Thursday, July 27, 2006
Language Log and Snowclones
My friend Charles Parsons, who's off the Internet and actually reads magazines, sent me an article that he had, yes, cut out of a paper-based publication. The article mentioned something about the "Language Log."
It was while I was reading the Language Log that I learned about Snowclones. O, I learned about many things linguistic, that is true. I learned about president Bush's use of expletives and about the new rulings by PBS to assure that expletives are more effectively bleeped. And I learned about someone named H. Saucy at a publication apparently called Print Culture who asked readers to come up with bumper stickers that express two opposite political sentiments at once, like "MY OTHER HUMMER IS A PRIUS." But it was the snowclone that did it for me - reminded me how the study of language fosters playfulness, wit and related forms of jolly madness.
"Snowclone," I quote, Wikipedially, "is a neologism used to describe a type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context. The term emphasizes the use of a familiar (and often particular) formula and previous cultural knowledge of the reader to express information about an idea....A common example of a snowclone is 'X is the new Y,' which can be applied by inserting words or phrases for X and Y, 'cloning' the trope of the original expression, 'pink is the new black.' For instance, this snowclone might appear as 'Random is the New Order,' a marketing phrase for the iPod shuffle."
Further, it appears that "Geoffrey Pullum on the blog Language Log (op. cit.) had prompted the invention of snowclone, in his search for a name for '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 jokey variants by lazy journalists and writers.' So, self-evidently, what comes around gets back to you.
Clearly, the Language Log is the new Elements of Style, and Geoffrey Pullum the Internet's answer to both Strunk and White. Even more clearly, there's a lot of fun to be had and awareness to be gained, equally therein and by.
It was while I was reading the Language Log that I learned about Snowclones. O, I learned about many things linguistic, that is true. I learned about president Bush's use of expletives and about the new rulings by PBS to assure that expletives are more effectively bleeped. And I learned about someone named H. Saucy at a publication apparently called Print Culture who asked readers to come up with bumper stickers that express two opposite political sentiments at once, like "MY OTHER HUMMER IS A PRIUS." But it was the snowclone that did it for me - reminded me how the study of language fosters playfulness, wit and related forms of jolly madness.
"Snowclone," I quote, Wikipedially, "is a neologism used to describe a type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context. The term emphasizes the use of a familiar (and often particular) formula and previous cultural knowledge of the reader to express information about an idea....A common example of a snowclone is 'X is the new Y,' which can be applied by inserting words or phrases for X and Y, 'cloning' the trope of the original expression, 'pink is the new black.' For instance, this snowclone might appear as 'Random is the New Order,' a marketing phrase for the iPod shuffle."
Further, it appears that "Geoffrey Pullum on the blog Language Log (op. cit.) had prompted the invention of snowclone, in his search for a name for '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 jokey variants by lazy journalists and writers.' So, self-evidently, what comes around gets back to you.
Clearly, the Language Log is the new Elements of Style, and Geoffrey Pullum the Internet's answer to both Strunk and White. Even more clearly, there's a lot of fun to be had and awareness to be gained, equally therein and by.
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