Whether English borrowed / translated staircase wit from the French or the German, I have been unable to discover. Most of the online articles that talk about l'esprit d'escalier attribute it to Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le comédien, a play which, though it was written in 1773, was not published until 1830. Kluge, in his etymological German dictionary, cites Treppenwitz as early as 1828. He says that it is a calque of the French. (Interesting word-aside: Gammillscheg, in his etymological French dictionary, poitns out that escalier is a loanword from Provençal; the original French form of Vulgar Latin *scalarium is echalier.)

L'âme sensible a « l'esprit d'escalier » -- seul l'homme froid sait trouver sur le champ la réplique appropriée.

[Fixed a solecism.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 01/23/2006 11:15 PM.