500 Foreign Words and Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart (17 page)

Que sera sera
(Spanish) (KAY ser-AH ser-AH) (phrase)

Whatever will be, will be. The title of a song made popular by Doris Day (1924–) from the Alfred Hitchcock film
The Man Who Knew Too Much
. The song became Day’s signature tune and thus occupied big chunks of the airwaves during the late 1950s.

I think I may have failed my math exam, but in the overall scheme of things, QUE SERA SERA
.

Qui dormit non peccat
(Latin) (kwee DOR-mit non pek-KAHT) (phrase)

He who sleeps does not sin. This may, perhaps, be the governing principle behind those students who sleep in class, since they assume if they’re not getting the answers right, at least, when in Slumberland, they’re not getting them wrong.

Prior to robbing the bank at 4 o’clock in the morning, the gang should have remembered QUI DORMIT NON PECCAT
.

quid pro quo
(Latin) (KWID pro KWO) (phrase)

One thing is given in exchange for another. A standard clause of many contracts. It is also a possible basis for charges of sexual harassment, since in many circumstances there is an offer of job advancement in return for sexual favors.

Assuming that a QUID PRO QUO is sometimes required, Arthur gave his professor a bottle of whiskey in exchange for an A. Shortly afterward, a visit from the Dean reminded him that the university administrators did not look kindly upon bribery, at least when it wasn’t extended to them
.

Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur
(Latin) (KWID-kwid lah-TEE-nay DIK-tum sit AHL-tum wi-DAY-toor) (phrase)

Whatever is spoken in Latin seems wonderful. Literally, “Whatever spoken in Latin seems deep.” This is a wise thing to remember, since unwelcome information can always be couched in impressive-sounding Latin phrases.

Attempting to impress his new in-laws, Mark peppered his speech with Latin phrases on the theory of QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM SIT ALTUM VIDETUR
.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
(Latin) (kwis kus-TO-dee-et IP-sos kus-TOH-dayz) (phrase)

Who watches the watchers? This idea appears many times in popular culture: It is, for example, the title of an episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
, in which the native population of an M-class planet decides that Captain Picard of the starship Enterprise is a god.

In looking at today’s government, how many times must we ask the question, QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES. I mean, if we can’t count on the people we elect, whom can we count on?

Nota Bene

The phrase “Who watches the watchers” appears as a touchstone in Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel
Watchmen
. The question he raises is, if superheroes are the guardians of justice in the universe, who guards us against them if they become champions of injustice? The answer, sadly, is pretty much no one.

quod erat demonstrandum
(Latin) (KWAHD eh-RAHT dem-on-STRAHND-um) (phrase)

That which has been proven. Sometimes abbreviated QED, this is placed at the conclusion of a mathematical or logical proof to indicate that a point has been established.

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM, Socrates is mortal
.

Quo vadis
(Latin) (kwo WAH-dis) (phrase)

Where are you going? According to the Acts of Peter, part of biblical apocrypha, Peter meets Jesus on the road while he (Peter) is fleeing execution in Rome. He asks, “Where are you going?” to which Jesus replies, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” This confrontation stiffens Peter’s backbone sufficiently that he continues his ministry and is eventually crucified (upside-down) in Rome—supposedly on the site of St. Peter’s Basilica. The episode was the subject of a 1951 movie starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr.

One of the first phrases I learned in Latin class was QUO VADIS. That’s what the teacher asked me when I got up in the middle of class to go to the bathroom
.

“Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English.”

—Mignon McLaughlin,
The Neurotic’s Notebook

R

raconteur
(French) (rah-kon-TUR) (noun)

A very talented storyteller; alternately, in some interpretations, one who loves to hear himself talk.

Everyone was enthralled by Alan’s tale and said he was quite the RACONTEUR
.

raison d’être
(French) (RAY-zohn de-tre) (phrase)

Literally, “reason for being.” Colloquially, a justification for something or someone. The foundation of someone’s existence.

Cooking was Julia Child’s RAISON D’ETRE
.

rapprochement
(French) (ra-prosh-MAHN) (noun)

Establishment of a harmonious relationship. Usually some sort of a truce between previously warring parties. Or, if one cares to be more cynical a là the great American humorist Ambrose Bierce: “Peace: A period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”

At the end of the Civil War, Lee and Grant reached a RAPPROCHEMENT after Grant allowed Lee’s soldiers to keep their horses in order to help with the spring planting
.

rara avis
(Latin) (RAH-rah AH-wis) (phrase)

Something rare. Literally, “rare bird.”

A fountain pen these days is considered by some to be a RARA AVIS
.

Nota Bene

In the noir classic
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961), the rara avis at the heart of the story is, literally, a rare bird. Both the villains and the detective are searching for a fabulous treasure, a jewel-encrusted statue of a falcon, lost for centuries before surfacing in twentieth-century San Francisco.

Raus!
(German) (ROWS) (interjection)

Out! Generally meaning, “Get out!”

The commandant blew a whistle and shouted “RAUS!” to get the POWs out of the barracks
.

Realpolitik
(German) (REEL-pol-i-tik) (noun)

A system of diplomacy based on practical applications rather than theories. Literally, “real politics.” It was particularly associated with the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), through whose efforts the diverse states of north-central Europe were wielded into the German kingdom.

The German government believes itself to be based on REALPOLITIK rather than some high-flown, idealized notion of what government should be
.

Nota Bene

Although Bismarck was the originator of Realpolitik, it has been practiced with avidity by many in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Outstanding in this regard has been Henry Kissinger (1923–), national security advisor and secretary of state in the Nixon administration. It was Kissinger who remarked, only partly in fun, “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”

réchauffé
(French) (RAY-show-FAY) (noun)

Reheated leftover food. More generally, it can also a rehashing of stale ideas, exemplifying the French ability to meld philosophical discourse (or pretty much anything) with cooking.

After Thanksgiving, dinners for the next week tend to be RÉCHAUFFÉ. And at the end of that week, everyone is completely sick of turkey for another year
.

recherché
(French) (RAY-share-SHAY) (adjective)

Rare. More often, pretentious.

Mark’s knowledge of wine is just too RECHERCHÉ for anyone to feel comfortable around him. He acts as if I’m an idiot for not tasting the difference between a chardonnay and a chablis
.

reductio ad absurdum
(Latin) (re-DUK-tee-oh ad ab-ZIR-dum (phrase)

Reduce to the absurd. This is a logical fallacy often appearing in politics, in which one side tries to take the other side’s arguments to what they view as their logical conclusion.

If we consider the Republican argument that lowering tax rates always increases government revenues, the REDUCTIO AD ABSURDAM would suggest that lowering the tax rate to 0 percent would lead to revenues growing an infinite amount
.

Rem acu tetigisti
(Latin) (rem AK-oo te-tee-GIS-tee) (phrase)

You have touched the matter with the needle. More familiarly, you have hit the nail on the head.

With your suggestion that since Rachel is a sociopath, perhaps we should reconsider making her the office manager, REM ACU TETIGISTI
.

Nota Bene

Author P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) tended, in his stories of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, to toss in various foreign terms and phrases. At one point, in the classic
Jeeves in the Morning
, Bertie makes a comment to which Jeeves replies, “Precisely, sir. Rem acu tetigisti.”

“Rem—?”

“Acu tetigisti, sir. A Latin expression. Literally, it means ‘You have touched the matter with a needle,’ but a more idiomatic rendering would be—”

“Put my finger on the nub?”

“Exactly, sir.”

Bertie is constantly astounded by his valet’s erudition. “It beats me how you think of these things,” he says.

Requiescat in pace
(Latin) (RAY-kwis-kaht in PAH-kay) (phrase)

Rest in peace. A common inscription on gravestones.

For all of those who have been killed in senseless fighting, REQUIESCAT IN PACE
.

Res ipsa loquitur
(Latin) (rayz IP-sah LOW-kwit-er) (phrase)

The thing speaks for itself. The phrase is used as a legal term referring to a matter in which injury occurred due to circumstances that were inherently risky. Like most legal terms, it is designed to shelter the law from the understanding of ordinary people, who can thus continue to pay lawyers enormous sums to interpret it for them.

The Ford Company was liable for injuries caused by exploding Pintos under the doctrine of RES IPSA LOQUITUR. Presumably the car’s manufacturers should have known the gas tanks would explode on rear-impact collisions
.

retroussé
(French) (REH-trew-say) (adjective)

Upturned, generally referring to a nose. A delightful feature on a woman’s face; when it occurs on a man’s face, he looks like Bob Hope.

Marion’s nose has a RETROUSSÉ quality about it
.

rigor mortis
(Latin) (RI-gor MOR-tis) (noun)

The stiffness of death caused by muscular contraction. In humans it begins about three to four hours after death and lasts between forty-eight and sixty hours.

The body found in the alley was obviously dead, since RIGOR MORTIS had set in. From the degree of stiffness in the stiff, the CSI team was able to deduce the time of death
.

roman à clef
(French) (roh-MAHN ah KLAY) (phrase)

A novel featuring real people or events thinly disguised as fiction. Literally, “a novel with a key.”

A good example of ROMAN À CLEF is Robert Penn Warren’s
All the King’s Men
, which offers a version of the life of Louisiana politician Huey P. Long
.

“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges at the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”

—Mark Twain

S

samizdat
(Russian) (SAH-miz-daht) (noun)

A secret organization publishing banned literature. The word was also used in the Soviet Union to refer to banned literature itself, which was typed or hand-copied and secretly passed among dissidents.

In some countries, if you are going to print something denouncing the government, you have to organize a SAMIZDAT. In other countries, you just have to get on the Internet
.

Nota Bene

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the country had a long, rich samizdat tradition, extending back to the height of the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) is the best known of the Russian dissidents who published some of his works in this manner; another included Roy Medvedev (1925–), author of the monumental history of the Stalinist era,
Let History Judge
. Roy’s brother Zhores (1925–) authored a critique of the Stalinist “biologist” Trofim Lysenko (1898–1976) that was circulated surreptitiously in the U.S.S.R.

sanctum sanctorum
(Latin) (SANK-tum SANK-tor-um) (noun)

Holy of holies. The word is often used to refer to the innermost part of a temple or other religious shrine, but it can have a broader meaning of a strictly private place of refuge.

Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was his SANCTUM SANCTORUM. There he presumably sat around on furniture made from ice and brooded over whether to date Lois Lane or Lana Lang
.

sang-froid
(French) (san FRWAH) (noun)

Extreme composure. Literally, “cold blood.”

Laura showed considerable SANG-FROID when confronted by a huge, vicious dog on her afternoon walk. Rather than let it intimidate her, she emptied her water bottle over its head, whereupon the dog yelped and ran back into its yard
.