Eggcorn Forum

“Bomblastic” for “bombastic” bypasses the historical stuffing/cotton padding/silkworm sources of the term “bombast” for one with a more energetic sort of loft.

Hard evidence for the substitution is elusive. The switch polluted by puns. Here are a few web examples that might be real eggcorns:

Post on a fishing forum: “I’m amazed as the vitriol which is directed towards anyone in this country who chooses to follow the constitutional idea of personnal freedom. Gleen Beck tells it how it is. I always thought he was some right wing bomblastic talk show host with an adgenda. He does have an adgenda, which just so happens to be The Constitution. ”

Political post: “To paraphrase Alvin Plantiga, to say his forays into philosophy are sophmoric would be unfair to sophmores. Long on bomblastic rhetoric and short on substantive arguments”

Facebook post, South Asian source: “I personally decided to take admission into this college due to the images of the campus shown in the website and the bomblastic words used by them during the interview session. Now at the end of my second semester I am realizing what a blunder I have done.”

Malaysian source: “Here are some of the many exceptionally well-written history lessons that were ingrained in our young minds when there was a brighter world for all Malaysians then… instead of the sabre-rattling or kris-rattling and zealous religious bomblastic words and actions today.”

“Boombastic” may be another eggcorn for “bombastic.” Same pollution problem. I’m too tired to sort through any more puns. Puns, I’ve come to realize, are like children: more fun to make than to listen to.

“Bombastic,” by the way, is home to a famous folk etymology. The real name of the flamboyant sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. His birth name erroneously cited (here, for example) as the etymological source of the term.