Recherche: Exotic, Pretentious & Basically French

How often do you get a new word? A prize to hold on to? Thank you to my older sister and Michael Chabon for my new word as big sis bought me his book, The Amazing Adventure of Cavalier and Clay, in which he used the term. And in a little switchblade of events I once was interviewed by Michael's wife and met him also briefly when they were looking for someone to update their website and be a PA. I probably would have sucked on the PA part, considering at my job now I actually unplug the phone so that "I won't be bothered" which did not go over well when explained. I even did it in that matter-of-fact tone that office mats (not a typo) enjoy and sometimes pre-suppose is a person who "knows things" and "gets the job done."

Anyways, back to the story, recherché. It's like a big well-placed scarf or a large cowl-neck sweater—you know it belongs to the French, so cool and condescending, before your eyes can focus and know exactly what you're looking at and then plummet into the realization that you could never pull that off. It sounds like a name dropped at just the right moment where instead of coming off like a jerk you sound like you know something. Recherché.

So sound is only one part. Next comes meaning, depth and some confusion as it turns out. Recherché is itself and its opposite. More French than I could have dreamt. Holy semiotics-Julia-Kristeva-Irigaray-Cixous-make-feel-dumb-leather-language, I think I am smitten:

Merriem Webster:

• Main Entry: re·cher·ché


• Pronunciation: \rə-sher-shā
  
• Function: adjective
• Etymology: French, from past participle of rechercher to seek out, alteration of recercher, from Middle French
  
• Date: 1722

1 a : exquisite,choice b : exotic, rare
2 : excessively refined : affected
3 : pretentious, overblown