Janice Hall Heck

Finding hope in a chaotic world…

#AtoZ, 2014: Y is for Yadda, Yadda, Yadda and Yakety Yak.

atoz [2014] - BANNER - 910

And the beat goes on… Y day in the #AtoZ. Yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s all been said before.

Yadda, yadda, yadda as a term doesn’t make it into print resources like the American Heritage Dictionary or Garner’s Modern American Usage, but you can find it on the Internet in the Urban Dictionary  and English Daily:

A phrase that means “and so forth” or “on and on;” it usually refers to something that is a minor detail or boring and repetitive. English Daily

When telling about a happening in your life, you might not want to give all the details because that would make your story too long and too boring. Instead, substitute “yadda, yadda, yadda” for the boring and repetitive parts and get to the most important, more interesting parts.

Although the phrase yadda, yadda, yadda was coined by Lenny Bruce in the 1960, Seinfeld later made this phrase popular in this clip: Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Synonyms for yadda, yadda, yadda:

yakety yak  The Coasters sang this popular song, Yakety Yak, when I was in high school college a while ago.

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  Yul Brynner, in the popular Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I, tells Deborah Kerr this:

When I sit, you sit.
When I kneel, you kneel.
Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

The Last Meow

yadda cat 2 cheezburger.c omyadda cat  Cheezburgr

***
Janice Hall Heck, retired educator, blogger, and nitpicky editor of On the Horizon, a bi-monthly community newsletter for Horizons at Woods Landing, Mays Landing, NJ, is quite possibly a grammar geek.

logo 2.2Oh Heck! Another Writing Quirk,  theme for the amazing 2014 A to Z Challenge, suggests ways to improve our writing by avoiding and/or eliminating troublesome bug-a-boos that cramp our writing style.

Look for a list of posts for the #AtoZ, 2014 Challenge (Writing Quirks) here:  #AtoZ: Q is for Quirky Index and a Q Post Round-Up

Meow for now.  =<^!^>=

Here’s another Y post for you (2013)   Y is for…Your, You’re, Y’all, Ya’ll, Yall, You All, You Guys, and Yakety-Yak

 

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6 thoughts on “#AtoZ, 2014: Y is for Yadda, Yadda, Yadda and Yakety Yak.

  1. Yes, it is a phrase known internationally, but very much an Americanism. It isn’t something you’d hear in the UK, not unless somebody was repeating it from a movie.

    • I originally thought it was a Yiddish term, but I see there is a fair amount of discussion on this topic on Internet. Various theories of origin. We’ll probably never know.

  2. Great Y post! I don’t get a chance to use Yadda, Yadda, Yadda enough in my life! 🙂

    Visiting on behalf of Untethered Realms for the A to Z Challenge.

  3. Ah! But you yadda-yadda’d over the best parts. LOL One of the best Seinfeld epi’s evah!

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