So my sister just asked me about the English word for “changing a quote around a li’l bit.”
Her two examples were “to eat or not to eat” and “and on the seventh day… she had a doughnut.”
I was going to say “paraphrase”, but she pointed out that that’s more in line with “restating a quote with your own words.”
I went “meh, just call it ‘tweaking’ and you’ll be alright,” but she insists she needs le mot juste, as it were.
“To the Dope-mobile!”, I yelled, and here I am.
Sounds like a deliberate malapropism.
“Turn of a phrase”?
Not a paraphrase, because the meaning is not essentially the same as the original.
Not a malapropism, because the word choice is not only deliberate, but meaningful as stated.
I think the term Steken’s sister wants, at least for examples more like the second one, is “paraprosdokians.”
Sort of like mixing metaphors?
“I was misquoted”
I’ve occasionally heard used “to coin a phrase” when rearranging a famous quote.
No, that sounds like the family who owns the Armenian deli downtown.
I think what she is trying to do is take an “artistic or literary license” with those pieces of known works. Albeit, pretty poor ones at that.
Or “rephrasing” it. Although that sounds like it could be paraphrasing too.
I would have called this an allusion, though your sister’s second example (“and on the seventh day… she had a doughnut”) is probably closer to a paraproskodian.
As for the first (“to eat or not to eat”), according to Wikip., “snowclone” is the term for a well-known quote that provides a skeleton for cliched substitution. The best example is Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be”, where a speaker will humorously subsitute some other verb for be"; it’s done often enough that the substitution itself is a cliche. I’d also guess that for the SDMB, the tired Yakoff Smirnof reversal “In Soviet Russia, X Y('s) you.” is the most popular example:-)
[Smirnov]In Soviet Russia, the phrase coins you![/Smirnov]
“Quote the raven, ‘Nevermind…’” – (courtesy of a retired English teacher buddy from Alabama)
n/m answered already