Stuff and Nonsense: Collocations with and
Some words are often found together in pairs and trios and so on, technically known as collocations. One kind consists of two words joined with an and. Complete the following pairs with and. Answers are below.
bread and
huffed and
round and
hue and
Victoria and
here and
on and
the quick and the
black and
time and
kith and
pins and
open and
health and
foot and
skin and
dribs and
body and
come and
now and
Laurel and
over and
in and
part and
son and
bubble and
kiss and
hook and
touch and
home and
town and
give and
to and
off and
chip and
Ant and
These and combinations are so predictable and common we take them for granted. They illustrate another way in which English phrases have meanings that are distinct from the words taken separately; black by itself and blue by itself do not add up to the phrase black and blue meaning badly bruised, even if sometimes they can be used literally The magazine cover is black and blue. The meaning of pins and needles cannot be worked out by adding pins to needles. You can of course combine almost any two meanings with and to get a new phrase but it wont mean more than the sum of its two parts, as we see when we change the vocabulary of familiar phrases.
hue and fly
pins and scissors
touch and see
huffed and stuffed
skin and hide
black and pink
Some and phrases repeat a word with more or less the same meaning in a semi-rhyming way: kith and kin, huffed and puffed, time and tide. Sometimes the words have a close meaning relationship: bread and butter or skin and bone. At other times they are opposites: off and on, in sickness and in health or thick and thin. Many show the two-beat stress pattern common since Old English, found for instance in titles of books and films, War and Peace, The Dark Knight, Gone with the Wind, Mama Mia, etc.
Research by vocabulary experts Dongkwang Shin and Paul Nation has shown that overall the top ten collocations in English are: you know, I think, a bit, always used to, as well, a lot of (Noun), (Number) pounds, thank you, (Number) years, in fact.
Formerly at homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c(alias Virgin), which is now defunct