cannibal

See also Cannibal: the Musical.

My roommate is a cannibal.
What, you hadn't heard?
Well, her habit isn't flaunted;
She's as canny as Hannibal
In getting what she's wanted
For dinner: men are preferred.

A sleazy son named Billy Gunn
Thought my roommate looked like fun
She seemed to be game,
But when the time came,
His bouncy grinning date
Strapped him to a plate.
Alas! It was nothing lewd;
He was to be barbecued
And got a wee bit flustered.
"He tried to welch,"
She said with a belch,
"But he was terrific with mustard!"

Cannibal: The True Story Behind the Maneater of Rotenburg, by Lois Jones.
New York: Berkley Books, 2005.

"True crime" account of the crimes of Mr. Armin Meiwes (qv).

There are two kinds of journalism. The good gives you information. The bad gives you a mass of true sentences. Good journalists can write true crime without "fictionalizing". Bad journalists must embellish, to cover the tedium of their normal writing. They do this in the only way that could occur to them: Into their mass of true (but uninformative) sentences, they add a mix of false (and uninformative) sentences.

This book is poor journalism. Capote it ain't. 9th Grade reading level.

BrevityQuest 2006

Can"ni*bal (?), n. [Cf. F. cannibale. Columbus, in a letter to the Spanish monarchs written in Oct., 1498, mentions that the people of Hayti lived in great fear of the Caribales (equivalent to E. Caribbees.), the inhabitants of the smaller Antilles; which form of the name was afterward changed into NL. Canibales, in order to express more forcibly their character by a word intelligible through a Latin root "propter rabiem caninam anthropophagorum gentis." The Caribbees call themselves, in their own language. Calinago, Carinago, Calliponam, and, abbreviated, Calina, signifying a brave, from which Columbus formed his Caribales.]

A human being that eats human flesh; hence, any that devours its own kind.

Darwin.

© Webster 1913.

Can"ni*bal (?), a.

Relating to cannibals or cannibalism.

Burke.

© Webster 1913.