The Devil's Dictionary

In our world, there are opposites of every subject; smooth and coarse, nice and naughty, good and evil, light and shadow. They are elements of our world that require the opposite to exist. Without knowing one, a person cannot know the other. To reach the true light of meaning, one must examine the word shadow from several perspectives; including: literal, “evil” or dark, one’s legacy, and in war or in society. First, exploring the roots of origin in the word “shadow”, the word can be traced…

like people might think it is. The law and even families might reiterate the idea repeatedly, yet it simply isn’t true. So why do people see marijuana as the devil’s spawn? A leading reason that people believe marijuana is bad is the many myths circulating around it. Marijuana (also known as cannabis or weed), according to the Oxford dictionary, is, “cannabis, especially as smoked or consumed as a psychoactive drug.” One myth is that weed kills. This is a wildly inaccurate myth. For example,…

fallacy and literal intention, having almost the same meaning. Literal intention or intentional Fallacy is referred in the dictionary as , “An assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author's intended meaning rather than on actual response to the work” (Dictionary, 2018) I…

For this question, I am going to take the position of the devil’s advocate. The question here is whether I agree with Whitehead’s characterization of religion, as it relates to solitariness and the three stages of religion. To this question, I must answer that I do agree with his characterization. If we were to transition one word from religion to Christianity, I would be taking a different approach to my answer in this question. As I break the question into two distinct sections, I will…

2. The Doppelgänger in Gothic Fiction The term “doppelgänger” comes from German and can literally translated as “double-goer” (Strengell ....: n. pag.). According to The New International Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language, it is defined as either a “person exactly like another; a double” or a “wraith, especially of a person not yet dead” (1999: 378). The idea of the phantom double is an ancient belief included in various superstitions and folklore. Therefore, in the…

England, back to San Francisco, to Washington D.C., and eventually to Mexico in 1913—all the while writing for various publications and even working as a feared critic. Specifically, Bierce is perhaps best known for his satire, most notably The Devil’s Dictionary, as well as his dark and supernatural stories, one of…

She was disgusted with his slightest inhalation and sluggish movements. Then her friend, the one whom had her heart broken numerous times by this naive and demonic boy, invited him to come home with the two girls. Kelsey was starred-eyed at the devil’s creation, and Grace could smell the pulchritude stink the boy carried with him. Grace had seen this boy in her Track and Field class but never cared for his arrogance use of life. Until the three had been waiting for Grace’s mom to take them home…

advertisement. The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of an advertisement is “something (such as a short film or a written notice) that is shown or presented to the public to help sell a product or to make an announcement.”. Mr. Kalle Lasn sees advertising differently. According to Lasn article ‘Hype” he states “ Advertisements are the most prevalent and toxic of the mental pollutants.” Advertisement is like heroin…

precisely portrayed in the second thousand years BC, and until it was viewed as an only female disease. More than 4000 years of history, this sickness was considered from two points of view: logical and demonological. Currently, Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines mass hysteria as “a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychogenic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions.” Meaning, a disorder characterized by violent mental episodes, the unsettling of…

English proves to be a difficult language because numerous words have more than one meaning to them. Some of those include run, call, and even quail. The context of the story or sentence helps the audience figure out which meaning best fits that situation. A title such as The Crucible can give the reader an insight to what the play will be about. Miller gives The Crucible this title because of the parallelism with its meaning to what happens in the story. His title displays this from the…