There's A More Successful Word For Fail(ure)

I fail to understand the hip popularity of the word "fail" that's been going around for some time now. As in, "I was just trying to be funny with that multi-layered reference to Angry Birds and Harry Potter. Fail." I don't know, maybe my example is an "epic fail" because I have absolutely no hands-on knowledge of either Angry Birds or Harry Potter. I guess my cultural life is one big fail, hunh?

It's not that I hate (or certainly am unfamiliar with) the word fail. But the word has no panache, no poetry in it. And sure, I can understand why that's part of the appeal to adding it at the end of any statement, negating the statement with abruptness. But still. It fails to amuse me. Rather it irks me, either as it tries to add to one's prouncements some cutesy self-deprecation or some ultimate castigating judgment on someone or something. Fail fails, what can I say?

But manque, ah, there's a word to fail by. As in, "She's an obsessive user of hip slang manque." For those of you who fail to comprehend the word (as I, being a vocabu-phile manque, was while reading Dave Van Ronk's wonderful The Mayor of MacDougal Street, in which he uses the word enough for me to run to my dictionary [okay, fine, run to dictionary.com] and learn the word) the definition is having failed, missed, or fallen short, especially because of circumstances or a defect of character; unsuccessful; unfulfilled or frustrated (usually used postpositively): a poet manqué who never produced a single book of verse. Now that definition, in and of itself, is the antithesis of fail. I love the "because of circumstances or a defect of character" because it sums up so well the implications of "fail." I love the parenthetical "usually used postpositively" because it shows manque is/(has been, a lot longer than fail has) used at the end of the statement one is negating. And of course, the definition's example about the poet is apt on so many levels, which if you fail to understand means you're a spitoutyourgum fan manque, among other manque things. And finally, the cut and pasted definition allows me to show you the accent mark on manque that my computer whiz manque status prevents me from doing on my own. The word is pronounced mahng-KEY or mahN-KEY, sort of like a surf dude with his stresses all mixed up pronouncing the word monkey. Obviously the word is French, which just adds that much more elan (i.e., hipster quotient) to using it instead of the truly failed fail.

So there, another great word for you to impress and raise your hipness with--manque. Fail to use it at your own risk of sounding obsolete and like a totally mensch manque.