A Dictionary Of Idiocy

Get your snark on, with this hilarious compendium from the author of The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm. It’s the perfect book for today’s world. The battle for sanity and intelligence rages on! Read any news story today and it’s clear that idiots are everywhere. For that reason, James Napoli, the esteemed director of the National Sarcasm Society, has created a smart-aleck new dictionary that defines pop-culture touchstones and throws shade on the hopelessly foolish. With copiously illustrated and snarky entries on everything from “Alternative Facts” and “Congress” to “Cable News” and “Uber” (A convenient way to entrust your transportation to a potential serial killer . . .”), The Official Dictionary of Idiocy brings some much-needed laughter to these crazy days.

This unputdownable A-Z of modern ignorance, gathers silly, curious and sometimes shocking facts on everything that makes our world tick.

Wittgenstein said that if people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever happen. In this fun compendium to modern life, Stephen Bayley gathers silly, curious and sometimes shocking facts on the everything that make our world tick. Ranging widely from cars, Jackson Pollock and insults, to nudity, wine and perfume, he has put together a collection of general ignorance. You'll be surprised at how much you don't know.

Tolerate ignorance? Really? So not necessary. This laugh-out-loud dictionary is the perfect lesson in snarkiness. Why suffer the tiny minds of the plebian rabble with whom you come in daily contact, reasons James Napoli, executive vice president of the National Sarcasm Society. So, with The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm, he provides an A–Z guide to turn to whenever you need to set someone straight. From advertisements to e-mail, materialism to remote controls, there’s a witty answer for every situation. “You have been waiting patiently for a dictionary like this to come along. And now it is here,” recognizes Napoli. “Not that you give a crap.”

This volume provides a light-hearted guide for the perplexed to all things trivial. Wittgenstein said that if people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever happen. As human progress depends on the continuing practice of stupidity, Stephen Bayley investigates in this book what is necessary for human progress. Some instances of stupidity are only clearly stupid after the fact such as the astonishing amount of money poured into Internet start-ups, others rely on ideas which are stupid on their own. The Ship of Follies of the World in 1509, even the perplexed will find their way through the maze of progress and common sense. An original miscellany for those who want their trivia served up with panache. The inspiration for this collection comes from Flaubert's Dictionnaire des Idees Recues, published for the first time in October 1904.