Foreign Words Made Easy
A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" - The Origin of Foreign Words in English
by Chloe Rhodes
I’ve been known to insist that the best way to boost one’s vocabulary is by wide reading.
But for someone who forswears vocabulary books, I can often be found dipping into them.
Well, good advice is always meant for others. 😉
I fall off the wagon every now and then and head to eBay to gratify my craving for a vocabulary book I’d seen somewhere.
Don’t blame me for succumbing to the lure of quick fixes. After all, we all live in the age of "instant gratification" and everything must happen yesterday.
So we’ve developed a "quickie" culture where people can "vibe-code" in minutes and learn Java, Python, Ruby and Perl in 24 hours, AI startups can build aka “train” a large language model in a couple of weeks and logophiles can expand their English skills by skimming through a couple of vocabulary books.
That explains the proliferation and popularity of books like A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi."
Published by Reader's Digest, the 175-page book contains about 350 foreign words and expressions arranged in alphabetical fashion. Each foreign word contains the meaning, language of origin and a brief explanation on its origins. It helps that each word is also accompanied by an example.
The book strikes a fine balance between familiar foreign words and slightly more esoteric ones. My guess is that logophiles will be familiar with about 40% of the words in the book.
To my delight, I found quite a few words of Indian origin: chutney, juggernaut, mantra, jodhpurs, dungarees, purdah, bungalow, loot, karma, pariah, thug, etc.
Of more interest to me though were the French, German, Yiddish, Chinese and Latin words in the book.
I picked up several unfamiliar French words from the book: entre nous, embonpoint, crime passionel, louche, etc.
Sadly, there are issues with this book too. The words lack a pronunciation guide, there's no index and I found typos (page 117).
If you ask me, it should be made a punishable offense to peddle a book on foreign words without a pronunciation guide.
On the whole, I consider A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" to be well worth browsing through.