esprit de i'escalier

sionnach commented on the word esprit de i'escalier

Presumably this should be esprit de l'escalier or esprit d'escalier.

Though I think the former is more common in French, both are used with roughly equal frequency in English, using the number of googlehits as a metric.

I would disagree mildly about the difficulty of translation, as the word Treppenwitz exists in German to describe the same concept, and it is straightforward to explain in English - it just needs a phrase, rather than a single word. But there's nothing particularly difficult or exotic about the feeling in question.

This is a fun list, though I'm not sure the name is optimal. There are several Wordie lists with similar ideas floating around - many with titles along the line "they have a word for it" or "it has a name". My list Let's get back to our enraged sheep : grandma's in the nettles again looks at the way in which certain proverbs and sayings morph across different languages. I used to have a list featuring words from the "The meaning of Tingo", but the overall level of scholarship in that book is so shoddy, I eventually deleted it.

December 7, 2008

pspealman commented on the word esprit de i'escalier

You are quite right - the slip of an i where an l was intended.

December 7, 2008