No one… absolutely no one mangles the English Language more than good old working class Archie Bunker. It’s a fine art to be able to take an ordinary word, put it through the Bunker brain rinse cycle and see what comes out the other end… a faint reference to the actual word yet used in just the right place in the conversation!
A few wrecked words in the car crash that is Archie Bunker’s vocabulary! or Archie Bunkerisms!
SEASON ONE
1) Archie asks “what’s that smell” Gloria tells him that her friend Robin is burning incense. “It smells like a house of ill–refute.”
2)“They want people like your mother on the jury because they know she doesn’t have any pre-conscrewed ideas”
3) “It’s a well known fact that capital punishment is a detergent to crime!”
4) Mike says, “It’s just pelvic construction women are built differently” Archie answers, “Oh please don’t draw me no diaphragms“
5) “There’s wide open sex all over the place, but that’s okay that’s just your submissive society!”
6) Talking about rioting in California. “Just look at that, bricks and bottles. It’s a regular insuruption.”
7) “Back in my day we learned to keep things in their proper suspective.”
8) “You and that bleeding heart Reverend Fletcher sittin’ up there in that ivory shower.”
9) “Dear Mr. President, your Honor, Sir. As one of your faithful constituionals.”
10) Mike and Archie argue, “It’s not irreverent to the conversation.” Mike corrects him ‘irrelevant” Archie says “What ever, it’s not German to the conversation.”
11) “Come on straighten this place up. Do you want people to think you live in a pig’s eye.”
12) “You have to admit that some of those foreign films are sheer porna-graphy”
13) ‘You two may have come from monkeys and bamboons...”
14) “You think I was Lazarus rising up from the bed.”
15) “… And I don’t need no change from the humdrum morning fare you just immunerated”
16) Talking to Gloria-“It ain’t enough that he’s a pinko and an Atheist, you’re gonna turn him from a man into a morphadite” She asks “what’s a Morphadite?” And Archie’s insight comes spilling forth… “A freak with a little bit of each… and not enough of neither!”
17) Gloria stirs things up in the house about Women’s Lib. Archie responds “Edith are you listening to this over here? A dreaded disease is infilterating our home, and your daughter’s bringing it in here!”
18) “I’ll tell you the basical problem with your drop outs today is that they aint got no gratitude. What they got here is the greatest country in the world, the highest standard of living and the grossest national product.”
19) “Gee Edith I haven’t had a dollar cigar…” Edith interrupts, “You never had a dollar cigar” “That’s right! Gee I don’t know who sent them, there’s no name on the card. I guess who ever sent them wants to remain “unanimous… These cigars are the nectarines of the gods!”
20) Mike is arguing with Gloria who has left the house. He says to Archie, “What do you want, I mean? aren’t we on the same side. Haven’t you told me that a man’s home is his castle, and he gets to be the king in it. Archie tells him, “And when you got a home of your own you’ll be king!… Meantime this is my house and I”m the king… and the princess in this story is upstairs. And you’re the lowly pheasant with the job of keeping her here!”
