# Did the "or, or" thing start with Chandler on "Friends"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 8, 2013, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818 "2013-05-08T17:19:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2013, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/1 "2013-05-08T17:19:17Z")
I’ve been hearing a radio ad representing a discussion between a man and a woman who, we find out, is not his wife. She’s listing all the wonderful things they could do on the new deck. He says, "Or, or: you could bug your husband about getting a deck on **your** house. It sounds very Chandler Bing, but is that construction older than “Friends”?
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/2 "2013-05-08T17:56:17Z")
> [@11811](#):
>
> I’ve been hearing a radio ad representing a discussion between a man and a woman who, we find out, is not his wife. She’s listing all the wonderful things they could do on the new deck. He says, "Or, or: you could bug your husband about getting a deck on **your** house. It sounds very Chandler Bing, but is that construction older than “Friends”?
I don’t remember Chandler doing that but it was a running joke on an episode of How I Met Your Mother once.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/3 "2013-05-08T18:19:59Z")
I don’t think the “or…” thing was even consciously created by the writers of _Friends_, at least not at first. It just arose from Chandler’s need to point out how off-kilter the other characters were:
Joey (or Rachel or Phoebe or whoever): “Let’s do this wacky, overcomplicated thing!”
Chandler: “Or we could just do this much simpler but less dramatic thing…”
Chandler was the show’s way of disarming the nitpickers in the audience by acknowledging just how preposterous some of the characters’ viewpoints were.
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### Author:  [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/4 "2013-05-09T14:53:37Z")
Actually, I never associated “or” as a specific Chandler Bing catch-phrase - I always took his catch-phrase (as it was) to be some derivative of “Could it BE any…”
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### Author:  [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/5 "2013-05-11T12:53:29Z")
I’m thinking specifically of a repeated “or” with the accent on the second instance, which I distinctly hear in Matthew Perry’s voice. I may be misremembering this.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/6 "2013-05-11T13:02:34Z")
I’ve heard that used the way you described, but I’d say only several times in my life. But I’m out of touch on a lot of pop culture.
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/7 "2013-05-11T13:31:56Z")
> [@11811](#):
>
> I’m thinking specifically of a repeated “or” with the accent on the second instance, which I distinctly hear in Matthew Perry’s voice. I may be misremembering this.
I’m almost positive you’re thinking of Neil Patrick Harris as Barney saying it in How I Met Your Mother.
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### Author:  [@Obeseus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obeseus)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/8 "2013-05-11T13:34:13Z")
When I hear things like, “or, or,” or “you, you,” I think of Jimmy Stewart. There used to be a radio guy around my neck of the woods who not only threw those into the ads he read, but he even seemed to be impersonating Jimmy Stewart.
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### Author:  [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/9 "2013-05-11T13:40:22Z")
Children. I’m surrounded by children.
I remember this as being a recurring joke line in the old Dick Van Dyke show back in the sixties. Morey Amsterdam played the part of one of the writers on Dick’s team. Morey was always coming up with some hairbrained scheme that would result in astonished stares from the rest of the cast. Morey would then attempt a recovery with “…or…”.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/10 "2013-05-11T14:14:22Z")
> [@sevenwood](#):
>
> Morey would then attempt a recovery with “…or…”.
You’re missing the point of the OP, which is the occurrence of the specific phrase, a double “or” = “or, _or_…”
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-or-or-thing-start-with-chandler-on-friends/657818/11 "2013-05-12T00:31:09Z")
> [@SirRay](#):
>
> Actually, I never associated “or” as a specific Chandler Bing catch-phrase - I always took his catch-phrase (as it was) to be some derivative of “Could it BE any…”
That’s what I came in to post, too.