Description

A compendium of 100 words and phrases smart people useeven if they only kinda sorta secretly dont know what they meanwith pithy definitions and fascinating etymologies to solidify their meanings

Your boss makes a joke about Schrodingers catwhich is something youve heard of but youre a little vague about what exactly happened or didnt happen with that cat Or youre reading a New Yorker article that explains that Solecism slipped into solipsism into fullblown narcissistic project An excellent point if youre sure what solecism means or for that matter solipsism

Language gurus Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras to the rescue In the breezy and entertaining yet informative style of their New York Times bestseller Youre Saying It Wrong they give you a brief rundown on words smart people should knowfrom the worlds of science and the arts to philosophy and from broader topics like quantum physics and ontology to more specific ones like Platos cave and trompe loeil They cover the Latin phrases we hear and read prima facie sui generis and the like as well as those that have entered our vocabularies from other languages bildungsroman sturm und drang

These are the words that if you were asked directly What does this mean you might hem and haw and try to change the subject After reading this book you wont have to