Bombast

I suffered a bruise the other day … to my ego.

For some reason the word came up in a conversation with my daughter … and she laughed! We were talking about the Afrikaans word “windgat”, which is not a compliment and indicates someone who is loud, flashy and probably drives a car with two big exhausts.

We pondered on that; I was forced to admit that some years ago in South Africa, I was called a windgat* by colleagues at work. It was probably because I was a loudmouth and sometimes confronted their conventional awe of authority. Fortunately, I usually knew what I was talking about in industrial relations and in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!

She asked what the English equivalent might be, so I Googled it.

Oh dear!! Bombastic was the word!

ostentatiously lofty in style

synonyms: declamatory, large, orotund, tumid, turgid rhetorical

given to rhetoric, emphasizing style at the expense of thought

That was why she laughed! She recognised me!

Bombast was the cotton padding used in clothing to make the wearer appear more substantial.

I do admit that I have a love of language and have been known to use big words and I avoid the banal like the plague – but I have never owned a car with big exhausts.

So, it is necessary for me to embrace and practice humility !

Banal is a strange word which I shunned in my younger days as it made me feel queasy somehow. Probably because of the -anal sound. But in fact its not ‘bay nal’,- it is pronounced ‘buh narl’, much more reflective and condemnatory sounding. Synonyms are: bland, corny, dumb, hackneyed, mundane, stupid, trite, vapid …

Ooops! There I go again ……

*windgat literally translates as windy a***hole