Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? Nicholas von Hoffman is the author of A Devil’s Dictionary of Business ...

In the late 1880s, short story writer Ambrose Bierce penned a tongue-in-cheek lexicon for the Gilded Age. He called it The Devil’s Dictionary. In it, Bierce poked fun at society by defining common ...

fish: Once there was a beautiful princess who wanted to marry a fish. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said her mother, the queen. ‘You’re a beautiful princess. You don’t have to marry a fish.’ ‘But I want to ...

Ambrose Bierce ’s The Devil’s Dictionary is a wickedly witty piece of work (and website). It slyly redefines common words and phrases, usually with a bitter, contrarian, or comic touch. But why should ...