A Bonehead's Concise Dictionary

This page provides extracts from authentic, unconsciously humorous answers to school exam questions and essays, gathered from a compilation by Viking Press published under the pseudonym of Alexander Abingdon in 1952. The selected extracts, edited and rearranged, are reproduced for readers in countries where the book is in the public domain, which, to the best of our knowledge, includes Australia (because more than 50 years have passed since the book's publication and because the so-called anonymous rule applies). For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

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Allergic: not inclined to, such as work, love, or even living

Ambidextrous: able to use both hands as if they were your feet

Anesthesia: a Russian princess

Anonymous: a noted Greek author

Artisan: one that never runs dry

Canal: small stream of water made by man

Clairvoyance: the art of pretending that you know what people are thinking when really they are not thinking of anything at all

Contour: the outline of a funny shape, such as a broken coastline or a woman

Cubism: the rules of very young Scouts

Extrovert: an animal with its spinal column on the outside

Heir: when anybody dies you get what is left

Heresy: where a child looks like his father

Inhibition: like an exhibition, only indoors

Lullaby: when a guy wants to get out of telling the truth and he makes up an excuse

Microscope: used to see things that are smaller than a naked eye

Oedipus complex: liking your mother as if she were a normal woman

Oxygen: a thing that has eight sides

Panacea: temple dedicated to all the gods

Paradox: a four-sided triangle

Perspective: when a lady is going to have a baby

Philanthropist: a man who pays out a lot of money for love

Polygon: a man with more than one wife, preferably living

Requiem: a mass meeting of the dead in a Catholic Church

Savages: people who don't know what wrong is until missionaries show them

Teetotaler: a man you do not see drinking

Teetotalers: boys who carry golf clubs. They are generally paid, except in Scotland.

Triangle: a circle with three corners to it