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
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