For the snowclone files: "What is this 'X'...?"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

For Arnold and any other snowclone connoisseurs out there... I recently
noticed a snowclone with two basic variants:

"What is this 'X' (that) you speak of?"
"What is this 'X' of which you speak?"

One can find examples all the way back to the early days of Usenet:

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/net.misc/msg/da67fe94b296df17
net.misc - Aug 24 1983, 1:06 pm
There has been a lot of net discussion about "toilet paper" recently. Just
what is this "toilet paper" of which you speak?  Where can I find it?
-----

The origin seems to be in the collective memory of big-screen and
small-screen science fiction from the '50s and '60s. It has the sound of a
cliched line spoken by an alien to a human exploring other planets (often
the vocative "earthling" is appended). In such "first contact" scenes,
aliens can of course speak perfect English yet lack certain key concepts
and their associated significations, which the humans can then explain.
(It's also possible to imagine the line spoken in intra-human settings
involving time travel, lost tribes, unfrozen cavemen, etc.)

The fronted version with "...of which you speak" adds an extra component
of alien formality (cf. Yoda's inverted syntax, as discussed on Language
Log). I haven't found any firm evidence that either version was actually
used in classic sci-fi on film or TV.

Closely related to this snowclone is the line, "'Kiss'? What is 'kiss'?"--
emblematic of campy interplanetary romance, which of course is invariably
between a male human and a female alien. (It was a favorite catchphrase of
the crew on _Mystery Science Theater 3000_.) The line is often attributed
to Altaira (Anne Francis) in _The Forbidden Planet_ (1956) or to one of
Kirk's conquests in the original series of _Star Trek_.  This was
investigated on the rec.arts.sf.tv newsgroup, and they've ruled out _The
Forbidden Planet_ and _Star Trek_:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.tv/browse_frm/thread/ac73f4fe4affc423

It's probably just a spurious quotation, along the lines of "Play it
again, Sam" or "Judy, Judy, Judy" (or for that matter "Beam me up,
Scotty"). _Star Trek_ did, however, have many "What is 'X'?" scenes, most
notoriously in the episode "Spock's Brain", which had the immortal line,
"'Brain' and 'brain'! What is 'brain'?" And here is a partial transcript
of another episode featuring cross-planetary misunderstanding, "The
Apple":

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http://www.voyager.cz/tos/epizody/39theappletrans.htm
These are the people of Vaal.
Where are the others?
There are no others.
The, uh, children.
Children?
Ha ha. You use unknown words to me.
Little ones like yourselves.
They grow.
Ahh! Replacements.
None are necessary.
They are forbidden by Vaal.
But when a man and woman fall in love ...
"Love." Ha ha ha ha.
Strange words -- children, love.
What is love?
Love is ...
when two people are ...
Ahh ...
Yes. The holding. The touching.
Vaal has forbidden this.
-----


--Ben Zimmer