A friend was navigating the stairwell in heels with two Salukis in tow (okay fine, it's all staged.. to showcase, or staircase, these fine and elegant hounds, but also their bespoke handmade leather leads).
We have two miniature dachshunds at home so I think about stairs, steps, heights a lot (they need to be careful bounding up and down, off and on things because of the risk of injury to their long back).
This morning though, walking my other dog, an Australian Shepherd (he makes frequent appearances in our emails and on these pages), a passerby said something unnecessarily, and aggressively, rude about Henry (imagine!) (I think they feared tripping over his long line but this person was on the path, Henry was on the green).
I replied with something incoherent. It sounded a bit like 'fizzlebodgitblah'.
And then, of course, I spent the remainder of the walk turning over in my mind the perfect riposte to this rude man. The 'bon mot' to stop him in his tracks and hang his head in shame.
This is called 'staircase wit'.
(finally, the connection).
Google it and you'll find this 2019 explanation from The Wall Street Journal:
"L'esprit d'escalier, a phrase coined in the 18th century by Denis Diderot, means, in literal translation, staircase wit. It denotes those missed opportunities for a dazzling riposte, a charming bit of repartee, that occur too late—only, as it were, on the staircase as one is departing."
My dazzling riposte never came. And I'm sure, if it ever had, would have been lost on the angry brute, and not at all charming.
But I've now started trying to catalogue in my mind some useful 'ripostes' for future scenarios of silly interfering people who feel the need to say something unnecessary and rude to Henry and me on our walk. I am sure I am not alone in this (to be clear: we are not menaces on our walk, we're pleasant really, but you know how it is, you just come across the occasional human compelled to voice their disdain for dogs..).