Pylimitics

“Fustian” is a rare word, but not hopelessly obscure; you’ll still run across it occasionally. It dates from the 1200s, when it meant a kind of thick cloth that was used to make blankets. Nowadays it still retains that meaning, but over the centuries it acquired a second meaning: empty, overblown language. The sort you’d be likely to hear in a political speech, for example. The two meanings are related in an amusing way.

One of the things you could make with fustian was a blanket, and another was a pillow, or at least the case for a pillow. You still need to stuff something inside the pillow to plump it up. For centuries, a popular thing to stuff inside pillows was feathers. And if someone is spouting nonsense, a common reply to them might be “oh, horsefeathers.” Not that horses really have feathers, of course, but still…feathers. Your fustian pillowcase could be stuffed with padding that was, metaphorically, nonsense. And there you have — maybe — the source of the second meaning of “fustian:” nonsense. 

If you’re making pillows, of course, there are some other materials you can use. If you lived in ancient Greece, you might use “bombyx,” which is what they called silk. That’s the case whether or not the ancient Greeks even used pillows, about which I have not a clue. But “bombyx” eventually made its way into Old French, where it morphed into “bombace” and came to mean “cotton.” Like many French words, it invaded England with the Normans and in the process became the English word “bombast.” By a strange coincidence, “bombast” in English originally meant cotton — with the slight variation that in English it was used to mean the wadded cotton used to stuff inside garments…or pillows. It was simply padding. 

The other meaning of “bombast” is nearly identical to “fustian”; pompous, pretentious, empty speech. The kind of speech that, if it’s interspersed with some meaningful words, might be called…wait for it…padding! 

Now that we have video, you have a new option available. You can tune in a political speech and listen to the fustian and bombast while you lie back and rest your head on a fustian pillow full of bombast. It’s fustian and bombast from both directions!