Definitions For Snowclone

Noun

SNOWCLONE (plural SNOWCLONEs) A type of cliché which uses an old idiom formulaically placed in a new context. : "To fry or not to fry" is a snowclone of the famous quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "To be or not to be".

Related terms

catchphrase cliché meme proverb

Translations

Chinese: : Mandarin: 雪克隆 (xuěkèlóng) Finnish: kulunut ilmaus Japanese: もじり (mojiri), スノークローン (sunōkurōn) Russian: фра́за-клише́, f Spanish: clono de nieve, m Swedish: snöklon

See also

Appendix:English snowclones

References

2004 January 16, w:geoffrey pullum, geoffrey pullum, “”, w:language log, language log

Further reading

Etymology

snow cone, clone, after the popular idea that the Inuit have a large number of words for different types of snow; coined by Glen Whitman in response to w:geoffrey pullum, geoffrey pullum on the blog w:language log, language log.