Snowclones

Definition:

At last a suitable name has been proposed for the some-assembly-required adaptable cliché frames for lazy journalists that have received occasional discussion on Language Log (here, in the first instance). I mean formulae like these (where the N, X, Y, Z are filled in to taste):

If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.
In space, no one can hear you X.
X is the new Y.

Glen Whitman, who discussed this topic on Agoraphilia, taking his cue from the first example, proposes calling these non-sexually reproduced journalistic textual templates by an appealingly simple name: we can call them snowclones.

Example:

Taking off on “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.”:

I, for one, wonder whether a simple mathematical model of memetic dissemination of strings (similar to the models of mutation and inheritance in computational biology) would enable a more systematic version of Michael’s observation (that “[i]t seems obvious that ‘for one … overlords” is the original,while the others are variations. The number of hits decreases as the number of changes … increases”.

Here’s Michael’s note:

In addition to “I, for one, welcome our new * overlords”, you might also consider the variations on this theme, listed below with google hits for *, * *, * * *, * * * *, and total. For convenience, the numbers for the root snowclone are also listed. I don’t get the same numbers as you do, even using the link you provided, so I have listed the numbers I get. I, for one, welcome our new * overlords (1880, 334, 213, 36; 2463) I, for one, welcome our new * overlord ( 39, 13, 12, 2; 66) I welcome our new * overlords ( 25, 40, 0, 0; 65) I welcome our new * overlord ( 0, 0, 0, 0; 0) I, for one, welcome our new * masters ( 152, 65, 36, 12; 265) I welcome our new * masters ( 11, 0, 0, 0; 11) I, for one, welcome our new * master ( 8, 0, 0, 0; 8) I welcome our new * master ( 0, 0, 0, 0; 0) It seems obvious that “for one … overlords” is the original, while the others are variations. The number of hits decreases as the number of changes from “for one … overlords” increases. At the same time it’s evident that it’s the meaning behind the words and not blind textual copying that is behind the pattern. This is evidenced by the much greater prevalence of “masters” over other words as the object of the sentence.

More here.

Oddly, the term “snowclone” never propagated in the blogosphere. Why?