editor n. A high-handed illiterate nincompoop charged with emending text that is generally perfect ab origine. In computer terminology, a program designed to facilitate the creation of profuse quantities of material requiring the services of a human editor. See also writing.
education n. The process of training the young of one's species to behave in a manner other than that dictated by common sense.
| There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. | |
| --Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism | |
eminent domain n. Legal mumbo-jumbo invoked to excuse the otherwise inexcusable, and usually illegal, confiscation of private individuals' real estate by the state.
| What is, then, the difference, but that as you were born a king and I a private man, you have been able to become a mightier robber than I. | |
| --John Aikin, "Alexander the Great and a Thracian Robber" | |
equality n. An uncommonly popular political fiction. It makes those who are more equal feel that they are being noble, and it makes those who are less equal feel ennobled.
| All species are created unequal. The best society provides each with equal opportunity to float at his own level. | |
| --Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment | |
etiquette n. A formalized set of rules for behavior in social situations. Largely a waste of the writer's time were it not for publishers' commissions and royalties.
| Indeed, it has never been easier to insult people inadvertently. A gentleman opens a door for a lady because his mother taught him that ladies appreciate such courtesies, but this one turns around and spits in his eye because he has insulted her womanhood. A young lady offers her seat in a crowded bus to an elderly, frail gentleman, and he gives her a dirty look because she has insulted his manhood. | |
| --Judith Martin, speech, 1984 | |
evangelist, television n. A salesman and con artist whose business it is to prey upon others' masochism by extorting financial contributions in return for threatening them with hellfire and damnation.
| There is a certain class of clergyman whose mendacity is only equalled by their mendacity. | |
| --Archbishop Frederick Temple | |