...If I Do Say So Myself

This week’s readings included the word rodomontade. It’s a good word that can be used with impunity in describing the boasting or bragging nature that you find displeasing. (Some of you may actually find boasting or bragging pleasing. You can stop reading now.)

Rodomontade has an interesting etymology. It came to English in the 1610s, although it had an earlier more Italian version in English spelled rodomontado, in the 1590s. It comes from the name of a character in Ludivico Ariosto’s epic 16^th century poem Orlando Furioso, which can be translated as “The Frenzy of Orlando” or more literally “Raging Roland.” The latter translation is important because the poem shares some features with the (to me, at least) more famous and older (11^th century) French epic poem Chanson de Roland (source of the word termagent). Orlando Furioso has inspired creative works by many artists, including Vivaldi, Shakespeare, and Delacroix.

Rodomont (as he’s called in the Gutenberg Project’s translation by William Steward Rose) is one of the main characters, a fierce Muslim warrior and King of Algiers who is quoted as saying

I am that Rodomont, whose martial worth

Scatters its splendor through this ample earth.

Rodomont Is known for his boasting, his gasconade, his bombast. And so that boasting, bragging, bombastic nature is now known as rodomontade.

Which brings us to the word bombast. What is bombast, or being bombastic? Is it related to bombs? 

Bombastic is defined as high-flown or high-sounding (like a bomb?), inflated, or pretentious. Bombast is defined as speech that is too pompous or pretentious. (I’m never guilty of bombast.) It used to be the word for cotton or other batting used for stuffing clothing. In fact, that was its original definition when it came to English in the 1560s. The word is a corruption of the Old French word bombace that means cotton or cotton wadding. The Old French got it from Latin, where it was bombacem, the accusative (why would you accuse cotton?) of bombax, which itself was a corruption and transferred use of the Latin word bombyx that means silk and comes from the Greek word for silk or silkworm: bombyx. You can't get much further from bombs than silkworms. By the 1580s bombast came to mean any inflated, padded, or pompous speech. 

Bombastic, the adjective form, took over 200 years (it arrived in 1704) to come to English use, and originally just meant inflated. But by 1727 it was being used to describe language that is “inflated” as well.

Bombast is related to bluster in meaning. While the word bluster originally came to English in the late 1300s as a verb for violent blowing of wind, it eventually became a noun (in the 1580s) that not only meant a strong wind or boisterous noise but also inflated talk. The word bluster came from a Low German source: Middle Low German has the word blüstren as does East Frisian. (No, I don’t know what West Frisian has instead.)

Rodomontade is boasting or bragging, while bombast is described well as inflated talk. Bombast is expansive and pedantic, but not necessarily about oneself. Bluster has a sense of deception that bombast does not have. Three good words, if I do say so myself, and that might make me guilty of  rodomontade.

Unpaired Words

Jonah Goldberg is one of my favorite writers. Mr. Goldberg is author of The Goldberg File on nationalreview.com and the book "The Tyranny of Cliches" (buy it and the next one, too). Today's post is mostly from his Friday post, with all but the first hyperlink (part of his original post) relating to the words already covered in this blog. The Charles to which he refers is Charles Krauthammer. And now, here's Jonah: 

Anyway, Charles is a big fan of “unpaired words.” I don’t mean words with the Bluetooth turned off. I mean . . . hmmm . . . how do I explain?

Well, many times, during the commercial break on Special Report, we’ve gone back and forth -- brandy snifters in hand -- talking about how we need a president with more feck running an ept and gormful foreign policy. These conversations usually take place after the make-up lady comes into the studio to make sure that we look kempt and shevelled. Well, last Wednesday, the topic came up again, and we kept bandying them about. Which made me think, “This is pretty cool.” It also made me think, “This would be a good riff for the G-File.”Still, I’m hoping that he isn’t gruntled by this somewhat nocuous and entirely effable effort to rip off one of his favorite parlor games. Indeed, I could have dropped this choate schtick without name-dropping Charles, which might have made it seem less petuous, but why leave my motivation unbeknownst when it can be beknownst? Better to go communicado and cognito, I say. Particularly when I’m still throat clearing as I try to scrounge up a real topic to discuss. 

Still, I fear I seem quite chalant as I search for sipid things to say. If I don’t work harder, this “news”letter will never be combobulated. (“I don’t want to disrupt your flow here, so I’ll rupt it. But you should know this all comes across as soucient and below even your pareil writing style. I would have thrown this whole thing out the window, but you opted to fenestrate it.” -- The Couch)

Right off the bat Jonah used the unpaired form of two words I was surprised I didn't find in my list of blogged words: feckless and gormful. They've been on my "to do" list for a long time, so let's get to them. 

Feckless means ineffective, incompetent, or futile; it can also mean irresponsible, lazy, or indifferent. While feckless is funct (to unpair a word), the word from the 1400s from which it is formed, feck, is defunct. It is a word the Scottish shortened from the word "effect", and meant not only effect but value or vigor. The writer Carlyle (according to etymonline.com) popularized the word. Apparently at one time there the word feckful was extant.

Gormless is an adjective that came into English in about 1746 (according to etymonline.com; it is their unspecific specific date) as a "British dialectical word." Not to be confused with a British delectable word, one of the few times you'll see delectable and British in the same sentence. Gormless is defined as stupid or somehow lacking in intelligence. 

I did not realize when I began this blog (ept was in my first post) that I would be in such esteemed company. I trust I viscerated Jonah's column appropriately; I wouldn't want to sult him.

GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out

My wife and I have been struck this week by the magnificent challenge of instilling character in our offspring, imbuing them with good values, and infusing them with the qualities they need to make the best choices in life. It is not an easy task, and I am not even sure whether we can instill, imbue or infuse. Hence today’s post.

Instill is the most commonly used of today’s words. It means, dictionary.com tells us, “to infuse slowly or gradually into the mind or feelings.” So to understand instill we have to know the meaning of the word infuse, eh? The definition gives as synonyms the words insinuate (in my opinion using a secondary definition of that word) and inject. Not my favorite definition.

The etymology (according to etymonline.come) dates back to the early 1400s, as does the word infuse. Instill comes from the Latin word instillare that means to put in drop by drop, stilla being the Latin word for drop. Which is why the verb instill is related to the word distilling or the device used in distilling, the still.

Infuse, on the other hand, comes from the Latin word infusus (from infundere) and means to pour in, a lot at once, not drop by drop. It was not recorded as having been used figuratively (as I did in the introductory paragraph) until 1520. It still means to introduce by pouring, but again Dictionary.com gives a second definition of “to imbue or inspire.” Does that help?

Imbue also arrived in English in the early 1400s, from the Latin imbuere that means “to moisten.” The definition given is “to impregnate or inspire, as with feelings, opinions, etc.” with a second definition of saturating with moisture or color. The first definition is the sense I used initially, to saturate with feelings or opinions in the hope that those feelings or emotions will remain. This word has the least indication of volume and most indication of the recipient’s role in retention of what is being used imbued.

This brings us to the word inspire, which has seven definitions to choose from. The breadth of meaning ranges from “to fill with quickening influence” to “to guide or control, by divine influence.” 

The word came to English in the mid-1300s as the word enspiren that meant to fill (like the mind or heart with something like grace) or to prompt to action. The Old French had a word, enspiren, from which it may have come. Or it could have come directly from the Latin word inspirare that meant to inflame or blow into. Etymonline.com says that the Latin word is “a loan-translation of Greek pnein in the Bible.” The idea comes from Genesis 2:7, when the creation account tells how “…the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

What is the role parents play in developing their children? We try, through imbuing them with the dew of our knowledge, instilling drop by drop our ideas on character, and sometimes infusing them with opinions. And when we are successful, we inspire them with our lives and beliefs. My parents did for me. I hope my children can say the same.