TellUWhat Review – Witty comebacks straight from your pocket

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By: Third i Development

Version #: 1.1

Date Released: 2011-08-30

Developer: Third i Development CC

Price: 0.99

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The French have a special phrase for it: l’esprit de l’escalier. In English, staircase wit, so called because it’s defined as the act of thinking of a response or clever comeback when it’s already too late, that is, when you’ve already reached the bottom of the stairs. It’s a phenomenon which has no doubt been experienced at some point by any person regularly engaged in active conversation. It has especially become more pronounced in our present era of lightning-fast mobile communication and Internet messaging, very similar platforms where speed is of utmost importance and cleverness is the main currency.

How do you avoid confronting staircase wit then? Well, you just have to be a little bit cleverer than your interlocutors. If you’re armed with an iOS device, then you’re in luck. There’s this universal app called TellUWhat, and it could significantly help you in this aspect.

TellUWhat is essentially a database of random phrases which you can use as quick replies—to mostly hilarious effect. The app is quite easy to operate, what with it having only a single, simple interface whose theme or skin you can change by a mere swipe. The interface consists of a box that displays the resulting phrases and two sets of buttons for specifying the category and structure of the phrases. Choose any or all of the categories (Animals, School, Office, Gadgets, Sports, Household, Food, Medical, All) to limit the type of objects that would appear in a phrase, then choose among the predefined structures (Why don’t you…, I heard that…, If I were you…, I’d rather…, You… like a…, Random) to indicate how the phrase is constructed, at which point the magic phrase will now appear.

The phrasal possibilities are practically endless, and you have options to copy, text, e-mail, or save as favorite any phrase that you fancy. And with the number of random phrases available for every combination of button selections, you’re certain to come up with one that you’ll like, especially since they range from the bitingly funny to the strangely hilarious. Here’s a couple of priceless examples: "You sing like a severely constipated ultrasonic nebulizer," and "I’d rather stroke an oversized moose than rub an immensely petite donut with you." LOL!

Here’s another possibility: you winning a snazzy Apple iPad 2 just by using TellUWhat. Go to the competition webpage for the details of the competition. Don’t worry, you need not deal with staircase wit to join.