Overview
A snowclone is a phrasal template based on a cliché, substituting words to express a similar idea in a different context, often to humorous or sarcastic effect. For example, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's widely publicized phrase "the mother of all battles" in 1991 spawned such variations as "the mother of all traffic jams" or "mother of all bombs". The term snowclone was coined in 2004, derived from journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow.