Today’s double feature here at dewconsulting.net/blog is not something you see just every day: Two for the price of one! Double the pleasure, double the fun! And when the price is always free free free…. Well, in this old world it doesn’t often get much better than that, now does it?
Please forgive the bombast, but that’s today’s Word of the Day. So, without further ado, here’s the first half of today’s bombastic double feature. Just the synonyms alone are worth the price of admission.
bombast
noun
Definition
Synonyms
bluster, brag, braggadocio, bull [slang], cockalorum, fanfaronade, gas, gasconade, grandiloquence, hot air, magniloquence, rant, rodomontade
Did You Know?
The original meaning of bombast in English was “cotton or other material used as padding or stuffing.” It is derived through Anglo-French bombés or bombace, from a Medieval Latin word meaning “cotton plant, cotton fiber or wadding.” Bombax was once thought to be a corruption of bombyx, a Latin (and ultimately Greek) word that means “silkworm” or “silk.” Etymologists weren’t certain why the shift from silk to cotton occurred. It turns out that bombast‘s origins are more direct and unassuming: the Latin bombax was borrowed from the Middle Greek bámbax, pámbax, which in turn probably traces back to the Middle Persian pambak (“cotton”). Bombast is no longer used in the sense of cotton padding or stuffing, but the word has been retained in modern English in a figurative sense referring to speech or writing that is stuffed or padded with unnecessary verbiage.
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Wow, after all that, I bet you almost forgot, there’s a second half – but I didn’t. It’s National Doughnut Day! Yes, you heard me: Doughnuts, Fasnachts (for my PA Dutch friends), Donuts (for those who prefer a lower cal version of the spelling), Fat Pills (for all you dietary cynics out there). Hey, it doesn’t matter how you say it or spell it. Just keep the concentrated carbs and those multicolored sprinkles coming this way, that’s what _I_ always say.
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And as if all that weren’t enough, click here for a heartwarming read in National Geographic about immigrants making it big in the Donut Capital of the U.S.A. I guarantee you, you’ll never guess where THAT is… C’mon. Try one. All you have to lose is your girlish figure.