Subject: Definitions (Page 24)

Secret: What we tell everybody to tell nobody.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist

Accordion: An instrument whose music is long drawn out.

Yearbook: A book of pictures that get nerdier with time.

Linguist: A person who can be misunderstood in many languages.

Avoidance: A dance for people who hate each other.

Clarification: To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.

Zeal: A nervous disorder affecting the young and inexperienced.

Sarcasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn’t get it.

Tips: Wages we pay other people’s help.

Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist

Widow: A woman who knows her husband’s whereabouts at all times.

Quiet: A state of household serenity which occurs before the birth of the first child and occurs again after the last child has left for college.

Civilization: A process whereby one generation finds the questions to the previous generation’s answers.

Optimist: Someone who tells you to cheer up when things are going his way.

Nepotism: A form of favoritism – relatively speaking.

Strip Teaser: One who makes a bare living.

Pocket Watch: A watch for people who don’t like having time on their hands.

Year: The exact length of time that will pass from the day you get married to the day you forget your first anniversary.

Home: A place where man goes to raise a fuss because something went wrong at the office.

Aground: When a boat makes the discovery that all water has land under it.

Dirt: Mud with the juice squeezed out.