"not so much"

How can I rid the world of this phrase?

It might be the most grating catchphrase ever.

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/erase.gif

How is it a catchphrase and not just a regular phrase?

Though the phrase has become widely identified with (Jon) Stewart, it appeared on several other television shows dating back to the early 1990s, including "Mad About You" and "Friends." But it didn't achieve widespread popularity until the beginning of the current decade, when it began to appear on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

I do not watch the Daily Show, as I do not have cable. Apparently, Jon Stewart uses "not so much" as a frequent punchline. Before he started this, it was a phrase you didn't hear much, and even more rarely used in this way.

"How can I rid the world of this phrase?"
http://www.insidesocal.com/godblog/Hitler.JPG

To be honest, I had this recollection that it was a Elaine catchphrase from Seinfeld, as it sounds exactly like something a polite cynic might say. But evidently it gained popular currency from Buffy & The Daily Show.

I say it because of Buffy.

"Mad About You"

helen hunt had a successful post-sitcom career. paul reiser, not so much

You know what NEVER gets discussed? How fucking stupid Hitler looked. Damn. All greasy combover and dumbest moustache EVER.

Folks shoulda looked at him and said "Douche."

Completely surprised this didn't originate with Buffy, it seems so Whedon-y.

Whedon-y? Eh, not so much.

My Hitler pic was not arbitrary -- I've long had the sense that this phrase is Jewish/Yiddish in origin, and the fact that Paul Reiser and Jon Stewart are considered two of its leading popularizers has done little to disabuse me of this notion.

Though the phrase has become widely identified with (Jon) Stewart, it appeared on several other television shows dating back to the early 1990s, including "Mad About You" and "Friends."

Ha, I was going to post this morning -- no one ever believes me when I credit early popularization of this idiom to Paul Reiser

jaymc, some of us are capable of parsing subtext!

xpost You've discussed this with multiple people?

xpost

Jaymc wrote it for those of use who aren't.

Ha yeah, sorry, I wasn't sure if that got across.

jews.xls

I think I have had this conversation multiple times, weirdly

Paul Reiser, so much to answer for.

I agree that that says really horrible things about my life, that I've had multiple extended conversations about Paul Reiser being probably the first fully national popularizer of "not so much" (Reiser definitely more likely that subsequent users to preface the phrase with an extended face-pinchy "ehhhhh" sound)

not so much to not answer for

I never knew this was a thing. I just thought it was something people always said. Not something invented in the 90s

everything's a thing nowadays

That was Andy Warhol's other prediction.

Didn't Reiser also 'invent' "I did not know that"?

PAUL REISER

Which I probably use every other day.

Actually Reiser's tilting-a-hand-in-the-air squinch-faced preface to this phrase is weirdly similar to the way people impersonate Deniro saying "a little bit"

xpost - it doesn't seem "invented" at all, Jaymc's obviously right that it appears to stem from a kind of east-coast Jewish post-immigrant way of talking, but there are pretty obviously a few mainstream-culture things that have leaned on it as joke-punctuation and introduced it to more of everyone else, no?

eh, it is what it is

This thread is going to get REALLY awesome when Jackie Mason posts to say he's been doing "not so much" schtick since 1968

no worries

Wait, Jackie Mason was a rabbi????? WHO KNEW?

was reiser wearing a hairpiece during all of mad about you?

http://www.rugorreal.com/PaulReiser

lol

Reiser is also credited with "This is what I'm saying."

Nenah Cherry, OTOH, is credit with "Ya kno' I mean?"

'i did not know that' is carson isnt it

it is? i did not know that

weird, wild stuff

well it's a stock 'carson impersonation' phrase, i guess it's not the type of phrase someone 'originates' other than the emphasis he put on the words

Hey-ooooooo.

you are correct,sir

ha ha ha ha ha

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4122/saturday-night-live-the-carsenio-hall-show

OK, so etymology solved.

can we now figure out a way to eliminate this idiom?

I am having posttraumatic "Mad About You" flashbacks now, thanks a lot nabisco.

Like the one where Reiser was trying to buy a parking space.

Dana Carvey leaned on that phrase hard, so I think it's largely him

I think with Reiser it's just that there was that whole 1980s wave of popular stand-up comedians from New York, lots of them Jewish, doing humor in this sort of voice (see also Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Richard Lewis, Larry David) -- and Reiser just happened to wind up one of the first with a TV show in his mode, and wound up talking a certain way and using certain tics on national TV a year or two before some other people?

ooh hate it hate it, this phrase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXf6oYafHtQ

xxp Coke? He coulda had a Boku.

lol lewis' wiki
Subject(s)
self-deprecation, neuroticism, psychotherapy, hypochondria, paranoia, depression, human sexuality, Jewish culture, pop culture, family

At the age of 44, renowned comedian Richard Lewis found himself on a gurney in the ER, toxic with alcohol, and hallucinating from excess cocaine use. The same neuroses and dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him. How he got here, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis are the subjects of this very funny, deeply honest, inspiring, but very unsentimental book. USA Today called it “candid and inspirational.… A journey through Lewis’ personal Inferno to eventual salvation.”

Paul Reiser, not so much

where is Paul Reiser these days

he became a pretty successful high stakes plo player on-line and in ac

Helen Hunt has aged reasonably well!

Paul Reiser... not so much.

you guys keep hating but when he comes back with the hit morning show Early Reiser you'll all be sorry

booooooooooooooooooooo

http://www.billrotelladrumbeatings.com/rimshot.gif

I have always liked Paul Reiser, no apologies.

pretty sure that merits an apology, nabisco

i'm sorry i had to read that

everybody wanna boooo me but i'm a real fan of paul reiser

there are very few people from Beverly Hills Cop 2 I don't find funny

aint u heard the news resier fan is some dude hes always luved him to the max

lets not kid ourselves that was really, really bad :9

nabisco,

let's take each other's hand as we jump into the final frontier

Reiser is awesome in Aliens. For this we forgive him many trespasses, yes?
What do you all propose as substitute for "not so much"?

we should probably begin unpacking the many other uses of the "not so much" understatement, as in:

"Do you like lamb?"
"I like lamb okay."
"How about herring?"
"Not so much with the herring, actually."

you can say "not really" and it communicates the same thing while sounding less snide or sarcastic (xpost)

"that's what i'm not talking about so much!"

'less so, innit?'

"Do you want some jellybeans?"
"Sure."
"Is this enough?"
"Dude, not so much!"

I know this is kind of a whole different thing, but I had the "(verb) much?" construction, especially because these days people don't even bother using a verb and just say nonsensical things like "racist much?"

I prefer my much non-racist.

i hate (verb) much

That's credited to Buffy, too.

i assume "[something] much" is from friends even though i never really watched Friends cuz its dumb

"I obtain much hard one" from Buffy, too?

Umm I thought of "X much" as basically 80s retro -- pretty prominent in Heathers, isn't it?

"80s valley girl," basically

Yes, that is OTM.

that would make sense given that now seemingly half of all adults talk in a way that they would've made fun of teenage girls for talking 20 years ago /morbz

(xpost)

totes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afViRNSr5wg

the only speech habit I would say is really specifically Buffy -- which isn't catchphrasey enough to notice everywhere -- is constantly adding Y to the ends of inappropriate nouns to make the adjectives (e.g., "catchphrasey," "I may have left out some of the Angely parts," etc.)

nartz!

I like "not so much" as a mode of expressing preferences without an implied value judgment, and this should be encouraged. Imagine if teabaggers were all, "I like private insurance, public option not so much" and that was the end of their say? So much better!

not obtain so much hard one

there are very few decisions in life i'm more confident of then my refusal to watch even a minute of buffy

*than

Adding Y to proper nouns is just an extension of normal adverb construction, isn't it? That's the way English has always expanded in the past, and its certainly not going to stop this generation.

so THAT'S where the name "Generation Y" came from

not so much . . . or not! heyooooooooooo!

harbly

umm normal adjective construction yeah, but Buffy dialogue writing went out of its way to do it with unusual, surprising, or inappropriate words, like using it as an actual stylistic tic. (I think in the beginning it was just one character's tic, and then a point came later on where it happened too widely and often and felt a little forced.)

OMG, people, this phrase was just used in a brochure-type item I'm proofreading at work

ssssssseeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrreeeeeeeennnnnnnndddddddddiiiiiiiiiippppppppiiiiiiiiittttttttttyyyyyyyy