Learn English expressions that come from TV shows: Friends, Seinfeld, 30 Rock...

Hi, everybody, welcome to www.engvid.com, I'm Adam.

In today's video, I want to talk to you a little bit about TV shows, especially American

and maybe some Canadian TV shows and the impact that they have on culture and even language,

the way we speak.

Because sometimes a TV show, and also movies, a TV show will have an expression or a saying

or a word that becomes so popular that it enters the everyday mainstream dialogue language

or lexicon, I guess is the best word for it.

So, I'm going to show you 10 words and expressions that either were made up in a TV show or became

popular because of a TV show, and these expressions and words stood the test of time.

What this means is that not only did they become very popular while the show was on

TV, they remained popular and they remained in common use long after the TV show stopped

or was cancelled, which means it's become just part of the language now.

Okay?

So, we're going to start with this one, "Five-O".

So, the TV show was called "Hawaii Five-O".

Oh, sorry about that.

"Hawaii Five-O".

Now, initially, the actual meaning of "Five-O" for the TV show is "50", meaning Hawaii is

the 50th state in the US.

But now, "Five-O", when someone says "Five-O", they mean "police", because this was like

a police show, and now it's very commonly used to refer to the police are coming.

So, if, like, some kids are hanging around outside, they're having cigarettes, they're

too young, and then they see a police car coming and somebody says "Five-O" and everybody

runs away.

No, they don't say "police".

Now, "police" in Canada, in the US, in lots of places have lots of different nicknames,

but this one is generally everybody knows what it means and everybody runs away if they're

hiding something.

"Hardy har har".

Now, this is... these are not actually words, it's not an expression, but it's so often

used that it's become its own word.

It's become a word even though there's not an actual word there.

This is from the TV show "The Honeymooners", which I think is from the 50s or even 60s.

It's a black and white show, it's about a couple who are married but always fighting.

So, when someone says "Hardy har har", it's a fake laugh.

It means what you said, even though you think it's funny, it's not funny.

So, I'm laughing, a fake laugh means I'm not really laughing.

Right?

"Hardy har har".

You say it in a very serious manner, with a very serious face to show that you're not

amused by something.

"Regifting".

This is a very, very popular word and it's a very popular action even now from the TV

show "Seinfeld".

Now, "Seinfeld" had a huge impact on North American culture and maybe all around the

world.

It was such a popular show and people got a lot of new words and expressions from it.

But this one is still used today because people still do this action today.

So, "regifting" is a situation where you received a gift from someone, let's say for Christmas,

for birthday, for a wedding, and you receive this gift and, you know, thank you very much,

I love it, it's great, and you put it in your basement or your attic and you forget about

it.

And then, later, a year later, a few months later, you're invited to a party and you don't

have time to go shopping, so you go to your basement and say, "Oh, an open box of something,

it looks nice.

Okay, I will give this as a gift."

So, you're taking the gift you received and you're "regifting" it, you're giving it as

a gift to someone else, and people do this quite often.

The biggest problem is that you forget who gave you the gift and you "regift" it to the

same person, so that can be very, very embarrassing and people get very upset about stuff like

that.

"Deal-breaker".

So, this was... this was not an original word from the TV show, but it became very popular

in the TV show 30 Rock.

A "deal-breaker" is anything that changes your mind or makes you not want to be a part

of something or ends a relationship, boyfriend/girlfriend, or business, or anything like that.

So, a "deal-breaker" is something that you absolutely will not accept.

So, you meet a guy, you meet a girl, and they're great, and they're beautiful, and they're

smart and everything, but they like... they like to watch sad movies, like, every weekend.

They don't want to go to the club.

They want to stay home every Saturday night and watch a sad movie and cry.

So, for you, that's a "deal-breaker".

That's all the good stuff; this one thing is bad enough to make all the other things

not worth it.

You won't accept it.

In business, a "deal-breaker" is... like, two companies are about to make a deal, but

one company wants something that the other company just refuses to give them, so the

deal falls apart; the deal breaks apart.

Now, it's used for pretty much any situation, any relationship with people, with things,

etc.

Now, everybody knows... not everybody, but most people know the word "spam".

And what people don't realize is that the modern use of this word became so because

of this TV show, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

This is a show from the 70s, maybe even into the 80s, a British TV show; very, very, very

funny.

If you ever have a chance to watch this TV show or any of the Monty Python movies, Life

of Brian, The Holy Grail, The Meaning of Life, I strongly recommend; they're really, really

funny and you can really practice your English with them, but with a British accent.

Keep that in mind.

So, anyways, there was an ep... there was a... they do skits.

They do short, little, funny skits, comedy skits, and they went to a restaurant and everything

on the menu had "spam" in it; "spam", the meat, the canned meat.

And they started making fun of the "spam" and singing "spam, spam, spam, spam, spam",

so the whole skit, all anybody was saying was "spam".

So, "spam" became... came to mean basically "junk"; something that's too much of it and

you don't want it.

So, now people use "spam" as obviously a noun; you get "spam" in your email as an adjective,

a spam email.

It can also be a verb.

You can "spam" somebody; means you send them a lot of useless information or junk mail

or promotional mail; something they don't want.

So, somebody is spamming me, somebody is filling my inbox with junk mail, so it's a verb as

well, and a meat, etc.

Okay, next we have "meh".

"Meh".

So, this is from the show The Simpsons.

Now, of course, I think everybody remembers The Simpsons; it's been on TV for a very long

time.

Everybody thinks of "do", "do", like Homer Simpson used to say that all the time.

And everybody used to say "do" a lot, but now they don't really say it anymore.

"Meh" is something that has stood the test of time, as I mentioned before.

It's still being used quite regularly.

Now, The Simpsons didn't invent this word.

This is probably a Yiddish word; it's like a little bit of an old language, very unique

language.

Basically, it means "so-so", nothing special.

Okay.

So, when you're describing something or somebody asks you, like, "How was the restaurant?"

"Meh".

"Meh" means not good, not bad, nothing special.

Right?

So, very, very commonly used, and you'll hear it a lot if you pay attention, especially

in TV shows these days, but people say this all the time, "Meh, it was'meh'".

"Meh".

Right?

It's not even a real word, but it's commonly used.

So, here are a few.

Let's look at a few more, just to get an idea of how this works.

Okay, so we have four more for you, and these are also very commonly used these days.

Again, depending on the situation and the context.

So, "going commando".

Now, this was not made up by the show Friends, but it became very, very popular after one

episode where one of the characters, Joey, mentioned that he's going commando.

So, what does "going commando" mean?

It means wearing pants, but not wearing underwear.

So, basically, being a little bit free inside.

So, in the show, Joey was wearing his friend Chandler's clothes without underwear, and

it was a little bit disgusting, but very memorable, so people use this all the time to talk about

somebody not wearing underwear.

Debbie Downer.

Now, Saturday Night Live, this is called a variety show.

It's a comedy sketch, I guess, show, I guess that's the technical word for it.

They do little, short pieces of comedy and try to make everybody laugh.

It used to be an amazing show.

Personally, I find that it's not funny anymore, but they did create one character, her name

is Debbie Downer, and this woman, regardless what's going on, regardless what's happening

in her life, she's always upset, she's always sad.

So, somebody who is down is sad, but somebody who is sad and makes other people sad is a

downer, and her name was Debbie, so Debbie Downer.

So, anybody... anytime somebody is being a bit negative or depressing to other people,

people will say, "Just stop being a Debbie Downer and just go have a drink or something.

Go relax somehow."

So, we describe... use this to describe people now, it's very common.

Jumping the Shark.

So, Jump the Shark.

This is from a TV show called Happy Days.

This is from the 70s and early 80s.

It was a very popular show.

So, this expression, "Jumping the Shark" or "Jump the Shark" describes a situation that

happened on this show.

Now, in the show, there was one character, his name was Fonzie or "The Fonz", and he

was like the coolest guy ever.

Everybody wanted to be like him, nobody wanted to get into a fight with him.

He was very cool, he had a motorcycle, he had a leather jacket, all the girls loved

him, etc.

And then, one episode, they somehow created a situation where everybody's by the lake

on a summer vacation, and Fonzie gets on water skis and he's being dared to do something.

There's an area that's closed off with sharks inside, and he's going to ski jump... he's

going to jump over the shark.

So, he's out in the water, he's on his skis, he's getting ready to jump, he's wearing his

leather jacket, and he jumps, and he passes, and he's safe, and everybody, "Oh, you're

cool, cool, amazing."

The problem is, the situation was just so stupid that nobody could really understand

why the TV show would do that.

Everybody thought they were just very desperate, and very soon after that, the show was finished

because people just lost interest.

They killed the character.

So, when we say "jumping the shark", we mean make a very bad mistake that wasn't really

necessary, that you shouldn't have made.

So, if a company, like for example, a company invests or buys over another company, and

then they realize that this company was actually not very good, and the whole business collapses,

we say, "Wow, they really jumped the shark with that merger, with that purchase.

They jumped the shark."

This expression may eventually disappear.

I'm not sure if the young people really understand it, but most people understand.

If somebody jumped the shark, it means they made a very bad, unnecessary mistake.

"Yadda, yadda, yadda", and then, okay, so, "yadda, yadda, yadda", another one from Seinfeld.

When you're telling a story, but you don't want to explain the whole details, it's basically

"etcetera", and so on.

So, I went and I met my friend, and "yadda, yadda, yadda", and then he left and got hit

by a car.

So, if I want to skip all the boring details of the story, I start, "yadda, yadda, yadda",

I skip over all the boring information, and I get to the more important part of the story.

And this is actually quite commonly, you still hear this quite a lot these days.

Seinfeld was a good show.

If you want to study English, you should actually watch episodes of Seinfeld.

You're going to get a lot of new expressions, a lot of good expressions, a lot of real English,

real New York English.

It's actually kind of...

And it's a funny show, so you can watch that.

So, here you go, 10 expressions that came from TV or were popularized by TV shows, and

you're going to hear them in everyday conversations with native speakers, especially in North

America, but also in other countries as well.

So, if you have any questions about any of these expressions or anything I said here

today, please ask me at www.engvid.com comment section.

There's also a quiz.

You can test your understanding of these expressions and context.

And that's it.

I hope they were helpful.

I hope you liked the video.

Please give me a like if you did.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and ring the bell for notifications for future

videos, and come back next time for more, hopefully, interesting English lessons.

See you then.

Bye-bye.