Dictionary of Received Ideas

That's the name of a feature by Justin Evans in the new periodical The Point (issue two, Winter 2010).  It's a bit like Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary and I found it to be the funniest article I have read this year.  (It doesn't seem to be on-line.)  Here is one set of consecutive entries:

Economics: actually explains everything

Economy, the: completely incomprehensible

I also liked this one:

Debt: i) public — is inexcusable;

private — drives the economy.

ii) public — drives the economy;

private — is a failure of social safety nets.

They're not mostly about economics, by the way.  Most magazines bore me, especially those with an arty or intellectual feel to them.  Yet I have read half an issue of The Point (found browsing in a Berlin bookstore) and, based on that data, I think it is excellent and I will be starting a subscription.

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