Samuel L. Jackson as Jules from Pulp Fiction demotivational poster reading ENGLISH motherfucker, do you speak it?

English Motherfucker, Do You Speak It?

2008catchphraseclassic

Published October 27, 2026

"English, Motherfucker, Do You Speak It?" is Samuel L. Jackson's screamed interrogation of a terrified bystander in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 Pulp Fiction. The line moved from theater screens to internet forums by 2008, when early demotivational posters pasted Jules's face next to the quote on Ebaum's World, and by 2010 it was circulating on imageboards as a put-down aimed at bad grammar.

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Overview

The format typically combines a still from the diner scene (Jules pointing his gun, mid-shout) with a caption aimed at someone who botched a sentence, misread a question or wrote something incomprehensible6. Demotivational posters are the archetypal version, with 2008-era examples setting the tone2, while animal variants also exist, including a 2010 picture of a penguin yelling the line at a seal3.

Urban Dictionary notes the irony that in the original scene, Jules is not correcting someone's English at all, he's asking a rhetorical question after the man keeps answering "What?" to every question7. That irony tends to be lost in meme use, where the line functions as a universal "learn to type" insult5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Pulp Fiction (film) / Ebaum's World (first meme use)
Date
2008

Quentin Tarantino's third feature Pulp Fiction opened in North America on October 14, 19945. In the apartment scene, Samuel L. Jackson's hitman Jules Winnfield shouts the line at Brett after the panicked victim keeps replying "What?" to every question about who his bosses are. The original scene is on YouTube and is the reference point for every subsequent remix1.

Earliest documented meme use goes back to April 16, 2008, when an Ebaum's World user uploaded a demotivational poster captioning an image of Jules with a version of the quote2. The exact first online appearance of the phrase is not pinned down.

How It Spread

Imageboards picked up the quote during the demotivational boom of the early 2010s. In February 2010, an anonymous Demotivation.me user posted an image of a penguin screaming the line at a seal, which gathered more than 9,700 visits over the following decade3. On 4chan's /tv/ board, the quote showed up constantly in "favorite movie quote" threads and was deployed to mock posters making grammatical mistakes4.

DeviantArt user h311Man posted a straight image macro of the quote on February 19, 2014, which reached over 5,000 views in the seven years that followed6. Related lines from the same scene, including "Does He Look Like A Bitch?" and "Say 'What' Again I Double Dare You," followed a similar meme path and often appear next to it5.

Timeline

1994-10-14

Pulp Fiction opens in North America, with Samuel L. Jackson's Jules screaming the line at Brett in the apartment scene.

2008-04-16

An Ebaum's World user posts a demotivational poster featuring the quote, the earliest documented meme use.

2010-02

A Demotivation.me user uploads a penguin-screams-at-seal version of the line that goes on to pull more than 9,700 visits.

2010

The quote circulates heavily on 4chan's /tv/ board as a put-down for posters with bad grammar.

2014-02-19

DeviantArt user h311Man posts an image macro of the quote that reaches over 5,000 views in seven years.

How to Use This Meme

A standard version places a close-up of Jackson's screaming face next to the full line and directs it at a target who wrote something unreadable or kept replying with confusion. Replies on 4chan's /tv/ board often use just the quoted text itself, with no image attached, to signal that a poster's writing is incoherent4.

Frequently Asked Questions