Trumpette #80

Where do we start with the Orange Bampot, who had such a terrific week of threats, lies and braggadocios?

One of Gadfly’s research assistants has been working his way through the Oxford English Dictionary and struck upon the entry for “trumpery”.

The meaning of the word has evolved, much like the Bampot himself, but even so it has stayed close to giving us a proper definition of the fleshy, orangecoloured leader of the “free” world. As early as circa 1485 it meant “deceit, fraud, imposture, trickery”. There was an early Scottish reference: “They concordat alltogither in trumpery and fallsit.”

By 1531 it also applied to objects and things: “A heap of trumpery fit to furnish out the shop of a Westminster pawnbroker.”

It extended to abstractions, beliefs and religious ceremonies. For example, “I’d put an end to free-masonry and all such trumpery.”

In the 17th century it was being used in relation to worthless finery, even to weeds and refuse and earlier to things of “little or no value, trifling, paltry, insignificant, rubbishy, trashy”.

Shakespeare in The Tempest (1616) had: “The trumpery in my house, goe bring it hither For stale to catch these theeues.”

Of course, it came from the French, but it is the Brits who are nothing if not thorough in exploring their words. Here we find all the ancient meanings and uses hurtling into the present day with great

• precision and clarity.