bomphiologia

Definition:

A traditional rhetorical term for pompous or bombastic speech.

In The Arte of English Poesie (1589), George Puttenham identifies bomphiologia (or "pompous speech") as one of the "vices of surplusage": "using such bombasted words as seem altogether farced full of wind, being a great deal too high and lofty for the matter, whereof ye may find too many in all popular rhymers."

See also:

• Bombast
• Asiatic
• Cacozelia
• Euphuism
• Gongorism
• Grand Style
• Hyperbole
• "On Sadler's Bombastic Declamations," by Thomas Babington Macaulay
• Overwriting
• Purple Prose
• "The Style of Woodrow," by H.L. Mencken

Etymology:

From the Greek, "booming, buzzing words." The term was introduced into English by Richard Sherry in A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes (1550): "when small and triflying thynges are set out wyth great grasyng words."

Examples and Observations:

• "Usually known as a 'tolerable vice of language,' [bomphiologia] is a genre derived from a speaker's effort to seem more educated or elevated than he really is, as in: 'It is, indeed, a fortunate and ennobling circumstance to have the gracious honor of acquainting such a multitudinous audience with our esteemed Mayor.'"
  (Jack Elliott Myers and Don C. Wukasch, Dictionary of Poetic Terms. Univ. of North Texas Press, 1985)



• Bomphiologia in Yes, Prime Minister
  Sir Humphrey Appleby: Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of organizational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render effectively impossible the coherent and coordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
  Jim Hacker: You mean you've lost your key?
  (Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington in "The Key." Yes, Prime Minister, 1986)



• Bomphiologia in Shakespeare
  "I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club; and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio."
  (Don Adriano de Armado in Act I, scene two of Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare, 1598)



• "'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!
  The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;
  The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
  And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,
  And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
  I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;
  For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
  And flashing fire will follow. . . .
  "O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
  The grave doth gape, and doting death is near;
  Therefore exhale."
  (Pistol in Act I, scene one of Henry V by William Shakespeare, 1599)



• Bomphiologia in Black Adder
  Prince George: Ah, Dr. Johnson, damn cold day!
  Dr. Samuel Johnson: Indeed it is sir, but a very fine one, for I celebrated last night the encyclopedic implementation of my premeditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.
  Prince George: Nope, didn't catch any of that.
  Dr. Samuel Johnson: Well, I simply observed, sir, that I'm felicitous since during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.
  Prince George: Well, I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing! I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I've never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or for that matter, been given any Norman tongue.
  Blackadder: I believe, sir, that the Doctor is trying to tell you that he is happy because he has finished his book. It has apparently taken him ten years.
  Prince George: Well, I'm a slow reader myself.
  (Hugh Laurie, Robbie Coltrane, and Rowan Atkinson in "Ink and Incapability." Black Adder the Third, 1987)



• Wartime Propaganda: Bomphiologia in the 49th Parallel
  "You have one clear choice. Where there is a question of blood, where one is governed by the deepest of racial instincts, then every other consideration is swept aside. Men like yourself--German, or of German ancestry--rise up with all the might and power of the great German people behind you, conscious of the sacred duty that binds us all together and in the knowledge that he who doesn't forget his people will not by his people be forgotten.
  
  "There is a new wind blowing from the east, a great storm coming across the sea, a hurricane which will sweep aside all the old, outmoded ways of life and mark the beginning of a new order, not only for Europe but for the whole world. Let those beware who would have the temerity to stand in its way. They will go down before its irresistible impulse and be crushed out of existence! But for those who accept the new order, for those who perhaps belong to it already, why need I use these parables of speech any longer? I mean all of you here tonight. Yes, you, brothers! I call you brothers and proudly acknowledge you as such. You who form the little stronghold of our people here in Canada. You will have your share of the happiness and prosperity that is waiting for us all. When the storm is over and the sun rises, that mighty sun, which will give us everything we need in life. . . .
  
  "I am talking of the greatest idea in history. The supremacy of the Nordic race, the German people. I am talking of the being whose name I am certain lives in every heart, whose name hangs on all our lips, whether we can shout it to the world or only whisper it in one another's ears. Germans! Brothers! I ask you to join with me in paying homage to our glorious Führer. Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!"
  (Eric Portman as Lieutenant Hirth in 49th Parallel, 1941)



• Bomphiologia in Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence (1577)
  "Here is The Garden of Eloquence; Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric [1577], set foorthe in English by Henry Pe[a]cham, Minister. . . . It deals with the Figure of Bomphiologia, 'when trifling matters be set out with semblaunt and blasing wordes, used of none but of such as be eyther smell feastes and Parasites, which mayntayne their good cheere with counterfeited praises, or of great bosten and craking souldiers. Sometimes beggars use this figure when the Constable is passing of them to the stockes; thus I have harde them say, "I beseech your worship, forgive me. If ever your honor take me here again, then let me be punisht according to your honor's discretion." A chayne of Golde for an Ape, and a silver saddle for a Sowe, may be called Bomphiologia.'"
  ("Our Great-Great-Great-Grandmother's Grammar." All the Year Round, June 10, 1882)

Pronunciation: bom-phi-oh-LO-gee-ah