Made out of people

Snowclones for all

The term "snowclone" was coined for the fill-in-the-blank ... things ... that keep appearing around the net. You know. Like things that are "the new black."

For the nonce, let's look at
* The Hidden Epidemic
* The Second-Oldest Profession
and
* Considered Harmful

For a while, one of my friends was researching--um, some STD. I don't remember which. Chlaymdia, maybe? Anyway, the rhetoric was all about Chlamydia: The Hidden Epidemic.

Google searching for hidden epidemic tells us there's a lot of them:
* Sexually transmitted diseases, both general and specific
* Infertility in general, and PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) in particular
* Compulsive gambling
* Chronic pain
* Seniors with drug addiction
* Chronic fatigure syndrome
* Foot-and-mouth disease
* Hypo-thyroidism
* Lyme disease

--

While I'm at it, I'm interested in the second oldest profession, too--I don't remember what kicked off that particular interest. Perhaps just running into Erma Bombeck's book on a bookshelf?

It seems there's a lot of them, too.
* Motherhood
* Intelligence and spying
* Music, or art
* Design
* Politics
* Veterinary medicine
* The covert arms trade
* Dowsing
* Advertising

(There are far fewer "third-oldest" professions: cleaning, lawyers, writing romance novels, and maybe a few others.)

---

A number of years ago, Dijkstra wrote an essay on structured programming called "Go-To Considered Harmful.".

I don't know if he was the first to use the phrase. But now it's common among computer scientists trying to warn each other of their own pet peeves:
* "Reply-To munging"
* Recursive make
* csh programming
* XSL

And, of course, "Weblogging considered Harmful."

(DiveIntoMark has a much better list. I'll let him do the hard work.)