The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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L
- Labor
- n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
- Land
- n. A part of the earth’s surface, considered as property. The
theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control
is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the
superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some
have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own
implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass
are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that
if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will
be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to
exist.
A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
For the spark the nature gave
I have there the right to keep.They give me the cat-o’-nine
Dodle
Whenever I go ashore.
Then ho! for the flashing brine —
I’m a natural commodore! - Language
- n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.
- Laocoon
- n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.
- Lap
- n. One of the most important organs of the female system — an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal’s substantial welfare.
- Last
- n. A shoemaker’s implement, named by a frowning Providence as
opportunity to the maker of puns.
Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,
Gargo Repsky
Where the cobbler is unknown,
So that I might forget his last
And hear your own. - Laughter
- n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals — these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens.
- Laureate
- adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign’s court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national crime.
- Laurel
- n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. (Vide supra.)