Joss Whedon’s often said that one of the things he wanted to accomplish with Buffy was to seep into Pop Culture like a virus. It’s worked, in far more ways than this article lists, but certainly in these as well:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a type of literature. Buffy is a text that people care about. The language used in the show is eloquent, it expresses things very precisely.
One example of precise expression is Xander’s “Does anyone else here feel Keyser Soze’d?” Adams described this morphing from noun to verb as “brilliant,” and it is in its sharp, concise description of being hoodwinked in the most elaborate of ways. It’s a pop-culture reference that turns grammar on its ear in a poetic way. It sort of coaches the audience to then use other references in the same sort of way.
I’ve done that — hell, I did that recently when I described someone with a lot of combat training as being able to “Trinity” a room (been watching Animatrix stuff a lot). My long-time favorites, however will always be words like “Wiggins”, which aren’t mentioned in the article.
Or Saturday’s “Slayer Lock-picking”…
And yes, you and Randy are very “wiggins” oriented.
I had to ask Randy what the heck that ment several years ago, since the reference went “zing” over my head (didn’t pay that much attention to it in the show when it was said).
The funny thing is that I spoke a good bit of Buffyspeak before the show ever aired. Call me weird, but it’s true.