Comments on: Name that Scheme

By: foo

foo — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:00:30 +0000

I don’t think that a “snowclone” has to be particularly “cliche”—the way the LL folks analyze it, it’s exactly the sort of schematic statement that K.H. is describing here: a sentence or phrase where key parts can be replaced by variables, essentially…

Anyway, I didn’t mean to be snarky. I suppose it’s fine to go ahead and name this particular form of a snowclone.

I just felt like, if you’re going to mention language-schemas on a blog these days, a link to the LL is definitely worthwhile.

By: vivian

vivian — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:31:21 +0000

I think there might be several species of this, perhaps needing different names. Sometimes it’s more sequential, but others are about shifting goals across fields or subfields. And sometimes the modesty is faux, others verite; some comparisons are more self-flattering than others.

(comment 6 is intelligible, but off by one level of abstraction: yes, if this becomes too much of a cliche, it will be one type of snowclone. Still needs a name though.)

I suggest something eponymous: healey-ocentrism?

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:19:09 +0000

Comment #6 makes no sense. This post was about the particular phenomenon of somebody saying “I thought I was X, but really I was Y.”

By: foo

foo — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:30:04 +0000

No one reads the Language Log? C'mon folks: "snowclones". They've been on this beat over there for a couple of years, now...

By: Harald Korneliussen

Harald Korneliussen — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:04:07 +0000

Triangularison seems reasonable to me.

What I wonder if you academic types have a word for is when an author makes some sort of compilation, and then generously inserts his own work, possibly as “anonymous” or “unknown”. Usually done in quotes, poetry and music. I don’t think you’d get away with it much elsewhere.

By: Arturis

Arturis — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 07:53:12 +0000

I’d like to call it scarecrowing, because I like the word. But to justify it, I could make up some story about the most famous use of this rhetorical device involving an elaborate reference to the Wizard of Oz.

Mostly, I like the parallels scarecrowing has to the straw-man fallacy.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:46:07 +0000

When I was younger I hoped I might be paralipsis, or even cataphasis, but then I discovered I was really feeble self-deprecation.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:19:11 +0000

I will refuse your generous cash award for this neologism.

I think that’s called paralipsis.

By: riffle

riffle — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:15:56 +0000

I nominate “triangularison.” The act of creating a trangularison is “triangularing”

If it’s not already obvious, the term is a blend of triangulate and compare.

Not quite perfect, since it doesn’t capture the sequential approximation implied in your scheme (Triasymptote?).

I will refuse your generous cash award for this neologism.