Go woke, go broke : the cultural factors behind the birth of a modern proverb – and the phraseological tools to tackle this modern challenge

Abstract This paper is a case study that tackles one of the most elusive aspects of phraseology: the birth of phraseological units (PUs). It investigates the birth of a modern proverb, which is rooted in the political and cultural clash between conservatives and progressives, and which asserts that companies or works that are deemed too progressive (“woke”) suffer revenue losses (“broke”) as a result. After vital preambles on proverb definition, political polarisation, and the semantic rift behind the term woke , online corpora are used to identify the precise steps in the birth and propagation of the phraseme, from its coinage to the propagating agents and the ingredients that boosted its spread. Its main functions are also described, as well as the reasons behind its numerous variants and modifications. The analysis draws from the theoretical framework developed in Villers (2018, 2022) and adapted from the memetic approach (Heylighen and Chielens 2009), which is particularly suited to highlight the weight of cultural and political values on the dissemination of phraseological language. It is therefore situated within the field of modern language change and is intended to provide a model for similar studies in the future.