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.

Dictionary of Received Ideas, Marginal Revolution, July 9, 2010

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