Snowclone

A snowclone is a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants".

An example of a snowclone is "X is the new black", itself a version of the expression "X is the new Y". X and Y may be replaced with different words or phrases – for example, "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll".^[1] Both the generic formula and the new phrases produced from it are called "snowclones".

It emphasizes the use of a familiar (and often particular) formula and previous cultural knowledge of the reader to express information about an idea. The idea being discussed may be different in meaning from the original formula, but can be understood using the same trope as the original formulation.

History

The term was coined by Glen Whitman on January 15, 2004, in response to a request from Geoffrey Pullum on the Language Log weblog.^[2] Pullum endorsed it as a term of art the next day,^[3] and it has since been adopted by other linguists, journalists and authors.^[4][5] The term alludes to one of Pullum's example template phrases:

If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.

As Language Log explains, this is a popular rhetorical trope used by journalists to imply that cultural group X has reason to spend a great deal of time thinking about the specific idea Z,^[6][7] despite the fact that the basic premise is wrong: Inuit do not have an unusually large number of words for "snow".

In 1995, linguist David Crystal referred to this kind of trope as a "catch structure", citing as an example the phrase "to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before" as originally used in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series (1978).^[8] Adams' phrase is a reference to a Star Trek phrase "...to boldly go where no man has gone before!", which contains a split infinitive, a controversial construction.

Other examples

• "Have X, will travel." It was popularized by Have Gun – Will Travel, the title of a 1957–1963 U.S. radio and television series, which derived from the stock phrasing of short "want ads" in Variety: an example is Have Tux, Will Travel,^[9] the title of Bob Hope's memoirs.^[10] The title of Robert A. Heinlein's 1958 novel Have Space Suit—Will Travel and Have Guitar, Will Travel by Joe Perry also refer to this stock phrase.
• "X considered harmful." The rise of this phrasal template was sparked by Edsger Dijkstra's 1968 letter to the Communications of the ACM, titled "Go To Statement Considered Harmful", as well as the responses "'GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful" and "'"GOTO Considered Harmful" Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful?".^[11]
• "Got X?" This was originated by the "Got Milk?" campaign by the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, and has spawned many imitators, such as "Got Jesus?", "Got Beer?", "Got Swim?", and "Got Rice?".^[12]
• "In America, X verb Y. In Soviet Russia, Y verb X!" Created by comedian Yakov Smirnoff and used as a metaphor for authoritarian rule within Soviet Russia. For example, a common telling of the joke switches "you (x) watch TV (y)" and "TV (y) watches you (x)", referencing the Soviet police state and an allusion to George Orwell's novel 1984.
• "X-gate", used to describe many political scandals since the Watergate scandal.
• "The mother of all Xs", used at least since Saddam Hussein promised "the mother of all battles".^[13][14]
• American comedian Richard Lewis claims to be the originator of the expression "The X from hell" as in "the date from hell" or "the roommate from hell". This theory is expounded in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "The Nanny from Hell". Lewis has petitioned the editors of Bartlett's to be given credit for the coinage, but the editors claim that the phrase was a common idiom prior to Lewis' use of it.^[15] The Yale Book of Quotations (p. 458) does attribute the phrase to Lewis, claiming that his self-description "comedian from hell" is the earliest documented application of the expression "from hell" to a person.^[16] A well-known clone of the expression is "Bastard operator from hell".

References

Further reading

Look up snowclone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "How the Web Is Changing Language". NPR Talk of the Nation. June 28, 2006. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5518444. Retrieved November 25, 2007. 
• Peters, Mark (July/August 2006). "Not Your Father's Cliché". Columbia Journalism Review. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3613/is_200607/ai_n17171280. Retrieved November 25, 2007. 
• "The word: Snowclone". New Scientist (2578). November 18, 2006. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19225780.126-the-word-snowclone.html. Retrieved November 25, 2007. 
• Warburton, Annie (March 24, 2007). "I mean, what's it mean?". Hobart, Tasmania: The Mercury. 
• Smith, Russell (May 31, 2007). "Do you speak kitteh?". Toronto: The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070531.wxrussell31/BNStory/Entertainment. Retrieved November 25, 2007. 
• Vaszily, Scott (August 4, 2007). "Colourful language (letter)". New Scientist (2615). http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526151.300-colourful-language.html. Retrieved November 25, 2007. 
• McFedries, Paul (February 2008). "Snowclone Is The New Cliché". IEEE Spectrum. http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5909. Retrieved February 21, 2008. 
• Pullum, Geoffrey (January 16, 2004). "Snowclones: lexicographical dating to the second". Language Log. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000350.html. Retrieved June 26, 2006.