I don’t know why, but every single time I hear or read the word flamboyant, I instantly burst into laughter. It doesn’t happen with its synonyms: ostentatious, theatrical, extravagant or with any of the others.
The moment someone drops flamboyant into a sentence, my composure completely evaporates. They could be delivering a deeply serious lecture on 18th-century architecture or describing a particularly dramatic parrot and I will be in the corner, wheezing into my elbow like a faulty kettle.
Part of the problem is that the word itself sounds like a circus trick gone wrong. Ostentatious sounds like a medical condition, theatrical sounds like hard work and extravagant sounds like my credit card bill. But flamboyant? It has this ridiculous, explosive rhythm. It bounces off the tongue, sets off a mental glitter cannon and immediately demands a pair of velvet trousers and a feather boa. I simply cannot say it with a straight face. It also doesn’t help that my brain automatically pictures a giant, bright pink flamingo attempting to do the tango.
Last week, my workmate casually used it in a budget review to describe a difficult transaction and I had to pretend I was having a coughing fit and sprint straight to the toilets. I spent five minutes splashing cold water on my face, praying no one would ask me to elaborate on the quarterly projections, purely because I knew the word was still hanging in the air like an unexploded glitter bomb.
It just sounds ridiculous. It is a word that tries so hard to be sophisticated and fabulous, yet somehow ends up sounding completely absurd. And the worst part is trying to explain myself when it happens in public; trying to explain that I have this linguistic tic I just cannot control.
I have accepted that I am completely at the mercy of this word. If anyone ever wants to ruin my career, my relationship or my dignity, they don’t need to blackmail me; they just need to whisper flamboyant across a quiet room.
