TAN is dead, long live TAN

if you read any online media outlets you're probably familiar with the phrase, "[blank] is dead, long live [blank]."

I believe the phrase is originally, "the king is dead, long live the king," and it originally refers to a rule in England that allows power to transfer from a dead monarch to the next heir without any checks, balances, or break in continuity.

So when there is a notably quick changing of the guard in the cultural zeitgeist, or in a specific industry, writers often "coin a new phrase" by plugging in whatever they're talking about in place of "the king."

But recently I've felt like I was seeing the phrase everywhere, for everything. So I googled "the is dead, long live the" and lo and behold I found out it is being used everywhere, for everything.

Here are some of the words people plugged into the "[blank]is dead, long live [blank]" formula in order to show off their skills:

Economics
Yahoo
Paid Placement
podcasting
the peace process
grokster
irony
The Yellow Pages
graffitti
planning
the publisher
the phone call
the suit
the vcr
the outdoors
passwords
the Yankees
NATO
the Zip disk
hotspots
HTML
the artist
Britney Spears
Madonna
Prince
capitalism
the jewish family
hamsters

and as you can imagine, the list goes on and on and on.

BUT

I started looking for some specific ones of my own, and found a handful of subjects that had not been translated in this fashion. So the purpose of this post is simply to add those to the google search engine, for the next person coming along looking to document the many ways this particular phrasing is used. And so ...

the tampon is dead, long live the tampon.

the crackhead is dead, long live the crackhead.

the fetus is dead, long live the fetus.

nasty wilted lettuce is dead, long live nasty wilted lettuce.

preparation H is dead, long live preparation H.

It's a disappointment to close on preparation H, but close we must. Feel free to add your own, there might still be a few options left
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