{"id":50987,"date":"2021-09-17T13:24:47","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T12:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=50987"},"modified":"2021-09-24T19:19:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T18:19:28","slug":"jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/09\/17\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Medical snowclones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/07\/30\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-tortured-phrases\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few weeks ago<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I wrote about tortured phrases, phrases that are meaningless or misleading because some of the words have been replaced by inappropriate synonyms. For example, calling artificial intelligence \u201cfake news\u201d. Snowclones are cousins of tortured phrases, but they don\u2019t use synonyms and they add meaning to the original.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019ve been looking in every English dictionary I know for the noun \u201csnowclone\u201d, and have found it in one only, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Collins English Dictionary<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, where it is defined as \u201ca verbal formula that is adapted for reuse by changing only a few words so that the allusion to the original phrase remains clear\u201d. Snowclones work like this: take a well-worn phrase and change the main ingredients, retaining the general structure. For example, \u201cgrey [is] the new black\u201d is a phrase that first appeared, according to the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oxford English Dictionary <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">OED<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">), in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 1986, when grey clothes had become fashionable, matching the previous popularity of black ones. Since then the trope \u201cX is the new Y\u201d has often been used to point to changes in attitudes. The most recent example cited in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">OED<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is \u201cstupid is the new smart\u201d. Duh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not uncommonly a myth is repeated often enough for it to become regarded as the truth. A good example is the false belief that there are many words for snow in languages of the Inuit and Yupik family, commonly known as \u201cEskimo\u201d. In 1982 Laura Martin, an anthropologist, presented a paper on the subject to the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, and in 1986 she wrote a paper that was published in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">American Anthropologist<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, under the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1525\/aa.1986.88.2.02a00080\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">title<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u2018\u201cEskimo Words for Snow\u201d: A Case Study in the Genesis and Decay of an Anthropological Example\u2019. She traced the idea back to a casual 1911 description by Franz Boas of four terms for snow: aput (snow on the ground), qana (falling snow), piqsirpoq (drifting snow), and qimuqsuq (a snow drift). She then reviewed how the idea had blossomed though misinterpretation, culminating in a 1975 assertion in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aspects of Language and Culture<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by Carol M Eastman that \u201cEskimo languages have many words for snow\u201d, in the context of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/02\/14\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-painkillers-a-linguistics-based-approach\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sapir-Whorf hypothesis<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Suddenly, nothing happened. The myth persisted. So in 1989 the linguistics expert Geoffrey Pullum published a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4047733\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">paper<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Natural Language and Linguistic Theory<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. He called it \u201cThe great Eskimo vocabulary hoax\u201d and highlighted Martin\u2019s work (\u201can embarrassing saga of scholarly sloppiness\u201d). Nothing continued to happen. The myth persists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then in October 2003 Pullum <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/itre.cis.upenn.edu\/~myl\/languagelog\/archives\/000049.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">noted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, after another linguistics expert, Mark Liberman, had pointed it out to him, that the formula \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If Eskimos have [N] words for snow&#8230;\u201d was being used as a preamble to other similar claims, for instance that Germans have as many words for bureaucracy (Pullum&#8217;s example, taken from an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2003\/10\/09\/breathe-or-be-strangled\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">article<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Economist<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">). Pullum called these \u201cbleached conditionals\u201d, but a few days later he <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/itre.cis.upenn.edu\/~myl\/languagelog\/archives\/000061.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">reported<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> another example, taken from the movie <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alien<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, in which the strap-line \u201cIn space no one can hear you scream\u201d was being adapted by replacing \u201cscream\u201d with words such as belch, bitch, dream, drink, explode, and many others, including \u201cblog\u201d. A new term was needed to describe this meme, but Pullum confessed himself unable to suggest one and asked others to do so. In January 2004 Glen Whitman <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/itre.cis.upenn.edu\/~myl\/languagelog\/archives\/000350.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">responded<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with the suggestion \u201csnowclone\u201d, taking his cue from the niveous Inuit connection, and the term has stuck. The linguistics literature is now snowed in with examples.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medical snowclones are not hard to find. For example, taking his cue from the title of a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love in the Time of Cholera<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the outgoing editor in chief of the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">American Journal of Medical Genetics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> published an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7276842\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">editorial<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> last year with the snowclonal title \u201cLove in the time of covid-19\u201d; the same trope has been used in book titles and to label pictures showing couples embracing, with masks and gloves added in pencil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A common visual snowclone plays on graphic designer Milton Glaser\u2019s famous \u201cI \u2665 NY\u201d logo, which he devised in 1977 and 20 years ago redesigned as \u201cI \u2665 NY more than ever\u201d, in the wake of the events of 9\/11. An amusing snowcloned version of this proclaims that \u201cI \u2665\u2665\u2665 polygamy\u201d. And the heart can be replaced with any other image you like (Figure 1).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This prompts me to suggest some visual medical snowclones (Figure 2).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by the way, did you know that the Inuit have 200 different words for snowclones?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50989\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"97\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21.jpg 560w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21-300x52.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50990\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"493\" height=\"254\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_2.jpg 493w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_2-300x155.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 493px) 100vw, 493px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Jeffrey Aronson<\/strong>\u00a0is a clinical pharmacologist, working in the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford\u2019s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is also president emeritus of the British Pharmacological Society.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong>\u00a0none declared.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50992\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"634\" height=\"2086\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3.jpg 634w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3-91x300.jpg 91w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3-311x1024.jpg 311w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3-467x1536.jpg 467w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/09\/aronson_17_sep_21_3-622x2048.jpg 622w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 634px) 100vw, 634px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I wrote about tortured phrases, phrases that are meaningless or misleading because some of the words have been replaced by inappropriate synonyms. For example, calling artificial [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/09\/17\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":38359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5762],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jeff-aronsons-words"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . 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For example, calling artificial [...]More...","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/09\/17\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones\/","og_site_name":"The BMJ","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bmjdotcom\/","article_published_time":"2021-09-17T12:24:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-09-24T18:19:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":540,"height":350,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2017\/02\/Jeffrey-Aronson.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"kellybrendel","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@bmj_latest","twitter_site":"@bmj_latest","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"kellybrendel","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/09\/17\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/09\/17\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-medical-snowclones\/"},"author":{"name":"kellybrendel","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/#\/schema\/person\/d634d72476ce60014b19ed2db4ae3760"},"headline":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . 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