Date: Tue Mar 21 00:52:28 EST 2000
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ersatz
ersatz (ER-zahts, er-ZATS) adjective

Being an imitation or a substitute, usually an inferior one; artificial.

[German, replacement, from ersetzen, to replace, from Old High German
irsezzan : ir-, out + sezzan, to set.]

A word seen often during and shortly after WWII, but not since.

Lemony Snicket used it in the title of volume 6 of the misadventures of the Baudelaire children... a whole new generation is being educated as to this word - fear not, Dr. Bill!

http://www.lemonysnicket.com/desc_ersatz.html

Dear FB: with regard to Lemony Snickett, I feel like the
hill-billy that was invited to play bridge. He declined
on the grounds that he already had more vices than he
could properly support.

Gosh, I see "ersatz" used with reasonable frequency in general interest publications.

reasonable frequency

yeah, I recall hearing it in conversation just this weekend.

It got used just the other day upstairs in Miscellany:

http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=125409

A week after this thread started.