I’m not on holiday at the moment but taking the odd day off over the summer. Yesterday was one. I found a good set of amusing links, here are a few.<\/p>\n
The New Devil\u2019s Dictionary<\/a> From The Verge updates Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil\u2019s Dictionary.<\/p>\n Examples:<\/p>\n blogger <\/span> <\/strong> (n.<\/strong>): <\/span> An invasive species with no natural predators.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n GIF <\/span> <\/strong> (n.)<\/strong>: <\/span> Many prefer to pronounce this word \u201cGIF,\u201d instead of the more controversial-sounding \u201cGIF.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n music <\/span> <\/strong> (n.)<\/strong>: <\/span> An art form whose medium is copyright law.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And so on.<\/p>\n This reminded me to google for an english translation of Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas<\/a>, hoping as usual for a creative commons version that could be played with. As usual I didn’t find that but got In Place of Thought – The New Yorker<\/a> by Teju Cole<\/a> which adapts\u00a0the idea for modern times:<\/p>\n COFFEE<\/small><\/strong>. Declare that it is intolerable at Starbucks. Buy it at Starbucks.\u00a0EVOLUTION<\/small><\/strong>. Only a theory. FASCISM<\/small><\/strong>. Always preceded by \u201ccreeping.\u201d FEMINISTS<\/small><\/strong>. Wonderful, in theory. FISH<\/small><\/strong>. A vegetable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ouch, that last one stung!<\/p>\n Checking Teju Cole (@tejucole) on Twitter<\/a> as his ideas started as tweets, I found:<\/p>\nBonus Twitter mashup<\/h3>\n