'Never Perfectly Free from Giddiness'

Yet another unfamiliar word I would like to see revived: gasconade . Dr. Johnson gives a typically terse definition : “a boast; a bravado.” He cites the letter Jonathan Swift wrote to Alexander Pope in which I encountered the word this week: “Was it a gasconade to please me, that you said your fortune was increased to one hundred a year since I left you?” As a noun, the word entered English from…