The Words You Should Know To Sound Smart

A togue-in-cheek guide to vocabulary enhancement introduces words to be slipped into everyday conversation, including autodidactic, descant, and disestablishmentarianism.

"A dictionary of "big and intellectual" words"--

Dazzle with your command of belle-lettres! Like a true sophisticate, you'd like to toss out casual bon mots to enliven your conversation. You'd like to float through cocktail parties offering your guests crudités and hors d'oeuvres, toasting to the prevailing Weltgeist and speculating on who's having an affaire de coeur. But first you need to know what those words mean. Here's a guide to declaiming like an intellectual in a foreign language. More than 500 of the most commonly used foreign words and phrases that enhance our language and make us sound sophisticated have been translated into English, along with a pronunciation guide and a sample sentence showing you how to use them. In addition, you'll find quotations in other languages, which will impress everyone with your erudition and experiencia del mundo. All this together with a plethora of minutae, spicing the entries with an exquisite mélange of information that heightens their je ne sais quoi. So get busy dotting your conversation with these words and phrases. Remember, Experientia docet.

A newly rejacketed edition of the best-selling title in the 100 Words series.

Do you know what "quatrefoil" and "impolitic" mean? What about "halcyon" or "narcolepsy"? This book is a handy, easy-to-read reference guide to the proper parlance for any situation. In this book you will find: Words You Absolutely Should Know (covert, exonerate, perimeter); Words You Should Know But Probably Don't (dour, incendiary, scintilla); Words Most People Don't Know (schlimazel, thaumaturgy, epergne); Words You Should Know to Sound Overeducated (ad infinitum, nugatory, garrulity); Words You Probably Shouldn't Know (priapic, damnatory, labia majora); and more. Whether writing an essay, studying for a test, or trying to impress friends, family, and fellow cocktail party guests with their prolixity, you will achieve magniloquence, ebullience, and flights of rhetorical brilliance.

Millions of people around the world communicate better thanks to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, whose top-rated weekly grammar podcast has been downloaded more than 40 million times. Now she's turning her attention to improving our vocabulary—one smart word at a time—with Grammar Girl's 101 Words to Sound Smart. Are you often stumped for the perfect way to say or write something? Do you find yourself using the same words over and over? Grammar Girl to the rescue! This handy reference guide contains 101 words that will enhance your writing, adding nuance, subtlety, and insight. Using these words in speeches, you'll sound confident and articulate—a skill that will benefit you for years to come. Full of clear, straightforward definitions and fun quotations from historic luminaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Charlotte Bronte as well as contemporary notables such as Dave Eggers and Rowan Atkinson, this highly useable guidebook gives you the ability to speak and write eloquently at any occasion, setting you up for a lifetime of success.

A fun and informative guide to some of the more obscure, curious and tricky words in the English language.