Bloviation
{{Short description|Empty, pompous, political speech}}
File:Americanism (Warren G. Harding).ogg
File:Readjustment (Warren G. Harding).ogg
Bloviation is a style of empty, pompous, political speech that originated in Ohio and was most notably used by Warren G. Harding in his successful 1920 US presidential campaign. He subsequently described it as "the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing".{{citation |title= The American Past: A Survey of American History |author=Joseph R. Conlin |page=629 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DWWbr9tCt0C&pg=PA629 |volume=2 |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2009 |isbn=9780495572893}} His opponent, William Gibbs McAdoo, compared it to "an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea."{{citation |page=[https://archive.org/details/inauguraladdress0000ryan/page/53 53] |title=The Inaugural Addresses of Twentieth-century American Presidents |editor=Halford Ross Ryan |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=1993 |isbn=9780275940393 |author=John Morello |url=https://archive.org/details/inauguraladdress0000ryan/page/53 }}
Origin
Bloviation in Ohio was originally idle chatter.{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0JRvfAIUFwC&pg=PA229 |title= Presidential anecdotes |author=Paul F. Boller |isbn=9780195097313 |page=229 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996}} As a form of political speech, it appears in the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of the State of Ohio in the mid 19th century.{{citation |title=Presidential voices: speaking styles from George Washington to George W. Bush |author=Allan A. Metcalf |pages=134–135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dh0wM9DNjbAC&pg=PA134 |isbn=9780618443741 |year=2004 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt}} One etymology suggests that the word is a "compound of blow, in its sense of 'to boast' (also in another typical Americanism, blowhard), with a mock-Latin ending to give it the self-important stature implicit in its meaning."{{cite web|url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-blo1.htm|title= Bloviate|authorlink=Michael Quinion|first=Michael |last=Quinion|year=1999|publisher=World Wide Words|accessdate=January 24, 2012}}
Gamalielese
H. L. Mencken lampooned Harding's bloviate style as gamalielese,{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spnL9hk2SwMC&pg=PA3 |title=The Rhetorical Act: Thinking, Speaking and Writing Critically |author=William Safire |year=2008 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=9780495091721}} from his middle name of Gamaliel.{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_qRlBdd8J7cC&pg=PA74 |title= H.L. Mencken |author=Vincent Fitzpatrick |page=74 |isbn=9780865549210 |year=2004 |publisher=Mercer University Press}} He complained that the style was suited to Ohio yokels:{{citation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3rDQMFrmZMC&pg=PA46 |title=On politics: a carnival of buncombe |author=Henry Louis Mencken |date=September 9, 1921 |chapter=Gamalielese Again|publisher=JHU Press |isbn=9780801853425 }} {{quote|Addressing such simians, the learned doctor acquired a gift for the sort of discourse that is to their taste. It is a kind of baby talk, a puerile and wind-blown gibberish. In sound it is like a rehearsal by a country band, with only the bass-drummer keeping time. In content it is a vacuum.}}
In this he was responding to The New York Times which had defended Harding's style as presidential:{{quote|Mr. Harding's official style is excellent. Its merits are obvious. In the first place, it is a style that looks Presidential. It contains the long words and big sentences which are expected. ... Furthermore the President's style is one that radiates hopefulness and aspiration. ... In the President's misty language the great majority see a reflection of their own indeterminate thoughts.}}
See also
References
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