All these gates are examples of a snowclone, a type of cliched phrase defined by the linguist Geoffrey Pullum as "a multi-use, customisable, instantly recognisable, timeworn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants".
In many languages, including English, intonation serves a grammatical function, distinguishing one type of phrase or sentence from another.
Now, which other type of phrase commonly goes with a superlative?
One day, Battle.net will be, and I hate to use the phrase, a type of "social network" for Blizzard gamers.
The title "Blurred Lines" is the type of phrase you hear muttered by the defence in rape trials.
Yet, removed from its context, it seems like the type of phrase that could be printed on the cocktail napkins at an Irish pub — "a spell of riot" merely a few too many drinks, ensuing good fun, and maybe, if you can remember to write it down, the stimulation of some inner genius.
The second type of phrase is the trill.
This concept, of a type of marketplace dealing in words and phrases, led Kennedy to coin the title Echo Bazaar, but he found that as he developed the idea it took on a different shape entirely.
To use a modern organisational phrase, it was a type of co-creation.
The first documented use of the phrase to describe a type of rock music identified to date appears in a review by Barry Gifford.
