Ok – here’s a vexing question for you: Have you ever used a word or a phrase in a debate with another person with the sole intention of showing how much smarter you are, yet you really didn’t know what the word or phrase meant?
If you can answer this, tell me what the word or phrase was and do you NOW know what it means.
I’ll give you my answer: Fin de siècle. I was lucky that I used the word in an arguement correctly, but by a very thin margin. I now know that this French phrase refers to the end of the 19th century. In my usage, which is barely acceptable, I used it to mean “turn of the century”.
Tags: quizzes
