braggadocio--a personal instance

It's not hard to know what this one means, although I was surprised to learn that it can mean either a braggart or his (or her) empty and pretentious bragging.  Or just strutting around in a swaggering, cocky manner.

I assumed in had come from Italian, too, but no--it's from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and is actually the name of a character who, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, is the "personification of vainglory". Spenser coined it with the exotic non-Anglo-Saxon ending (actually it was Braggadochio, like Pinocchio)  because Italian was much in vogue in the 1590s, another interesting fact I didn't know, though I suppose Shakespeare should have clued me in on that one.

 

 

Actually the word came to mind because I'm going to brag a bit here about something I've already bragged of already--the epitome of braggadocio,  I'd say. I found out that the story I wrote for the One Teen Story workshop was picked as one of several they've published in its entirety on their website. If you'd like to read the whole of  "Inconstant Moon" (it's not too long), you'll find it HERE. The paragraph formatting didn't completely survive its transition from my documents to their website, but hopefully it won't be too confusing. And if you like that kind of thing there were two more picks, one which is called "Ziggy Starbucks", by Anne Paris and another which will be up in a few days. You can find links to all three on the OTS blog.

 

No, I am  not a teenager, although I sometimes act like one. But luckily this wasn't a hinderance.