Gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.
Genealogy, n. An account of oneʼs descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Friendless, n. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
Friendship, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.
Forefinger, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.
Forgetfulness, n. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
Fool, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. It was he who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war – founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago.
Fly-speck, n. The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by Garvinus that the system of punctuation in use by the various literary nations depended originally upon the social habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several countries. These creatures, which have always been distinguished by a neighborly and companionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen, according to heir bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the writerʼs powers.
Jonathan Swift proposed some remedies which could prove highly effective given the current impasse in the House of Representatives, though in Gulliverʼs Travels he referred to the Senate:
The doctor [on the floating island of Laputa] proposed that on the meeting of a senate, certain physicians should attend at the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each dayʼs debate, feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having maturely considered, and consulted upon the nature of the several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the senate-house; attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgicks, icterisks, apophlegmaticks, acousticks, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them at the next meeting.
This project could not be of any great expense to the public; and might, in my poor opinion, be of much use to the dispatch of business … beget unanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and close many more, which are now open.
Fidelity, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
Finances, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of Americaʼs most precious discoveries and possessions.
Fib, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liarʼs nearest approach to truth: a perigee of his eccentric orbit.
Fickleness, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.
Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
Female, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
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