500 Foreign Words and Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart

500
Foreign
WORDS &
PHRASES
You Should Know to
SOUND
SMART

TERMS TO DEMONSTRATE
YOUR
SAVOIR FAIRE,
CHUTZPAH
,
AND
BRAVADO

Peter Archer &
Linda Archer, PhD

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

About the Author

Dedication

For Jocelyn and Tim
Amor vincit omnia
.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Meredith O’Hayre and Katie Corcoran Lytle for their considerable support and assistance and to all the other great people at Adams Media. Especially, thanks to Karen Cooper for inviting us to write this book.

Introduction

When, in 1883, Emma Lazarus penned her sonnet “The New Colossus,” she perhaps did not anticipate what a can of worms she was opening up.

Give me your tired, your poor
,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
.

And they came. In the last decades of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth, millions arrived in America, having made the long journey from Europe in search of a brighter future. They brought with them the clothes on their backs and little else—save their languages. From Hester Street in Manhattan to the Haymarket in Chicago, a
patois
of foreign words and phrases filled the air.

The result, not surprisingly, was that American English grew infinitely richer, a stew of foreign words and phrases tossed together and poured out over the land. While most of the immigrants in time learned the language of their adopted country, their linguistic legacy remained.

Early English Roots

English, of course, has always borrowed from other tongues. Britain, in the first century
A.D.
, became a province of the Roman Empire, and thus the upper classes—as well as many common people—were fluent in Latin. When the Romans retreated in the fourth century to deal unsuccessfully with the barbarian hordes threatening the Eternal City, they were replaced by invading Germanic tribes—the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, and others. Thus over the following centuries the remnants of Latin merged with Germanic/Scandinavian languages, often carried across the North Sea on the dragon prows of Viking longboats. From this emerged Anglo-Saxon, the language of
Beowulf
and the early kings of Britain.

It might have remained so if William of Normandy hadn’t beaten the snot out of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The invading Normans were French-speaking (that is, they spoke an early form of French), and since they were now the ruling class of England, Norman French became the tongue of the upper classes. By the time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote
The Canterbury Tales
in the late fourteenth century, English had become more or less recognizable as something related to what we speak today.

Still, the slew of foreign words remained. Because English (and later American) law relied heavily on Roman legal concepts, many Latin legal terms were and are still used (although you could probably throw a lot of bricks in the region of a courthouse and not endanger any lawyers capable of speaking Latin).

Italian terms spread, partly as a result of the popularity of Italian cuisine, both in England and in America. The same thing happened to French cooking terms, particularly after the publication of
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
by Julia Child in 1961. (Before then, most Americans wouldn’t have known a sauté pan from a stock pot if you’d belted them over the head with it.)

Spanish words came into common usage after the American conquest of the Southwest in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century after the growth of the Hispanic population in all parts of the country. In the twentieth century, particularly during the countercultural decade of the 1960s, Sanskrit terms such as
dharma
became popular among young people discovering the mystic traditions of the East—or, at any rate, what they interpreted as the mystic traditions.

The Joys of Foreign Words

The charm of all these words and phrases is partly that they serve to remind us of our complex linguistic heritage, something too few people today take the time to think about. Amid the spread of the ghastly phenomenon known as “Textish,” it does us good to contemplate the long, tortuous journey of our Mother Tongue.

There’s an added benefit in knowing the sorts of words and phrases that are listed in this book: Using them can make you seem smart.

That’s a bit curious, when you think about it. There’s no evidence that the Romans of 2,000 years ago, for instance, were any more intelligent than we are. After all, their empire was brought down and divided up by people called Goths and Vandals. But despite that epic collapse, toss out a quotation or two in Latin at a cocktail party and you’ll find people hanging on your every word. (On the other hand, how many people today speak Goth or Vandal? Not too damn many, that’s for sure!)

Seasoning your conversation with
bon mots
, whether in French or Italian, can make you sound sophisticated and cool. People will imagine you sauntering down the Champs Élysées, stopping to sip a glass of wine at a sidewalk café and sample a succulent cheese or pastry. They’ll see you lounging in a trattoria on a street off the Piazza San Marco in Venice, your espresso in front of you, as you exchange cheerful banter with the gondoliers.

Closer to home, they’ll see you as the kind of person who gets invited to parties at the offices of the
New Yorker
or
Vanity Fair
, when you can rub elbows with the cognoscenti and exchange witticisms with writers and editors wearing tweed jackets with patches on the elbows, smelling of pipe tobacco and literature.

In fact, after reading this book, you might want to get such a jacket.

For each word in this book, we’ve included a pronunciation guide (since nothing says
poseur
like mispronouncing a foreign phrase) as well as background information on who said some of these things and why. That way you can doubly impress people when you remark, “As Julius Caesar said in 43
B.C.
when crossing the Rubicon, ‘
Alea iacta est
.’” We’ve also included sample sentences to show how these words and phrases might be injected into ordinary conversation.

The downside of using a word or term from a foreign language is that your listeners may think you actually speak it. If you observe to a casual companion, “
Je ne regrette rien,”
you may be taken aback if he suddenly bursts into a flood of French that leaves you standing dazed and confused. The solution to such a circumstance is to cough quickly into your drink, pretend to choke, and murmur, “’
Scusez-moi
” as you hastily seek friendlier fields for conversation.

Above all, we hope this book implants in you an appreciation of the beauty of language and the multitude of purposes to which it can be put. And if it helps you impress your friends and acquaintances and get dates—well, that’s cool too.

—
Wareham, Massachusetts, December 2011

“Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A

ab aeterno
(Latin) (ab eye-TER-no) (adv.)

Since the beginning of time.

AB AETERNO, men have wondered why precisely women need all those shoes. And women have wondered why men never listen and never ask directions
.

ab extra
(Latin) (ab EX-tra) (adv.)

From without, or from an outside source.

Most political campaigns are funded by AB EXTRA contributions, although they prefer to paint themselves otherwise
.

ab imo pectore
(Latin) (ab EE-mo pek-TO-ray) (adv.)

From the bottom of my heart; literally, “From the deepest part of my chest.”

I love you madly, deeply, AB IMO PECTORE
.

ab initio
(Latin) (ab in-IT-eeo) (adv.)

From the beginning; from the origin.

AB INITIO, the universe has been subject to the inviolable laws of gravity—something many college students discover both in the classroom and on Friday nights when leaving the campus bar
.

ab origine
(Latin) (ab or-I-gin-ay) (adv.)

From the origin or beginning. Note that the term
abort
is literally to “un-arise,” while the term
aborigine
is derived from the original meaning of the phrase, meaning people who were there in the beginning.

Native Americans were inhabitants of the North American continent AB ORIGINE, whereas Caucasians arrived only beginning in 1492
.

absente reo
(Latin) (ab-SENT-ay RAY-oh) (adv.)

A legal term, meaning in the absence of the defendant.

Your Honor, ABSENTE REO, I would like to move for a mistrial, on the grounds that a defendant must be present when he is being prosecuted
.

absit iniuri verbis
(Latin) (AB-sit in-YUR-ee WER-bis) (phrase)

Let injury through words not occur. More colloquially, Don’t take offense at what I’m saying.

ABSIT INIURI VERBIS, you’re a disgusting excuse for a human being who should choke on his own vomit. But I hope you won’t take that the wrong way
.

Nota Bene

Although you might think that it’s illegal to say hurtful things about someone that aren’t true, in fact the slander laws in the United States are remarkable for their elasticity.

After a 1964 court case,
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
, public figures who sued for slander or defamation had to prove that whoever published the information knew it was false but went ahead and published it anyway. This has meant that comparatively few libel suits in the United States are successful.

absit omen
(Latin) (AB-sit OH-men) (phrase)

May the omen not occur. An expression of good will, since omens were taken extremely seriously by the Romans. Recall that Julius Caesar was warned by a soothsayer to beware the Ides of March. And look what happened to him when he ignored the advice.

I’ve got a very bad feeling about how things may turn out for you next week, ABSIT OMEN
.

ab uno disce omnes
(Latin) (ab OO-no DIS-kay AHM-nayz) (phrase)

From one, learn to know all. From Virgil’s (70
B.C.
–19
B.C.
)
The Aeneid
, this references a circumstance in which one example can be taken to show an overriding principle.

Most cats spend most of their days and nights sleeping or eating; AB UNO DISCE OMNES we may reasonably deduce that cats are superior to humans
.

ab urbe condita
(Latin) (ab OOR-bay KON-dee-tah) (phrase)

From the founding of the city. Refers particularly to Rome, which, according to legend, was founded in 753
B.C.
by the brothers Romulus and Remus. Abbreviated A.U.C., this was used as one of several dating systems until the early Middle Ages in Europe.

The Battle of Poitiers took place in 1488 AB URBE CONDITA and determined the course of European history
.

Nota Bene

Early historians used a variety of systems for dating, including
ab urbe condita
(from the founding of the city [of Rome]) as well as dating from the crucifixion of Jesus, the creation of the world, and other events. In the sixth century, an Eastern monk, Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470–c. 544), developed a system of dating based on the supposed incarnation of Christ. This system gained little acceptance during his lifetime, but in the eighth century the Venerable Bede (c. 673–735) used it in his seminal work
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
. The popularity of this book ensured that this would become the standard dating system all over Western Europe and from there, the world. Hence we date events either
B.C
. (Before Christ) or
A.D.
(Anno Domini). In recent years, these systems have been changed to
B.C.E
(Before Common Era) and
C.E
. (Common Era).