The Solution
Did you guess ‘The Ship of Theseus?’ – well, if you did you’d be correct.
The “ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object.” (source)
And of course, this is the same concept as ‘Trigger’s Broom’ – where none of the original heads or handles remain, despite it still being ‘Trigger’s Broom’.
I’ve used the same idea with many jokes/quotes, like this one:
“Plagiarism of ‘patterns’ is the curse of the thinking classes.”
Which is based on Oscar Wilde’s “Work is the curse of the drinking classes.” which in turn is based upon “Work Is the Curse of the Drinking Classes”, attributed to Friedrich Engels.
You get the idea – the original content itself disappears, but there is an echo of familiarity as the structure remains the same.
