The gringo in question was one Ambrose Bierce, an American journalist and author who disappeared in the Mexican revolution almost a hundred years ago. Better known as Bitter Bierce, he published a little book called “The Cynic’s Word Book” in 1906. As the title implied, this work was a deliberate send-up of traditional dictionaries. A bore, in Bierce’s definition, is “a person who talks when you wish him to listen.” Commerce, for example, isn’t about leveraging synergies – it’s “a kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.” Sounds familiar? In today’s world of questionable corporate morals, Bierce’s definition of a corporation remains valid: “An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” And when it comes to the knotty topic of reform, we might bear in mind Old Gringo’s explanation of the word Economy: “Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.” Today this book is known as “The Devil’s Dictionary”. If, like me, you abhor paperbacks, you’ll find the new Folio edition of Bierce’s classic makes the ideal corporate Christmas gift.
