Reviews: Book

The Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart & Cultured

By Norah Vincent & Chad Conway

This little book lists some 200 words and phrases that come in handy when one wants to impress people like the New York intelligentsia.

Made up mostly of Latin, French and German words that are active in the elitist peripherals of the English language, the book is a cram course in linguistic pretension. When you may have used "accent", now you can say "patois"; "critical success" should give way to "succes d'estime". The only missing link is a few Yiddish bons mots.

Interestingly, there are words in the compilation that remind me of uniquely Chinese events, such as "eminence grise" for the Empress Dowager, or "auto-da-fe" for the mass denunciation meetings of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

Jack London would have loved to have gotten his hands on this one.

RZ

ISMs: A Compendium of Concepts, Doctrines, Traits, and Beliefs from Ableism to Zygodactylism

By Alan & Theresa von Altendorf

This is not a volume of condensed introduction to schools of philosophy and religion, it is literally a dictionary of thousands of words that end with "ism". You may not get a Ph.D. when you memorize all the definitions, but you'll surely impress those girls who dig men of erudition. A category of arcane knowledge can be boring, but the authors have spiced it up with humor. And the entries are just informative enough to help you skim through mass-market publications or survive Upper West Side gatherings.

Let's face it: Unless you're a mincer of academic meat, you'll not have the time to finish most of the books in a library. This digest is like McKnowledge, but only better. You can use it to make Li Ao look like he didn't graduate from primary school.

(China Daily 03/06/2007 page20)