TV has added some gems to our lexicons! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for slang phrases we only use because we heard them on TV.
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00:00She wants to say hi, she's with her new boyfriend.
00:01What's he like?
00:02He's nice, bit of a close talker.
00:04A what?
00:05You'll see.
00:06Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for slang phrases
00:09we only use because we heard them on TV.
00:12Biggins?
00:13I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield.
00:16I don't know why.
00:17It's a perfectly cromulent word.
00:2010.
00:20Cowabunga
00:21Howdy doody.
00:22For some reason or other, unknown to me for a long time,
00:26the word caught on long after the show left the air.
00:29He used it profusely because everybody loved the sound of it.
00:33No, it did not originate with Bart Simpson.
00:36It didn't even come from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.
00:40This unusual word goes all the way back to Howdy Doody,
00:43where it was a favorite expression of an extremely dated character named Chief Thunderthud.
00:49Oh, cowabunga, doggone, I should've guessed that.
00:51Yeah?
00:52Howdy Doody writer Edward Keen came up with the nonsense word,
00:55which he pronounced, cowabunga, as a greeting or an exclamation.
01:00Somehow, it became popular among surfers in the 1950s and 60s.
01:04Michelangelo, the ultimate surfer dude, naturally adopted it in the late 80s.
01:09Gee, Michelangelo, I didn't know you could drive.
01:12I can!
01:14Cowabunga!
01:16Just two years later, it appeared in Season 1 of The Simpsons,
01:19and quickly became one of Bart's many catchphrases.
01:23Thanks mainly to these two cartoons, it survives in the popular lexicon to this day.
01:27Whoa.
01:31Whoa!
01:32Ooh, cowabunga!
01:33Number 9.
01:34Five-O, Hawaii Five-O.
01:45The use of this slang term to mean the police is a fascinating example
01:49of how a word can evolve.
01:50The title of the show simply refers to Hawaii being the 50th state. In fact,
01:55it was only inducted into the union nine years before the show premiered.
01:59Ben? Duke?
02:01Get over to the Kahala Mall. He's using a public payphone there.
02:06We're on our way, Steve.
02:07Hawaii 5-0 was a pretty big hit. It lasted 12 seasons and continued to air in syndication
02:13for years after the original show ended. It shouldn't be a surprise then that it had an
02:17impact on fans' vocabularies. However, young people who know that the word
02:215-0 refers to the cops might be surprised to learn that it came from this old-school TV show.
02:26Are you going to talk to Tim? Why, will he tell me something different?
02:32No.
02:32Number 8. Debbie Downer. Saturday Night Live.
02:35This phrase is so familiar, it feels like it should be older than it actually is.
02:39People have been using the word Downer to mean something depressing for decades.
02:43But the name Debbie Downer, to refer to a negative person, didn't appear until 2004.
02:49Always there to tell you about a new disease, a car accident or killer bees.
02:54You beg her to spare you Debbie, please, but you can't stop Debbie Downer.
02:58SNL invented the character of Debbie Downer for a sketch. She became a somewhat regular feature
03:03on the show, popping up a handful of times over the next 20 years, always played by Rachel Dratch.
03:09Usually, when I come to houses, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.
03:14You should check those houses for carbon monoxide. It's an odorless killer.
03:21It's such a useful phrase, since we all have a Debbie Downer, or perhaps a
03:26negative Nancy in our lives. It's no wonder it caught on.
03:30Oh, look guys, I just caught the bouquet. You know who else loves flowers? Honeybees.
03:37Too bad they're on their way out.
03:47Although this term has been around for a long time, it soared in popularity starting in 1995
03:52thanks to Elaine, Jerry and a suspicious label maker.
03:56I think this is the same one I gave him. He recycled this gift. He's a regifter.
04:03Or maybe he liked your gift so much he decided to get me the same thing. Perhaps it's an homage.
04:10Seinfeld had a knack for coining hilarious new ways of describing everyday things. For instance,
04:15we're willing to bet this was the first time someone used yada yada in this particular context.
04:20I met this lawyer, we went out to dinner, I had the lobster bisque,
04:23we went back to my place, yada yada yada, I never heard from him again.
04:27But you yada yada'd over the best part.
04:29No, I mentioned the bisque.
04:31In this season six episode, Tim Whatley gives Jerry a label maker,
04:35and Elaine suspects it's the same one that she gave Whatley for Christmas.
04:39She accuses Whatley of being a regifter, and he eventually fesses up.
04:43He did indeed regift the label maker.
04:45You don't have the label maker, do you?
04:47Uh, no.
04:49I knew it! You're a regifter!
04:51Let this be a lesson. If you're going to regift someone,
04:54let this be a lesson. If you're going to regift something,
04:57make sure the original gifter and the giftee don't know each other.
05:01Number six, jump the shark.
05:03Happy days.
05:04Fire up the boat.
05:06I'm jumping the shark.
05:07This expression is a colourful way to describe the moment
05:10when something that used to be good starts to go downhill.
05:13It originates from an episode when Fonzie accepts a challenge to jump over a shark on water skis.
05:18So, Prince Valiant, are you ready?
05:22Are you actually gonna do it?
05:23Yeah, are you?
05:25Yeah.
05:25Fans broadly agree that the show was clearly out of ideas and started to decline after that point.
05:31However, the phrase jumping the shark didn't enter the popular lexicon until nearly 10 years later,
05:36when college students John Hain and Sean Connelly
05:39used it to describe other shows that had declined in quality.
05:43And I explained how he was in college, and they used to talk about when shows turned bad.
05:48And jumptheshark.com is something he started, and he sold it to TV Guide.
05:51Since then, it's been applied to everything from politicians to sports teams.
05:55The Simpsons even used it in a couch gag, poking fun at their own show way back in season 14.
06:02Number 5.
06:03Nimrod.
06:03Looney Tunes franchise.
06:05I'll warm up the party a little for him.
06:10Nah, I couldn't do that to the little Nimrod.
06:13The name originally comes from the Old Testament,
06:15where Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, is described as a mighty hunter.
06:20But if you're a viewer of a certain age,
06:22you probably use it to mean a stupid or foolish person.
06:26That's because the Looney Tunes franchise accidentally changed its meaning.
06:30How am I ever gonna catch that screwy duck?
06:33Precisely what I was wondering, my little Nimrod.
06:36There's some debate over which character said it first,
06:39but this 1948 short appears to be the earliest usage.
06:43Daffy uses it to mock Elmer Fudd, who, of course, is not a mighty hunter.
06:48However, young kids watching the cartoon mistakenly thought it meant someone unintelligent.
06:53Bugs Bunny used it in a similar sense for Yosemite Sam just a few years later.
06:58Now, the derogatory meaning is the only one many people are familiar with.
07:02Obviously, I am dealing with inferior mentalities.
07:06Number 4.
07:06Friend Zone.
07:07Friends, a show that's such a major cultural touchstone,
07:10is bound to influence our vocabularies in some way.
07:13Over the years, Friends popularized many expressions,
07:16invented a few new ones, and turned others into hilarious inside jokes.
07:20Joey alone is responsible for some of the best ones.
07:23Oh, please.
07:25Hey, how you doing?
07:30In Season 3, he introduced the 1970s-era phrase,
07:34going commando, to a new generation.
07:36And way back in Season 1, he explained to Ross why he and Rachel would never be together.
07:42Why not?
07:43Because you waited too long to make your move, and now you're in the friend zone.
07:50We don't know for sure whether Friends actually invented the term
07:53friend zone, but its popular usage only took off after that 1994 episode.
07:58I made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the friend zone.
08:04Oh no, I'm in the friend zone!
08:06Number 3.
08:07Googled.
08:08Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
08:09Can you imagine a time when this word wasn't totally ubiquitous?
08:12Google it!
08:14Don't!
08:16Bye!
08:18Google it.
08:19Google it.
08:20Now.
08:20The Google search engine went live in 1998,
08:24and it quickly outpaced its competitors in popularity.
08:26Within just a few years, people began using the word as a verb.
08:30This episode from the final season of Buffy
08:32is believed to be the first time it was used in that sense on TV.
08:36No real info here.
08:38Have you Googled her yet?
08:40Willow, she's 17.
08:42It's a search engine.
08:43As you can tell from Xander's confusion, the word wasn't yet as widespread as it is today.
08:48Buffy the Vampire Slayer was known for inventing and popularizing all kinds of new slang.
08:52That makes it no surprise that it was the show that brought us this historic pop culture moment.
08:57This is normal teen stuff.
08:59You join chat rooms, you write poetry, you post Doogie Howser fanfic.
09:05It's all normal, right?
09:06Let's see what other sites there are.
09:08Number 2.
09:09Spam.
09:10Monty Python's Flying Circus.
09:12Don't make a fuss, dear.
09:13I'll have your spam.
09:14I love it.
09:15We have early internet message board users to thank for this one.
09:18The practice of flooding a chat room or other forum with unwanted text
09:22became known as spamming sometime in the late 1980s.
09:27Old archived chats from the time period reveal that the usage was inspired by a 1970
09:33Monty Python sketch where cafe patrons won't stop chanting the word.
09:47Since then, the term has evolved to refer mainly to junk mail.
09:51Although the makers of spam, Hormel, didn't mind Monty Python poking fun at their product,
09:56they didn't like its association with unwanted emails.
09:59In 2003, they sued software company SpamArrest for trademark infringement.
10:05After a lengthy legal battle, Hormel lost its suit and the word spam lives on.
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10:35Thanks to its popularity and incredible longevity,
10:37this show may have contributed more to our vocabularies than any other.
10:41In fact, a single scene in a season 7 episode gave us M. Biggin and
10:47Cromulent, both of which were coined by Simpsons writers.
10:57"...a noble spirit, M. Biggin's the smallest man."
11:02The words have since been added to major dictionaries,
11:05and M. Biggin has even shown up in scientific journal articles.
11:10The first known use of the word yoink comes from a season 4 episode.
11:14And of course, we can't forget Homer's famous catchphrase,
11:17which has since become synonymous with the character and the show.
11:21Don't! Don't! Don't! I mean, woohoo!
11:25We could go on and on, but we think you'll agree that this is already a perfectly cromulent list.
11:32Good! God, he is fabulous!
11:34He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance.
11:37Which bits of TV slang can you not stop saying? Let us know in the comments below.
11:41No, no, no. I'm not in the zone.
11:43Oh, Ross, you're mayor of the zone.
11:45Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo,
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