Links are the new blogposts

I enjoyed this diagram showing uses (in 2005) of the device "[blank] is the new [blank]." I'm unconvinced that a diagram was really the best choice for displaying this data given that only a few of the terms, most notably colors, appear in multiple phrases. Still, it provides a wealth of new statements for you to toss off officiously when the subject comes up: "Oh, you didn't know? Cheese is the new morphine."

Also, on a (slightly) more serious note, although the site dismisses them as "peculiarly common," I think these phrases are a good thing. Richard Rorty claimed that metaphor was the language of change--the only way we have of beginning to grasp new concepts that exist outside our language. The "[blank] is the new [blank]" construction is a junior metaphor, forcing readers to break down the definitions we have of both concepts to isolate a thread that could connect them.*

*(no, this doesn't hold for every usage. For instance, I don't think Rorty would have applauded "Nickelback is the new Creed." He was more of a Counting Crows sort of guy.)

7 September 2007 - 7:32pm

LeisureArts says:

Hello -

Thanks for the critique. The diagram was the easiest way to present the phrases en masse, or so we decided...a straight list required too much of the viewer/reader...Using "peculiarly common" was in no way meant to dismiss the usage, it was really more an expression of wonder. Also, you may not be aware, as neither were we before some linguists commented on the project, that "[blank] is the new [blank]" is called a snowclone.

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