terminology - "pros and cons", "black and white", "ups and downs". Always in a fixed sequence, is there a word or phrase for these?

Is there a word or phrase for two nouns or adjectives joined by a conjunction (usually "and") in a fixed sequence?

alive and well

fast and furious

hat and gloves

pen and pencil

law and order

wit and wisdom

salt and pepper

bacon and eggs

horse and carriage

Adam and Eve

ladies and gentlemen

loud and clear

heads or tails

yes or no

dead or alive

Answer

Yes, they're usually called Irreversible Binomials - Binomials for short - or Binominals. (Unfortunately, Binomials is also a mathematical term). I've read about them under the term freezes as used by John Lawler in the comments, but the majority of the literature and also grammar references that talk about this, that I'm aware of, use the term Binomials.

Binomials have two main characteristics. The first, as noted by the Original Poster, is that the order is usually perceived as fixed. The second is that the two terms are normally the same part of speech, though not always Nouns. Three of the examples in the Original Poster's list were Adjective pairings: alive and well, fast and furious, dead or alive. You can find verbs too:

duck and dive

stand and deliver

pushing and shoving

wait and see

and of course prepositions:

above and beyond

in and out

up and down

round and round (I'm not sure that should be in there, but it is irreversible!)

People are still writing books about them: The (Ir)reversibility of English Binomials: Corpus, constraints, developments ...

And of course they're a hot topic for EFL students everywhere who don't want to get their forks and knives the wrong way round! BBC Binomials

Here's a Wikipedia entry that also calls them Siamese twins as well as binomial pairs: Siamese pairs, binomials, freezes

Binomials occur in many languages and are often the subject of academic research. There's also trinomials of course:

men, women and children.

sex and drugs and rock'nroll (though that's really a 4-nomial in my opinion).

in no way, shape or form

blood, sweat and tears

tall, dark and handsome

me, myself and I

So, you've got a choice here: Siamese pairs, freezes, irreversible binomials, binomials, binomial pairs or binominals! But don't forget trinomials too.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

Notes

Search This Blog