super70s
2017-10-12 20:17:51 UTC
I heard somone use "bloviate" in a response to archconservative CNN
commentator Ben Ferguson (a very appropriate application BTW), became
interested in the word (even though I generally knew what it meant) and
was surprised to see it doesn't appear at all in two printed
dictionaries I own -- not even Webster's New World Dictionary Second Ed.
which one of my old college English professors instructed my class to
buy. Also, it doesn't even appear in Apple Computer's Dictionary app on
my computer.
So I had more success on the Web. This is how Wikipedia's Wiktionary
defines it:
---
bloviate: (US) To speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful
manner.
Usage notes
Particularly used of politicians, bloviate has passed in and out of
fashion over the centuries, falling out of fashion by end of 19th
century, but was popularized in the early 1920s with reference to
president Warren G. Harding, again in the 1990s, [3] and then once more
during the 2000 presidential election, and is currently in popular use
in USA. [4]
---
I guess the fact that the word "falls in and out of fashion" explains
its absence in my printed dictionaries.
I was amused that it's "currently in popular use in the USA" and you
don't need a million guesses who is responsible.
commentator Ben Ferguson (a very appropriate application BTW), became
interested in the word (even though I generally knew what it meant) and
was surprised to see it doesn't appear at all in two printed
dictionaries I own -- not even Webster's New World Dictionary Second Ed.
which one of my old college English professors instructed my class to
buy. Also, it doesn't even appear in Apple Computer's Dictionary app on
my computer.
So I had more success on the Web. This is how Wikipedia's Wiktionary
defines it:
---
bloviate: (US) To speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful
manner.
Usage notes
Particularly used of politicians, bloviate has passed in and out of
fashion over the centuries, falling out of fashion by end of 19th
century, but was popularized in the early 1920s with reference to
president Warren G. Harding, again in the 1990s, [3] and then once more
during the 2000 presidential election, and is currently in popular use
in USA. [4]
---
I guess the fact that the word "falls in and out of fashion" explains
its absence in my printed dictionaries.
I was amused that it's "currently in popular use in the USA" and you
don't need a million guesses who is responsible.