There's X and there's X (snow)clone

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Oct 8 02:04:57 UTC 2012


...or more exactly "There's X and there's X, and this is (one of) the latter".

Announcing the Sunday Night Football game, here is Al Michaels on Drew Brees breaking Johnny Unitas's 52 year old record by throwing a touchdown pass in a 48th consecutive game:

"Drew Brees setting one of those records for the ages…There are records and then there are *records*. This falls into the latter category."

I've heard this a lot, and even say it myself on occasion (e.g. "There are bad debate performances and (then) there are bad debate performances, and this is definitely one of the latter.")  Michaels did put some extra stress on the second "records", but I don't think it's obligatory; just putting it second seems (in the context of the snowclone) to present the second instantiation as a more extreme value along some scale of signficance.

LH

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