X is the New Y

Post-Friday, pre-vacation blogging.

More on the invention of fake words. Here's a highly word-geeky but professionally done example: snowclone, meaning a cliché template that can be fitted with words as needed, such as:

"If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z."

I find this a very pleasing fake word for three reasons:

1. It's a clever play on words, referring to the Eskimo/snow example above.
   
2. It's a subtle metaphor, evoking a flavorless medium being lazily filled with syrup to create something cheap and nutritionally empty.
   
3. It creates a concept, albeit a small one, where none existed before.

I think this is the standard to which all fake words should aspire: unique and referential on different levels.