There are two English-Language neologisms, which have fascinated me ever since I first heard of them, and both of which I wanted to incorporate into ideas for poems. The first of these were Eggcorns, which I managed to use in my piece ‘Autumn Eggcorns’, and the second is the concept of the Snowclone.

For those, who are unfamiliar, Snowclones are defined as clichés and/or phrasal templates, which take the form of phrases, which are so time-honoured and instantly familiar, that people have taken to replacing the descriptive elements of the phrase itself. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the template: Y is the new X, such as the most familiar: 40 is the new 30, or Red is the new Black.

Snowclones got their name in 2004 from the efforts of linguists Geoffrey Pullum and Glen Whitman, Whitman coining the actual name in response to Pullum’s idea for the quintessential Snowclone template:

If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.