Tag Archives: Irreversible binomials

Words with Partners, Part ll: “Conjoined words” (or “irreversible binomials,” if we want to be more formal 🤓🤔)

Glosso is reposting a popular mini-series about “words with partners”.

The second* post of Glossophilia’s short series on “words with partners” looks at “conjoined words.” (When this post was first published just a few years ago the term commonly used was “Siamese twins”, but for hopefully obvious reasons this name has fallen out of favor.) In more formal linguistic terms we’re talking about “irreversible binomials”. Yeah, that sounds stuffy and boring, but these little binomials – of whom Tom and Jerry are a famous example – are fun when you get to know and understand them. 

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