THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
inaction.In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned." UN-AMERICAN, adj.Wicked, intolerable, heathenish. UNCTION, n.An oiling, or greasing.The rite of extreme unctionconsists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts ofthe body of one engaged in dying.Marbury relates that after the ritehad been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it wasdiscovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no othercould be obtained.When informed of this the sick man said in anger: "Then I'll be damned if I die!" "My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear." UNDERSTANDING, n.A cerebral secretion that enables one having it toknow a house from a horse by the roof on the house.Its nature andlaws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, andKant, who lived in a horse. His understanding was so keen That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen, He could interpret without fail If he was in or out of jail. He wrote at Inspiration's call Deep disquisitions on them all, Then, pent at last in an asylum, Performed the service to compile 'em. So great a writer, all men swore, They never had not read before. Jorrock Wormley UNITARIAN, n.One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian. UNIVERSALIST, n.One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for personsof another faith. URBANITY, n.The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe todwellers in all cities but New York.Its commonest expression isheard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not consistent withdisregard of the rights of others. The owner of a powder mill Was musing on a distant hill -- Something his mind foreboded -- When from the cloudless sky there fell A deviled human kidney!Well, The man's mill had exploded. His hat he lifted from his head; "I beg your pardon, sir," he said; "I didn't know 'twas loaded." Swatkin USAGE, n.The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second andThird being Custom and Conventionality.Imbued with a decentreverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope 167