I never strive for anything 'modern' as that hope is a chimera and being transient, is already old-fashioned, just takes us a while to realise how old fashioned it really is.

I prefer the term suitable or perhaps 'good'. You all should know what I mean by 'good', and that certainly isn't modern, it is generally old-fashioned. Now, here is the thing, if you use something that I think is 'good', then in your use, it magically becomes current and therefore modern.

If enough people do the same then it becomes the trend and then captures the zetgeist. What is old becomes new again - if only for the moment.

Two questions for you:

1. Why do we not have a word in English that captures the essence of zeitgeist. I know we have zeitgeist now but what did we have before?

2. Why does this post sound like it was created by xiaoyao?