Elevator wit

Note to self: your new answer to "So what are you doing when you graduate?" is, "Well, I know what I really want to do is kind of unrealistic, so I don't know yet. What I really want to do is design software, and really rock that shit out, insofar as that's possible building software."

People asked yesterday but you had between no and a bad answer, and tonight is when the elevator wit kicked in. The above I thought of driving home from dinner out with parents, listening to Low turned up in the dark cold evening.

(I'll swear the other day I saw someone suggest the French for "elevator wit" as a new term to use in English. As I wrote in my complaint to Google:

[I was looking for t]he French translation of "elevator wit," which someone (I think on a weblog) suggested be used in English for when you think of a retort too late.

Instead every result is someone getting in an "elevator with" someone else, but they've omitted the "h" in "with."

(That was going to be the title of this post, the new phrase. Maybe the Lazyweb remembers where I saw it. Then I can put it on neologasm.org.)

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Tracked on January 19, 2003 6:56 AM

Comments

Dorothea Salo

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I don’t know if “l’esprit d’escalier” is quite what you’re looking for, but it might be. :)

Brian McGroarty

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I’m angry when I think of the right thing once it’s too late.

I’d prefer to learn to say “elevator wit” in language that sounds better angry. German, or perhaps Japanese.

Aufzug Esprit or エレベーターのウィット, anyone?

Mark

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Babelfish said “esprit d’ascenseur” which didn’t seem quite right, but “l’esprit d’escalier” is at least close enough I’ll say it’s that. The “e” of the second word jibes better with memory. Thanks!

Mark

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And yes, of course, exactly that: http://ransford.org/pipermail/word-l/2002-April/000040.html . I didn’t think of it being in actual French use, I guess, or I would’ve googled better. (At least I’d like to think I would.)

ducky

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“l’esprit d’escalier” actually translates to “wit of the stairs” or “wit of the staircase,” which might be why you were having trouble finding it. If you search google for “wit of the stairs,” you should have no problem finding the phrase. :)