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> The No of Denial
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The No of Denial

The famous one-word sentence I have in mind is Luke Skywalker's line in The Empire Strikes Back.

No!!!

There is definitely a meme here. There are almost certainly earlier uses of it, but for me this is the primary association. As proof that it's a meme, I can tell you that it's been imitated (parodied?) in Toy Story 2, and probably other places as well.

A different rendition of the same meme shows up in The Matrix, when Agent Smith says (in response to the descending helicopter)

No.

It seems possible to me that this is a fairly recent meme, because one-word sentences don't really convey a whole lot in writing—they need to have a visual and auditory context to be powerful. So, the place to look for earlier uses would be in plays.

 

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@ April (2000)