Seinfeld Expressions

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant and Martha. This is Mandy McMurdy from Wiley, Texas.

Hello, Mandy.

Wiley, Texas. How you doing, Mandy?

Good. How are you?

And who’s that in the background?

It’s my kids. I’m hoping they’re not too loud for you.

No, that’s all right.

Oh, no. We love kids.

Well, my husband is a huge Seinfeld fan, and, you know, he’s like one of those guys that can quote full scenes from the show, even though it’s been off the air for, what, 10 years now? And so it seems that Seinfeld has become, you know, a huge part of America’s pop culture. It’s also contributed a lot to the slang of a vocabulary, or at least it has to my family.

So I have a few popular Seinfeld phrases, and I just wanted to run them by you and see if you know where their origins are from.

Oh, wow.

Is this a quiz?

No, it’s not a quiz. I need your help.

I have no idea where they come from.

All right, shoot. Let’s hear it. What you got there?

Okay, well, the most common is yada, yada, yada. And that’s probably the most popular phrase that comes from Seinfeld. And my husband has made up a curse word to replace other less desirable phrases. Like he says, Newman, when he stubs his toe or something. And I kind of caught on to that and say it all the time, too. And I think that originates from when Jerry meets his arch nemesis, Newman. He’s like, hello, Newman. And he says, hello, Jerry. You know, that kind of thing. So I don’t know if anybody else says that or if it’s just, you know, our family that does that.

And then there’s the soup Nazi and no soup for you and stuff like that. So you got any ideas where they come from?

Oh, yeah.

Let’s knock these down one at a time real fast. Yada, yada, yada. Although Seinfeld is often given credit for it, it existed before the show. It goes back to at least mid-1940s as yatarada, yatarada, yatarada. And, of course, we’ve often said things like yap, yap, yapper, yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. But that whole idea of a repetitive phrase that means more talk, more talk, more talk wasn’t new with Seinfeld. But, again, credit for popularizing, though, definitely goes to him because that show was immensely popular.

Is it not on in reruns there?

Oh, I don’t know. We just have the basic channel. So besides, if he watched it, I mean, if it were on, he would watch it all the time. So it’s probably missing.

Right, right. And you don’t even need the reruns, right? Because he knows all the episodes already. He can just do them for you, right?

Yeah, they’re all in his head.

Yeah, exactly. But the Newman thing I really like, because it’s right. Wayne Knight played this kind of annoying character on the show. And every time that he would come in to Jerry’s apartment, usually uninvited, with some kind of smirmy, smirky look on his face and some harebrained scheme that would get Kramer and or Jerry into lots of trouble.

You’re right. Jerry would go, hello, Newman, like that, in a really scornful voice. And the way Jerry says it is very catching, so I could easily see why it would become kind of an epithet in your house.

And then what else did you ask? You asked about No Soup for You, right?

No Soup for You. That one has got a life. It’s got legs, as they say. No X for You. It’s what we call a snow clone, which is where people have taken the original phrase, no soup for you, and then they put a new word in place of soup. So it’ll be, you know, no cheese for you, no car for you, no whatever, no nookie for you, whatever the expression is.

Can I say that? I don’t know.

Sure.

So, yeah, that one’s definitely still common. You’ll even see it in headlines. Newspaper writers love that phrase, no whatever for you.

And that started with Seinfeld?

Yes, definitely. Although the Soup Nazi was originally a real soup little restaurant in New York City.

I heard about that. Did they call him the Soup Nazi, or was that just a catchphrase?

I believe that was the name of his place, but my memory fails me. But I believe the place was called the Soup Nazi even before the show. But there have been a couple of restaurants in New York City which are notorious for having this guy behind the counter who’s very stern. There was a sandwich shop in Soho. It may still be called Malampo’s, which is the same way. You could only order what was on the menu. If you wanted the single one substitution or anything different, he would just kick you out of his store.

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you, Mandy. There’s an article that was published in 2003 in Verbatim, The Language Quarterly, and it was written by Paul McFedries, who runs a site called Word Spy, and he’s done a whole multi-page article on Seinfeldlisms. So it’s all these expressions that are pretty popular and that have come from the show. And so we’ll put a link to that on the website. You can take a look there and get a little more background on these crazy things that your husband is saying.

That would be cool.

Thank you.

Super duper.

Thanks for calling, Mandy.

Thank you, Mandy.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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