Sein Language: Difference between revisions

Named for the derivative dialect of the English language spoken only by the four main characters in ''[[Seinfeld]]'', if you don't count the millions of ''Seinfeld'' fans who speak it outside the ''Seinfeld'' World.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Thanks to ''[[Gurren Lagann]]'', the specific variety of [[Cool Shades]] that come to points at the corners will ''always'' be referred to as "Kamina shades", no matter what character wears them.

 

* Innumerable examples from ''[[Casablanca]]'': "We'll always have Paris", "Round up the usual suspects", "Play it, Sam", "The problems of three people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," and of course "I am shocked, ''shocked''...!" among many others.

* For a while in the 1940s, people took to referring to the telephone as the Ameche after Don Ameche played Alexander Graham Bell in a movie.

* It's easy to spot the droogs who have seen or read ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]''.

* For a while, Jim Carrey movies tried to launch a Sein Language [[Catch Phrase]]... "[[The Mask (film)|Somebody stop me!]]" "[[Ace Ventura|Alrighty then!]]" etc.

** [[Self-Demonstrating Article|As illustrated above.]]

** Of course, some people were already saying that, since Paul said it so often on ''[[Mad About You]]'' years earlier.

* Some people use the term "ear-muffs" from ''[[Old School]]'' to instruct someone to cover their ears.

* The movie ''[[Airplane!]]'' is a veritable font of repeatable one-liners. "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking/drinking/sniffing glue/fill in the blank" or "I'm quite serious. And don't call me Shirley".

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[The Bible]]'' is probably the Ur-Example, supplying the meaning of so many words and phrases that have become so common that most people don't realize their origin as biblical metaphors. For example, the "parable of the talents" brought about the use of "talent" (being a unit of weight for valuables) to mean "aptitude or ability." A lot of very common names also come from the Bible—even parents who don't necessarily know that the name comes from the Bible use them.

* And if the Bible didn't coin it, there's a good chance [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare did]].

** [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|"Doublespeak"]] is not from the book, but was probably coined on the same principles and certainly would have been at home there.

** For example, Goblins being distinct from Kobolds, Hobbits, Elves separate from fairies, the like. Words like "[[Eucatastrophe]]" are from his brain. He's also partly responsible for the use of "elves and dwarves" rather than "elfs and dwarfs" in fantasy fiction.

** Considering he was not just "a linguist" but an associate editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, it makes a lot of sense. (And appropriately enough, "hobbit" is now in the OED.)

* Does language leave you a-mazed, con-founded or a-stonished? Thank John Milton, the English language's second (or third) most prolific word-maker/codifier after Chaucer.

* Ladies and gentlemen, I give you [[wikipedia:English words first attested in Chaucer|a list of words invented by Chaucer]].

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Farscape]]'' does the same with "frell."

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. See [[Buffy-Speak]].

* ''[[Friends]]'' (especially Matthew Perry) changed the way we used the word "so." There was a scholarly study on it.

** Not to mention "Could <pronoun> ''be'' any more ''X''?"

* Israeli satire show ''[[Eretz Nehederet]]'' is particularily known for bringing a few neologisms every season, some of them sticking for quite a while.

* John from [[Delocated]] is ''constantly'' trying to invent new words and having other start to use them. It has not caught on a single time in the whole series, either in-universe or outside. His attempt to sell 20,000 t-shirts with the ''What a crunchery!'' line he is attempting to raise to a [[Memetic Mutation]] meets a similar fate when he only sells ''two'' before shutting down his website. {{spoiler|They were both bought by Sergei to humiliate Yvgeni after "What a crunchery" becomes the stand-up comedy punchline that allows John to beat Yvgeni in a comedy contest.}}

 

== Radio ==

* Rush Limbaugh coined the word [[Godwin's Law|feminazi]].

** He also encouraged people calling into his show to say "ditto" rather than waste airtime gushing about how much they agreed with him, which led to Limbaugh fans being called "dittoheads".

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Similarly, [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] for German. Many sayings and idioms can be traced back directly to his works, most famously [[Faust]].

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' Whelmed. Aster. Concerted. Thank you, Robin.

 

* [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary]]. Give it time and it will ruin that of your peers as well.

** Warning: may cause [[Beige Prose]] and short, choppy sentences.

 

* Spending too much time on the [[Internet]] will eventually lead to this, only in comparatively horrendous ways.

** These include the regression of grammar into something no language would accept, use of one-word sentences-explicatives, development of a pronounced-misspelling based accent, and the adoption of slang to such an extent that inner-city gangsters sound like [[Stephen Fry]] compared to you.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Memetic Mutation]]

[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Audience Reactions]]