Apparently Jerry Seinfeld is coming to Ottawa.  This prompted a columnist in The Ottawa Citizen to praise Seinfeld and his show for being second only to Shakespeare in terms of adding “catchphrases” to the language.  That’s all well and good, but this paragraph cannot go unremarked upon:

Most catchphrases are pure confection and essentially hollow: think of the greatest hits of Seinfeld’s closest competitor in numbers, The Simpsons: “D’oh!” or “don’t have a cow” or “eat my shorts” are memorable, but they don’t really say anything that we didn’t already know how to say ourselves, though perhaps not so memorably. Even Bart Simpson’s “meh,” which has had a recent buzz, really only means “whatever.” Seinfeld’s catchphrases crystallized things that we all had noticed and felt, but not effectively verbalized.

In the immortal words of C. Montgomery Burns, I disagree.  The quotability of The Simpsons is second to none, and it, of course, goes far beyond Homer and Bart (to say nothing of four whiney New Yorkers).  We can start with “cromulent” and “embiggen”, which aren’t so much catchphrases as they are words with widely understood meanings.  “Smell you later” is decent way to say goodbye.  And, of course, in addition to “D’oh” Homer gave us the distinct inflections of “Woo hoo!” and “Mmmm donuts/beer/whatever”.

As we broaden our horizon to the secondary characters it’s an embarrassment of riches.  Flanders doesn’t so much have a catchphrase as he has a catch modification, “doodily”, “doakely”, “diddily” and variations thereof can be used or added to just about anything.  I’m a big fan of Dr. Nick’s “Hi everybody!” as a way to greet a bunch of people.  Then there’s Nelson’s “Ha ha” which works in any situation.  Ask a lawyer or aspiring lawyer about Lionel Hutz (“law taking guy” seems to be a particular favorite).  And if you want to talk about something that has penetrated pretty much every part of modern culture, it’s Comic Book Guy’s “Worst/Best. [noun]. Ever.”

Then there’s Chief Wiggum (wahhh), Apu (Thank you, come again), Krusty (Hey hey kids!), Troy McClure (You might remember me from such films as . . .) and, of course, Mr. Burns.  He turned a single word into a declarative sentence (Excellent) that lets everyone know exactly what you’re talking about.  Then there’s the end of “Bart Gets Famous”, a self mocking spoof of the very concept of catchphrases.

Seinfeld adding more to the language than The Simpsons?  Release the hounds.