snowclone

Examples of snowclone in a sentence

• Regular readers learned there first about snowclones, the basic building blocks of cliches, like "X is the new Y" or "you don't need a degree in A to do B."2006 June 20, Michael Erard, “Analyzing Eggcorns and Snowclones, and Challenging Strunk and White”, in The New York Times, page F4:
• If so, you're being snowed under by snowclones — a category of fill-in-the-blank cliché identified by linguists.2006 July, Mark Peters, “Not Your Father's Cliché”, in Columbia Journalism Review, volume 45, number 2, page 14:
• When you read phrases like these in a newspaper, you've stumbled across a particular type of cliché: the snowclone.2006 November 18, anonymous author, “Snowclone”, in New Scientist, volume 192, number 2578, →DOI, page 80:
• The snowclone is mainstream enough now to appear in the title of a recently published book: This Is Your Brain on Joy.2009 June 24, “this is your brain on X”, in The Snowclones Database:

Forms of snowclone

Origin of snowclone

Blend of snow cone + clone, in reference to the phrase “If Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, X have as many for Y” (which is an example of a snowclone). Coined by American television writer and economist Glen Whitman in January 2004, in response to Geoffrey Pullum on the blog Language Log.

Words formed from snowclone

• snowcloneification

Questions about snowclone

What does snowclone mean?

Snowclone means a formulaic phrase that can be customized to fit a variety of contexts.

How do you use snowclone in a sentence?

Regular readers learned there first about snowclones, the basic building blocks of cliches, like "X is the new Y" or "you don't need a degree in A to do B."

What part of speech is snowclone?

Snowclone can be a noun or a verb.

How do you pronounce snowclone?

Snowclone is pronounced /ˈsnəʊ.kləʊn/ (UK).

What is the plural of snowclone?

The plural of snowclone is snowclones.