Bromides and Bunkum

Sodium Bromide Molecular Structure
Because words do not always make for good pictures

"The word bromide was at first the name of a sedative that physicians used in the treatment of epilepsy, sea sickness and insomnia; but in the early twentieth century its reference was extended to soporific bores and their stupefying conversation.  The implication was that subjection to the bromides of a bromidic man (or woman) was very much like chemical sedation, since it induced the same feeling of numbness, lassitude, and fuddled mind. 

"As one student of the metaphorically bromidic explained, the essence of bromidic conversation is that it is both trite and predictable, and that it therefore lacks the novelty and surprise that are the soul of sparkling conversation.*  People are excited by novelty, whether in content or style, and they express their excitement in laughter, gesticulation and an eager stance.  But they are stupefied when they hear what everyone already knows expressed in words everyone has already heard, and they express their stupor with a slouch, a grunt and a glassy eye." - The Orthosphere

This is just the introduction. It gets better. You can read it all here.

Via Monday Evening