At 02:43 PM 1/19/99 -0500, Mike wrote:
>> >This is where the term 'Crass commercialism' came from.).
>Likewize, his aristocratic contemporary, Pompey,
>is the source of the term pompous, presumably because of his stuffy manner.
Ahem. Referring to this new-fangled data device on my desk (the Concise Oxford Dictionary), I'm told that
crass a. Thick, gross
is from
L. crassus solid, thick
(and my Latin dictionary lists both `crassus', as above, and Crassus the entrepreneur, separately)
while
pomp n. Splendid display
is from
Gk pompe' procession, pomp (pempo' send)
Sorry to spoil a good story. :)
Damien Broderick