mountains. It seems some dumb tourist was driving his/her convertible around the locality with his/her radio blaring the song: 'There'll never be another Ewe'.

UACK This word has two meanings. Both meanings are commonly misspelled Quack. This is due, no doubt, to the fact that, when the word is said a plurality of times in a row, the terminating 'K' sound carries over to appear to be an introductory 'K' sound. The reason for repeating the word Uack comes from its first meaning, namely, the vocalization made by a duck. The second use of the term is created as an acronym from 'U Are a Crafty Knave'. It is used to defame any competitor, implying that he/she is unqualified to have an opinion on anything of importance.

UNTILL Noun: An unploughed field. Verb: To unplough or to fail to plough. The term is often misspelled by leaving off its last 'L'. And it tends to be used wrongly to refer to some mysterious future event, though clearly referring to the lack of a specific prior event.

VAININANITY There are many kinds of Inanities. This one is that of being Vain. And it is in vain. Commonly misspelled Vanity, it is misused, affectionately, to refer to the state of living in a Van, called Vaniting or Vanished.

WHOLESTEIN When humankind, emerging from the jungle, successfully domesticated cattle, although the beast produced a quite satisfactory pot-roast, its milk output barely reached a half a beer stein per day. They were called Halfsteins. Competitive breeding practices finally achieved dairy cattle that produced a Whole Stein a day. Another strain was advertised as producing enough milk to create a river such that one would have to find elevated ground in order to ford the flood. Since they were hairy beasts, they were called Hairyfords. Other breeds were developed for different purposes. One barely produced enough milk to paint its own Face White, but it yielded superb steaks and rib roasts. Another breed yielded satisfactory beef products, but also produced enough milk to fill a Long Horn. However, this breed was too horny so that its supply exceeded its demand. More breeding created the Short Horn (in milk production) for both dairy and beef purposes, and it improved the supply-demand balance. It is noteworthy that misspellings of their names have been encountered with only two cattle breeds. Hairyfords are often misspelled Herefords; and Wholesteins are commonly misspelled Holsteins. The misuses of cattle are legion.

WIZZENEDDUMB Commonly misspelled Wisdom and used to imply balanced judgement bred of long experience, this word is really used to refer to the decline of intelligence accompanying age with its Wizened features and Wizened brain.

WOEMAN This term refers to the distaff side. It recognizes the inevitable Woeful effect on Man of dealing with the unfair and bitter half (of the world). The plural form, Woemen, indicates that the bearer has the potential to bear Woe to a plurality of Men. The word is usually misspelled Woman to obscure its real reference.

X-RAY Sorry, this word is usually spelled right. What a shame! The word refers to Rays that can't be seen or felt, and therefore are unknown (hence the 'X' specification). These Rays are said to penetrate the body and to cause disease. If they were directly experienced for their prostrating effects, they would be called X-Beams, from the conventions about Rays and Beams (see Moonray).

Y The most irritatingly inquisitive letter in the alphabet. It is sometimes misspelled Why (who knows Y?). No matter how it is spelled, it asks a question that cannot be answered. If it asks for initial cause of anything, the correct answer is that the initial causes include everything that ever happened in the universe since creation. If it asks for final cause (purpose) of any event or thing, the answer is silence, since many of each person's purposes are hidden from him/her and everyone else in unawareness. Y is not that? Y is that.

ZEASY The American spelling for the antonym of Difficult (not Hard, as some wrongly think). The American spelling for the English misspelled word Easy, came from the wish to have the word appear at the end of the dictionary instead of near the beginning -- just to be difficult.

ZEDWHYEXUUVEEYOUTEAESSARECUEPEEOHENEMELLKAYJAYEY EAICHGEEEFEEDEESEABEEAY A word requiring no definition. It is clear, obvious, abecedarian and correct, equivalent to most of the words in these dictionaries. Without such simple, root words, where would your average dictionarian be? It is often misspelled Zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba, and abused by being defined as the reverse alphabet.

ZOOOLOGY The knowledge of Zoos and where they are not located. The 'Ology' part comes from the practice of systematizing knowledge by recording it in a Log. It is known that the recording used to be done, in precis form, on a staff. When papyrus, or later paper, come into use, the precis form was abandoned in favour of lengthy and flowery notations, requiring whole logs to be sacrificed to produce the paper for the records. Hence, the shift from STAFF to LOG, and the change of this word from its early form: ZOOOSTAFFY. Y this (or any other) kind of Log is called an O Log (/o staff) is lost in the mists of time. Perhaps there was a song of the times that cheerfully announced history's vagaries:

1) 'OStaffO'Mine, 2) 'Ifyouletslip DearValentine, Onetinypeep. Is set to land This staff o' mine Uponyourspine. Willhelpyousleep.

3) 'Nowifyoufeel 4) 'Thisstaffo'mine, Thisunfairdeal DearValentine, Should give a turn You'll never reap, Toyou,bereal! It'sminetokeep.

5) 'Ho,Ho,quothshe, 6) 'Myturnwillcome, Check herstory! You lousy scum, Thatstaffandhe AndIwillget Belongtome. You'neathmythumb.

7) 'Revengeismine, 8) 'Thatstaffandme, I'llbidemytime. Bydestiny, You'llseewhatlands Willwhackyounumb Upon whose spine. On head and bum.'