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Rating: 
Summary: Commonly used foreign phrases and Western cultural reference
Review: hubris, quid pro quo, id est, red diaper baby . . . .All very common phrases in the English language, but many people do not know exactly what they mean. This book will correct those deficiencies. If you graduated from a non-Kansas High School, you will have heard most of the words and references in this book, although you may not know what they mean. There's enough here that even the most educated individual is sure to learn a few things.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious, just like Norah Vincent's other writing
Review: She deploys many of the tactics written about in her poorly-written articles. In short, the book is neither witty nor particularly well-written. It might impress the pseudo-educated, but anyone with a half-decent BS-ometer will eventually embarrass the person deploying its "tricks."
Rating: 
Summary: A cute coffeetable book
Review: This book defines about about 250 phrases, many Latin, along with correct pronounciation and examples. I can't imagine anyone actually reading this book cover-to-cover and learning many of the phrases, but you might learn more if you do a page-a-day type thing. For the most part, anyone who uses more than a few of the phrases in this book in daily conversation would look like a pompous jerk, but it's still good to know the definition of the phrases.
Rating: 
Summary: Riddled with Errors
Review: Unlike some of the other reviewers, I really DID read this book cover to cover. It took about 45 minutes, so that should be your first clue that this isn't a deep book. That, by itself, isn't objectionable. After all, this is really intended to be a "bathroom" or coffee table book. However, having read the whole book in one sitting, I was amazed by the number of errors. I was finding mistakes every few minutes. You would think that the authors of a book entitled, "How to Sound Smart" would be smart enough themselves to proof-read the text throughly. The names of people like Jim Bakker and John Wayne Gacy are misspelled, and the definitions for phrases such as "Hobson's Choice", "beyond the pale", and "Occam's Razor" are incomplete, or just flat-out wrong. Yes, there are a lot of interesting tidbits, but there's a serious problem. If I was able to catch many errors based on what I know, how many more errors are present that I wasn't able to catch? That is, if I know some of the material to be incorrect, I can't be confidently sure that ANY of it is right. This is the kiss of death for any reference work, serious or not. The crudely-drawn, pointless illustrations add little to the book. I rarely write negative reviews, but this book deserves one. Not recommended.
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