Yada What Now?
This is from The Hollywood Reporter interview with former Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman:
THR: How do you feel about having coined "yada, yada" and "spongeworthy" -- things everyone seems to know?
PM: I keep thinking I’m supposed to feel much better about that than I do. I mean, I feel good about it. I’m glad I did it and it’s nice that it caught on, but I don’t really feel anything on any kind of gut level, like, "Oh my god, people are saying 'yada, yada' because I wrote it."
I'll give him spongeworthy, but The Hollywood Reporter thinks he coined yada yada? I remember a friend back in the 80s who used that term pretty regularly. It used to crack me up because I thought it sounded so silly--and old-fashioned.
Mehlman must know this, and doesn't officially take credit for creating the phrase...though he doesn't exactly deny it. Yes, he popularized it--and created a classic episode--but I expect better from the Reporter.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
2 Comments:
I'm sure I knew "yadda yadda yadda" before Seinfeld. I think the joke of that episode was about overusing a fairly silly cliche. I've know people who overuse all sorts of expressions to bridge over boring parts of a story ("one thing led to another"; "next thing you know"; "to make a long story short").
And I have to say, if I once knew what "spongeworthy" means, I've forgotten it now. Do people still say this?
I don't know if spongeworthy has quite caught on, though people know it. It's an episode where Elaine's favorite birth control device, the sponge, has been taken off the market, so she has to decide if any man is spongeworthy before she decides to have sex with him and use her dwindling supplies.
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