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alt title(s): One Word; Two Words Danae: Well? What are you waiting for?
Lucy: A good reason to do this...
Danae: Two words, Lucy...Risk Management.
Lucy: Oh, I think I'm gonna need a lot more words than that.
— Non Sequitur
Two words: Spurious emphasis. Something so fundamental that it can be expressed in a snappy utterance. In fiction, if the reference is something the characters know about but never reveal to the audience, it can be an instance of "Two words: Noodle Incident".
For comedic effect, The Ditz or The Fool will sometimes miscount the words, or anyone may break a single word into two parts for additional emphasis.
Using this as a Pot Hole in examples in lieu of actually explaining the example is discouraged. It may be obvious to you, but it's not obvious to everyone. Two words: Really Obnoxious. Besides, 600 examples cannot be that obvious!
Examples
Advertising
- Played straight in an 80s commercial for Alka Seltzer Cold Medicine where a group of construction workers touted the product. One of them said "in a word: it works."
Film
- Toy Story 2 had Stinky Pete get this wrong while explaining the reason for the declining popularity of Woody's Roundup: "Two words: Sput Nik." Stinky Pete was referring to unmanned Russian satellite Sputnik, the beginning of the "Space Race".
- Sister Act.
Sister Mary Clarence: I got two words for ya, Vince!
Mary Roberts: Mary Clarence!
Sister Mary Clarence: ...bless you.
- The trope may have originated in The Graduate, with one word: "Plastics."
- In Midnight Run Walsh is getting annoyed by Mardukas' nagging, leading to the following exchange.
Mardukas: Jack, you're a grown man. You have control over your own words.
Walsh: You're God damn right I do, so here come two for you; "shut the fuck up".
- In Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Pink says the line, "Two words: learn to fucking type."
- True Lies: "Okay, I've got two words for that: In. Sane."
- Analyze That has a scene where Billy Crystal's character is talking with a pair of police detectives, one of whom is an attractive woman in a short skirt. After Crystal's wife, played by Lisa Kudrow, catches him staring at her legs (and inadvertantly commenting on them via a Freudian Slip), she excuses herself from the room, then glances at the female cop: "Two words of advice, from one professional woman to another: Pant. Suit."
- Phil from Disney's Hercules (the movie, the TV series, and the Hercules-themed world in Kingdom Hearts) was always getting this wrong as well.
"I got two words for ya kid—I am retired!"
"What is that?!"
"Two words — am-scray!" ( Pig Latin for scram, for those under a rock.)
- And the one time he did have the right number, in his song "One Last Hope", he was forced to make a Last Second Word Swap.
- Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) uses them often in Armageddon. One in particular ("AJ, I got just five words for you: Damn glad to see you boy!") had The Nostalgia Chick baffled and starting to count.
- The miscounted words varient is used in Dude Wheres My Car after Jesse and Chester get thrown out of the twins' house:
"I got three words for you! Anger manage ment!"
- Pay...off?
Literature
- From Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett: "In a word — im-possible!" "That's two words," said Dibbler.
- A reference to legendary Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn, malaproper and simile-mangler extraordinaire.
Live Action TV
- Joey in Friends does this in "The One With The List": "I got two words for you. Threesome."
- Inverted in an episode of The West Wing; during a presidential debate Bartlet's opponent Robert Ritchie (a Bush parody) claims that Bartlet will try and excuse high federal costs with one big word: 'Unfunded Mandate'. In his rebuttal, Bartlet is quick to point out that that's actually two words, thus making Ritchie look more than a little ridiculous.
- The same episode also plays with the problem of distilling complex positions to media-friendly soundbites, which the staff calls "the ten-word answer." Later, Ritchie produces a ten word answer during the debate and Bartlet hangs a derisive lampshade on it.
Bartlet: There it is. There's the ten-word answer my staff has been looking for for two weeks. [...] Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words, how are we going to do it. Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now!
- Also done and lampshaded in the Season Six episode "In God We Trust" by a Vinick advisor when he recommends that the senator continue to repeat four words:
"Fully respect Reverend Butler's position" / "That's five words."
- There's also a less flippant example in the episode "Stirred," where Bartlet explains that the reason he wants to keep Hoynes as his vice-president is "four words," which he writes down: "Because I could die."
- Rudy Coby invokes the "two words" thing with this exchange:
Rudy Coby: Everything you've seen today can be explained with just one word:
Offscreen Guy: Hairspray.
Rudy Coby: No, hair spray is two words. One word: science.
- It's a particularly weird variation, because hairspray can equally well be one word or two.
- Paul Heyman, in a shoot-promo, fired off an often quoted version during the first ever "ECW One Night Stand" pay-per-view event, addressing members of WWE's RAW and Smack Down! brands who had crashed the show - in particular, Adam "Edge" Copeland:
Heyman: *I* have two words for you...
(Paul steps halfway through the ropes, then flaps his hands outward)
Heyman: MATT FREAKING HARDY!
- For the record, Edge's response was to spit out his beer and yell back, "That's three words, Paul!"
- D-Generation X: "And if you're not down with that, we've got two words for ya: Suck it!"
- One time, in a late December event, they played with that, starting the catch phrase, and then pausing, letting the audience say "Suck it" before concluding "Merry Christmas"
- On an episode of TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel complains about something and Dr. Forrester responds with "Two words, Joel: Get Overit", even extending a finger for each "word".
- In Scrubs, JD once used it for a dis — "Three words. Sucks to be, adding a fourth, you!"
- In Married... With Children, when Kelly is rendered bald and bearded by the side effects of a pimple cure, the director of a beer commercial she was to star in cancels the shoot. Upon hearing this, the Straw Feminist group protesting the commercial threaten to sue.
Director (to Al): Can they do that? Sue on behalf of the ugly?
Al Bundy: Four words: Attorney General Janet Reno.
- Ordered by Buffy to explain what he's doing in five words, Spike retorts "Out. For. A. Walk." Realizing he still has one left, he adds, "Bitch."
- Gavin And Stacey, when Smithy goes to the stag party organiser:
Jammy the Stag Party Organiser: One word:
Overhead Projector: PRAGUE
Jammy: Two words:
Projector: PISS UP
Jammy: One word:
Projector: TITS
- In the original Australian version of Kath And Kim, Kath is always subverting this trope as a running gag, beginning with "Now, I've got one word to say to you, Kimmy..." and proceeding to say two or three. The running gag climaxes with the following quote:
Kath: Now Kimmy look at me. I've got one word to say to you: Move out tout-de-suite, go back to Brett. Get real, you'll never get any better!
- A variation has appeared twice in Doctor Who, in that it is crucial to the plot. In the episode The Christmas Invasion, The Doctor emphasises to everyone present that with only six words he can bring down Harriet Jones' government. He says the words "Don't you think she looks tired?" and Harriet Jones' government collapses within the day. In the Series 3 finale, Martha Jones prepares everyone in the world to say "just one word.. Doctor" at the exact same instant and, with spectacular use of a Chekhov's Gun (somehow), brings the Doctor back to his original state and saves the entire planet.
- Played with in 30 Rock:
Donaghy: One word: Surge.
- In the Monkees episode, Monkees Versus Machine...
Mike: Three little words, Peter: Don't argue.
Peter: That's two words.
Mike: You started already.
- Hill Street Blues: one detective to another, explaining why the latter should stay away from a flirty high-school girl: "Three words, JD: Statu Tory Rape."
- The first season of The Office some of Tim's papers are on Gareth's desk and he makes a ruckus about it while Tim is on a sales call.
Tim: What are you doing?
Gareth: One word, Two Syllables, Demarcation.
- In an episode of Seinfeld where George is trying to break his engagement to Susan, Kramer suggests, "Two words: pre-nup."
- Whose Line Is It Anyway had a game where each player would be assigned a number, and they had to act out a scene by speaking only lines consisting of that number of words. Hilarity Ensues.
Music
- Dennis Leary's song "Asshole": "Two words... Nuclear fuckin' weapons!"
- Kanye West's 'College Dropout' has a song called Two Words.
Theater
Video Games
- In Destroy All Humans 2, Crypto tries to convince British hippies that Arkvoodle has the best collection of music in the galaxy. When they ask what Arkvoodle listens to, Crypto says "Three words. And one of them's a disease. Blind Willie Syphilis."
- I forgot the title, but there was a Spider-Man text adventure for the Commodore 64 whose parser only understood two word commands ("go north", "take mcguffin", etc). So when you wanted to web something up, you had to use the command "shoot web", to which the game would reply (I kid you not): "In two words: AT WHAT?" after which you then had to enter another two word command like "at sandman".
- Couldn't you have typed "web sandman"?
Webcomics
- Order Of The Stick had the three words Haley'd been longing to say: "Sneak attack—bitch!" Later lampshaded when Bozzok tries to pull the same "two words: sneak attack!" gag:
Haley: Oh my gods, I've done that "two words" gag like nine times already! You're going to need some fresher material if you want to be a villain in this story. Not that much fresher, but still.
Web Original
Western Animation
- The Fairly Odd Parents use this, combined with the Noodle Incident, on occasion when Wanda actively wants to send Cosmo catatonic by mentioning the Super Toilet.
- Not really an example of Noodle Incident, as the Super Toilet incident occurred way back in the first season.
- Obviously not an argument for THIS page, but the Super Toilet incident we only see the beginning and end of in the "Super Bike" episode. We see the Super Toilet being wished for, and we see Cosmo after "the incident", but from the episodes I've seen we never actually see what causes his immense trauma.
- In the "Late Show" episode of Space Ghost Coast To Coast, the #1 line on the "Big Ten list" is "'Two words.' *beat* That's it, just... 'two words.'"
- In The Spectacular Spiderman, J. Jonah Jameson gives a Seventeen Words response to one of Peter's protests, followed by him giving a 17-word suggestion. Humor ensues when Peter questions how fast talking J.J. Jameson could count the amount of words he would use in his next sentence in the split second it took him to say the words.
- An episode of Cow And Chicken features the miscounting version as a Running Gag.
- Phineasand Ferb has Candace saying "I've got two words for you mum, Ge-la-tin!", followed by her mum looking confused.
Real Life
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