Snowclones, Memechés, and Why Linguistics Matters
Warning: this post is extremely nerdy, specifically word-nerdy. Not intended for those who enjoy giving wedgies to those who have an affinity for perusing a compendium of words. However, such bullies may specifically benefit from a greater appreciation of diction and history, as alluded to at the end of this post.
A few clicks from some site I no longer recall led me to the Wikipedia entry for Snowclone, a word I’d never heard of before.
There are a few of the gems nestled in the simple internet encyclopedia entry, and there is a timely warning.
First, there’s the delightfully laborious definition:
…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 variants.
Huh?
Thankfully, Wikipedia provides an example and a pop culture reference:
A typical example snowclone is the phrase “grey is the new black” (a form of the template “X is the new Y”, in which “X” and “Y” may be replaced with different words or phrases — for example, Orange is the New Black or even “comedy is the new rock ’n’ roll”)
Moving along into the history of the word, and what do we discover? A reference to a collaborative blog called the Language Log.
Naturally, I navigated to the Language Log (in a new tab, we’re not done with the Snowclone yet) to see what kind of linguistic conundrums they’d be collaborating to uncoil.
The most recent post:
Mixed metaphor of the month
April 14, 2017 @ 8:24 am · Filed by Geoffrey K. Pullum under Jargon, MetaphorsA friend of mine who works in the Federal government recently received an email posing this rhetorical question:
How do agencies mitigate risks and achieve FedRAMP compliance in multi-tenant environments to successfully pave their way to the cloud?
He naturally wondered whether there can ever be a paved road leading to a cloud. And I naturally wondered how anyone could get paid for writing jargon-laden garbage as bad as this. We can but wonder.
(I actually live in a multi-tenant environment. It’s great; all the other tenants are lovely people. But I’m not sure whether I am FedRAMP-compliant. I hope I am.)
I can’t keep up with what’s going on in the various posts, but I’m glad to know it exists and may pop back sometime to see if I can grasp the concepts enough to chuckle through a few posts.
Back to the Snowclone. Where did it come from, exactly?
The term alludes to one of Pullum’s example template phrases:
If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have M words for Y.
As Language Log explains, this is a popular rhetorical trope used by journalists to imply that cultural group X has reason to spend a great deal of time thinking about the specific idea Y, although the basic premise (that Eskimos have a larger number of words for snow) is often disputed by those who study Eskimo languages.
And then it just gets better because now they’re smashing words together with pop culture lingo.
Three cheers for this jam-packed jamboree of a sentence:
Snowclones are related to both memes and clichés, as the Los Angeles Times’ David Sarno notes, “Snowclones are memechés, if you will: meme-ified clichés with the operative words removed, leaving spaces for you or the masses to Mad Lib their own versions.”
Oh, we will. Memechés all day.
Note: Wikipedia does not appear to have an entry for memeché yet. Great opportunity to get in on the bottom floor and write your way to becoming the Word of the Year.
Now, it ends with a tone twist: I certainly wasn’t expecting Saddam Hussein to make a guest appearance in this entry.
One of the best known examples of a snowclone is the phrase “the mother of all…”, a superlative which is often used to refer to something as “great” or “the greatest of its kind”.
It originates from the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Command Council issued a statement on 21 September 1990 warning the US-led Coalition Forces against military action in Kuwait: “Let everyone understand that this battle is going to become the mother of all battles”.
This calque from Arabic gained popularity in the media and is frequently adapted for phrases such as “the mother of all budgets” or “the Mother Of All Bombs”.
The phrase originates from the Arab victory over the Sassnian Persians in 636 AD, the original “mother of all battles” (Arabic: ام المعارك umm al-ma‘ārik).
Although popularly used simply to mean “greatest”, the Arabic umm al- is a figurative term that refers to something not only as as “greatest” or “ultimate” but also as something that will give birth to many more of its kind.
The phrase was used in the naming of a mosque in Baghdad, the Umm al-Ma’arik Mosque . The American Dialect Society declared “the mother of all” the 1991 Word of the Year.
I have heard of — and likely used — the phrase “the mother of all ___” before.
However, I did not know it was originally used to describe an Arab v. Persians battle or that it came into recent parlance thanks to a threat against American involvement in the Gulf War.
The greatest insight from this example is, perhaps, that the phrase does not simply suggest that something will be the greatest (as in, of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above the normal or average) — but that it will give birth to many more of its kind.
Imagine a scenario:
One country’s government issues a statement to another, in which they threaten repercussions for military action.
The statement is formal and precisely worded.
It uses a phrase translated from a statement made hundreds of years prior to describe a victory against a historical enemy — a powerful kingdom that was conquered.
Not only does it suggest that the consequences will be significant, but by invoking a maternal quality, it implies that it will only be the beginning. That it will give birth to more and more and more to come.
Imagine that the people in the government receiving that message do not care about words or history.
Imagine that nuanced implications and ancient empires are outside both the scope of interest and comprehension of the president and his advisors.
Imagine how superficially they will read that statement.
Imagine that they will be responding and reacting without a thorough command of a language or informed knowledge of complex foreign dynamics and tumbling dynasties.
Imagine the consequences the world would face if our lives were in the hands of the functionally illiterate and uneducated — and, perhaps most frightening of all, the uninterested.
Imagine these statements being made every day.
Imagine what would become of that government, that country, and those people.
Imagine a president who cannot even recall the name of the country he’s just bombed.
Imagine advisors with no relevant academic or professional experience — and with active conflict against their country’s best interest.
Imagine that it wasn’t hypothetical.
