The Devil’s Dictionary: T

T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly +called tau. In the alphabet whence ours comes it +had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone +(which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified Tallegal, translated by the learned Dr. +Brownrigg, “tanglefoot.”

Table D’Hote, n. A +caterer’s thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
+Took Madam P. to table,
+And there deliriously fed
+As fast as he was able.
+“I dote upon good grub,” he cried,
+Intent upon its throatage.
+“Ah, yes,” said the neglected bride,
+“You’re in your table d’hotage.”

+ +

Associated Poets

tail, n. The part +of an animal’s spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an +independent existence in a world of its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man +is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy +consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by +a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, +and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable in the female of the +species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent. The tailed men +described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an +imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of +our pithecan past.

talk, v.t. To +commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

tariff, n. A scale +of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the +greed of his consumer.

The Enemy of Human Souls
+Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
+For Hell had been annexed of late,
+And was a sovereign Southern State.

+ +

“It were no more than right,” said he,
+“That I should get my fuel free.
+The duty, neither just nor wise,
+Compels me to economize—
+Whereby my broilers, every one,
+Are execrably underdone.
+What would they have?—although I yearn
+To do them nicely to a turn,
+I can’t afford an honest heat.
+This tariff makes even devils cheat!
+I’m ruined, and my humble trade
+All rascals may at will invade:
+Beneath my nose the public press
+Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
+The bar ingeniously applies
+To my undoing my own lies;
+My medicines the doctors use
+(Albeit vainly) to refuse
+To me my fair and rightful prey
+And keep their own in shape to pay;
+The preachers by example teach
+What, scorning to perform, I teach;
+And statesmen, aping me, all make
+More promises than they can break.
+Against such competition I
+Lift up a disregarded cry.
+Since all ignore my just complaint,
+By Hokey-Pokey! I’ll turn saint!”
+Now, the Republicans, who all
+Are saints, began at once to bawl
+Against his competition; so
+There was a devil of a go!
+They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
+In acrimonious debate,
+Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
+Had hopes of coming by their own.
+That evil to avert, in haste
+The two belligerents embraced;
+But since ‘twere wicked to relax
+A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
+‘Twas finally agreed to grant
+The bold Insurgent-protestant
+A bounty on each soul that fell
+Into his ineffectual Hell.

Edam Smith

technicality, n. In +an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his +neighbor of murder. His exact words were: “Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver +and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one +shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder.” The defendant was +acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the +words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, +that being only an inference.

tedium, n. Ennui, +the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the +word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it +comes from a very obvious source—the first words of the ancient Latin hymn Te +Deum Laudamus. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that +saddens.

teetotaler, n. One +who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

telephone, n. An +invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a +disagreeable person keep his distance.

telescope, n. 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. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

tenacity, n. A +certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It +attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a +serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following illustrative +lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who +has passed to his accounting:

Of such tenacity his grip
+That nothing from his hand can slip.
+Well-buttered eels you may o’erwhelm
+In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
+In vain—from his detaining pinch
+They cannot struggle half an inch!
+‘Tis lucky that he so is planned
+That breath he draws not with his hand,
+For if he did, so great his greed
+He’d draw his last with eager speed.
+Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
+He’d draw but never let it go!

theosophy, n. An +ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of +science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an +incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because +one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a +single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose +to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good—that is perfection; and the +Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of +improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are +disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were +last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame +Blavatsky, who had no cat.

tights, n. An +habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the +press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat +diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell’s refusal to wear it, and +many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall +showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall’s +belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This +theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the +conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank +among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that +in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell’s aversion to tights no one seems +to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as +“modesty.” The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and +possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The +study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts +themselves recovered. This is an epoch of renaissances, +and there is ground for hope that the primitive “blush” may be dragged from its +hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.

tomb, n. The House +of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain +sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to +break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, +explaining that a tomb may be innocently “glened” as soon as its occupant is +done “smellynge,” the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now +generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity +has been greatly dignified.

tope, v. To tipple, +booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is +regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of +civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the +absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred +thousand beef-eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection +two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With +what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out +of his possessions! From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of +western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere +the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too +righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from +the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation’s +military power.

tortoise, n. A +creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the +illustrious Ambat Delaso:

TO MY PET TORTOISE

+ +

My friend, you are not graceful—not at all;
+Your gait’s between a stagger and a sprawl.
+Nor are you beautiful: your head’s a snake’s
+To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
+As to your feet, they’d make an angel weep.
+‘Tis true you take them in whene’er you sleep.
+No, you’re not pretty, but you have, I own,
+A certain firmness—mostly you’re [sic] backbone.
+Firmness and strength (you have a giant’s thews)
+Are virtues that the great know how to use—
+I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
+You lack—excuse my mentioning it—Soul.
+So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
+I’d rather you were I than I were you.

+ +

Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
+When Man’s extinct, a better world may see
+Your progeny in power and control,
+Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.

+ +

So I salute you as a reptile grand
+Predestined to regenerate the land.

+ +

Father of Possibilities, O deign
+To accept the homage of a dying reign!
+In the far region of the unforeknown
+I dream a tortoise upon every throne.

+ +

I see an Emperor his head withdraw
+Into his carapace for fear of Law;

+ +

A King who carries something else than fat,
+Howe’er acceptably he carries that;
+A President not strenuously bent
+On punishment of audible dissent—

+ +

Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
+An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
+Subject and citizens that feel no need
+To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
+All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
+And “Take your time” the word, in Church and State.
+O Tortoise, ‘tis a happy, happy dream,
+My glorious testudinous regime!

+ +

I wish in Eden you’d brought this about
+By slouching in and chasing Adam out.

tree, n. A tall +vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a +miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all. +When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an +important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South +its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the +public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare. That +the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch +(who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) +is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two +centuries:

While in yt londe +I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge +yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe +made answer as followeth:

“Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches +all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty.”

And I was furder tolde yt ye worde “Ghogo” sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as “rapscal” in our +owne.

trial, n. A formal +inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of +judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary +to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the +prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this +person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous +gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In +our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval +times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast +that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, +if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain +fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil +tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in +contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they +were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some +pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy’s legs, upsetting him, were arrested +on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned +at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D’Addosio +relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, +goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and +morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds +about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of +Heidelberg University, directed that some of “the aquatic worms” be brought +before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and +absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three +days on pain of incurring “the malediction of God.” In the voluminous records +of this cause celebre nothing is +found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed +forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.

Moses Mendlessohn +having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the +philosopher’s disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. “You +need and immediate change of diet,” he said; “you must eat six ounces of pork +every other day.”

“Pork?” shrieked the patient—“pork? Nothing shall induce me to touch it!”

Trinity, n. In the +multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities +consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such +as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must +urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is +one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because +it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological +fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in +the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible +one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

Troglodyte, n. Specifically, +a cave-dweller of the paleolithic period, after the Tree and before the Flat. A +famous community of troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam. The +colony consisted of “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in +debt, and every one that was discontented”—in brief, all the Socialists of +Judah.

truth, n. An +ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the +sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human +mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.

trust, n. In +American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty +working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the +courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.

turkey, n. A large +bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar +property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.

type, n. Pestilent +bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite +their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary.

Tzetze (or Tsetse) Fly, n. An African +insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly +regarded as nature’s most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients +prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).