Friday, August 10, 2007

#13

booboisie \boob-wah-ZEE\, noun:
A class of people regarded as stupid or foolish.

Until then, he'd dismissed Hollywood as a purveyor of machine-made fodder for the booboisie, but he found, much to his surprise, that the movies weren't nearly as bad as he'd claimed.
-- Terry Teachout, quoted in "Writing Mencken," by Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online, November 15, 2002

He was primarily a radical freethinker who noisily waged war against the booboisie.
-- Richard Lingeman, "Disturber of the Peace", Washington Post, November 3, 2002


Booboisie is a blend of boob and bourgeoisie. It was coined by H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), American editor and critic.


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