Word combinations and fixed expressions in English
Many multi-word lexical units (MWLU) or word combinations function as structural or
semantic units in English.
The study of such fixed expressions is known in linguistics as phraseology and the
lexical units studied may be referred to as phrasemes.
The terminology in this field, both in English and in Slovene, often varies from one
scholar to another. Similarly, scholars often disagree about how to categorise different
kinds of expression.
IDIOMS
Idiom: ‘an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meaning of its
constituent elements’ (Webster's dictionary)
Idioms are relatively invariable expressions with a meaning that cannot be predicted or is
not entirely derivable from the meanings of the parts (Biber at al Grammar of English)
Primary characteristics of idioms (Moon 1992):
1. lexicogrammatical fixedness
They have a fixed structure, except for normal grammatical changes:
e.g. kick the bucket, kicked the bucket
They are fixed with regard to content words
e.g. NOT ‘ kick the pail’ or 'boot the bucket' or ‘hit the bucket with your foot’
And often with regard to word order:
e.g. NOT It's raining dogs and cats
Can't change them to get opposite meaning:
e.g. skating on thin ice
NOT 'skating on thick ice'
In some cases, there is quite a range of variation possible:
you’re pulling my leg
I’m sure to get my leg pulled about this
he’s a real leg-puller
this is not a leg-pull
And there are alternative versions of some idioms:
a lot of water has flowed/passed/gone under/beneath the bridge
have green fingers / a green thumb [Br vs Am Eng]
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2. semantic opacity or non-compositionality
The meaning of the whole is more than the sum of the meanings of the parts, i.e.
word-by-word interpretation doesn't work
e.g. spill the beans, a yellow streak
3. institutionalisation:
The process by which a string of words or formulation becomes recognised and
accepted as a lexical item of the language. Also known as lexicalisation.
It will then appear in dictionaries or reference books and be accepted by users of
the language.
Note that items may stop being current, e.g. put one's eyes together.
Idiomaticity is ‘a universal linguistic phenomenon in natural languages’.
Idioms are unique to a language, but this doesn't mean we can’t translate them.
They are 'ready-made' utterances that have to be learnt as a whole.
Under the heading of idioms we might also include other multi-word expressions such as
proverbs (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush), sayings (boys will be boys),
frozen similes (as drunk as a lord; as sober as a judge), social formulae (How do you do?)
Idioms have an important pragmatic function. They are used to convey attitudes rather
than factual information. They are more common in conversation (especially fictional
dialogue) and informal language; also in journalism. They are infrequent in academic
texts and we would not expect them in legal or instructional texts.
Idioms can represent many different kinds of structural units:
Noun phrase
piece of cake
slap in the face
wet blanket
black sheep
binomial:
flesh and blood
trinomial:
blood, sweat and tears
Verb + Noun phrase
miss the boat
face the music
hold your horses
bury the hatchet
waste one’s breath
smell a rat
Verb + prepositional phrase
beat around/about the bush
be out of one’s depth
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cold feet
blue film
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Prepositional phrase
at your fingertips
from the horse’s mouth
on the tip of one’s tongue
Wh-questions
how do you do?
what on earth...?
Adverbial
through thick and thin
tooth and nail
high and dry
Adjectival
black and blue
up in the air
cut and dried
Sentence idioms
Usually proverbs or sayings:
All that glitters is not gold.
METAPHORICAL MEANING
All idioms are in a sense metaphors, which may be more or less transparent i.e. easy to
understand. These are not clear-cut categories but a cline from transparent to opaque.
(semi-) transparent metaphors / figurative idioms
institutionalised, but the reader/hearer should be able to decode it using real world
knowledge (partially semantically motivated)
behind someone’s back, breathe life into something, pack one's bags, on your
bike, slip of the tongue, to be a minefield, thorn in one's side, lose one’s head,
make up / change one’s mind, (have a) heart of gold, skate on thin ice, grasp the
nettle, rock the boat, take steps, waste one's breath, bring to light, follow a path,
opaque metaphors / pure idioms
decoding or interpretation is difficult – you need to be told (semantically non-motivated)
pecking order, throw in the towel, smell a rat, put the cat among the pigeons, bite
the bullet, snuff it, red herring, chew the fat, shoot the breeze, fly off the handle,
by hook or by crook, spill the beans, a few sandwiches short of a picnic
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FREQUENCY
Idioms are probably less frequent than we think.
Probably more common in fiction and fictional dialogue (films, TV – used to develop
character) than in real-life conversation e.g. hold your horses.
Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (1.7m words): only 8 idioms occurred
more than 10 times (another 107 1.2–2.4 times per million)
Moon estimates that multi-word expressions make up 4-5% of words in her corpora (of
these 43% anomalous collocations, 21% formulae, 36% metaphors)
Depends on the kind of texts the corpus includes e.g. broadsheet journalism seems to
feature more multi-word expressions like a leopard does not change its spots, the die is
cast, in the doldrums, make a mockery of, do the trick, get one's act together, (open up) a
can of worms, ivory tower, icing on the cake, put all one's eggs in one basket
Idioms often used by politicians in relation to the EU: catch/miss the boat/train, get on
the fast track
Frequent in horoscopes (generality and writer-reader relationship): Honesty is the best
policy today… Don't pretend to be something you're not or you could end up with egg on
your face… Take with a pinch of salt whatever you see or hear
Pragmatic function
Idioms should be used in a functionally appropriate way (otherwise unnatural), e.g.
evaluation, paraphrase
e.g.
Should I go by car or train? Well, it's swings and roundabouts.
e.g.
Will he get elected? He doesn't stand a cat/snowball in hell's chance.
e.g.
We spent hours trying to find it with no success.
So, it was a wild goose chase?
e.g.
Her murder mysteries are full of red herrings.
e.g.
The exam was a piece of cake.
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TRANSLATING IDIOMS
There are no rules, everything is dependent on context, but a general guideline is to try to
find a similar idiomatic expression in the target language. If you cannot, then you have to
resort to a paraphrase of some kind.
1. idiom with the same content and meaning
a dog’s life – pasje življenje
a black sheep – črna ovca
show a red card to – pokazati rdeči karton
like a red rag to a bull – kot rdeča cunja na bika
as poor as a church mouse – reven kot cerkvena miš
2. idiom with different content, but same meaning
like a bull in a china shop – kot slon v trgovini s porcelanom
buy a pig in a poke – kupiti mačka v žaklju
hot potato – vroči kostanj
throw in the towel – vreči puško v koruzo
it's no use crying over spilt milk – po toči zvoniti je prepozno
3. paraphrase
hit the bottle – začeti piti
red-letter day – zelo pomemben dan
imeti krompir – be lucky
dati [komu] košarico – say no to
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PHRASAL VERBS
Some scholars treat lexically opaque phrasal verbs as idioms, some do not.
How do they differ from other multi-word verbs?

phrasal verbs (V + adv particle)
pick up, carry out, ask out
NB: adverbial particles have core spatial or locative meanings (out, in, up, down, on, off)
BUT also an extended meaning



prepositional verbs (V + prep)
phrasal-prepositional verbs (V + particle + prep)
other multi-word verb constructions:
V + NP (+ prep)
V + prep phrase
V+V
look at, listen to
get away with
take a look (at)
take into account
make do
Discuss different uses of pick up:
Phrasal and prepositional verbs are usually single semantic units
Often have a single verb counterpart:
carry out
>
find out
>
look at
>
NB: all the structural patterns above can also occur as free combinations where each
element has separate grammatical and semantic status.
FREE COMBINATIONS
(proste besedne zveze)
Or ‘loose association’: words joined together in line with general syntactic rules but
freely allowing substitution.
e.g.. He decided on the train = made a decision while on the train (free combination)
= chose the train, rather than the bus (phrasal verb)
The only ‘rules’ are:
grammatical selectional restrictions
-
*he has been lived
*they told it was true
semantic selectional restrictions (no contradiction, incongruity)
*kill a corpse
*a married bachelor
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PROVERBS & SAYINGS
Proverbs are traditional sayings or maxims with a moral or ethical element based on
common sense or experience. They tend to be short and memorable are often
metaphorical.
Proverbs are idiomatic and are often referred to as idioms in dictionaries and reference
books:
every dark cloud has a silver lining
you can't have your cake and eat it
people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
NB: not commonly used, but when they are often in a shortened form (truncation):
it’s the last straw (that breaks the camel's back
the early bird (that catches the worm)
don't count your chickens (before they're hatched)
a bird in the hand( is worth two in the bush)
birds of a feather (flock together)
make hay (while the sun shines)
Sometimes the term saying is used for commonly used non-metaphorical expressions:
first come first served*
practice makes perfect
no news is good news
money is the root of all evil / money makes the world go round
actions speak louder than words
Some sayings are referred to as truisms (self-evident, hardly worth saying) and these are
often used as filler expressions:
enough is enough
boys will be boys
you live and learn
* Note that transformations are possible: on a first-come-first-served basis [adjectival]
Typical stylistic features of proverbs:
alliteration (Forgive and forget)
parallelism (Nothing ventured, nothing gained)
rhyme
(When the cat is away, the mice will play)
ellipsis
(Once bitten, twice shy)
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TRANSLATING PROVERBS/SAYINGS
The problem may be one of stylistic marking
Example:
Koenig je zdrsnil bliže k meni. “Bi rad kaj spumpal iz mene, Bleichert? Bi tudi ti
rad trosil grde reči o Fritzieu?”
“Ne, samo radoveden sem.”
“Radovednost je pokončala mačko. Zapomni si to.”
(Črna dalija, James Ellroy, DZS 2000, p. 130)
SIMILES
(primere)
Institutionalised comparisons signalled by as or like.
Most are also seen as clichés – a phrase or sentence that has lost its impact, originality etc
from over-use...
as blind as a bat
as good as gold (behaviour), ~ new (condition)
as sober as a judge, as drunk as a lord, as pissed as a newt
crazy like a fox
as old as the hills
as different as chalk and cheese
as like as two peas in a pod
as cool as a cucumber
as fit as a fiddle
as thick as a brick/ two short planks
as thick as thieves
as easy as falling off a log
drink like a fish
live like a king
sleep like a log
be like a duck out of water
(SOCIAL) FORMULAE
Routine (fixed) strings of words with special discoursal function.
Often devoid of much lexical content.
when all is said and done
at the end of the day
at this moment in time
all things being equal
you can say that again
I thought you’d never ask
call it a day
you mark my words
I won't say no
I'm sorry to say
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How do you do?
What’s new?
Long time, no see!
you know
not exactly
CATCH-PHRASES
A phrase attributable to a particular person, usually from a book, film or television
programme, that passes into popular use:
We are not amused
Go ahead, make my day
A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
When the going gets tough, the tough get going
The buck stops here
And now for something completely different
A similar kind of fixed expression is a slogan, which may be associated with a particular
person (Yes we can) or campaign (Drinka pinta milka day), or the origins may be unclear
(Power to the people).
QUOTATIONS
Shakespeare:
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger
A fool's paradise
A foregone conclusion
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A sea change
A sorry sight
All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold
All's well that ends well
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As merry as the day is long
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Bag and baggage
Beast with two backs
Brevity is the soul of wit
Eaten out of house and home
Fight fire with fire
For ever and a day
Foul play
Good riddance
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Green eyed monster
Heart's content
High time
Hoist by your own petard
I have not slept one wink
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
It beggar'd all description
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Milk of human kindness
More fool you
My salad days
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Off with his head
Pound of flesh
Rhyme nor reason
Salad days
Send him packing
Set your teeth on edge
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
Star crossed lovers
The course of true love never did run smooth
The crack of doom
The game is afoot
The game is up
There's method in my madness
Thereby hangs a tale
This is the short and the long of it
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Vanish into thin air
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
The Bible (usually the King James version from 1611)
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
A man after his own heart
A thorn in the flesh
All things must pass
All things to all men
Am I my brother's keeper?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
As old as the hills
As you sow so shall you reap
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Ashes to ashes dust to dust
At his wits end
Beat swords into ploughshares
Bite the dust
Born again
By the skin of your teeth
Can a leopard change its spots?
Eat drink and be merry
Fall from grace
Flesh and blood
Forbidden fruit
From strength to strength
Give up the ghost
How are the mighty fallen
Living off the fat of the land
Man does not live by bread alone
No rest for the wicked
Sour grapes
Spare the rod and spoil the child
The apple of his eye
The blind leading the blind
The fly in the ointment
The powers that be
The salt of the earth
The writing is on the wall
To cast the first stone
Woe is me
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COLLOCATIONS
Habitual associations between lexical words so that the words co-occur more frequently
than they would by chance – statistical associations rather than fixed expressions.
Individual words in a collocation retain their own meaning.
At the simplest level, words co-occur with others from the same semantic field:
e.g. make coffee, bake a cake, roast a joint, fried egg, scrambled egg, poached egg
A second kind if where a word associates with a class or category of item (restricted):
e.g. rancid + butter, fat, foods containing butter or fat
Or where a word has a particular meaning in collocation with others
e.g. face + the truth, the facts, a problem
e.g. meet + requirements, demands
There are also syntactic collocations (sometimes known as colligations), where a verb,
adjective or nominalization requires complementation [see grammatical collocations]
Words with similar meanings are often distinguished by their preferred collocations.
e.g.
small
little
Defined by The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations as 'recurrent semi-fixed
word combinations'.
NB: some of the ‘collocations’ in BBI could be listed under idioms:
e.g. vicious circle, charmed circle, square the circle
Can be divided into grammatical and lexical collocations:
Grammatical collocations
Have a dominant word (N, adjective / participle, V)
+ preposition or grammatical construction (clause, infinitive)
In the BBI listed under the dominant word.
e.g. (prepositions)
e.g. (gram. constr.)
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respect for, amazed at, by chance, by accident, for luck,
curious about, apathy towards, a gift for, fond of, deaf to,
delighted that
be eager to do something, be ready to go, be necessary for
s.one to do s.thing
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Lexical collocations
Consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs – usually not prepositions, infinitives or
clauses.
There is no dominant word.
Examples:
- inflict a wound, crack a smile, make coffee, accept responsibility, declare war,
restore order, administer an oath, sit an exam, commit suicide, meet a need,
pose a question, issue a warning, impose a fine, form a line, reverse a
decision, annul a marriage, ease tension, squander money
(V+N)
- professional misconduct, fatal accident, reckless driving, weak tea, golden
opportunity, best wishes, dead loss, chronic alcoholic, rough estimate (adj+N)
[may inc noun as adj:
house arrest, jet engine, land reform]
- wolves howl, demonstrators march, alarms go off, blood circulates
(N+V)
- flock of sheep, gang of thieves, swarm of bees, flock of birds, pack of dogs,
pride of lions, piece of advice/information, bunch of flowers, article of
clothing, act of violence
(N+N)
- deeply absorbed, terribly upset, highly desirable, strictly accurate, intimately
acquainted, hopelessly lost, sound asleep
(adv+adj)
- argue heatedly, sleep soundly, discuss calmly, apologise humbly, affect
profoundly, appreciate sincerely (V + adv)
COLLOCATIONS – DEGREES OF FIXEDNESS
NB: no clear divisions, more of a cline…
1. Unrestricted: lexical item open to partnership with wide range of items
take
run
2. Semi-restricted: number of items more determined:
harbour a doubt / a grudge / an escaped convict (a fugitive)
stark naked / staring mad / choice
3. Restricted:
amicable divorce/agreement
unmitigated disaster
unrequited love
pitch black
innocent bystander
run amok
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(irreversible) binomials
ups and downs, rock and roll, profit and loss, home and abroad, bed and
breakfast, men and women, women and children, cause and effect, fruit and
veg(etables), pros and cons, wear and tear, black and white, kith and kin
adjectival patterns
alive and well/kicking, hit and miss, hit and run (driver), safe and sound, quick
and easy, ready and willing, willing and able, neat and tidy, dim and distant
(past), hard and fast (rule)
TRANSLATING COLLOCATIONS
Languages divide reality up in different ways; 'dictionary equivalents' of single words
frequently misleading.
Recognise the collocation and establish its meaning
Determine whether, in this context, it is translatable by a collocation, by a single word, or
by a free combination.
Examples:
angleški jezik
rdeča barva
gorski svet
doprsni kip
prednostna naloga
uvodna beseda
odkimati
skomigniti
pokazati s prstom
obuti se / sezuti se
težki časi, težko delo, težka odločitev, težek udarec, težko življenje
lahko breme, lahka rana, lahki tobak, lahka zmaga, lahka ženska
huda bolečina, huda bolezen, hudi časi, hud jezik, hud mraz, huda napaka,
huda nesreča, hud pes, huda poškodba, hud promet, huda suša, hud veter,
huda vročina, huda zima
slab človek, slaba kakovost, slab kilometer, slaba točka, slaba tolažba, slaba ura,
slabo znanje, slab zrak
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