Despite the Seinfeld finale airing over 20 years ago, the sitcom has proved to be a timeless classic, bringing us phrases that continue to be relevant to our lives as we pore over the minutia of our daily existence.
So grab your Junior Mints, Jujyfruits and pretzels (unless they’re making you thirsty) and check out just some of the many sayings, words, and catchphrases ‘Seinfeld’ has blessed us with over the years – and continue to do so.
As Kramer would say, giddy up!
Serenity now!
Coined by Frank Costanza in the season nine episode of the same title, the phrase is yelled by various characters throughout the episode as a mantra to ‘calm down’.
It turns out, however, that yelling “serenity now” as a method of anger management actually causes the person to bottle up their rage until they inevitably explode.
As Lloyd Braun explained, “Serenity now, insanity later.”
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“These pretzels are making me thirsty”
This was a line Kramer was tasked with saying as an extra in a Woody Allen movie. As he told the others, each character suggested various ways of saying the line, which was later used as a filler phrase when annoyed or at a loss for words.
Festivus
Another golden addition by Frank Costanza, Festivus is a secular holiday on 23 December that was created as an alternative to celebrate the holiday season without participating in the commercialisation of Christmas.
Festivus activities include the airing of grievances, feats of strength, and the erection of an aluminium pole in place of a Christmas tree.
Unsurprisingly, there are legions of fans across the world who genuinely celebrate Festivus, a celebration for the rest of us.
Sponge-worthy
When Elaine’s birth control, the sponge, suddenly gets taken off the market, she scours the town buying out stores in order to stock up.
Despite having a steady boyfriend, she must decide whether or not he is “spongeworthy,” since she is now forced to “re-evaluate her whole screening process” in order to conserve the sponges.
Double-dipper
“You double-dipped the chip!”
This infamous line came as a result of George slyly double-dipping a chip into a communal dip while attending a funeral.
Despite thinking the unhygienic move went unnoticed, another partygoer calls him out in front of the whole room, explaining to George, “That’s like putting your whole mouth right in the dip! Just take one dip and end it“.
Low talker/high talker/close talker
Seinfeld gave us a great array of names for those people that have little social awareness as to how annoying their way of speaking can be.
It’s all quite self-explanatory; a high talker is a male who speaks in such a high pitch that they’re often confused for being a woman on the phone, while a close talker is someone who invades your personal space by getting up in your face while during a conversation.
A low talker, like Kramer’s girlfriend in ‘The Puffy Shirt’, is someone who speaks so quietly you have no idea what the hell they just said.
It usually ends up with the talkee nodding in agreement after asking them several times to repeat to no avail.
Be careful, though – you could end up agreeing to wear a Puffy Shirt on national television like Jerry did (but I don’t wanna be a pirate!).
Re-gifter
If you’ve ever met someone that was so cheap that they gifted someone a present they originally received from someone else (Tim Whatley, we’re looking at you…) that’s a re-gifter.
Anti-dentite
An anti-dentite is someone who apparently discriminates against dentists, which Kramer accuses Jerry of being, saying: “It starts with a few jokes and some slurs. ‘Hey, denty!’ Next thing you know you’re saying they should have their own schools,” to which Jerry replies, “They do have their own schools!”
Shrinkage
In what made for an interesting anatomy lesson for those unfamiliar, in the episode ‘The Hamptons’, Jerry’s girlfriend walks in on George naked, during which he’d suffered “significant shrinkage” of his uh, member, after going in the pool.
When George and Jerry question Elaine as to whether or not “women know about shrinkage”, she looks baffled, before replying, “what do you mean, like laundry?”
Yada, yada, yada
Definitely one of the better-known phrases to come from the show, “Yada, yada” is generally used in place of “blah, blah” or “et cetera, et cetera”.
In the season 8 episode of Seinfeld, it was used to gloss over important details, like when George had a girlfriend who yada yada’d shoplifting.
Elaine later revealed she had once yada yada’d sex while describing a bad date.
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