Le Mot Juste

What is Le Mot Juste?

1.

a French (read: pretentious) expression meaning "the right wording/phrasing"

often used by snotty intellectuals like Frasier Crane from the TV show Frasier

"Oh anyway, as I was saying, it was horr--well, actually, "horrible" isn't quite le mot juste--more like calamitous! Disastrous! Deplorable! EXECRABLE!"

"Oh brother."

2.

"the right word" in French. Coined by 19th-century novelist Gustave Flaubert, who often spent weeks looking for the right word to use.

Flaubert spent his life agonizing over "le mot juste." Now Madame Bovary is available in 20 different crappy english translations, so now it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference.

See french, gustave, madame, bovary

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