Play with your words

Every episode in the season plays with the word ‘woe’ which is a formal way of saying sad. In English ‘wordplay’ like this is called a pun and is a typical way we make jokes. It’s done by using a word that has a few different meanings or sounds like another word.

Let’s show you by starting with some episode titles and then give you the phrase they make a pun from:

Friend or woe - Friend or foe

You reap what you woe - You reap what you sow

If you don’t woe me by now - if you don’t know me by now

Wednesday makes other types of puns all through the series. In Episode 2, Enid’s trying to be friendly, and the girls have this little exchange:

Do you get the joke? It only makes sense if you know the two meanings of the word stab. ’To take a stab’ at something means to try but ‘To stab’ means to hurt someone with a pointed object like a knife.

Don’t act your age

Nevermore might be a spooky school for outcasts but it’s students are still typical teenagers. All apart from one! Miss Addams has this to say about using technology to connect:

"I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation."

It’s fair to say Wednesday would never use text speak e.g. the way we talk in text messages that uses the short form of words.

Don’t even get her started on emoticons.

All through the series we see characters talk in a way that’s normal for their age.

When Ajax asks Enid if she’s genuinely not scared of him she replies ‘one hundo’ meaning one hundred per cent or absolutely.

In fact, Wednesday often uses overly formal language when something simpler would work. Why say sorry when you could say ‘I regret not showing my gratitude towards you more appropriately’?

Wednesday would rather wear pink than talk like a teenager.

Talk about death and darkness ... a lot

For someone who only wears black, there’s a lot of colourful imagery about the dark side of life.

Seriously, this girl could do with lightening up. I started to make a list of her vocabulary that covered the worst parts of humanity and got as far as this before I had to go find a puppy to play with.

1. Sadism
2. Torture
3. Attempted murder
4. Mass genocide
5. Dystopian hellscape
6. Cesspool of adolescence

Oh before we move on - Miss Addams likes to comment about serial killers and murder in general.

Change around common idioms

Idioms are phrases that you can’t understand just from knowing the meaning of each word in the phrase. This makes them difficult to understand and use in a way that sounds natural. One fun thing we see in Wednesday quite a few times is common idioms changed slightly.

Here are some examples with the original idiom and its meaning and then what we hear in the series and why.

Don’t be nice to people

Wednesday is mean and judgemental and I say that as a fan. Her tongue is sharp. Here are a few of her most acidic putdowns:

1. Your followers are clearly imbeciles.
2. Editors are short-sighted, fear-based life forms.
3. But drip (coffee) is for people who hate themselves and know their lives have no real purpose or meaning.
4. You see that sad, lonely woman over there? She needs this pathetic validation more than I do.
5. It's amateurs like you who give kidnapping a bad name.

Be unexpected

This is probably the big one so we’ve put it last. Wednesday is not like you or me and she shows this by turning what you would normally hear on it’s head. Before we’re even 10 minutes into episode one Wednesday told us:

‘The only person who gets to torture my brother is me.’

‘You guys are making me nauseous. Not in a good way.’

And her response to how she felt about having attempted murder on her record?

‘Terrible. Everyone would know I failed to get the job done.’

Of course, there’s an awful lot more language to explain and discuss. In our viewing guides, we break down all the language and cultural points to make sure you understand it all.

Every joke, song, insult and reference to Wednesday’s world is waiting for you!

Find out more on our study guides page!