But you Nyah Nyahed over the best part

In our incessant web surfing, we couldn't help but notice the seemingly sudden overuse of the expression "Nyah Nyah," or some variation thereof (usually involving repetition). Apparently the expression indicates a printed version of the basic schoolyard taunting but at its current rate of excess deployment, the effect will soon be similar to be using the old line from Heathers about something being "so '87" without bothering to update the year.*

Sadly, we don't have new episodes of Seinfeld available to mock its ever more dorky usage but we think that some kind of threshold of uncoolness has been crossed when it winds up in the Washington Post's cut-and-paste survey of web commentary assembled by Howard Kurtz. After noting that Senator John Kerry's campaign was disengenuously welcoming Wesley Clark to their position on the Iraq war, Howard helpfully translates for those of us who need plain English translated into bite-size sitcom (Don't Go There, Tell It To The Hand) nuggets:

Translation: Nyah nyah nyah.

We think that the old dictum about brevity being the soul of wit is having unintended consequences.

*Another analogy that later occurs to us is that having to go to the effort to develop a written version of a nonsense taunt misses the point in the same way that AOL did when they introduced a function to print smiley faces.