Bombastic tone lurks, ready to redden the face of anyone, like me, who decides to hold forth on language in the tones of an expert.

For example ... .

While posting a fine picture on my daily-post PhotoBlog Buffalonya (q.v.) featuring a noisy heron, that I took at the Environmental Cottage on Grand Island, New York, I hit on the word grandiloquent, which I thought expressed the essential nature of the heron and of the island.

I claimed to have coined the word.

I was proud of my post heading -- Friends that fly: Grandiloquent, noisy.

The private houses of long-dead bankers or shipowners, Gothic, Neo-classic or defiantly eclectic, stand on advantageous corners in glorious grandiloquence.

A quick look in my Webster's II confirmed it.

I had erred on the side of grandiloquence.

I had to edit the heading to remove what I now knew was redundant. Grandiloquent is noisy all on its own.

It would have been better to coin a word in earnest. Say, Grandtastic.

Googling Grantastic yields 1,960 hits.

This morning.

The total may grow, for all I know.

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