‘Stop opening the fridge like you’re expecting to find Narnia in there’.
Yoda, Stroom Troopers and Narnia meant nothing to us before the movies released, today we see these words everywhere. If a movie that lasted for not more than 3 hours could have such a long lasting effect on our vocabulary, just imagine the series that we binge watch, everyday, allday! There is massive scope of mimicking words used by iconic characters, when they mean nothing at all in the real world.
Here are some words most of you will identify with,
1. D’OH
Homer Simpson, the iconic duff guzzler, has popularized his catch phrase ‘D’oh’ in these 26 years to an unimaginable extent. It doesn’t only catch on to the other characters in the show, but to us all. D’oh is commonly used by Homer when he says something stupid, when he knows he’s going to get into trouble and when he clumsily injures himself. And we all know we’ve had our share of D’oh moments. Praise to Homie.
2. LAWYERED
From ‘How I Met Your Mother’ fame, comes Marshall’s court weapon. He uses it when a debate has been won, with no chance of rebuttal. It’s a word that’s made winning an argument extra sweet. Kudos to Marshall for giving us a bar-room debate punchline.
3. VAJAZZLE
Well, we all know Vajayjay, but then there’s Vajazzle. It’s the word coined by Jennifer Love Hewitt on ‘Lopez Tonight’ and then made popular on ‘The Only Way Is Essex’. It basically means to decorate your Vajayjay with glitter and crystals, sort of like an amalgamation of vagina and bedazzled.
4. MUPPET
Yes, it isn’t really a word, we bet you are confusing it with puppet. But it’s a little more than that. It’s a combination of marionette and puppet. It was made famous by The Muppet Show and later went on to be used commonly for movies with similar puppets. Now, it’s gone on to become a household name.
5. REVERTIGO
Another one of Marshall’s awesome terms. Revertigo is what he labels Robin’s behaviour when she meets someone from her past. The best example of Revertigo in the show was Lily and her friend Michelle. Her behaviour switches over to what it was, when she was associated with Michelle.
6. TARDIS
Popularized by ‘Doctor Who’, is this acronym for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’. On the show it was used to refer to a blue phone booth, that’s actually a large time machine on the inside. In common lingo, it’s increasingly used to refer to time machines in general.
7. MUCH?
Much was clearly not invented by a TV show, but the context in which it was used was way different. You ask how? ‘Rude much!’, ‘Excuse Much!’, well you get the drift. And today that’s progressed to ‘Much Happy, Such Joy’. But do you know where it came from? A show called ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, if you haven’t seen it then we’ve gotta ask, Clueless much?!
8. TANOREXIC
Here comes the single sensible term coined by Jersey Shore. Our favourite tanned boy toys and Snookie, have made us believe in the act of tanning. Ofcourse, we Indians don’t need no artificial tan, but the word ‘Tanorexic’ has caught on immense popularity. By their definition it’s a person’s incapability to get tanned.
9. OMNISHAMBLES
Behold, this one is the mother of all. It originates from a British comedy TV series called The Thick Of It. The definition is ‘a situation which is in compelet shambles or chaos, no matter which perspective you look at it from’. Why is it the ultimate one on the list? Because, it’s constant use in 2012, put it on Oxford’s map, who declared it the word of the year.
10. AWSFUL
Another slay by ‘How I Met Your Mother’, this one is the word we all needed in the dictionary, it basically is a combination of Awful and Awesome! It’s used when you show accidental happiness at an inapt time.