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!
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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!”
Hilarious! My faves are the “ivory shower” and “the nectarines of the gods.”
I think a lot of what Archie said could be misconscrewed
Be nice to have a list of Bunkerisms. Just saw one today in a clip where he’s yelling at Edith feeding him kosher food telling her that”next, you’re going to have me wearing a Yamaha on my head!! !-) 😂
I hate to reign on your puree because I absolutely adore Archie. However, I feel duty-bound to point out that there’s a lady who lays over Mr. Bunker when it comes to malapropisms.
Her name is Rose McFadden and she’s a character who recurs in a series of novels by bestselling Irish author Christina McKenna.
Rose first appears in Christina’s debut novel, “The Misremembered Man.” This is Mrs. Malaprop taken to the Nth degree, with stuff like “a leper never changes his socks” and “I wonder did that wee man want to take a pitcher of them” and “I’ve been puttin’ my thinkin’ hat to the grindstone.”
And that’s just three. Rose is worth a look I think.
Very funny stuff. It’s been so long since I’ve seen any All in the Family episodes. When I was in college I worked at a drug store until about 11:00 at night. When I got home All in the Family episodes were showing back to back on one of the local TV stations. So that was always what I watched as i was winding down from work.
I used to have an employee who talked like Archie, only with a thick New Orleans “Yat” accent. His funniest moment ever was when he was talking about “The Great Compression,” which seems (according to my employee) to have occurred during the 1950s.
Haha! One of these days soon… I’ve got to cover Season 2 there are so many good Archie-isms — You’re employee sounds like a character!
My wife used to work with someone who would call fajitas “fuh hee jees”. And if I remember from the first season of Family Guy (remember when Quagmire was portrayed as a misogynistic douche and Brian wasn’t?), Peter referred to them as “fuh jye tuhs”. Then, there’s my brother in law who, according to my wife, used to say things like, “that’s no skin off my teeth”. :-D
In All In The Family’s episode Gloria The Victim (1973), Archie reported the assault to the police as “a simple case of assault with batteries.”
Yes, he’s botched up the English language throughout the series. I believe that episode is from the 3rd season. I have to do a follow up that includes season two and three.
two of my favorites from archie are “very close veins” for varicose veins and “groinacologist” for gynecologist. the dialogue in that show was rich with this kind of thing.
Hi Kathryn! One thing is for certain, The way Archie mangles the English language is part of what makes All in the Family so brilliant. HA! Agreed! ‘very close veins’ is a classic. Cheers, Joey
I found this site while looking for Archie-isms and forgot that I’d made a post almost 2 years ago! I can’t believe I didn’t mention the Canadian TV show “Trailer Park Boys”. Ricky LaFleur, the show’s lead character, says malapropisms (or “Rickyisms”) like “it’s all water under the fridge”, “passed with flying carpets”, “worst case Ontario”, and “friends with the Benedicts” (friends with benefits).
Hi there! Trailer Park Boys sounds like a fun watch! Thanks for the recommendation. Cheers, Joey
I watched them all and this is the one which stands out in my mind:
Uncle Casimir Stivic : [Mike’s uncle learns that Mike and Gloria plan to have a protestant minister perform their wedding] You were born and baptized a Catholic, and I promised your father when the time came, a priest would administer the sacrament of marriage.
Archie Bunker : Hold it, hold it. I got somethin’ to say about this here. I ain’t goin’ through with none of these ceremonies or all that mumbo-jumbo, some Catholic priest sprinklin’ incest over everybody!
Back in the 1940’s and the 1950’s there was “The East Side Kids” and “The Bowery Boys” and there was a character in both of the film series by the name of Slip Mahoney, (portrayed by Leo Gorcey) which spoke in the same manner as Archie Bunker.