To mark the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live,” we took a look at 50 memorable catchphrases from the show. We also asked readers to tell us about the ones you use with your friends and loved ones, and why. Hundreds of you responded. Here are the 10 phrases that came up the most, along with stories — some of which have been edited — you shared.

‘More cowbell’

“As a percussionist I think we ALWAYS need more rhythm in our lives. The skit spurred me to buy my own personal cowbell.”

“I teach art. There is often something just not quite right about a painting … it needs something.”

“We owned a restaurant. It was the perfect answer to any dilemma or flagging energy.”

“I play in a community band. When something doesn’t sound right someone will shout out ‘more cowbell’!”

“I’m a musician and that sketch (and the line) struck so many chords in my psyche that I’m still laughing, years later.”

‘Jane, you ignorant slut’

“It’s only funny in context, so you can only use it with people who know that it stems from a ridiculous attempt by a dimwitted chauvinist male to rebut a well-reasoned argument by a much smarter woman. My 30-something daughter didn’t get it until we watched a clip together. She laughed as much as I did.”

“My name is Jean, and my comical best friend started referring to me using that phrase. We laughed each time she said it. Now, many years later, I would have never guessed how much I would long to hear her say that again. You see my BFF has had a series of strokes and can no longer be heard. Wish I had recorded her voice back then saying, ‘Jane, you ignorant slut.’”

“We say it any time anyone on television does or says something absolutely stupid.”

“As a teenager in the late ’70s/early ’80s, I was living in a Brady Bunch family (my mother, stepfather, sister, brother, stepsister, stepbrother, dog, me). Both parents worked, so we kids had chores and rules. The rules and the weekly chore chart, handwritten and illustrated by my mother, were prominently displayed so we wouldn’t forget. The last rule reads: ‘Your household encourages a pursuit of the “arts” — reading, trips to library, sewing, beauty culture, sports, exercise, writing letters, earning money, keeping a diary, painting & drawing, wildflower picking, etc. Don’t be an ignorant slut.’”

“I’ve had fun with this over the years by saying it to ease the tension after I’ve done something foolish. It works best with people who don’t know me well because they usually don’t see me as someone who would say that. Sadly, my audience is shrinking and I get quizzical looks from people who are too young to recognize the reference!”

‘Nevermind’

“I have a hearing impairment, and often hear things wrong. So when I am told what I am talking about is not what was said, I always use the humor in ‘Nevermind.’”

“For the past 50 years, having lived a life filled with ups and downs, that phrase encapsulates misplaced mistaken enthusiasm, which allows for my acknowledged humanity to shine through. As my friends and family know, being impassioned, kind of idiotically at times, allows me to use ‘nevermind’ forever and ever.”

— Barbara James, South Witham, U.K.

“Since being introduced to Gilda Radner’s character, Emily Litella, in the mid 1970s and laughing at her response to Chevy Chase’s corrections of her annoyance at causes like Soviet jewelry, presidential erections and television violins with a perfectly self-dismissive ‘Nevermind,’ my partner and I have used that phrase with each other whenever we turn out to have misheard or misunderstood something. As the years pass, the mis-hearings happen more frequently. ‘Nevermind’ reminds us of when we were in our 30s, and we smile.”

“I used this phrase in meetings. I’d come up with what I thought was a great idea, then someone would point out its infeasibility, and I’d say in my Emily Litella voice ‘Well, that’s totally different. Nevermind.’”

“As a kid, I had to sneak out of bed downstairs into our ‘den’ to watch ‘S.N.L.’ I would get so wrapped up in what Gilda Radner was waxing on and on about and got such a kick out of when she would finally realize she went off the rails and course-correct with a big ‘nevermind.’ As a young girl with A.D.H.D. (didn’t know at the time) I could really relate to her lost-on-a-tangent stories and that her chattering could all be fixed by a big ‘nevermind.’ I wish that worked with my grade-school teachers!”

‘It’s always something’

“Roseanne Roseannadanna was my favorite character of all time, and truer words were never spoken.”

“This is the perfect line to use whenever something odd happens.”

“After a certain age, it seems to be true! People think I’m being trite but I didn’t make it up.”

‘I live in a van down by the river’

“Eight years ago, I moved onto a boat in a marina on the Columbia River. When I told my daughter, she immediately quoted me that line.”

— Guy Armstrong, Portland, Ore.

“I saw that skit when I was in 11th grade and my brother was in 8th, and it just did us in. I love it because it reminds me how hard we used to make each other laugh.”

“As a kid, I used to stuff a pillow under my shirt and put on some glasses and walk around my house pretending to be Matt Foley. Farley was a comedic genius in my eyes.”

“The best skit ever — a sociological study of the early 1990s! And hey now everyone wants to live in a van down by the river!”

‘Well isn’t that special?’

“I was a high-school English teacher in the ’80s. At a school board meeting a ‘church lady’ parent had about 10 comments on why we should ban Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ — a play students loved. At each comment she made, ‘Isn’t that special’ was going through my mind. I’ll never forget a comment from a colleague who was sitting beside me: She asked, what was that weird smile you had on your face when the parent was talking?”

“Quite honestly it has just been stuck in my head for 30 years.”

“I used this often because, according to my friends, I could make a great Church Lady face. Also, I had an alter ego named Madame Satan (don’t ask), and so of course, acting like the Church Lady was the perfect antithesis.”

“I’m a Midwest boy, it’s one of our great passive aggressive put-downs.”

“I was in college at the time and EVERYONE said it!”

“Church Lady is my favorite ‘S.N.L.’ character, as I grew up attending church and knew plenty of judgy church ladies.”

“I grew up in an evangelical home. The Church Lady was so sarcastically spot on to many of the ‘church ladies’ I knew growing up.”

‘No Coke, Pepsi’

“Having recently moved to Connecticut some years ago with my family, I found myself asking for a Coke at the Ridgefield H.S. stadium concession stand. The kid manning the stand said, ‘Sir, this is a Pepsi town,’ to which I responded with a very lame Belushi imitation, ‘No Coke, Pepsi.’ It got the blank look it deserved.”

‘It’s better to look good than to feel good’

“As someone who lives rurally and does not get dressed up very often at all, my husband is very fond of making this reference when we do dress up.”

“I generally say it to lift people’s spirits who aren’t feeling well. It’s funnier if you skip ‘and you look marvelous.’ People of a certain age fill that part in themselves.”

‘Talk amongst yourselves’

“When my husband and I are doing our evening TV watching together, and I have a call of nature, I say ‘talk amongst yourselves.’ Of course, that leaves him and a dog (or dogs) to talk with. It seems very funny to me, every time!”

“I don’t know if it’s my favorite (because there are so many), but when I got married for the second time in 2002, the inept DJ I hired couldn’t get the music started during the ceremony while my groom and I and everyone else waited in uncomfortable silence. To lighten the mood, I turned to the gathering and said ‘talk amongst yourselves’ complete with Coffee Talk accent and gesture. Nobody got it, and I was further humiliated.”

“My mother and aunt, both raised in Jersey City, N.J., would use this phrase when instructing us kids to do our own thing and leave them alone.”

‘Two wild and crazy guys’

“My two sets of uncles and aunts threw a Halloween party in the ’70s and dressed up as the Festrunk brothers and the foxes. I was only 5 or 6 at the time, but when I got older I just loved the photo they had hanging in the basement. I also fell in love with Steve Martin and all of his ‘S.N.L.’ characters. This year my uncle, now 74, told me that at that Halloween party, they greeted a friend at the door by saying they loved her ‘big American breasts’! She had never seen the sketch and you can imagine her reaction! It’s one of our family’s favorite costumes of all time and, yes, the photo still exists.”

“The rhythm and the image of Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd flailing around is the epitome of pure joy!”

“I occasionally use it with my friends when we are feeling our age. I was probably 8 or 9 when my mom and dad let me watch ‘S.N.L.’ with them, and it was the episode where the Festrunk brothers attempted to play ping pong and kept smashing the balls. I didn’t get the comedy, but I remember being struck with how much my mom and dad were laughing. Just losing it … it was great.”

“In the late ’70s, my good friend Danny and I believed we were anything but ‘wild and crazy,’ but as we went out to singles bars on Friday nights on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, we would use the infamous Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd pickup line, usually to little avail. But it was always good for a hearty laugh. Danny passed away last year, and every time I hear that line, we’re back as 20-somethings, vainly attempting to sow our wild oats.”