Chapter 10. The only good snowclone is a dead snowclone

Abstract

This chapter proposes that some snowclones (schematic stock phrases) display some degree of proverbiality to the extent that it can be argued that they occupy a grey zone between proverbs proper and semi-schematic idioms. Drawing on theoretical insights from construction grammar and cognitive-semantic approaches to socio-cultural cognition, this chapter also presents three case studies of snowclones within the English language that are based on corpus-data and corpus-linguistic methodology. More specifically, this chapter studies patterns of use, such as productivity, epistemic status marking, and co-occurrence with co-textual topics, of the only good X is a dead X, one does not simply X into Y, and in X no one can hear you Y so as to address their potential proverbial nature.