The Wit’s Guide To Braggadocio

Or, holy socks

Jun 05, 2025

*Self-portrait as wistfully awesome hunter, Alexandre-François Desportes, 1699*

Just as denial is a river in Egypt, braggadocio is a township in Missouri. What, precisely, are the inhabitants of the bootheel of the Show Me State so eager to show us? Allegedly, “the hamlet’s settlers wanted to pick the longest, most impressive name they could find when applying to establish a post office.”

“People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”
— Stephen Hawking

And the world of letters is a natural home for braggadocio, dating back to the word’s invention by Edmund Spenser to name a boastful character in The Faerie Queene. Like every undergraduate taking English Literature survey one, I was assigned that dense work and didn’t read it. If Old Ed couldn’t be bothered to spell check the title, I thought at the time, why would I bother to read it? Looking back now with many decades of accumulated wisdom, I must ruefully admit that I nailed it.

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
— Sylvia Plath

It’s hard to believe there was a time when the braggadocio market was cornered by … novelists? Hemingway, Updike, Mailer, Bellow, Roth: These lions were all sidling into winter when The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature: The Collected Writings of Neal Pollack was published in 2000. Written, compiled and introduced by the self-proclaimed greatest living American writer and filled with classics like “The Albania of My Existence,” “I Am Friends With A Working-Class Black Woman,” and “It Is Easy To Take A Lover In Cuba,” the book channels a time when a certain type of writer would proclaim that they were the best to ever do it and, somehow, the culture acquiesced. “The world holds no mystery that I cannot solve, no dilemma that I cannot understand,” Pollack explains. “It is as if I am everywhere and nowhere at once, yet still have time to meet you for lunch.”

This was the first book published by McSweeney’s and you can see the fingerprints of founder Dave Eggers (noted in the acknowledgements as “a young comer named Danny Eggleston”) all over it. Of particular note, when Pollack deigns to write for a major magazine, he promises his readers that “the narrative will be true, with certain facts changed to heighten the drama, but never to change reality, never that.”

“Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes.”
— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

According to Miss Manners, there are three socially acceptable ways to unfurl your braggadocio: Disbelief, Fear, or Manic Elation. On a recent review of how many exclamation points! I put in work emails! I think I tend! Toward the third option!

“I’ve wrestled with alligators
I’ve tussled with a whale
I done handcuffed lightning
and throw thunder in jail
You know I’m bad, just last week I murdered a rock
Injured a stone, hospitalized a brick
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.”
— Muhammad Ali

History’s list of the all-time greatest braggarts is topped by Muhammad Ali, the boxer who, per Wesley Morris, “wrote braggadocio raps that we called poetry because, at the time, we didn’t know what rap was.” You can draw a straight line from Ali’s words to Jay Z putting a comma in the middle of businessman. Or to my favorite rap boast, MF Doom’s admission that he’s “got more soul than a sock with a hole.”

“Bravado is just shame in a big, loud hat.”
— Karen Weese

As in all things, the Stoics explained how to deal with braggadocio. Epictetus wrote that “If someone brags because he understands the books of Chrysippus and can explain them, say to yourself: ‘If Chrysippus had not written unclearly, this fellow would have nothing to brag about.’” And if you want to feel even better, consider that the impenetrable Chrysippus laughed himself to death after drunkenly watching a donkey eat figs. Classic Chrysippus!

Speaking of intoxication, I was happy to review The Last Martini: A Hangover Bedside Companion for the

Literary Review of Canada

. And I was even happier with David Parkins’ above illustration of Kingsley Amis in a martini glass. The larger print version expands on this fractal design of Amis holding a larger glass with Amis in it and so on in an recursive pattern that takes up infinite space but only half a bottle of vermouth.

It’s the final countdown! After 2.5 years, hundreds of envelopes dutifully mailed, and 28 artists paid in full, I’m bringing Riposte Cards in for a landing. We’ll wrap up these specially commissioned, limited edition postcards with No. 30 in the month of August — and then kick off a new and exciting perks program for my much-appreciated paid subscribers. In the meantime, it’s June! Which means Riposte Card No. 28 is coming soon! This month’s artist is Ben Shannon, Toronto illustrator, musician, and world-class whistler, and he’ll be envisioning this line about lines:

“A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points.”
— Mae West

Artwork to be unveiled in this space next week! In the meantime, subscribe with the knowledge that you’ll be able to assemble a complete set!

“I apologize for boasting but once you know my qualities I can drop back into a quite brilliant humility.”
— Christopher Fry

If you use military time, a stopped clock is only right once a day. But I only write once a week, so I can honourably discharge myself from that proviso. What about next week?

Get Wit Quick Issue No. 310 was the all-time greatest, obviously, but never ever late, never that. The mascot is a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck. The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. All braggarts are really just looking for a tap of the ❤️ below.