"Team Conan" and the "Team X" meme

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Wed Jan 13 08:17:44 UTC 2010


On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 3:15 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> In my latest Word Routes column, I consider the rapid success of "Team
> Conan" (in support of Conan O'Brien) and trace the development of the
> "Team X" meme more generally.
>
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2124/
>
> It's somewhat similar to "X Nation," discussed here a few years ago.
> Both are examples of what Arnold Zwicky calls "snowclonelet
> composites."
>
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2043

And of course now I realize that we also covered "Team X" a few years ago...

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0702C&L=ADS-L&P=R5182


--Ben Zimmer

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