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Hayward's Unabridged Dictionary
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Appearance of Evil, n. A bane which people will commit evil in order to avoid.
Archaic, adj. Reflecting the best and most enduring relics of centuries gone before. Said of practices, ideas, and language which reflect a belief that wisdom may be found in thoughts of the past as well as those of the present. A pejorative term.
Arminianism, adj. The school of thought opposite Calvinism. Named after Arminius, a theologian who was taught under Calvin's successor, Theodore Beza. Arminius began to depart from Calvin's doctrine by teaching conditional predestination, as contrasted to Beza, who emphatically taught limited atonement.
Arranged marriage, n. A marriage not chosen by the parties involved; arranged marriages exhibit far lower divorce rates than those voluntarily chosen.
That they be more successful is not really as strange as it may seem at first.
In America, you marry the girl you love; in India, you love the girl you marry.
-A man speaking in a video on Indian philosophy
There is a fundamental difference in how arranged and voluntarily chosen marriages tend to be approached. Voluntary marriages tend to be approached as "If I can just find the right person, we can live happily ever after."; arranged marriages are not approached with any delusions of being an effortless bliss or some sort of box that one can take things out of without putting anything into. But with poorer conditions -- with a bride and groom that not only have not chosen each other, but have not necessarily met before the day of the wedding -- people decide to make it work. Therefore it is not the lands of arranged marriages, but America, which is the land of divorce.
The difference between expecting something to be fruitful without any effort and without any sacrifice, and expecting something to be difficult (but choosing via effort and sacrifice to make it work) is a difference between disappointment and a rewarding joy, and applies to much more of life than only marriage.
Aspirin, n. A drug used in the treatment of arthritis, commonly found in a container with a childproof cap.
Atheism, n. A religion requiring exceptional faith.
Attention Span, n. The length of time for which a person is able to maintain concentration. In most nations, a long attention span is valued as enabling understanding of well-developped, coherent, and complete arguments; in America,
Automobile, n. A transportation device hailed as the solution to the problem of providing transit without creating the pollution generated by a horse.
AV, n. Authorized Version. The Authorized Version, also known as the King James Version, is the original form of the Word of God. All subsequent paraphrases, while easier to read, are merely the word of man.
Bachelor's Degree, n. The primary degree offered by colleges attended as happy hunting grounds, such as Moody Bridal Institute.
Ballista, n. A device useful in the adjustment of sound systems playing elevator music.
Beatitude, n. A genre of didactic statement, used in the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed are the ticklish,
for the touch of a friend shall fill them with laughter.-The Unauthorized Version
Beautiful, adj. Distorted and unnatural.
One of the enduring aspects of human culture is a tradition which universally establishes a single standard of beauty, one for the male body and (especially) one for the female.
There is some feature which may be attractive, and is exaggerated out of all proportion. Or, alternately, some feature which is unattractive, and is exaggerated out of all proportion.
Because a long and slender neck looks beautiful, a nice contrast to the thick bulges of a man's shape, there's a tribe in Africa which uses copper braces to stretch out women's necks to be a foot long.
China, noting that men have big feet and a feminine shape involves small feet, has the practice of footbinding, using the one kind of footwear tighter than climbing boots in order to painfully keep feet from growing any larger than those of a little girl.
Recent anthropological findings report an obscure culture which has successfully made the transition from ridiculous to bombastic. It has decided that the roundness of feminine beauty should be replaced with the shape of a pre-pubescent boy, and reacted to modern technology by using the woman's body as a repository for gelatinous capsules.
Beer Commercial, n. The reductio ad disgustum of advertising's image of women.
Bible, n. A work high on the tolerant people's list of books to be burned.
We live in a pluralistic, multicultural society where young people raised according to the tenets of Hinduisn, Islam, or the humanist philosophy of Bertrand Russel must feel as welcome as young people raised on the Bible. Our solution to this challenge is ingenious. Knowing that the vast majority of young people are profoundly ignorant of the Bhagavad Gita, or of the Koran, or for that matter of the philosophy of Bertrand Russel, we have decided in the interests of tolerance and pluralism to leave them equally ignorant of the Bible. Our young people enjoy a perfect democracy of ignorance.
-Literary critic Peter Marchand, commenting on the removal of the Bible from public school classrooms
Billboard, n. An eyesore which possesses the additional demerit of being a distraction to drivers.
Drivers who take their eyes off the road to read billboards should make sure that they're sufficiently insured.
Just a thought.
-A billboard seen in Holland, Michigan
I think I shall never see
a billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
I shall never see a tree at all.-Ogden Nash
Blind, adj. Possessing eyes that do not see. The prophet Isaiah spoke of people having eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear. That prophecy has had numerous fulfillments; of chief contemporary relevance is current underinterpretation of Biblical teachings on wealth.
Bombastic, adj. Of, from, or pertaining to the PC-USA.
Boot, n. An ingenious device used to keep astronauts on the moon from floating away in space.
Brainwashing, n. A cold Big Brother's constant barrage of propoganda to people under his thumb.
One American who recently visited the People's Republic of China said that at first he wondered how people could tolerate the constant barrage of slogans on walls and radio telling everybody what to think. Then he realized that his own society reels under nonstop messages just as inane.
-Doris Janses, Living More with Less, on advertising
Budweiser, n. A headache in a bottle. The dog of beers.
With most beers, if you drink too much, you get a headache the day after. With Annheiser-Busch, you get a headache as you drink it.
-A German student, spring '95
Bumber Sticker, n. A tool to present the ludicrous as unassailable. One bumber sticker, for instance, reads:
PRO-CHOICE, PRO-CHILD
EVERY CHILD A WANTED CHILD
This form of deep compassion is perhaps inspired by satirist fantasy author Terry Pratchett:
Give a man a fire and keep him warm for a day.
Light a man on fire and he will be warm for rest of his life.
Busy Signal, n. An elegant sound designed to prepare the ear to listen to country and western.
Cafeteria, n. A refectory instrumental in the building of fine and upstanding young students. The meat builds muscle, the milk builds bones, and the rest builds character.
Friend: We're going to the cafeteria for dinner. Wanna come along?
Student: Sorry, but I'm trying not to lose weight.
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Hayward's Unabridged Dictionary
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