je ne sais quoi

Club Med has rebranded itself in recent years, moving literally and metaphorically from its simple but innovative '60s formula: European sun, sea, sand and je ne sais quoi for grown-ups escaping from children or oldies (then defined as anyone over the age of 30).

It is this past physical manifestation of wealth, power, grace and status, what he often resorts to calling a je ne sais quoi, that he seeks to uncover in its historical origins in Renaissance Italy, and its transmission across Europe to even the more peripheral courts of the Low Countries in the early modern period.

"I love Paris in the springtime/I love Paris in the fall." Cole Porter's words and Ella Fitzgerald's velvety voice ring in my head every time I visit this gorgeous city and encounter that je ne sais quoi that instantly puts me in a romantic mood.

This French-styled trio will add vintage vava-voom to the most unromantic dining rooms and bring out anyone's je ne sais quoi.

This unsayable has a number of names: sprezzatura, galanterie, honnetete, and the term that gestures most explicitly towards its own incapacity to define that for which definition itself would be fatal: je ne sais quoi. Richard Scholar's book is a cheerful and exhaustive attempt to describe this phenomenon, readily--and consciously--embracing its inarticulability even while exploring nearly every corner of its territory.

'When the most stylish thing on stage is a bunch of dancers in woolly sheep costumes, you have to wonder whether this production isn't lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.' So ended the first newspaper article that I looked at after finishing Richard Scholar's wonderfully rich and challenging study of the je-ne-sais-quoi.

Light on the palate with just a hint of je ne sais quoi, let Best of ...

But we can't help thinking the Safety-Sponge System lacks that certain je ne sais quoi that carried another technology with sponge-location possibilities to marketing superstardom.

And finally, there's that certain je ne sais quoi, with French influences subtly defining a casual design, or boldly speaking with a Gallic accent on a more formal frame.

For those of us who left, for whatever the reasons (and there were many), there was a profound loss of identity, fellowship, spiritual and fiscal security, a sense of being an integral part of the church, and that indefinable je ne sais quoi identified by Ginny Cunningham as the "nun network." It is true that some communities do not isolate their former members and they are to be commended for not participating in that all-too-common shunning many of us have experienced.

BARBARA CAREY, THE CREATOR OF the hairagami, walked down the tampon aisle not too long ago marveling that the products available--from tampons to pads--lacked a little, shall we say, je ne sais quoi. "It's no surprise women feel cursed," says Carey of a recent survey that says 41 percent of women feel stricken on their periods.

It doesn't come down to je ne sais quoi, joie de vivre or any other fancy French term, it comes down to something intrinsically English - BOTTLE.

Besides wages, a worker also obtains "amenities" from a job: intangible benefits such as the enjoyment of a good workplace environment, pleasant working conditions, a certain cachet, or some other je ne sais quoi.

Stake burnings give you a certain je ne sais quoi? It's the 21st century, and you have no idea how user-friendly such proceedings have become.

Understandably, while the author does not develop his other characters with the same profundity, he nevertheless reveals them as truly unique individuals: the victim's mildly schizoid German mother, her German boyfriend who teaches scuba diving, an assortment of island lowlifes who speak with authentic Canary Island dialects, a fifteen-year-old nymphet named Desiree with the nostalgic seductiveness of Nabokov's Lolita, and a bisexual female criminal Investigator who frequents nudist beaches and who has a certain je ne sais quoi that drives Vila crazy with lust.