snowclone

plural snowclones

1. human sciencesA formulaic phrase that can be customized to fit a variety of contexts.

   If so, you're being snowed under by snowclones — a category of fill-in-the-blank cliché identified by linguists.

   2006 July 28, Mark Peters, “Not Your Father's Cliché”, in Columbia Journalism Review, volume 45, number 2, page 14

   5 more examples

   I stumbled upon the site the other day, when I was looking up the origins of the "Im not an X, but I play one on TV" snowclone.

   2005 November 5, auuV, “Some articles that I like. They are about language,”, in alt.running.out.of.newsgroup.names (Usenet)

   Suddenly snowclone hunters were documenting media usages suggesting that, in space, no one can hear you belch, bitch, blog, speak, squeak or suck.

   2005 December 3, David Rowan, “"Snowclone" journalism”, Trendsurfing, in The Times, archived from the original on 06 Sep 2006

   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

   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

present singular third person snowclones · participle present snowcloning · participle past snowcloned · past snowcloned

1. intransitiveTo use a snowclone in speech or writing.

   Many journalists are guilty of serial snowcloning, but snowclones aren't always a symptom of laziness – they can be a cultural in-joke.

   2006 November 15, “The word: Snowclone”, in New Scientist, number 2578