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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.


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