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Person as Verb
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"You've been wrong so many times that I'm not even going to say something is wrong anymore. I'm going to say that it's 'Dorian'."
Dr. Cox to John Dorian, Scrubs

Pop culture can be an interesting thing. Slang is in a constant state of flux, always changing. But for some things that stand the test of time, it will be adapted into our descriptive terminology.

Person as Verb is the practice of describing an action using a cultural reference—typically by naming a character known for doing the same thing. The name of the show/book/whatever, or the writer/actor/whatever, may also be used. Often the exact usage will be "They just pulled a... (character-name)" or "They did a... (character-name)."

This is best used when it comes to the more universally understood terms. For example, instead of saying "Bob fell down the chimney", someone will say "Bob pulled a Santa Claus". In other times, just to play with this trope, writers will put in the most obscure reference to throw people off. A closely related use of this trope is to acknowledge the actual reference instead of just using it as a substitute, e.g. "So... is Santa Claus your hero?"

Orphaned Etymology comes from these sort of terms being transported into a setting where it doesn't make sense (e.g. a fantasy setting wouldn't make reference to a movie in our world).

This trope is widespread in Real Life, as the Real Life examples would suggest.

It also happens on this wiki itself (such as with "MacGyvering") — we call this being a Trope Namer.

Related to Buffy Speak. Compare Popcultural Osmosis, The Catchphrase Catches On, Malaproper, Memetic Mutation, Parody Displacement. Stuck on Band-Aid Brand is this trope in real life, applied to brand-name products. Also check out the various Self-Referential Humor tropes.


Examples:

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In-Universe

    Anime & Manga 
  • The English translation of one of the later volumes of Love Hina has Naru screaming at Keitaro "Don't go all Shinji on me!", when our hero is being mopier than usual.
  • The Lupin III: Part II English translation would occasionally give some gems in the dialogue. After performing a daring but unnecessary car stunt, Lupin and Goemon looked at Jigen and asked what he was doing. With a sly grin he replied, "I was inspired by the spirit of Steve McQueen."
  • In Azumanga Daioh, Yukari, tired of teaching language (and unable to teach Math), drags everybody out into the cold for some P.E. The first game? Soccer. When Tomo asks Yukari if she even knows the rules, she says "I'm Pelé" (manga, ADV translation), "I'm Mia Hamm" (anime, ADV translation), or "I'm Nakata" (anime, original). In any case, Tomo doesn't know what Yukari is talking about.
  • One chapter of Reborn! (2004) has Tsuna's mother "pulling a Yamamoto". (Which is to cheerily come up with a mundane explanation for the obviously dangerous situation at hand.)
  • In No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! the main character, Kuroki, attempts to stand out more in class by performing some wacky introductions. For her efforts, her name becomes synonymous in her class for doing something exceptionally poorly.
  • In No Game No Life, whenever Stephanie screws up or she can't keep up with the conversation together with the siblings, that would prompt them to scold her for being such a "Steph", much to her chagrin.
  • Dragon Ball Super: In the English dub, when King Kai warns Vegeta that Beerus is on his way to Earth, he tells him "No fighting, no insulting, no Vegeta-ing of any kind!"
  • In Pop Team Epic, one kid uses the term "getting a little PopTePiPic" (read: grouchy, rude, and irritable) to describe Popuko getting antsy when hungry.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: After Joseph has a bad experience with an Egyptian toilet, he says this in the English dub of the animeExplanation:
    Joseph: I think I'll pull a Polnareff and wait 'til we get back to the hotel.

    Art 

    Comic Books 
  • A JLA comic had Green Lantern moan to himself, "Doctor Light pulled a Houdini on me."
  • In one issue of her comic book, Flare says of a script titled The Romance of Venus: "I wouldn't want it to be like Vanna in that TV movie, though."
  • In Booster Gold #1, second series, the title character mentions he "pulled a Pete Ross" when he had to lose a football game on purpose.
  • Batman is known for vanishing abruptly while in the middle of a conversation. So when Nightwing, his first protege, does it to him, he smiles and mutters "Kid pulled a me".
  • The Adventures of Johnny Bunko involves Johnny's surname becoming a verb at his workplace for "to mess up". A little career advice from a helpful fairy later turns it into something positive.
  • In one short story of The Punisher, Frank snarkily calls a goon trying to stab him as the guy "trying to pull an Anthony Perkins", because of the over-head position of the knife a la Psycho.
  • Robyn Hood: Because of Robyn's habit of impetuously throwing herself into dangerous situations, "pulling a Locksley" has become a slang phrase in the NYPD for "completely ignoring orders and jumping headfirst into danger."

    Comic Strips 
  • In Dykes to Watch Out For Sydney and Mo at their very first meeting discuss a lesbian poet. Mo, who has a crush on her, passionately defends her, telling Sydney to look below the surface, but Sydney is typically dismissive: "If I looked below her surface, you know what I'd see? Nothing. Zip. The void. One big Foucauldian lacuna." The word Foucauldian refers to French philosopher Michel Foucault.
  • One Big Nate strip sees Teddy showing the fifty-two he got on a math test to Francis, who says that he thought only Nate got scores that low. The two quickly start saying that Teddy "Nated" it. Cut to Nate following them:

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • In The Bad Guys (2022), after their first "heist for good" ends in disaster, Mr. Wolf tries to talk the Governor into giving the gang a second chance by charming her. Mr. Shark refers to this as "the full Clooney".
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, people who find out about Ralph's game-jumping accuse him of "going Turbo". It turns out to refer to a previous video game character named Turbo who once pulled the same stunt and got two games shut down (for being "out of order"- the one Turbo left had lost its Player Character, and the one he entered got a gameplay disrupting glitch) in the process. The Big Bad of the movie, King Candy, turns out to be none other than Turbo himself.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Fugitive with Tommy Lee Jones: "He did a Peter Pan right off this dam here." Earlier, of a train driver: "Bet he did a Casey Jones."
  • In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo was "doing his Superman thing."
  • In 12 Monkeys, Bruce Willis' character is referred to as having "pulled a Houdini." He was a time traveler, and got pulled back out of impossible-to-escape restraints.
  • The two protagonists of Gerry are named Gerry and Jerry. It becomes clear that in the personal argot of their friendship, a "Gerry" has come to mean an incident of getting turned around and hopelessly lost somewhere, and that the film's title actually refers to this term.
  • In Man of the House, a pair of the cheerleaders are being dragged back to the house after starting to get in a barfight, and complains about being 'rescued' by saying "I was about to go all Buffy on his ass."
  • In It's a Wonderful Life there's a reference to Clarence having "pulled a Brodie" — period slang for jumping off a bridge, after New York bridge-jumper Steve Brodie.
  • In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dave spills water on his pants after witnessing the confrontation between Baltazaar and Horvath and everyone believes that he wet himself. Even ten years later, kids in grade school still call having a nervous breakdown "pulling a Dave Stutler."
  • Referenced in Stick It, when Haley talks about how skills get named after gymnasts (this is Truth in Television; see Sports folder).
    Haley: The only reason I'm doing these tricks is because somebody somewhere said "I don't care if this is nuts, and I don't care if it hurts. I'm doing it. I'm gonna climb this insanely high mountain. Watch me". And when you're the first to climb a new mountain in gymnastics, they name it after you. A Geinger. A Rulfova. A Chusovitina. A Shaposhnikova. They all rocked. And we salute you.
  • In The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, when Flynn is resurrected, Lodge (the Game Master) notes that "Flynn pulls a Lazarus."
  • In Fun with Dick and Jane, when Dick meets with people who he thinks want to give him a job interview but instead just want to laugh at him they say that what he appeared to have done to lose company money is what they call "pulling a Dick".
  • In Kingpin, protagonist Roy Munson is chagrined to learn that "getting Munsoned" has come to mean being screwed over and abandoned after his past encounter with an unscrupulous rival bowler.
  • In Zombieland: Double Tap, according to Reno "Murraying" is the term for killing a human after mistaking them for a zombie.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange tells Spider-Man and his friends that they need to "Scooby-Doo this shit", an informal way of saying that the three teenagers need to catch all the meddling villains.

    Literature 
  • At the end of Stephen King's Carrie, it's said that "to rip off a Carrie" passed into teen slang, meaning "to commit arson".
    • Life Imitates Art, but twisted: "Pulling a Carrie," or "going Carrie on [something]," actually did become synonymous with someone acting crazy after being humiliated. This one's become so well-travelled that it even appears in the His and Her Circumstances manga as a visual-only metaphor for someone snapping under the strain of having perfectionist, controlling parents.
    • Oddly enough, to "Carrie someone" also refers to the act of inflicting such humiliation on the person rather than their act of retaliation. For example, in an episode of 30 Rock, Liz's former high school friends attempt to dump chocolate on her head and refer to it as "Carrie-ing her", in reference to the pivotal part in Carrie where the bullies dumped pig's blood on Carrie's head to humiliate her.
    • This one even affected the popularity of "Carrie" as a given name. In the first half of The '70s, it was quickly rising in popularity as a name for baby girls, but after the film adaptation came out in 1976, it collapsed just as quickly due to the association.
  • In the Meg Cabot novel How to Be Popular, the phrase "Don't pull a Steph Landry" is the basis for the entire plot.
  • Played with in Dave Barry Slept Here, describing the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the first July Fourth (October 8, 1776): "The members took turns lighting sparklers and signing their John Hancocks to the Declaration, with one prankster even going so far as to actually write 'John Hancock.'"
    • In a column, he also stated that he was not at all bitter that the Phillip Morris tobacco company launched an ad campaign whose main character was named Dave.
      Because Geoffrey C. Bible is real, you should not use the name "Geoffrey C. Bible" in a derogatory way. You should not, for example, say, "Darn it! The dog made Geoffrey C. Bible on the carpet again!" Nor should you permit your youngsters to use expressions such as "Tommy stuck his finger way up into his nose and pulled out a big old Geoffrey C. Bible!" Nor should you say that a person caught engaging in an unnatural act of romance with a sheep was "doing the Geoffrey C. Bible." That would be wrong.
  • The first modern novel, Don Quixote, inspired the adjective "quixotic", which means to be an ordinary person with grandiose or impossible dreams. However, at least one dictionary uses "quixote" as a lower-case noun with the same connotation. "He's such a quixote."
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: "One more lesson like that and I just might do a Weasley." (After Fred and George drop out in spectacular fashion.)
  • Done rather cruelly in Flowers for Algernon: Pulling a "Charlie Gordon" is making a screw-up. Charlie himself doesn't get it in the moment, since the guy in question lost somebody's packages and Charlie never did that, but realizes later in the book what it actually means.
  • From one of the Dinotopia books, any instance of Ain't No Rule or Loophole Abuse is referred to as "Pulling an Andrew", after said Andrew wins an obstacle course race against a far more athletic dinosaur by simple virtue of ignoring the obstacles and running down the straightaway between the courses.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Jim Butcher says on this page about writing the middle of a novel: "It lurks between the beginning of your book and the exciting conclusion, and its mission in life is to Atreyu you right down into the yucky, mucky mire in order to prevent you from ever actually finishing." The mire was a swamp in the middle of the book that would suck in and trap anyone like a tar pit unless they had a certain frame of mind.
    • Harry Dresden in the novels, many times. Like the time he tosses a stake to Inari and tells her to "make like Buffy."
    • "To Dresden" means accidentally causing severe property damage, in-universe.
  • Towards the end of Rob Grant's Colony, the main character comes up with a plan to save the ship that everyone comes to know as "The Morton Maneuvre." He however believes that if the plan fails, then the term "Morton Maneuvre" will forever be associated with spectacular failures such as the Charge Of The Light Brigade and the Hindenburg (which he reckons should have been called the Mortonburg).
  • In The View from Saturday, Luke Potter is such a genius that the whole school is convinced he will do something incredible that his name will come to be associated with.
    Half the population of Epiphany is convinced that Luke Potter will become so famous that his name will become a noun like Kleenex or Coke. The other half is convinced that Luke Potter will become a verb like Xerox or fax. And if someday, someone says, "Luke me that information, please," that information will be organized, memorized, and set to music.
  • Little Green Men has a footnote explaining what the neologism "Bobbitting" means.
  • In the Discworld novels, Ankh-Morpork slang for "mad" is "completely Bursar". Also mad, as in angry, is referred to as going Librarian (pun on 'going ape', as he's an orang-utan). More rarely, properties where a certain genius idiot worked on are said to have been Johnsoned.
  • In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Literature/Metzengerstein," it is said that the eponymous baron's behavior "out-Heroded Herod," a phrase which, as mentioned above, originated in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Poe also used that exact turn of phrase in "William Wilson" and "The Masque of the Red Death".
  • In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry, after running away from a battle, fears that his name will become "a slang phrase" for cowardice.
  • In The Iliad, Apollo, while in the guise of one of Hector's friends, tries to rile him up by accusing him of being "in fight a Paris".
  • Spenser, in Hush Money, refers to an apparent suicide jumper as "doing a Brodie", an old slang term.
  • In The Horse and His Boy it's mentioned near the end that after the events in the story, and Rabadash's later death, the phrase "a second Rabadash" enters the vocabulary of Calormen as an insult towards foolish schoolboys.
  • In Ready Player One, an anecdote early in the novel mentions a player named Pendergast who announces to the media what a particular clue means for a small amount of fame. Since The Hunt is a combination scavenger hunt and riddle, this is an incredibly bad idea, which gets immortalized by the phrase "pulling a Pendergast."
  • In The Patchwork Girl by Larry Niven, there's a casual reference to the Moon not having money for an extra satellite because the money for it was 'proxmired' from their budget allocation. Senator Proxmire was a well-known opponent of the space program, earning him the ire of several famous sci-fi writers including Niven.
  • Family Skeleton Mysteries: Late in book 1, Georgia tells Sid she's figured out why he didn't want to tell Madison about himself - he was afraid she'd "pull a Deborah" (that is, ignore him and pretend he didn't exist), and he didn't think he could cope with that.
  • In Big Nate In the Zone, Nate inadvertently ignites a school-wide fad after doodling all over his sneakers. As the other kids begin picking up on it, they begin saying that they "Nated" their shoes.
  • BattleTech novels written by Michael Stackpole have given rise to "The Stackpole Effect" or "Stackpoling" thanks to his depiction of 'Mechs with breached engines Going Critical.
  • InCryptid has several:

    Live-Action TV 
  • Smallville does this all the time. Clark was beaten up badly after losing his powers and Chloe remarked, "You said it was bad but not Raging Bull bad."
    • This show, and Chloe's character in particular, do this a lot. Lois picked up the habit when she began trying to be a journalist. When the two talk it's crazy.
  • Peep Show has this double whammy:
    Mark's Dad: [spills a bit of his drink] Oh, for fudge's sake!
    Mark: It's OK, Dad, the carpet's seen worse.
    Sarah: You Jezzed the carpet just like you Jezzed the directions, Dad!
    Jez: Erm, Jezzed?
    Mark's Mum: We got it from Mark, didn't we, Mark?
    Jez: Oh, right. So, uh... it's when you...
    Mark's Mum: When you get something wrong - he Jezzed it.
    Mark's Dad: Total balls-up, a real Jezzing.
    Jez: Right. Yeah. Yeah, that is funny. Sort of a bit like being famous.
    [Doorbell rings]
    Jez: I'll go and see who that is. Let's hope I don't Jez it, or do a big Mark in my pants.
  • Community has something similar to the Peep Show example above:
    • When Britta got the group's personality tests back with weird results in the episode "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps":
      Jeff: You probably just Britta'd the results somehow.
      Britta: No, I double-checked them... wait, are people using my name to mean "make a small mistake"?
      Jeff: (Shifty-eyed) ...yes.
    • Later in the same episode:
      Britta: We learned an important lesson tonight. We should never make the "Britta" of "Britta-ing" each other's feelings.
      Pierce: You're using it wrong!
      Jeff: Wow. You Britta'd "Britta'd".
      Abed: Yeah, way to pull an Abed.
      Shirley: I don't get it.
      Jeff: Shirley, don't Pierce.
      Pierce: I don't get it.
    • Eventually deconstructed in "Herstory of Dance", where Pierce (of all people) calls Jeff out on this, pointing out that using a friend's name as a synonym for failure is actually an awful thing to do. Especially given how frequently and gleefully Jeff does it.
    • Another episode had Jeff feel threatened by a classmate who is taking attention away from him. He starts obsessively researching this new rival, manically spouting his theories to the others, who point out that he's "Goldbluming".
      • Jeff met this rival in pottery class, where the teacher has a rule against "Ghosting" that will get anyone kicked out of the class (because he's seen every variant of it done over and over again and he's just not going to put up with it anymore)
    • Wingering is also used to describe a deep and emotional speech
  • Scrubs
    • When Elliot's sorority sister hit the Jukebox to start it back up: "Hey, I'm the Fonz."
    • J.D. also once tells Turk angrily that he Marcia Brady'd his ass. Amusingly enough, Turk's confusion stems not from his not getting the reference, but rather from disbelief that the clinic would choose J.D. over Turk.
      J.D.: Well, maybe that's because I found out you stole a hundred dollars from me and I Marcia Brady-ied your ass.
      Turk: What?
      JD: You know, when Marcia was working at the ice cream shop and she got Jan a job and they liked Jan better, so they fired Marcia.
      Turk: Yeah, "Marcia Gets Creamed", season 5, episode 3. Don't ever question me on "The Bunch". Besides, there's no way they liked you better than me.
    • They detailed the formation of one of these when Dr. Cox got so frustrated with J.D. that he decided to substitute the word "wrong" with "Dorian." The staff soon caught onto the new phrase, which annoyed J.D. to no end. But later J.D. caught himself saying, "Dorian! ...Oh, great, now I'm saying it!"
    • Doug Murphy is autoreferencial in this. He tells a coroner he probably knows what mistake a doctor made that caused a patient to die, then lays out a rather specific scenario. When the coroner asks if Doug has seen such a case before, he responds by scoffing and saying "Upstairs they call that a 'Doug'".
  • In Being Human, "Sally" is being used as a verb for "don't screw this up" by her old friend Zoe.
    Sally: (distraught) You use my name as a verb?
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Xander remarked on "People going all Felicity with their hair."
    • "The dummy tells us he's a demon hunter.... He takes off, and now there's a brain. Does anybody else feel like they've been Keyser Sozed?"
    • When Willow is going on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, Andrew angrily chews out the others for not helping him and Jonathan "before Darth Rosenberg goes Dark Phoenix on our asses!"
    • Then when she goes back to her senses and has a meeting with Giles, we have this bit:
      Willow: When you brought me here I thought it was to kill me, or to lock me in some mystical dungeon for all eternity, or with the torture, but instead you go all Dumbledore on me.
    • "Looks like she pulled a Barry Allen on us. Jay Garrick? Wally We—She moved real fast. Never mind."
    • One entire episode revolved around the idea of Xander being "the Zeppo" - most useless and overlooked - of the gang.
    • In "The Pack", when Giles suggests that Xander's strange behavior may have a mundane explanation, Buffy replies, "I can't believe that you of all people are trying to Scully me!"
    • In "School Hard", when pre-Decayed Spike first confronts Angel about having a soul: "You were my Yoda, man!"
    • In "New Moon Rising", the normally Book Dumb Buffy threatens to "pull a William Burroughs" on somebody. Nobody gets it.
      Buffy: Was I the only one awake in English class that day? I'll. Kill. Him.
    • In a prom episode, Buffy makes a comment about stopping someone from "pulling a Carrie on the prom".
  • Angel:
    • Related to the above example, after Angel has tried to track down a girl with telekinetic powers Cordelia asks him over the phone "Did she Carrie you?". This understandably causes confusion.
  • The X-Files
    • In "The Erlenmeyer Flask", Mulder snaps at Deep Throat to "just cut the Obi-Wan Kenobi crap".
    • In "Hollywood AD", a movie based on Mulder and Scully's case is made, and one Composite Character based on the in-universe villains O'Fallon and Cigarette Smoking Man is known as "Cigarette-Smoking Pontiff". Mulder expresses concern that in the Hollywood version of the story, everything becomes oversimplified and trivialized and Cigarette-Smoking-Pontifficized.
  • Sawyer and Hurley on Lost regularly supply such references. In "Eggtown," Kate tricks Hurley into a You Just Told Me revelation, to which Hurley replies, "You just Scooby-Doo'ed me, didn't you?"
  • Supernatural:
    • In the episode "Simon Said", a character uses a mind control on Dean Winchester to take his beloved 1967 Chevy Impala for a spin. Dean then calls Sam and says, "He full-on Obi-Wan-ed Me!"
    • In the second season premiere, Dean is stuck in an out-of-body experience where he can't touch or affect anything around him. So he watches Sam and their father get into an argument, and Dean gets really angry at them for it, so he knocks a glass of water onto the floor. His father and brother stop and stare, and Dean says, with a look of shock on his face, "I full-on Swayze-ed that mother."
  • Frequently lampshaded on Bones. When someone makes a witty line, pop-culture challenged Brennan says "I don't know what that means." It's pretty much a Running Gag—Brennan says it regularly, sometimes other characters will pre-empt her with "We know you don't know what that means", and occasionally subverted when she does get one.
    Booth: Sure, I'm Mulder and you're Scully.
    Brennan: I don't know what that means.
    • Then there’s Wendell in one episode saying “I’m about to Brennanize you” before starting an anthropological explanation.
  • Police procedurals in general seem to like to use "pulled a Louganis" as a euphemism for someone taking a suicidal leap; both CSI and NCIS have used it, and Veronica Mars used it in reference to the previous season's killer leaping off the roof of the hotel Logan lives at.
  • Farscape. John Crichton does this all the time. Seeing as he's a long way from Earth, naturally no-one understands a word he's talking about, though the crew of Moya seem to get the general gist after a while.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • In episode "Darmok", the entire language of the alien race works this way, making communication impossible with those who don't know the references. The example they give is "Juliet on the balcony" representing a declaration of love; unless you know the name and the scene, it means nothing. Picard is able to decipher just one thing — Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra means two former warriors who became friends facing a shared danger.note 
    • There is the Picard Maneuver, a tactic for sneak attacks against ships lacking FTL sensors. Engage your warp drive and pop in right next to them - they'll never see you coming!
      • More accurately, you use the Warp drive to move faster than the light reflected off the ship. Depending on the disparity of distances, it appears as if there are two of the same ship as a result, but this only lasts so long depending on how much distance there is to work with.
    • There's a second Picard Maneuver, named after the aforementioned in-universe one, used by production staff and fans. The sharp tug on the bottom of his uniform shirt was dubbed "The Picard Maneuver".
    • Fans have named actor Jonathan Frakes' peculiar method of sitting in a chair (approaching from behind and swinging one leg over the back) "The Riker Maneuver."
  • This trope is a defining feature of the main character in Psych, who frequently uses references to obscure 80's pop-culture, possibly in order to keep the show—which could easily become dangerously serious in light of its subject matter—relatively light and humorous.
    • From "Poker? I barely know her!":
      Shawn: That's very Cameron Frye of you.
  • In Heroes, after Claire beats up someone she thought was trying to attack her, the attacker says "don't go all Buffy on us!"
  • Forever: When Medical Examiner Henry is on leave and away from the OCME for too long, and starts diagnosing what killed a rat in his basement lab, an exasperated Abe tells him to go back to work and quit "Sherlocking rats."
  • Fringe has the following, during a discussion about a man who apparently disappeared into thin air:
    Olivia: The man was clever enough to Star Trek himself out of a maximum security German prison.
  • Everybody Loves Raymond episode where Ray tapes over his wedding video; everyone jokes that this monumental blunder is going to be known as "pulling a Ray Barone".
  • How I Met Your Mother:
    • For an episode, people started using "Ted out" (to overthink) and "Ted up" (to overthink with disastrous consequences).
    • A later episode had characters referring to the act of repelling a potential partner with an admission of love as a "Mosby".
    • Marshall once uses the term "Lily all over the place" to refer to making impulsive decisions out of panic.
    • When Marshall is caught inside the ladies' room, Carl the bartender talks about "pulling a Marshall Eriksen". Marshall tries to do the same, using Carl's name to mean someone who jumps to conclusions, but is derailed when he doesn't know Carl's last name.
  • Person as adjective in NUMB3RS. Apparently, sometimes the only way to describe Larry is as himself.
    Charlie:Hey, hey, don't get all Fleinhardt on me.
    Larry: Fleinhardt? Since when did my last name become a predicate adjective?
    Charlie: Since your students started using it that way.
    • A fully straight example occurs in a later episode, when Charlie tells Larry, who is employing a little Mathematician's Answer, to "Stop trying to Fleinhardt your way around answering me."
  • On Cheers, Frasier was jilted at the altar during a lavish ceremony in Italy. When he returns, he claims that Italian slang now calls kicking an own-goal (in soccer) "doing a Frasier", but knocking yourself out on the goalpost while doing so is "doing a Frasier Crane".
    • At least once the gang used "Clavin" to mean something bad, as in "Last one there's a Clavin!" [cf Rotten Egg.] Rather than being upset with this, Cliff Clavin participated, assuring the others "I'm not going to be the Clavin this time!" (quotes paraphrased). When Diane was the last one out, she whined, "I'm always the Clavin!"
    • In the last season episode where Carla's daughter, Sarafina, is getting married, Sarafina tells her she's pregnant (thus why they're getting married). When Carla started to ask about her health, Sarafina said she "hasn't had to Clavin" (throw up).
  • During one particular episode of Arrested Development, the term "Michael" becomes used to refer to chickening out (generally regarding something wildly illegal):
    George Sr.: Hey don't go all Michael on me here.
    GOB: Hey, nobody's going all Michael on anyone.
  • From Blackadder II:
    Edmund Blackadder: Do people call me "privvy breath?!"
    Baldrick: Yeah! The ones that like you.
    Blackadder: Am I then...not popular?
    Baldrick: Well, put it this way: when people slip in what dogs have left in the street, they do tend to say "Whoops, I've trod in an Edmund."
  • Married... with Children:
    • The episode "He Thought He Could" has Al Bundy attempt to put back away overdue library book without officially returning it so he won't have to pay a late fee. He ends up being exposed in a very public and humiliating way. At the very end of the episode, a kid catches his friend doing the same thing and remarks "Hey, don't Bundy that book!"
    • The episode "Bud Hits the Books" has Bud getting caught pleasuring himself in the school library. Al's NO MA'AM buddies immediately coin the term "Doing the Bundy" as a euphemism for masturbating in a public place, then share some of the places they "did the Bundy."
    • In the episode where Bud officially becomes a Basement-Dweller, Al had decided that Bud was old enough to live on his own, and he tried to kick him out the second he arrived home from work. Peg tries to stand up for Bud, but he says that even though Al deserved to be "Menendez-ed"note  he was right, and should move out on his own.
  • An in-universe example is found in The Office when Andy tries convincing Michael that the employees describe anyone who screws something up horribly as having "Schruted" it.
  • 30 Rock:
    • Liz Lemon, of course, gets hits with this.
      Jack: I've Lemoned the situation with Nancy!
      Liz Lemon: That's not a thing people are saying now, is it? Lemoned. Doing it awesome.
    • 30 Rock also had a episode centered around Jack "Reaganing", or going twenty four hours without making a mistake. Named, of course, after Ronald Reagan. Bonus points for Jack eating jelly beans while Reaganing.
    • There is also an episode centered around both Jack's and Liz' reactions to extreme hilarity or excitement. Jack "jacks" which refers to getting so excited that you vomit. Liz "lizzes" which is also a portmanteau of laugh and whiz.
    • Another episode featured a classical example where Jack bases his relationship strategy on Fabius Maximus and at the end of the episode this strategy is countered by one based on Hannibal. Jack says she "Hannibaled" his "Fabius."
    • And yet another episode had a plot to humiliate Liz at her high-school reunion being called an attempt to "Carrie" her.
    • A variation on this trope occurs in an episode featuring former trope-namer "Weird Al" Yankovic, in which Jenna releases a heartfelt song that gets parodied by him. Furious, she sets out to write an unparodiable song that ends up being full of fart jokes and sounding a lot like a Weird Al number - he retaliates by releasing an inspirational, patriotic parody with serious lyrics.
      Jenna: He reversed the parody! He Normal Al'd us!
  • The pilot episode of Stargate SG-1, also an Actor Allusion as Carter is talking to O'Neill at the time:
    Carter: It took us fifteen years and three supercomputers to MacGyver a system for the gate on Earth.
  • Referenced in a Stargate Atlantis episode, in which McKay, after one request for an impossible super-sciencey solution too many, protests that he is not MacGyver.
  • In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Charlie does this to his own inventions. A "Charlie One-Two" involves someone throwing himself in front of a car and then blackmailing the driver. A "Grilled Charlie" is a questionable grilled sandwich containing butter, peanut butter, chocolate and cheese.
  • Friends had Monica's mother's use of the phrase "Pulling a Monica" to describe awkward mistakes (such as in the episode mentioned, Monica loses one of her false nails in one of the mini-quiches she made for her mother's party, not knowing which one it is). Monica points out that Judy once promised Monica's psychiatrist that she would stop. During the episode Phoebe tries to change the meaning to "completing the job you were hired to do" instead.
  • Apart from "pulling a Louganis", being referenced by Castle's medical examiner Lainie also said the Body of the Week "did a Superman off that roof".
  • In a late 6th season episode of Boy Meets World, Shawn and Angela are attempting to have a simple, no-strings-attached romp in the sack when Shawn suddenly bursts out that he loves her. After realizing what he did he smacks his forehead and groans "I Cory'd it up!", referencing Cory's way of getting over-emotional about such things.
  • A Curb Your Enthusiasm episode has Larry committing a fielding error that loses the game for his softball team, causing the coach to scream that he "Bucknered" it. Bill Buckner himself appears later in the same episode.
  • In Entourage Drama says that Matt Damon "Jason Bourned him".
  • My Name Is Earl Joy at one point says, "Son of a bitch Ferris Bueller'd me!"
  • Generation Kill: "Follow my tracers!"
    "He's got his fuckin bayonet out."
    "Doing his Rambo."
  • On Girls, Hannah threatened her boss that she and her colleagues could sue him for sexual harassment. She used a term "go all Erin Brockovich on one's ass".
  • Among the fandom of 24, any character who disappears without explanation, often while being in a dangerous situation when they were last seen, is referred to as being "Behroozed," named after a minor character in Season 4 whose fate was only shown in a deleted scene.
  • In NCIS NSA Agent Ellie Bishop is told to remain in the car since she doesn't have her pistol, while the other agents go after the suspect. When said suspect runs into the parking lot, Bishop drives up to block his escape. This act is referred to by Agent DiNozzo as 'pulling a Palmer', referencing a similar incident from a few seasons back where Palmer crashes his car into a suspect's car to prevent his escape.
    • Speaking of NCIS, some people have taken to referring to the Dope Slap as 'Gibbs', after the team leader who routinely slaps DiNozzo in the back of the head.
  • Emergency!: Real life paramedics are told not to "pull a Johnny Gage" or a "Johnny and Roy" in reference to the scene in the opening credits of Gage flipping off the cap of a syringe with his thumb. The danger is that it could hit someone in the face.
  • On Orphan Black, Felix needs to coach Alison into being able to impersonate Sarah (who has a vaguely lower-class English accent). He describes it as "pulling a full-reverse Pygmalion on you."
  • On the first season of the reality show Big Brother Canada, Topaz became a person-verb when she accidentally voted for Jillian to win instead of her best friend, Gary, in the finale. Adding insult to injury, she was the swing vote, causing Gary to lose 4 to 3. As the rules were made very clear to the jurors before voting started, her vote stood. Houseguests and jurors in later seasons would express a strong desire not to "pull a Topaz" when voting in the finale.
    • A secondary usage is "to be Topaz'd", referencing the time when Topaz had to make a difficult decision while unbeknownst to her the rest of the houseguests watched and heard everything. In season 2, Ika was put in the same position by Big Brother; afterwards, Adele ran outside and told her she "got Topaz'd, just before the rest of the houseguests screamed at her for insulting them.
  • Lampshaded in The Adventures of Pete & Pete when Ellen, followed by the rest of her class spends the episode systematically breaking math teachers by asking them why they even needed to learn algebra. The teachers feel they have one last secret weapon, with one substitute teacher named "Shrek" (not to be confused with the ogre of the same name). He appears have had some success until the class broke him too. The English teacher rushes into the teachers' lounge and exclaims, "They shrekked Shrek... and I just used a noun as a verb! What's wrong with me?"
  • The Good Place: Eleanor does this to herself, though she's done so many horrible things it's not immediately clear which one she's referencing.
    Eleanor: You're doing what I used to do. You're pulling an Eleanor.
    Michael: Posting my cousin's credit card number on Reddit because she said I looked tired?
    Eleanor: [snorts and laughs] I forgot I did that...No. [clears throat] No. Pulling an Eleanor in this case is lashing out when you feel like a failure.
  • Parodied in a Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketch.
    Alex Trebek: (reading the clue) "Of 'Simon and Garfunkel', the one who is not Garfunkel."
    Sean Connery: I Garfunkel'd your mother!
  • In Season 2.0 of BattleBots, full-body spinner Mauler lost its only battle after a collision with Bigger Brother unbalanced it and caused it to flip over. Ever since, a full-body spinner losing its balance and flipping over has been referred to by robot combat enthusiasts as "doing a Mauler", and the distinctive rocking motions of an out-of-control spinner are known as a "Mauler dance".
  • On QI in series G episode 18 "Just the Job" the panelists are given Slinkies and small sets of stairs to play with. Resident Butt-Monkey Alan Davies fails at his first several attempts to walk the Slinky down the stairs, which host Stephen Fry dubs "The Alan Effect."
  • In the Seinfeld episode "The Strike," George is irritated by dentist Tim Whatley's holiday gift of a charitable donation in his name, but is later inspired to "pull a Whatley" to save money on Christmas presents for his coworkers (using a Fake Charity, of course).
  • Gilmore Girls likes to use the "Person as Verbing" form.
    • When Paris has an emotional breakdown and holes up at home for several days, she says that she's "totally Howard Hughesing it."
    • When Lane spends a few days at Paris and Rory's dorm room, Paris tells her boyfriend that Lane has been "Nancy Spungening it."
    • A second-person example comes when the staff of the Yale Daily News conspires to depose Paris as editor. Everyone involved in the process, including Paris, calls it a "Howell Rainesing".note 
  • In Succession, Tom uses the term "Gregging" to describe the process of an underling getting him coffee. When Greg gets promoted, Tom refers to his new underlings as "Greglets".
  • A Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode has a non pop culture example in the title of the episode "Full Boyle". The term refers to detective Charles Boyle, and it means to get way too intense way too fast in a romantic relationship.

    Music 
  • Simon & Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)" does this with a whole series of people.
  • Yes, we've got "Weird Al" Yankovic in here again. When he released Dare to Be Stupid, plenty of people said he "out-Devoed Devo". Including Mark Mothersbaugh.
  • "Judas My Heart" by Belly. Yes, "Judas" is a verb in this song.
  • After the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise pioneered the technique of speeding up audio to make it higher-pitched, the technique has been referred to as "chipmunking" in nearly any context.
  • Jay-Z manages three for the price of one in Kanye West collab "Ni**as in Paris" with his stated propensity to "go Michael":
    ...take your pick
  • Fall Out Boy, "Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea":
    I'm 'bout to go Tonya Harding on the whole world's knee

    Mythology and Folklore 

    Podcasts 
  • During a fight scene in Sequinox, Hannah refers to tackling a Scorpi as "I'm gonna Helga Pataki it".

    Professional Wrestling 
Some wrestlers' names have worked themselves into the lingo:
  • Billy Gunned: A wrestler receives what seems to be a major push that ends up not going anywhere.
  • Conway Pop: A wrestler entering to dead silence from the crowd, named after Rob Conway.
  • Dusty finish: A Disqualification-Induced Victory used to screw over a face.
  • Hulking Up: A wrestler gets a Heroic Second Wind and proceeds to No-Sell his opponent's offense.
  • John Cena'd: A loss to a major star (often specifically John Cena) that kills a wrestler's momentum and leaves him stranded in the midcard.
  • Ricky Morton: The member of a face tag team who gets beaten up by the heels for most of a match before getting the hot tag.
  • Pillmanized: To have one's arm, ankle, or neck placed inside a folding steel chair and then attacked by the opponent stepping on the chair. Came into use after "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (kayfabe) injured Brian Pillman's ankle in this manner.
  • X-Pac Heat: Fans booing a wrestler not because he's a heel, but because they think the wrestler is worthless and want him to go away.

    Puppet Shows 
  • The French series Les Guignols de l'Info turned soccer player Zlatan Ibrahmovic into a Memetic Badass who uses his own name to describe what he's doing (usually a synonym of "kicking ass").

    Sports 
  • Randy Moss' habit of making difficult catches against tight defense has led to some parts of the United States using the word "Moss" (as a verb) as slang for a receiver taking the ball from a defender in the air.
  • Similarly, Odell Beckham Jr.'s capacity for making crazy acrobatic catches has led to his name being invoked when a receiver makes a difficult acrobatic catch. For instance, in one case, a commentator referred to a player making this kind of catch as "he went Odell Beckham Jr. on them".
  • A player getting a ball knocked out of their hand before they cross the goal line, particularly when it's the result of celebrating too early, is often referred to as doing a "Leon Lett", named for a Dallas Cowboys player who infamously did exactly that. If the player just plain drops it before they secure the touchdown, it's a "DeSean Jackson"note  — some people use the two terms interchangeably.
  • In grappling and Mixed Martial Arts, certain moves are named after fighters who popularized them.
    • The kimura is an armlock that is now named after judo master Masahiko Kimura, who famously used it to defeat Brazilian jiu-jitsu founder Helio Gracie.
    • The inverted kimura used by Phil "Mr. Wonderful" Davis to defeat Tim Boetsch has been called a "Mr. Wonderful" and a "Philmura".
    • A Severn choke is any crude choke or neck crank that relies on muscle over technique, used by wrestler and MMA pioneer Dan Severn in some of his earliest fights, before he learned proper technique.
    • The Pace choke, an arcane submission also known as a "pillory choke," was used for the first time in a major competition by UFC fighter Nick Pace to defeat Will Campazano. He claimed to have come up with it on the spot.
    • The D'Arce choke was named after Joe D'Arce, who used it to tap out Jason "Mayhem" Miller in a sparring session.
    • The Von Flue choke was named and popularized after Jason Von Flue used it to submit Alex Karolexis at UFC Fight Night 3.
  • A lot of amateur wrestling moves are named after the wrestler that popularized them (or the country, or the school, etc.)
  • Plenty of these in Association Football:
    • In England:
      • The act of overspending in pursuit of success and then going bankrupt is known as "doing a Leeds", after Leeds United took out enormous loans in the late 90s to try and reach the UEFA Champions League. Had they succeeded, the resulting increase in revenue would have allowed them to pay the loans back. When they failed, however, they were left with crippling debt, had to sell off most of the squad, and plummeted into the third tier for the first time in their history.
      • "Spursing it up" or just the adjective "Spursy" has come to mean "to inevitably and consistently fail to live up to expectations" or "to inevitably bottle away a result from a winning position" after English team Tottenham Hotspur garnered a reputation for finding new and inventive ways of snatching failure from the jaws of success over the course of their history. This has included losing matches they should be expecting to win, blowing goal leads late in the game, blowing points leads late in the season, failing to play up to the occasion, or more bizarrely, situations such as contracting food poisoning from lasagne or coming down with sickness and forfeit a crucial game needed to make it into the knockout stages of a continental competition.
      • "Doing an Arsenal" refers to a team that goes on a phenomenal run early in the season, screws up in the middle part and falls down in the standings, then plays relatively well enough to guarantee a spot in a continental cup (usually the UEFA Champions League) but not well enough to win the league. This was named after the Gunners' infamous tendency to finish in 4th to 2nd place for years due to a mid-season slump. It disappeared between 2016 and 2022, as the Gunners weren't able to achieve even that much during that time, but came back with a vengeance in 2023 as they let an eight-point lead slip to hand Manchester City the title.
    • A "Panenka" is a penalty kick chipped into the centre of the goal, relying on the fact that goalkeepers invariably dive to either the left or right and leave the centre of the goal wide open. It's named after Antonin Panenka, who scored the winning penalty in the 1976 European Championship in such a manner.
    • A "Cryuff turn" is a technique in which a player feigns a pass or cross, but instead drags the ball behind them, turns on the spot, and accelerates away. It was made famous by the late Johan Cruyff during the 1974 World Cup.
    • "Pulling a Sergio Ramos", after the former Real Madrid captain, has two very different meanings: accidentally dropping a trophy you were celebrating you had just won... or scoring that last-minute winning goal.
    • In Brazil, the defensive midfielder is known as "Volante" after Carlos Volante, an Argentinian player who excelled in the position while playing in Flamengo.
    • In Germany, a horrendous close-range miss is known as "a Mill" after Frank Mill, a German striker who, in 1986, made what is commonly referred to as "the miss of the century" and has never been allowed to forget about it.
  • In Cricket, "Mankadding" is used to describe the act by which a bowler stops his (or her) run-up to run out the non-striking batsman. It's named for Vinoo Mankad, who did this twice to Bill Brown during India's 1947–48 tour of Australia — the first time in a warm-up match, the second time in a Test match. Although such an act is not an infringement of the Laws of Cricket, to some it is considered unsporting and against the spirit of the game. Especially if the bowler did not warn the batsman about their excessive backing-up before doing it (which Mankad had done prior to his dismissal of Brown in the warm-up match).
  • As soon as the 2015 NHL Draft Lottery was won by the forever rebuilding Edmonton Oilers, Twitter was suggesting to top prospect Connor McDavid to "pull an Eric Lindros" and refuse playing there.
  • Choking in the clutch is known by many as "LeBroning" (basketball), "Doing a McNabb" (NFL), or "Clemsoning" (college football). The first of these fell out of usage when LeBron James finally won a NBA championship in 2012, and the last went away after Clemson won national titles in 2016 and 2018.
  • When NFL player Aaron Hernandez was arrested for murder, pulling a pose where one imitates being handcuffed while a shirt is placed over their arms and body (in reference to Hernandez' arrest) was dubbed "Hernandezing".
  • Sports website Deadspin uses "to Mets" and "to Jets" to mean to fail spectacularly in a bizarre and improbable manner at baseball and football respectively.
  • Elite gymnastics actually has this as an official part of the rulebook: gymnasts can get moves named after them if they're the first person to do them in a major competition. For example, a back handspring vault entry is a "Yurchenko" entry, a backflip over the horizontal bar is a "Kovacs", and a triple twisting double back on women's floor is a "Biles II"note . Particularly complicated moves are likely to be referred to pretty much exclusively by name in commentary because using the technical description would just be too cumbersome (for instance, the beam skill known as an "Onodi" is virtually always going to be called simply Onodi, because "jump half turn into a front walkover" is just too much of a mouthful, particularly in the context of TV commentary). For some gymnasts — particularly those from less-prominent gymnastics countries who aren't likely to win major medals — getting a named skill is a way to mark their legacy in the sport, even if the skill isn't especially difficultnote .
  • Same thing happens in figure skating, including well-known moves such as the Axel, the Lutz, and the Salchow.
  • Many a major collapse in golf has been referred to as "pulling a van de Velde". This is in reference to French golfer Jean van de Velde and his infamous collapse at the 1999 Open Championship.
  • Winning two games of a three-game series (most often in baseball, but also mentioned in other sports) is sometimes called a "Meat Loaf", after his song "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad".
  • A baseball pitcher throwing a complete-game shutout with less than 100 pitches is know as a "Maddux". Greg Maddux, known for his precise pitch placement and excellent control, holds the record himself, with thirteen such games.
  • The term "mulligan" in golf reportedly traces back to David Mulligan, manager of the Windsor Hotel and a golfer from the late 1920s. He was the only one in his group of friends who had a car and was thus responsible for driving them through the course. He would get shaken up by a particularly nasty bridge and struggle with the first tee afterward. His friends allowed him a do-over because, again, he was the only one with a car. Hitting a second shot off the first tee became known as "hitting a Mulligan" and was eventually shortened to just "a mulligan".
  • Horse Racing gives us "doing a Devon Loch", meaning an act of failing to win at the last minute despite being in a seemingly unassailable position. It is named for the racehorse who, at the 1956 Grand National, blew a five-length lead going into the home stretch by unexpectedly jumping in the air and falling on his stomach. As a result, he is referred to by British journalists (particularly but not exclusively sports journalists) to this day.
  • Steven Bradbury, the first Australian to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics—specifically in the 1,000m short-track speed skating event in 2002—did so by literally being the last man standing; the four other skaters in the final crashed out on the last turn.note  The term "doing a Bradbury" entered the Australian lexicon to denote an unusual or unexpected success, not restricted to sports.

    Theater 
  • "She's No Longer A Gypsy" from the musical Applause:
    You woke up early
    And pulled a Shirley MacLaine!
  • Older Than Steam: As usual, Shakespeare invented this one:
    • "it out-Herods Herod" in Hamlet note 
    • "She Phebes me" in As You Like It.
    • The Taming of the Shrew has "Petruchio is Kated," which in context means both "Petruchio has married Kate (and is now stuck with her)" and "Petruchio's become like Kate."

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    Tahu: We're going to do a Pohatu on him.
    Kopeke: A Pohatu?
    Tahu: Yes, that's right, a Pohatu. "When in doubt, smash everything, and then hope you're somewhere else when it all goes 'boom'".

    Video Games 
  • The strategy game Age of Empires III has a cheat called "Soo good", where every unit kill would be accompanied by a bugle blast and an on-screen message along the lines of "KILLER UNIT'D!!!". So, if one was killed by a rifleman, he would get a message called "MUSKETEER'D!!!" or when the killer was a cavalryman there would be a message like "HUSSAR'D!!!". There are even circumstances where cannons or experienced units are named, with their whole titles; "IMPERIAL HOWITZER'D!!!". It is also awesome.
  • From Kingdom of Loathing, you "pull a Tonya Harding" when you attack people with a club.
    • Technically, you pull a Tonya Harding when you have a club equipped in your main hand by hiring someone to beat up your enemy.
  • At one point, Max Payne says that he "Made like Chow Yun-Fat"
    • The game's film noir-esqe storytelling guarantees plenty of references of this kind. Max "plays it Bogart," and has to deal with "a regular Keyser Soze."
  • By the time of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, "pulling a Bindo" has come to refer to a Jedi breaking the Jedi Code by marrying, referring to the first game's Jolee Bindo, who did just that. Bad joke, bald guy, long story.
  • Screw Attack recently coined a new one in their Top 10 Zombie Games list: Frank Westing. It means "Grabbing the nearest object and using it to kill zombies"
  • The competitive Pokémon community has a few, usually to describe particular flaws. For example, a Pokemon with an extremely limited movepool suffers from "Flareon syndrome".
  • In MySims Kingdom, the player needs to gain the ability to make gears, only to find that Princess Butter has preemptively stolen the appropriate scroll.
    Lyndsay: Ugh! Buttered again!
  • The Escape Velocity fandom uses the phrase "pulling a Monty Python" (also called the Monty Python Maneuver) to refer to abusing the AI's Suicidal Overconfidence by flying away from the target, then turning around and drifting backwardsnote  while firing.
  • In League of Legends, a more derogatory term is "Olafing/ed". Basically, Riot took a balanced champion (Olaf, obviously) that benefited from the current meta,and nerfed him to the ground by making every skill borderline useless, and then left him to rot for over a year until his rework, which initially was an even bigger disaster that made Olaf even more useless. Eventually, Olaf received a few buffs to make him semi-viable on one specific team composition, and then was nerfed out of existence again. With Olaf having eventually made it back into general viability, this term has declined somewhat.
    • There are also three examples from the game's massive competitive scene named after the pro players who popularised them:
      • 'xPeke' - to sneak or teleport into the enemy base and knock down their structures, or even their Nexus, earning your team a comeback victory, coined after this famous play.
      • 'InSec' - to dash in behind someone and knock them back towards your team, named after the famous Korean jungler who popularised this tactic with his superlative Lee Sin play.
      • 'MadLife' - to throw out a skillshot crowd control (most famously a Thresh hook, which has a long wind-up) to catch an enemy after they use a Flash Step by predicting where they're going to go so they jump into it, in an extreme form of Lead the Target. Named after the Korean support who was particularly infamous for being able to do this regularly, perhaps most famously demonstrated here.
    • Jinx's Image Song, called 'Get Jinxed!' is all about what it looks like to be hit with her brand of aimless terrorism.
  • Anton Nasser, a friendly NPC with a grossly overpowered ship in the game Transcendence, is notorious for shooting players while firing at hostile ships. It happens often enough that players often call getting destroyed by friendly NPC “getting Nasser’d.”
    • FreeSpace 2's stock AI, and some of the variations via the source code down the years, have inspired a similar comment about getting "Alpha 2'd". This doesn't refer to shooting, however; it refers to being killed when your wingmate rammed you due to bad collision avoidance.
  • In Freedom Planet 2, when Carol apologizes to Milla for running off on her own without the others' permission to try to negotiate with her older sister Cory (who has joined Merga's forces), Milla explains that she and Lilac are already used to it, and even refer to the act as "pulling a Carol", even keeping count on how many times it happened in the past. In every character ending barring Lilac's, Neera joins in onto using the term, referring to Lilac going off to find Merga as her "pulling a Carol", much to Carol's dismay.
  • In Batman: Arkham Knight, if you keep getting into the Isolation Cell one of Batman's hallucination will "spell it out for you" and say that going in the cell will lead to Robin being "Jason Todd-ed," or killed.
    "Now, it seems you're struggling with the subtext Bats so let me spell it out: Lock yourself up and Tim Drake will be "Jason Todd-ed". The bird boy needs to be put in his cage."
  • This match intro dialogue from Mortal Kombat 1:
    Liu Kang: I will now demonstrate why you sanded those floors.
    Johnny Cage: Holy shit, I've been Miyagi'ed!

    Webcomics 
  • 1/0: "Pulling a Ribby" is the practice of removing yourself from the universe of the strip by literally getting lost in your imagination — you create a thought bubble and climb into it.
  • The Order of the Stick: "Who knew all you had to do was break [Roy's] sword and he'd go all Lou Ferrigno."
  • Home On The Strange: "I Buffy the door!" (Translation: "I kick in the door.)
  • Lackadaisy:
    Ivy: Well, where is he, then?
    Viktor: I don't know. Vanished like, ehh - vhat's his name? - who does alvays those tricks.
    Ivy: Houdini?
    Viktor: Ya. Houdini.
    Ivy: Viktor... someone needs to teach you how to tell a decent lie.
  • Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki: After Yuki put her hand in a mouth of giant wolf, Hemrod accused her of "pullin Tyr" in a nice Norse Mythology shout out (not surprising, when you look at a premise...).
  • Wicked Lasers, a side story made by the creator of Sore Thumbs.
    Pulse: "A Snotto: losing one's arms in a careless or idiotic way". Said to Snotto, right after that happens.
  • Dork Tower: "Pulling a Matt", named after the character Matt McLimore, involves failing on a date due to some kind of catastrophic geekdom-related mental breakdown such as mentally blogging the other person.
  • El Goonish Shive: 2017-05-22: Read more comics ... if you're going to Cheerleadra. (Be a superhero).
  • Shot and Chaser: Olly says "Wow, you just straight up Grandpa Simpsoned out of there." when Tre steps into a convenience store, then turns around and walks back out after seeing no one inside is wearing masks.
  • Zebra Girl: Harold's comment on Jack's ascension: "You've pulled a Gandalf! Congratulations, my boy!"
  • Dumbing of Age's Joe uses the phrase "Danny it up" to refer to, well, Danny messing up a situation due to his social ineptitude. It's become a running use in the fandom as well.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia: In "Grubhog Day", one of Sprig Plantar's ancestors screwed up a previous Grubhog Day celebration by eating the grubhog. When he gets a chance to restore his family's honor by looking after this year's grubhog, the guidebook he's giving includes the warning "Don't pull a Plantar!"
  • Archer: In "Three to Tango", Archer announced he was "Archer-izing" their plan.
    Lana: You cannot make yourself a verb! I will not allow it!
    Archer: I'm a verb now, Lana. Deal with it!
  • The Beetlejuice animated series occasionally had characters use "Beetlejuicing" to refer to Beetlejuice's tendency to use his reality-warping abilities to cause trouble and screw with people.
  • Bob's Burgers:
    • In "Beefsquatch", the name of Gene's on-air alter ego Beefsquatch gets used as a verb several times.
      Linda: [Bob]'s just sad because Gene beefsquatched all over his big break.
    • According to "Best Burger", Gene's short attention span is such that his family refers to losing focus and screwing up as "Gene-ing out".
      Gene: Oh my god, I'm a verb! I'm a bad verb!
      Tina: You're a berb.
      Gene: I'm a berb!
    • In "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee", after Linda learns that Gene was kicked out of his own band, she says he got David Lee Roth-ed.
  • In Bojack Horseman, BoJack tells a girl he slept with to leave his house. He asks for her name and when she tells him it's Pam he says he doesn't want her "Paming up the place."
  • Go to Duck Season, Rabbit Season and count how many examples refer to it as "being Bugs Bunnied".
    • The term is used in a Johnny Bravo episode by Little Suzy when she does it to Johnny.
  • Clone High: After her not-so-nice actions during the Death Maze, Joan's name is used to mean "screwing up". Ivan the Terrible even shows Joan that it's found its way into the Urban Dictionary.
  • In an episode of Dilbert, Wally's name used as an all-purpose pejorative.
    "Yeah, you know, as in: 'he's a total Wally,' or, 'I've got to take a Wally.'
  • From Disenchantment:
    Luci: There's no use talking to him. Elfo's gone Elfo.
    Elfo: I'm a noun and a verb!
  • From The Dragon Prince: "Okay, what is that, with the nose, the finger? Not everyone speaks Claudia, Claudia!"
  • DuckTales (2017): In "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!", Webby uses "pulling a Louie" to refer to Louie's tendency to rush into things and ignore the rules.
  • Futurama:
    • In one episode, after discovering the Planet Express crew had fallen victim to a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, Amy refers to it as being "Scooby-Dooed".
    • In another, when facing an alien whose ego manifests as a separate monstrous entity, he's giving a performance where the attention is making said entity grow to massive sizes:
      Farnsworth: The attention Cobb's receiving is inflating his ego! It's going totally Kanye!
    • A "Zoidberg," naturally, is "an awful, incompetent doctor."
      Actual Doctor: Wow, he must've been a total Zoidberg.
      Hermes: It was Zoidberg!
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: When the Grinch comes down the chimney for the first time, the narrator uses "grinch" as a verb, which apparently just means "to talk like the Grinch":
    The Grinch: These stockings...
    The Narrator: He grinched.
    The Grinch: Are the first things to go!
  • Jackie Chan Adventures features both "pulling a Viper" and "pulling a Jade."
  • Happens in Johnny Test, when one of the sisters says "I think we've been Johnnied!"
  • In The Legend of Korra, an angry Varrick coined two in the same sentence: "Zhu Li'd" for an act of betrayal, and "Varricked" for suicide by Fantastic Nuke.
  • In-universe in The Magic School Bus, Tim likes commenting that the class "got Frizzled".
  • Max Steel: "When the bad guys are up to no good, they use local lore to scare away the curious. That's the Scooby Way."
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the season 9 premiere "The Beginning of the End", Pinkie Pie refers to Twilight Sparkle's panicking over a job she can clearly handle as "Twilighting". Ironically enough, part 2 really gives her something to Twilight over, yet she handles it a bit more gracefully.
  • Regular Show has "Pulling a Mordecai", which is described as "The act of never making a move, but at the same time, not knowing what to do with your hands".
  • Rick and Morty
    • In "Rick Potion #9," both Rick and Morty use the word "Cronenberged" both as a verb and a noun after a love potion mishap causes everyone to mutate into hideous monsters.
    • In "Something Ricked This Way Comes", when Summer is screwed out of her boss's business after helping him make it successful, she proceeds to say that she's been Zuckerberged.
      Mr. Needful: I was Zuckerberging people before Zuckerberg's balls dropped.
    • A more in-universe example happens in another episode when Rick, unhappy with Morty, states he's going to go take a "biiiiig fat Morty."
    Rick: That's my new word for "shit" after today's events.
    • In "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy", after Summer's misuse of one of Rick's machines causes her to accidentally grow to a giant size, then get her body turned inside out, Morty says that "she Clive Barkered herself".
  • A Rocket Power ep has a character worried that he's unleashed a curse by taking a small Hawaiian statue saying "I pulled a Bobby Brady."
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Homer Defined", "Pulling a Homer" means doing something great through accident, luck, or stupidity and, optionally, looking rather stupid at the same time. The Dictionary of Bullshit actually lists "pulling a Homer" with the full definition from the episode, making it a rare valid example in a sea of self-referential jokes that never get notable pop-culture usage. The writers said on a DVD commentary that they were kind of hoping that "pulling a Homer" would catch on and end up in the dictionary for real, alas it was not to be.
    • In "Girls Just Want To Have Sums", when Lisa reveals that she was masquerading as the boy Jake Boyman, Jimbo says "We've been Yentl'd!".
    • In "The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson," Springfield replaces its standard elementary with a high-tech STEM school which Lisa quickly discovers is only offering a real education to its "gifted" students while training everyone else to perform menial labor in the gig economy. Bart, who prefers the new system, follows her upon seeing her walking with purpose and realizing that she's about to "Lisa up a good thing."
    • In "Warrin' Priests," Ned's kids reveal that he's forbidden them from leaving church before the pastor dismisses the service, a practice he apparently calls "Homer Simpsoning."
  • South Park:
    • When Kyle is urging Stan to admit he did remove his STANdground bracelet and just eat crow and embrace the truth, he tells Stan that he needs to "Bill Clinton" it.
    • The term "Hot Cosby" is used for date rape. However, by way of Snowclone, "Slow Cosby" refers to actually developing a genuine and loving relationship with someone.
    • Kyle suspects Stan of sabotaging their efforts to find Jimmy (and vice versa), and sneers that it's "very Cartman of you." Cartman, who is watching the fight with relish, comments that that's a low blow, and indeed, when Kyle says it again Stan outright attacks him.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: In the "Krusty Krab Training Video", the viewers are instructed not to be a Lazy Bum with their work ethic, using Squidward as an example.
    Narrator: Remember: no employee wants to be a Squidward!
  • Steven Universe: In "Joking Victim", Steven makes a mess in the donut shop, and Sadie says that she cleaned "the last five Stevens."
  • In the Terrytoons feature The Adventures Of Lariat Sam (a segment of the Captain Kangaroo show), whenever Sam and his horse Tippytoes fell victim to a plot from villain Badlands Meeny, Tippytoes would deadpan "We've been Meenyed again, Sam."
  • Total Drama:
    • When they're up against a female condor that Chris mentions has a 12-foot wingspan in "Rapa-Phooey!", Alejandro can't help but comment that means the wingspan is "two Alejandros wide".
    • When it's time for the talent show, the challenge Sugar proposed in "Pahk'd With Talent", she warns Sky and Shawn that they're "going to get Sugar'ed bad".
  • On Transformers: Prime, when Jack is convinced to sneak onto the battlefield, his first words upon arriving are "Oh man. I pulled a Miko!"
  • On Wander over Yonder, when Lord Hater finds that his idol, Major Threat, did a Heel–Face Turn thanks to Wander, he describes him as being "Wanderized".
  • In The Weekenders episode "To Tish", Tish's name becomes a verb meaning to do something egghead-y.
  • On Xiaolin Showdown, Jack Spicer learns that, much to his chagrin, the supervillain community has been using his name in reference to immense failures.
    Vlad: Now when one lose everything, new hip thing to say is, "Oh, I've been jacked!"

Real Life

    Repeatedly Used On TV Tropes 

    Artistic Discussion 
  • Foleying is reproducing everyday sound effects and adding them in post production to enhance the quality of the film. This was created by Jack Foley during the silent movie era.
  • "Stan" or "stanning", a term for obsessive, toxic fandom, is derived from Eminem's song "Stan", which is about a (fictional) mentally-ill fan of Em's.
  • Gaslighting is based on the movie Gaslight.
  • The word Spoonerism is a reference to Rev. William Archibald Spooner, who was allegedly prone to doing it frequently, although he personally only admitted to one of the many that are attributed to him.
  • Thanks to the Manti Te'o scandal and the publicity it gave to the movie Catfish, "Catfishing" has entered the slang lexicon. Its definition: to create a completely fictitious life online, with or without deceitful intentions, especially when the life is of a member of the opposite sex.
  • In some places, it's still possible for paramedics to be told not to "John Gage" syringe caps, flipping off with a thumb. This comes from the Emergency! character's habit, and unfortunately can shoot the thing into someone's face if done wrong, hence disgouraging it.
  • In Brazil, the tendency of blog Kibe Loco to steal content without giving proper credit to the creator led to the verb "kibar" to denote such plagiarizing. People even watermark their images with a tag downright noting it's an "anti-kibe seal".

    General Linguistics 
  • The verb Cantinflear (from Mexican actor Mario Moreno "Cantinflas") is authorized by the Royal Spanish Language Academy to describe nonsensical speaking.
  • The Catholic Church most of the time named what from their point of view were heresies after their leader or the person they perceived as such, no matter what these religious groups called themselves. Thus you get Arianism after Arius, the Hussite movement named after Jan Hus, Lutheranism after Martin Luther and so on.
    • On the other hand, religious orders also were frequently named after their real or alleged founder (e. g. Benedictine monks after St. Benedict of Nursia, Franciscans after St. Francis of Assisi) or their patrons, e. g. Jesuits after guess who. A certain type of argument then got saddled with the adjective "Jesuitical".
  • In Dutch, being a "Tokkie" means being an anti-social, after a family by that name became famous after they were the subject of a couple of documentaries showing some not so model-behavior.
  • Ruben Oskar Auervaara was a Finnish fraud who seduced women in order to get his hands on their fortunes. In Finland, the word "Auervaara" is still occasionally used to describe that kind of a swindler.
  • To slashdot a website is to overwhelm the server with (legitimate) hits, in a sort of accidental DDOS attack performed by real humans. Named because a link from Slashdot could often have this effect on smaller sites, especially when web servers weren't as capable as they are now.
  • "Fisking" is the point-by-point refutation of an article, essay, or statement, often delivered with a heaping helping of snark on the side. It was named after journalist Robert Fisk (long-time Middle East correspondent for The Independent), who wrote an article that the blogger Andrew Sullivan (a conservativenote  blogger, and a British expat in the United States) proceeded to pick apart line by line. The term was originally used mostly by conservatives attacking liberals, but has since spread to the general blogosphere.
  • A "Yogism" is something that seems to make sense while you say it, but really doesn't make any sense when you think about it (or doesn't make sense when you first hear it, but actually makes quite a bit of sense once you mull it over), named after noted baseball player Yogi Berra. Examples include things like "It gets late early out here," "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him," and "I could've probably said that."
  • There was once a Parisian tabletop RPG player nicknamed Gros Bill (Big Bill). And he got the attention of tabletop RPG publications thanks to his blatant cheating to improve his character, and now The Munchkin is known in France as "le Grosbill" (The Bigbill), and creating and/or playing overpowered characters is called "Grosbiller" (to Bigbill).
  • Up until the late sixties, American dictionaries contained the verb "to badogliate" from Italian general Pietro Badoglio, meaning "to betray in a foolish way".
  • In the Esperanto movement, to "kabei" means to leave the movement suddenly without warning after having been successful in it, after Kabe, the pen name of Kazimierz Bein, a well-known Esperantist.
  • To "pull a Crater" means to disappear, after New York Judge Joseph Force Crater, who famously disappeared without a trace in 1930.
  • To "pull a Chuck" is Boston-area slang for committing suicide by diving off a bridge, after Charles Stuart, who allegedly murdered his wife in an insurance scheme. He then committed suicide by diving off the Tobin Bridge as the police were closing in on him.
  • "Barbarian" (as well as its adjective spinoff "barbaric") started out as an old Greek appelation for the people of early Anatolian nations that spoke in a language that sounded to Greeks like a sort of "bar-bar" gibberish. Since they found the language uncivilized, the term came to be recognised as slang for an uncivilized or backwards person.
  • In online discussion, "DMCA" and "C&D" are often used as verbs to denote fan works being Screwed by the Lawyers, deriving from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (an American law which is often cited in legal notices by the IP holders, thanks to most prominent affected fan works in the Anglosphere being made by US netizens) and cease-and-desist notices (which IP holders often send out to halt production of fan works).

    General Politics 
  • Australians will sometimes refer to "doing a Harold Holt" when talking about making a quick exit without an explanation, a reference to the Australian Prime Minster who disappeared while swimming one day and whose body was never located.
  • In Japan, bush-suru, to mean barfing. (Bush Sr. once got sick at an official dinner and puked in the Japanese Prime Minister's lap.)
  • In the 1992 U.S. Presidential election, Vice President Dan Quayle held a debate against Bill Clinton's running mate, Al Gore. At one point in the debate, Quayle said: "You're pulling a Clinton. You say one thing, then you do another."
  • Swift Boating, named for the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" who came out in 2004 with a number of dubious stories against John Kerry's military service in The Vietnam War. The controversy surrounding the group's authenticity made it a byword for Malicious Slander.
  • After "allegedly" performing a certain act on then president Bill Clinton, White House intern Monica Lewinsky's surname became a sexual euphemism.
  • After the late conservative scholar and jurist Robert Bork had his 1987 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court (by then-president Ronald Reagan) scuttled by liberal opponents, the verb "bork" entered the political lexicon.
  • United States Senator Joseph McCarthy's ruthless and overzealous prosecution of anybody he suspected to be a communist caused the term "McCarthyism" to enter the dictionary to describe a Witch Hunt (especially one directed against political opponents) driven by moral panic well beyond any legitimate concern.
  • After House GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary in 2014 to a college professor who had never run for public office before, to be "Cantored" became a term for when a high-ranking politician is unseated by an unknown from within their own party.
  • In retaliation for some pretty heinous homophobic stances taken by Senator Rick Santorum, Dan Savage held a contest to come up with an alternative definition of "santorum," ideally "a sex act that would make his big, white teeth fall out of his big, empty head." The winning entry was "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." The definition soon came to rival Santorum himself as the top result when googling "Santorum." People even occasionally turned it backwards and referred to the senator as "the frothy mix."
  • During the 2008 US Presidential Election, people began to use the term "Palin", after Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, to describe instances of people responding to a question with an answer wholly unrelated to the topic or with a barely coherent string of verbal nonsense.

    General History 
  • The term "mesmerize" comes from Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th century hypnotist.
  • To "pull a Houdini" means to make a fast exit (i.e., disappear), typically a Stealth Hi/Bye.
  • For a short time during and after World War II, Rommel (as in Erwin Rommel) became a verb in the French language. With the approximate meaning of "crushing one's foes with excessive force."
  • After the Swedish romance scammer Karl Vesterberg used the signature "Sol och Vår" ("Sun and Spring") in his 1916 personal ads, the common Swedish verb for performing a romance scam has been "to sun-and-spring" someone, and a romance scammer is called a "sun-and-springer".
  • One possible origin for the French expression "faire le mariole" (clowning around) comes from an instance of Napoleon reviewing his troops. When ordered to present arms, all did so.... with one Big Guy soldier (named Mariole) opting to do so with a small cannon. The Emperor apparently laughed and coined the phrase.
  • The "Spring and Autumn period" of Chinese history (roughly corresponding to the first half of the Zhou Dynasty) is named after the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the kingdom of Lu between 722 and 479 BC.
  • Dead pool boards use the term "Huxley'ed" to describe someone whose death is overshadowed by an even more famous or newsworthy death. The phrase is named after Aldous Huxley, whose death on 22 November 1963 was overshadowed by someone else's death.
  • The term "boycott" derives from Charles Boycott, a land agent for the Irish estates of an English landlord, who found it difficult to manage both the estate and his personal household when the tenants began systematically shunning and refusing to do business with him.
  • Chilean Spanish has the verb "Davilar" meaning "to screw up something massively". It comes from the surname of Juan Pablo Davila, a stockbroker who cost the company he worked for $31 million by accidentally entering a trade as buy instead of sell, then panicked and tried to recuperate the losses with several more risky trades, resulting in further losses totalling $201 million.
  • "Blaginism", a term for acting in defiance of authority, came from Nikolai Blagin, a Soviet pilot who was blamed for the 1935 crash of the Maxim Gorky, a massive eight-engine plane used as a propaganda piece.
  • Elliot Rodger was a Spree Killer who in 2014 shot six people dead in Isla Vista, California, having been driven to kill by his hatred of attractive women who wouldn't sleep with him and the attractive men who did sleep with them. Among other members of the "incel" community, a subculture of militant misogynists who blame women for their lack of romantic success, Rodger became a Folk Hero overnight, and within the community, "going ER" became a synonym for going on a killing spree aimed at women.
  • "Torquemada" is sometimes used to denote people with a Knight Templar mindset, or who are otherwise obsessively devoted to an ideology. Much like "Quisling" sounds sleazy and unscrupulous, the Spanish inquisitor's name just sounds threatening and militant ('torque' being a real term meaning force, and 'mada' rhyming with armada).
  • "Cleopatra" is basically synonymous with "sexy exotic queen" because of the Historical Beauty Update and Femme Fatale reputation that has become so ingrained in the popular perception of Cleopatra VII.
  • 19th-century undertaker William Banting wrote and published a pamphlet enthusing about the benefits of a low-carb diet. This resulted in Victorian Britain referring to dieting in general as "banting".
  • The term "quisling" is rarely used in the US because that country has its own, much older, byword for such an individual—"Benedict Arnold", a hero of its war of independence who turned to the British side before the end of the war, offering to hand over the critical American fort of West Point before his plot was uncovered.

    General Pop Culture 
  • "Ike Turner" is slang in some places for domestic abuse (for example pulling an "Ike Turner" or "Ike and Tina"), based on the real-life case of Ike and Tina Turner. Similarly, for a while after Chris Brown was arrested for beating up his then-girlfriend Rihanna, his name was slang for domestic abuse.
  • After Kanye West infamously interrupted Taylor Swift as she was accepting an award, "to Kanye" has become synonymous with interrupting someone.
  • To "bogart" a cigarette or joint (usually a joint...) is to hold it for a long time without passing it, referencing the way that Humphrey Bogart would hold a lit cigarette for long periods of time in films without taking a drag. It's expanded to include just about anything that is being hogged.
  • Channing Tatum participated in a parodic song on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! called "Channing All Over Your Tatum". He noted how weird it was to be repeating his own name dozens of times.
  • Police Mirandize a suspect with the "You have the right to remain silent" speech. This has essentially become the accepted legal term as well.
    • This is liable to happen with just about any leading case that becomes important to procedure, although it usually ends up as an attributive before a noun. In Canada, for example, we have Gladue reports, Jordan delay, Rowbotham orders, W(D) instructions, the rather unsettling KGB statement (to police)note , and many more. Also in Canada, the equivalent of "to mirandize" is "to charter," since the relevant rights are provided for in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
  • In competitive Overwatch circles, to "C9" is to accidentally leave the objective while you are in the process of winning, resulting in a loss. The origin comes from a tournament in which the team Cloud 9 lost two matches in this manner.
  • In Super Mario 64, a ceiling too close to a floor has certain exploitable properties. This was first discovered by a speedrunner named Pedro, accordingly, such locations are called "Pedro spots".
  • In Dwarf Fortress, a Good Bad Bug resulted in artifacts being constructed with far more materials than normally necessary, with each extra material becoming an extra decoration. The first widely-known result of this bug had the amusingly appropriate name "Planepacked", and thus until the bug was fixed, deliberately exploiting it was referred to as "planepacking".
  • To "Tulfo" in the Philippines (e.g. "ipapa-Tulfo kita", translating to "I'll file a complaint about you to Tulfo!") means to bring an issue to the attention of Raffy Tulfo or in some cases his brother Ben Tulfo, who also hosts a similar programme.
  • In the Cheers episode "What Is... Cliff Clavin?", Cliff competed on Jeopardy! and, despite having an insurmountable lead, lost after wagering everything on a "Final Jeopardy!" response of "Who are three people that have never been in my kitchen?" Since then, Alex Trebek, who appeared As Himself, would warn players not to "pull a Cliff Clavin" (overbet or endanger a likely win) in "Final Jeopardy!".
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Making excuses for losing a match has become known as "Johning'' after a player who became infamous for such behavior.
    • There's a grabbing technique that Ice Climbers can use called "Wobbling," named after the player who created the technique, Wobbles.
  • "Buffalaxing" is a term for producing a Gag Sub of a foreign-language video (usually a music video) with what it sounds like in English. This came from a YouTuber named Buffalax, who gave this treatment to Indian music videos (particularly known for "Indian Thriller" aka "Girly Man") and Dschinghis Khan.
  • "Doing a Ratner" refers to a company ruining its image in an instant. The name comes from Gerald Ratner, a British businessman who had attained fortune by selling cheap jewelry, only to destroy his brand by jokingly calling his products "total crap" during a speech, leading to the Ratner Group almost instantly losing 500 million pounds in value and alienating its customers.
  • Brazil has the slang verb "to Joker" (or more specifically, "Coringar") to define delving into Sanity Slippage, Rage Breaking Point, and other explosive emotional breakdowns.
  • "Debbie Downer", the recurring Saturday Night Live character played by Rachel Dratch, has since become another term for The Killjoy or The Eeyore, since Debbie always shares depressing facts or stories in her sketches.
  • Players of Touhou LostWord have the phrase "getting Sunny Milked" after a low-tier character with a reputation of spooking players during summons. Sunny Milk is also a prankster in canon, causing her to reach Memetic Troll status in favor of other Low Tier Letdowns.
  • Fans of Five Nights at Freddy's have begun using the phrase "pulling an Afton" to refer to anyone or anything that sticks around or keeps coming back long after it's worn out its welcome, or wholesale using "getting Aftoned" as a euphemism for Hijacked by Ganon.
    Backseat Streams: Yep, just like in the Monty boss fight, leaving the camera equipped has caused its UI to pull an Afton and just refuse to leave us in peace!
  • CinemaSins, after their take of Green Lantern (2011), made a continuous trend of referring to sealing ancient beings/artefacts of power away as 'Parallaxing them'. Mostly with a tone of 'Why didn't you just destroy it, and who in the audience actually believes this would work?'.

Alternative Title(s): I Pulled A Weird Al, Person As Noun

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Archer-izing

Archer has made himself a verb and Lana does not approve.

How well does it match the trope?

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