Hello. On yesterday's episode, when Chris and Alex and I were previewing Donald Trump's state visit,
which is now actually happening, I used the phrase, pump and ceremony.
Now,
I did that
because yesterday I went on a rant saying that today everyone would be using the phrase pump and ceremony
because there's no other words to describe it.
And so I thought, you know what?
I need to make peace with that phrase.
And so that's why I said it as a little sort of inside joke to myself.
But then we thought, actually, where does the word pomp actually come from?
This word that we throw around like, like plentiful confetti on a day like this.
So we called up dictionary corners, Susie Dent, and of course she knew where it came from.
Well the dictionary will tell you that Pomp has been used
since the early 1300s for a splendid display.
It's read as a Greek word meaning ascending so you send out all your flashiest most impressive things but it had,
particularly at the beginning,
pretty negative connotations most of the time so it was ostentatious or boastful show or vain glory and pomp was frequently coupled with the word pride is after all a sibling of the word pompous and it was also used as a processions and public shows and spectacles that were thought to be held under the patronage of the devil in other words you shouldn't go near them
because they were all show and no substance And only in the 18th century did it really come to describe something that was just objectively splendid or impressive,
a pageant or a triumphant procession.
And the phrase pomp and circumstance is really thanks to Edward Elgar,