Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your vocabulary. This week's word:
BONHOMIE
If I pick up the phone at home in the middle of the day (It's a landline, and we're not going to discuss that), it's often a recoded jovial male voice that starts out "Hello, seniors!" Repelled by the ersatz bonhomie, I've never listened beyond that point.
Bonhomie, also bonhomie, (pronounced BAHN-uh-me or bahn-uh-ME) we lifted from the French bon homme, "good man." Early on, it meant the "quality of being a good fellow." We use it today to identify affability, good-natured, easygoing friendliness, open geniality; and we think of it as a masculine quality.
Example: From "The Seniority of Strom Thurmond" by Kevin Merida in The Washington Post, 2001: "It is hard for Thurmondto participate in the bonhomie that takes place on the floor, between votes, during roll calls, senators milling about, slapping each other's backs, telling tall tales. When Thurmond comes into the Senate with his escort, he just sits."