Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart and Cultured [Hardcover]

Chad Conway (Author), Norah Vincent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 1998

With more than 200 foreign phrases, Latin terms, idiomatic expressions, and literary expressions, this little reference aids anyone in acquiring a cultured vocabulary. Accessible, handy, and fun, this book includes phonetic spellings and on-the-nose explanations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Confess. You're perplexed by "palimpsest" and "pari passu." You confound "nebbish" with "nabob" with "mensch." You sport large gaps in your linguistic oeuvre, and they've gone too long untended.

Enter the intellectual (or in this case, a cheap imitation). Featuring definitions of more than 200 of the words, expressions and foreign phrases which have frequented cocktail parties since time immemorial, The Instant Intellectual is ready with the wisdom you need to zip up your vocab.

The word here is short and easy. Nota bene the subtitle, The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart & Cultured, and don't expect the O.E.D. Definitions are just a few words long; notes on usage are bratty and brief; pronunciation guides are easy to read and included on a need-to-know basis. The book's large font and generous page layout make it easy on the eyes, while the occasional black-and-white cartoon helps liven up the mix.

So whether you're searching for le mot juste, or just want to define it, we'd suggest you suspend your party circuit and consult The Instant Intellectual: easy enlightenment is within your grasp.--Elizabeth Briskin

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (May 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786863765
• ISBN-13: 978-0786863761
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,851,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Light on Contents, May 1, 2002

By 

Redmund K. Sum (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart and Cultured (Hardcover)

The concept of the book is excellent. The presentation is also very good. But it is pretty lightweight. It does not have enough contents to serve as a reference, nor do I think, after paging through this book, that was what the author had in mind.

I have several books I stuff in the car for light reading while I am waiting for people or traffic. This book belongs there.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A reasonably good companion to 'Instant Genius' by Tanya Slover, March 17, 2006

By 

Lee Say Keng "KNOWLEDGE ADVENTURER/TECHNOLOGY... (Ho Chi Minh City/Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart and Cultured (Hardcover)

Once in a while or so, I like to buy books which may, at first glance, appear to be trivia & yet studded with interesting & entertaining stuff. This is one of those books that I have encountered while browsing through some of my favourite used bookstores.

From years of personal experience, I often noted that such books provide me with useful learning points.

In fact, many of the trivia questions in this particular book gave me some valuable insights into how to rack the human mind.

Let me explain. At the end of my creativity workshops for professional adults (& even for kids & teens), I often like to conduct a ten-minute 'Rack Your Brains' session, during which participants have only 30 seconds to answer each of thirteen hand-picked questions, comprising mostly puzzles, teasers, trivia, etc. My purpose of the exercise is to sum up what I called 'understanding cognitive traps & pattern interrupts'.

On the whole, I find this book to be a reasonably good companion to 'Instant Genius" (which I have reviewed earlier) by Tanya Slover.

11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing special, November 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart and Cultured (Hardcover)

A small, square-shaped book. It contains translations to a few "foreign words", such as coup d'etat, etc. It's really nothing special, I suppose most people already know the meaning of these words.