What about the movie Valley Girl? I think it’s weird that multiple posters have mentioned the phrase ‘valley girl’ in connection with Clueless, without mentioning that movie. Although I don’t recall anyone saying “as if” in Valley Girl.
“Whatever” was around long before Clueless. Margaret Cho uses the word (while imitating someone else) in one of her first television appearances in 1992. (I just happened to remember seeing that clip on a network retrospective.) I’m sure the word is actually much much older than that even, but that’s at least an unambiguous example.
Valley speak predates the movie Valley Girl. Before the movie Valley Girl came out, the song Valley Girl by Moon Zappa unleashed the lingo on the public at large.
If you say “raptor” I’m going to think of the dinosaur. And not even a real raptor, but the raptors portrayed in Jurassic Park. I guess it depends how old you are. I was only three when Jurassic Park came out so I can’t remember a time before it.
Not a good example. “Perfect” is just an adjective modifying a noun in that sentence; it has nothing to do with the modern term “perfect storm” being essentially a two-word noun that indicates a situation where several bad things happen at once.
I still believe Junger made up the term as described in various account to describe the Hallowe’en storm, and it’s grown from there. If prior to 1997 we’ve got a few cases of the two words being used on conjunction to describe difference things, it is quite clear that we do have a case here of the movie changing the language. “Perfect storm” was rarely heard prior to 2000; now it’s a terribly overused catchphrase.
I remember that Ben Stein called it the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, which was the opposite of how I learned the name. And I heard Ben Stein saying that he was just told to lecture on something, so he chose that subject.
Not so much one movie, but the word **Vamp **was coined for Theda Bara. Her character in A Fool There Was (1915) was called The Vampire, and by her next film, the cast and crew were affectionately referring to her as Vamp–the term stuck and started being used by the late teens to mean an evil, sexually voracious woman.
Similarly, It. Elinor Glyn coined “It” in a short story and novel to mean sex appeal, personality, magnetism. Clara Bow starred in the film version of It, became the It Girl, and, well, Bob’s your uncle.
A generation of Italian immigrants supposedly learned English from the fake gangster-speak of James Cagney movies.
I wonder if the Beats’ patois wasn’t impacted more by Maynard G. Krebs than by Kerouac or Ginsburg?
Full Metal Jacket had lots of practically farted-out dialogue that seems to have taken hold in the language: “Me so horny!” “You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk?” “Ain’t war hell?” “Reach-around.”
Round the Horne, a BBC radio comedy, popularized (but didn’t invent) Palare, a kind of gay slang long associated with actors and drag queens. By popularizing it with the general public, the show also contributed to its decline within the gay community.
FTR I didn’t know raptor meant bird until after Jurassic Park. I was completely flummoxed why “The Raptor” at Cedar Point had a bird, it had to be explained to me.
Go argue with Merriam-Webster who says the phrase “perfect storm” in its current usage has been around since at least 1936. (Which jibes with my memory. Well, I don’t remember 1936, but I do remember the phrase being around and in use before the book/movie.)
How about “Enterprise?” I imagine it’d be hard for anyone to use that word in reference to business or aircraft carriers without the word “starship” coming to mind.