Tnetennba

About

Tnetennba is a made-up word coined by the character of Maurice Moss in the British television sitcom The IT Crowd. While the term does not have a clear definition, many Internet users have attempted to define the term on various websites online.

Origin

In June 2010, Season 4 Episode 2 “The Final Countdown”^[4] of the The IT Crowd was aired on the UK public service television station Channel 4. In the episode, one of the main characters Maurice Moss (portrayed by Richard Ayoade) stars as a contestant on the puzzle show Countdown, during which he solves a puzzle with the made-up word “tnetennba” (shown below).

Moss: "Umm it actually already is a word: tnetennba."
Host: "Could you use it in a sentence for us?"
Moss: "Good morning, that's a nice tnetennba."

On June 26th, a Facebook^[6] page titled "Tnetennba" was created, featuring a profile picture of Moss solving the Countdown puzzle (shown below). Within six years, the page gained over 8,400 likes.

Spread

The same day, the website tnetennba.com^[8] was launched, featuring an embedded clip of The IT Crowd scene. On June 30th, Urban Dictionary^[7] user JB42 submitted an entry for "tnetennba," defining the word as "One who looks up words which have been artificially created for the purpose of fiction or comedy." The following month, several other entries for "tnetennba" were created on Urban Dictionary,^[1] many of which referenced the quote "that's a nice tnetennba." On March 23rd, 2012, the tech blog BigSoft^[5] published an article titled "Is tnetennba a real word?", which explained how the term spread online and defined it as "a word embedded in a web site in order to increase traffic." On March 29th, the pop culture blog Mask of Reason^[9] published a post titled "Word of the Day: Tnetennba," which defined it as the tautology "a word you have to look up on the internet to see if it’s real." On November 17th, 2014, BuzzFeed^[2] published an article about a contestant on the game show Countdown who wore a T-shirt with the phrase "Good morning, that's a nice tnetennba" (shown below). In July 2015, the online retailer ThinkGeek^[3] began selling similar T-shirts with the phrase printed on the front.

Search Interest

External References