{"product_id":"a-certain-je-ne-sais-quoi-the-origin-of-foreign-words-used-in-english-blackboard-books","title":"A Certain \"Je Ne Sais Quoi\": The Origin of Foreign Words Used in English","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Reader's Digest Association paperback from the Blackboard Books series, small enough to keep near a desk and designed to look like the kind of reference book that used to be given as a graduation gift. Chloë Rhodes arranges borrowed words alphabetically—aficionado to zeitgeist—offering translations, approximate etymologies, and a timeline of how each term was naturalized into English. The entries are brief, the black-and-white illustrations are decorative rather than necessary, and the whole thing carries the faint instructional cheer of a book that wants you to feel smarter without much effort. The Blackboard binding is compact, the margins are generous, and the price suggests it was meant to be impulse-bought. Ideal reader: the person who uses \u003cem\u003eschadenfreude\u003c\/em\u003e in conversation and wants to know whether they are pronouncing it correctly.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vagabound","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48520398962900,"sku":"9781606520574","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0802\/5410\/7860\/files\/9781606520574.jpg?v=1787415093","url":"https:\/\/checkout.vagaboundbooks.com\/products\/a-certain-je-ne-sais-quoi-the-origin-of-foreign-words-used-in-english-blackboard-books","provider":"Vagabound","version":"1.0","type":"link"}