"Location, location, location": a proverb?

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 28, 2007, at 6:13 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On 5/28/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>>
>> If "Location, location, location" can rightly be called a proverb,
>> then is it this exact
>> saying or just the "X, x, x" formula that's proverbial?
>>
>> Last night on _Cold Case_ (CBS-TV; a rerun, I believe) the saying
>> was "Reputation,
>> reputation, reputation"--uttered as if it's proverbial. What other
>> such retriplications (?!)
>> exist?
>
> See Arnold Zwicky's Language Log post on the X3 snowclone (which
> summarizes ADS-L discussion on the topic):
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001673.html

a couple more:

AZ, 1/20/07: Zippy on formulaic language ["logo, logo, logo"]:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004070.html

AZ, 5/1/07: Context, context, context:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004455.html

i have a number of other instances.  here are two recent ones:

13. William Safire, “On Language” column, NYT Magazine 4/1/07, p. 20:

A collocation is a placement of words next to each other to form a
familiar phrase, like baseball’s _heavy hitter_ or golf’s _maddening
duffer_.  Lexicographers use the word a lot; our most valuable
element in evaluating the worth of a noun phrase is collocation,
collocation, collocation.

14.  Jack Hitt, A Writer’s Coach, p. 20:

A running gag among writing coaches is that the three biggest writing
problems are focus, focus, focus.

arnold

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