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Bloviating....

Eh? Bloviating? A new word has crept into our lexicon thanks to Mike Carlton's weekly column in the SMH:

"Bloviate is a splendid word from America. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to bloviate is "to speak or write verbosely and windily". The Oxford English Dictionary, which has only recently picked up the word from across the Atlantic, says it's "to talk at length in an empty and inflated way". So far as I can check, the Macquarie Dictionary hasn't got hold of it yet but it should, and quickly.

Here's why. A columnist for The New York Times, the admirable Frank Rich, deliciously employs bloviate to scorn the right-wing punditocracy in the US, not least the bloodthirsty crazies who infest Rupert Murdoch's odious Fox News TV network. We have more than a glut of that ilk in this country, too, so I've happily borrowed from him.

Our bloviators have been in hysterics all week at the news that Maxine McKew, the former ABC journalist turned ALP adviser, plans to run for Labor against the Prime Minister in Bennelong. This, they warn darkly, is yet more proof that the ABC is a nest of Howard-hating pinko subversives."

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