Every few years, pop culture and linguistics fans are treated to some version of the same story: "The Simpsons" has affected the English language. D’oh is in the dictionary, a scientist used the term “embiggen” in a research paper, etc.
These are perfectly cromulent stories (easy, but I had to use it), but they ignore what to me is the single biggest contribution: yoink.
What else can you say when you accept someone’s offer of a chip, and you have to reach your hand in the bag? Or when someone hands you cash in an otherwise nontransactional setting? Or when you faux-steal something from someone, say, the sock of their foot as you walk by the couch? You say “yoink.”
(Some suggest that the term originated on this episode of The Flintstones, but it sure doesn’t sound that way to me.)