Verbal Tic/Film

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Examples of Verbal Tic in Film include:

  • Curly from The Three Stooges, who liberally adds "nyuk-nyuk-nyuk" or "woo-woo-woo" at the end of his lines.
  • TRON's Master Control Program exhibits this. End Of Line.
  • Spoofed in the film Kung Pow Enter the Fist, in which the villain Betty constantly ended his sentences with "nngggggg!" and love interest Ling said "Weeee-ooo-weee-ooo-weee!". (Both were done by the voice actor to fill in the gaps made by the lip movements.) By the end of one scene, they were conversing entirely in these sounds.
  • In Office Space there's Bill Lumburgh, Peter's hated boss, who litters his speech with smarmy verbal tics. He begins every conversation with a shallow, "What's happening?" He always tells workers to "go ahead" and do things, to mask the fact that he's handing down disagreeable orders. After delivering an order, he tells the person, "That'd be great," as a threadbare attempt at encouragement. He also punctuates many sentences with a drawn-out "yeeeeaahhhh" or patronizing "mmmkay?"
  • The antagonists in Dark City, (Mr Book, Mr Hand et al) tend to close most of their affirmative or interrogative phrases with Yes?. "We remember, yes?".
  • Kenneth Williams in the Carry On movies and elsewhere: "Nnnnnnnnoooooooooooo, stop messin' about!"
  • Fingers, in the film Shira: Vampire Samurai is practically an English-speaking version of Naruto, ending almost every sentence with a hearty "Believe that!"
  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the Knights Who Say NI!.
  • In The Master of Disguise, one of Pistachio's disguises is Mr. Turtle, who says "turtle" at the end of his sentences.
  • George III, as seen in The Madness of King George, has one of these, wot wot? This is actually true of Nigel Hawthorne in general.
  • Manos the Hands of Fate: The Master woUlD noT apProVE. YoU canNot stAy. ThE MasTeR wOulD noT apProVe. NoT deAd tHe waY yOu kNoW iT. He iS wiTh uS aLwaYs. NoT deAd thE wAy yoU kNoW iT. He iS wItH uS alWayS.
  • Mr. Deltoid, yes, from A Clockwork Orange, yes, has a tendency to insert the word yes into every sentence, sometimes at the beginning, yes, but often at the end as well, oh yes. It also begins to rub off on Alex, but more so in the book than the film.
  • Streets of Fire: Billy Fish says "shit" so much that it's practically a Tic.
  • Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: Watto ends many sentences with "methinks".
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy? This expression comes from French colonists, who added "savez?" ("you know?", as in "get it?") at the end of sentences to make sure the natives understood.
    • In the sequels, Davy Jones has a tendency to punctuate sentences with an "-ah".
  • In The Squid and the Whale, the tennis instructor Ivan tacks "my brother" onto the end of every sentence. Eventually, he becomes a dubious role model for his young pupil Frank, who starts imitating the same goofy tic.
  • In Fargo, stereotypical Minnesota verbal tics are mined for comedy. Natives frequently say things like "ya," "you betcha," and "you're darn tootin'!" Natives are so fixated on saying "aw geeze" when they're upset that Wade says when he gets shot.
  • The dog in Up: "Squirrel!"
  • The uh, Joker, in The Dark Knight Saga, can't, uh, seem to manage a sentence without using the word "uh," and enunciattting everythingggg.
  • Dude, Where's My Car?:
    • "And... theennnnn."
    • "Zoltan!"
  • The View Askewniverse character Jay does this some version of this constantly in nearly every film, as well as the animated series. Variations include "Snooch!", "Snoochie boochies!", "Snooch to the Nooch!", and "Snoogans". He even lampshades it in both Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. According to director and longtime friend Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes was doing that in real life long before the films were made.
  • Number (Johnny) Five from Short Circuit has a habit of listing synonyms for various words as he speaks.

"Number 5... furious! Livid! Perturbed!"
"I have questions. Queries. Posers."

  • Goodfellas: Joey Two-Times. "I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers."
  • In The Room, everyone greets each other by saying, "Oh, hi (name)!" often leading numerous people to say this to each other.
  • Rocky Balboa in the Rocky series "Ya know!"
  • In the third Austin Powers movie, the eponymous Goldmember has a tendency of quoting a famous song, then whispering the copyright distractedly. "And that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it! (KC and the Sunshine Band.)"
  • Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting. Ye follow?