Staircase for Brains
“The French term “l’esprit de l’escalier,” which translates literally as “the wit of the staircase,” refers to those perfect, clever comebacks that you only think of after the fact.”
Thank you, LiveJournal homepage, for finally giving me a name for the thing I experience on a daily basis but have no idea what to call.
More from Wikipedia:
L’esprit de l’escalier (stairway wit) is the sense of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late. The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult, or any witty, clever remark that comes to mind too late to be useful—when one is on the “staircase” leaving the scene. The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at having not thought of the riposte when it was most needed or suitable.
Originally a witticism of Denis Diderot, the French encyclopedist, in his Paradoxe sur le Comédien.
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