The book that tickled me was a collection of the satirical aphorisms of Ambrose Bierce, culled from his inordinately successful newspaper col- umns of the late-1800s. It was known at the time as The Cynic's Word Book, and the columns were later collected and published as The Devil's Dictionary. In it, Bierce, who had fought in the Civil War and found his view of life profoundly altered by combat, decided to tell the truth about the meaning of words, and therefore, about life's combatants (us). Не would define words not for what they were said conventionally to signify, but for what they really were. He would glance behind all the layers, all the petticoats, and tell you what was actually there, not what we were meant to see.