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There exist certain fixed expressions which people use to convey quite specific meanings and (at least to me) always invoke a famous saying which is assumed to be common knowledge, such as

  • I am not a crook (AFAIK primarily American English), denoting that the speaker has done something dubious
  • I have a cunning plan (AFAIK primarily British English), denoting the proposition of an absurd/risky/generally bad idea

However, it seems to me that these phrases are not typical idioms because their meaning is at least partly compositional, unlike e.g. kick the bucket: Nevertheless, they invoke a more nuanced meaning than the composition of the words themselves implies, and there even seems to be some contrast between these expressions and a pure generative usage of the above phrases:

  • I'm not a crook! → The speaker is not a crook (unmarked meaning)
  • (said in a stilted voice) I am not a crook. → The speaker has done something dubious

Is there any terminology commonly used for describing this specific phenomenon?

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    Quotation? Allusion? Intertextuality? Commented Nov 19, 2016 at 13:51
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    They'd be considered cliches - overused set phrases. Cliches aren't just limited to ironic meanings. The examples you've given do seem to have pretty compositional meanings though they are now used more ironically. Commented Nov 19, 2016 at 16:25

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