5 Words I Learned From The Simpsons

From mishegoss to misappropriation

The Simpsons needs neither introduction nor encomium, so here I am with both.

The show is a benchmark not just in entertainment but in global culture. If you’re a bit older, you’ve seen it a million times and the period when it was in its heyday holds a special place in your heart. If you’re younger, you may have never even properly seen it, but you’re all to aware of its vast influence and the long shadow it cast on all that came after it.

The Simpsons melded that magical and ever-elusive duality of humour and heart, where it was hilarious, with the laughs taking centre stage as all good comedy shows never lose sight of, but with characters rich enough and deep enough that you really felt and cared for them. It is hard to claim that South Park hasn’t already some time ago eclipsed the shenanigans of the Simpson Family, but regardless, it was the first cartoon that proved you could make a hugely popular show that was ostensibly for children and yet still have it awash with adult humour, social commentary and double entendres.

The golden age of Simpsondom lasted loosely and debatably from Seasons 1 to 9, with a few gems cropping up here and there over the next few years.

Google tells me they have now completed Season 34, which is a testament to the huge cultural footprint the show left across the whole of the Western World and far beyond, and the irresistible appeal of a cash cow that keeps on giving.

I haven’t watched the show’s newer episodes, which by now far outnumber the classics, for twenty-plus years. Any time I do have the ill fortune of witnessing the crimes the creators insist on committing against their own creations I die a tiny bit inside. It is sacrilege to not let The Simpsons become a glorious memory in the popular imagination and a moment that can be experienced at its highest peak again and again by new audiences.

The show was also a minefield, for young and old minds alike, when it came to erudite turns of phrase, neologisms, old-styley anachronisms and delectable little gems that would whizz over your noggin if you weren’t paying attention. I was paying attention. So, here are 5 words and phrases that got tickets to the arena of my mind thanks to The Simpsons.

1. Perspicacity/perspicacious

In Episode 21 Season 6, there’s a strike at Springfield Elementary which means the children are forced to stay home until volunteers are drafted to fill in.

Bart’s in Heaven; Lisa’s in Hell. She’s in so much hell that she’s beginning to lose her perspicacity. Here she is losing said perspicacity, with Homer sagely tell her; ‘well, it’s always in the last place ya look.’

Perspicacity and its attendant adjective, perspicacious, mean being sharp, astute, alert, insightful, and generally on the ball in terms of thought and thinking. And of course Lisa is particularly perspicacious.

Interestingly, there are two closely-related groups of words here: perspicacity and perspicacious on the one side and perspicuity and perspicuous on the other. They mean much the same thing but come at the idea from opposite directions.

Perspicacious describes a person who is quick to understand, whereas perspicuous describes something that is easy to understand, is lucid and is clearly or rationally presented.

For instance:

The perspicacious girl came up with a particularly perspicuous way of breaking down the theory.

Thanks to Lisa Simpson, I gained a quadrumvirate of words that have come in very handy.

2. Tontine

We owe this gem to Episode 22 Season 7 and to Mr. Burns, who, after Lisa, is probably the most fertile repository of the weird and wonderful in the English (or French) language.

A Tontine is an agreement where all participants pay in a sum of money to then earn interest off the capital each year. As the investors die, the money paid out annually is redivided among the surviving participants. The capital is never given back; interest on it is only ever given out.

In The Simpsons it’s described a little different than the concept is in reality, but the description is so wonderfully vociferated that no one in their right mind will care one iota.

Here’s Big Ox to guide us through at the behest of Mr. Burns:

‘Essentially, we all enter into a contract whereby the last surviving participant becomes the sole possessor of all those perty pictures.’

Glorious.

3. Cromulent

Cromulent isn’t just a word that the town of Springfield brought my attention to, it’s a wholly new word, or neologism, coined by the town and one that seemingly only exists within the confines of the epicentre of the Simpsons’ universe.

The word makes its appearance in Episode 16 of the Seventh Season following a video for the children at school depicting the very real events surrounding the life of the founder and champion of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield.

Upon vanquishing a ‘land cow’ in mortal combat, otherwise known as a buffalo, and bending it to his mighty will, Jebediah addresses a crowd of onlookers rapt in admiration on the subject of greatness: ‘a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man’, he professes with solemnity, to the cheers of all the children watching the video.

Ms. Krabappel, not from Springfield, turns to Ms. Hoover, from Springfield, in mild bemusement; ‘embiggens, huh, I never hear that word before I moved to Springfield’. Ms. Hoover turns to her in mild consternation, both puffing on their cigarettes, ‘I don’t know why? It’s a perfectly cromulent word.’

And there ya go! Two neologomenpoleis for the price of one!

Embiggen: well, I think Jebediah’s already given us an eminently perspicuous example which makes the word crystal clear.

As for cromulent: it means acceptable, appropriate, suitable, apt, and just perfectly right for the situation you find yourself in.

For instance:

A: How was luncheon yesterday? I forgot to ask in the hustle, bustle and bellyaching to and fro.

B: ’Twas perfectly cromulent!

Or:

B: You know a slurp with the mouth and a smack with lips is a sign of stupendous satisfaction in certain cultures.

A: That’s as may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that it just isn’t cromulent here.

And I hope that whatever you’re doing whilst reading my little article, you’re doing in good cromulent fashion.

4. Misappropriation

This little beauty comes from Episode 12 Season 7, and I’ve got mighty good use out of it ever since.

Mr. Burns, while doped out of his skull on ether, writes a cheque to allow Homer’s bowling team join the local league. When the ethereal mists pass and Burns is back to his good ‘ol stingy self, he realises what’s happened and goes down to the bowling alley to seemingly confront Homer and the Pin Pals.

Eyeing them up as he watches on Burns remarks; ‘look at them, enjoying their embezzlement.’

Smithers continues; ‘I have a much uglier word for it, sir. Misappropriation!’

The joke here is that embezzlement is a sneaky, slimy reprobate of a word, unctuous and wallowing in iniquity, whereas misappropriation is a technical infraction, a minor infringement and the sort of word the person who committed the crime might use to describe what they did. The former is without doubt worse than the latter.

Incidentally, Homer gets away with his little misappropriation at the not-so-minor cost of agreeing to Mr. Burns joining his team, somewhat bizarrely.

5. Mishegoss

And we’re back to none other than Lisa Simpson to finish off our words for the day.

For many years I never even noticed this little nugget. It just got caught in the stream of dialogue until eventually I picked it out and thought that I must look that one up to see what she says. And eventually I did look it up a few years back.

Here’s the quote: ‘With all the craziness and confusion and mishegoss of packing … I forgot to pack!’

It’s from Season 7 once again, Episode 25, and really is a great showcase of how balanced the show was at this stage, with Homer being generally weird and crazy while the family are on holiday at the beach, Lisa finally becoming cool and having friends and Bart, eaten up by jealousy, determined to smash the façade to show her new friends who ‘Lisa Simpson really is.’

The word itself is Yiddish in origin and describes something that’s crazy or weird or messy or mental.

For instance:

I was caught up in the trials and tribulations of life, all the mishegoss and all the madness.

Or:

The mishegoss of the president’s first year in office seems to now have passed.

So, there we have it — 5 words which entered my big happy hippocampus thanks to the unassailable glory that was The Simpsons for their first 10 seasons. What about yourself? Do you have any words or phrases that you learned from The Simpsons, or indeed, any other show? Let me know in the comments)