Comments on: Thar She Bloviates!

By: The Bad Seed

The Bad Seed — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:08:48 +0000

Aw, the Fusco Bros one did make me smile. The Fuscos rarely supply knee-slappers, that’s not their style - more like wry smirks.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:59:46 +0000

I know what the strip’s called, but I always find myself calling it “Pigborn.”

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:50:12 +0000

Today’s Fun Fact: The “Say goodnight Gracie” gag most people believe they remember never actually happened: When George said “Say goodnight, Gracie,” she responded with “Goodnight.”

The confusion set in because of Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In, where they parodied the Burns and Allen signoff: “Say goodnight, Dick.” “Goodnight, Dick.”

By: Lord Jubjub

Lord Jubjub — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:23:36 +0000

There is actually a punchline there. It is the “say goodnight, Gracie” line. Dru is, at present, far more powerful than Tom. That line is meant as a foreshadow of Tom’s fate.

By: CIDU Bill

CIDU Bill — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:07:23 +0000

It was indeed an error, Lihtox: I don’t read the strip, and I quite sloppily tagged what I thought it was called.

By: Lihtox

Lihtox — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:03:34 +0000

Note to to CIDU Bill: you “filed” this comic under Pigborn, not PiBGorn as it’s supposed to be. (Been ages since I read the comic regularly, but I still remember making that mistake.

Unless it’s a joke, in which case never mind.

By: Fried

Fried — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:55:48 +0000

bloviate (v.)
1857, Amer.Eng., a Midwestern word for “to talk aimlessly and boastingly; to indulge in ‘high falutin’,” according to Henley (1890), who seems to have been the only British lexicographer to notice it. He says it was based on blow (v.) on the model of deviate, etc. It seems to have been felt as outdated slang already by late 19c. (”It was a leasure for him to hear the Doctor talk, or, as it was inelegantly expressed in the phrase of the period, ‘bloviate….’ ” [”Overland Monthly,” San Francisco, 1872, describing a scene from 1860]), but it enjoyed a revival early 1920s in the presidency of Warren G. Harding, who wrote a notoriously ornate and incomprehensible prose (e.e. cummings eulogized him as “The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors”) at which time the word took on its connection with political speech; it faded again thereafter, but, with its derivative, bloviation, it enjoyed a revival in the 2000 U.S. election season that continued through the era of blogging.

By: bookworm

bookworm — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:16:48 +0000

Thanks, Scott. Interesting passage — looks like a good book.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:56:42 +0000

http://books.google.com/books?id=2Ju-Vu0v6GQC&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195&dq=bloviate+Mencken+Harding&source=bl&ots=SHfo8Zvdzk&sig=zPsJh8Z6-7Y3N7ZBSRiZlzo5_GM&hl=en&ei=OAzrSouAJZLWtgP6iZTkCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=bloviate%20Mencken%20Harding&f=false is a link to a Google book giving some of the history. It got popularized by H. L. Mencken describing Warren G. Harding.
So, definitely not new.

By: Mark M

Mark M — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:21:19 +0000

‘Bloviate’ has been commonly used for years where I work to describe someone who goes on and on trying to sound impressive but never really says anything of substance.