Christgau Fancy Word of the Day: Bonhomie

Not reviewed by Christgau.

One of several features I plan to include in this blog is the Christgau Word of the Day. (No, I don't plan on having a Christgau Word of the Day every day.)

The point of this feature is to find words, usually those classified by the less-literate (like myself) as "S.A.T. words" (regardless of whether they would actually appear on an S.A.T. exam), that Christgau uses and which might be one reason his reviews infuriate so many people.

This time around I picked yet another word that sounds very cool but which I've never had the opportunity to use in practice mainly because up until this moment I didn't know the exact definition and didn't want to risk embarrassing myself in the company of smarter people or less-smarter people who are still smart enough to know that I'm not using the word correctly.

That word is bonhomie.

The first part of the definition sounds redundant: "Cheerful friendliness." I suppose that there are other kinds of friendliness that aren't cheerful, such as:

• Hostile friendliness
• Fake friendliness 
• Drunken friendliness
• Reluctant friendliness 
• Talking-to-the-cop-who-just-pulled-you-over friendliness
• Held-at-gunpoint / Stockholm syndrome friendliness 
• Friendliness in the way you'd be friendly to a pig that you're about to slaughter for some fresh bacon

...and so on, but my friendliness is usually cheerful. Unless it's at work, where it's just easier in the long run if you're minimally friendly to most of your coworkers.

Bonhomie comes from France, according to its listing on the Online Etymology Dictionary, based on bon (good) + homme (man). If you have even a rudimentary knowledge of French and enjoy the hip-hop music, you can say it literally means "good homey." And who doesn't want a good homey?