Pedantic

A compendium of 100 words and phrases smart people use - even if they only kinda sorta (secretly don't) know what they mean - with pithy definitions and fascinating etymologies to solidify their meanings.

Your boss makes a joke about Schrodinger's cat - something you've heard of, but what exactly happened (or didn't happen) with that cat? Or you're reading a New Yorker article that explains that 'Solecism slipped into solipsism into full-blown narcissistic projection.' An excellent point . . . if you know what 'solecism' means . . . or, for that matter, 'solipsism'.

Language gurus Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras explain all of the words and phrases smart people should know. Covering the worlds of science, the arts and philosophy, they explore broad topics, like quantum physics and ontology, and more specific ones, like shibboleth and bete noire. From Latin phrases we often hear and read (prima facie, sui generis and the like) to those pesky words that have entered our vocabularies from other languages (bildungsroman, sturm und drang), this book will inform and delight even the most pernickety word nerds.

About the Author

Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras are the authors of the #1 bestselling page-a-day calendar The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said and many other humor and gift books, most recently That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means. They recently launched a new NPR-affiliate podcast based on their New York Times bestseller You're Saying It Wrong. Their work has received the attention of personalities like David Brinkley and Howard Stern, and media outlets including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Washington Post, HuffPost, and the Times (UK).