EDWORD Odds & Ends of English By ED KONSTANT

A 'New Devil's Dictionary" sampler
      Here's a sample of some of the 1,300 words redefined in my most recent book, "The New Devil's Dictionary," with the permission of the author (me):
     Alien: When followed by the world "illegal," a person who is willing to work,
     Brain: The body's most important organ, yet oddly, about only five percent of it is used by its human hosts.
     Corruption: One of the fringe benefits of a career in politics.
      Detroit: A city that produces second-rate automobiles and third-rate football teams.
       Education: Society's assault on defenseless children.
      Father: Someone whose status has been downgraded from the person who "knows best" to the person who hasn't got a clue.
      Garden: A place where plants that you wish would grow do not, while providing a haven for plants that you wish did not.
     Hospital: An institution that must meet a set quota of the number of ill patients that it kills every year.
      Insurance: Legalized gambling.
    Judge: A person appointed or elected to make decisions based on law, but who usually makes them based om personal or political considerations.
     Kansas: A place to go when the end of the world is near because everything happens there ten years later.
      Limbo: The third planet from the sun.   
   Morons: Beings whose names were mispronounced "Martians" when they were expected to invade the Earth in the mid-20th Century, but already had been here and, with their descendants, have been running the world ever since.

Ed Konstant (October 2007)

Email Ed Konstant at: blogs@gulfbeachrecord.com.