Hello again Agora,

Two questions someone may know the answer to.

Firstly, is there a word for the tendency when coupling two words together to always put one of those words first such as " fish and chips" rather than "chips and fish" or "black and white" rather than "white and black". I’m sure I have heard a word for this but can’t recall what it is.

Secondly, I remember watching the Oscars on television a number of years ago ( I had problems getting reception on the other channels ) and Warren Beatty received some kind of life time achievement award or some such thing. During his acceptance speech he recited a poem about the solitary man. Just curious if anyone knows what this poem was.

I appreciate both these queries are somewhat obscure.

Hallo Maximillian!

I would call fish and chips a ‘fixed phrase’, ‘formula’ or ‘fixed formula’. Although those titles don’t sound technical they are the narrow definition. I’ve heard some language analysis call these conjoints. Here, fish and chips are the two conjoins of a conjoint. This is a type of lexical collocation, but that term covers a lot more. You could even call them lexical syntagms if you like.

- Garzo.

[quote author=Maximillian link=board=idiom;num=1085558343;start=0#0 date=05/26/04 at 03:59:02]Hello again Agora,

Two questions someone may know the answer to.
. . .
Secondly, I remember watching the Oscars on television a number of years ago ( I had problems getting reception on the other channels ) and Warren Beatty received some kind of life time achievement award or some such thing. During his acceptance speech he recited a poem about the solitary man. Just curious if anyone knows what this poem was.

I appreciate both these queries are somewhat obscure.

I found [url=http://www.allisonsheart.com/solitary/solitary.html]"The Solitary Man" by Allison Chambers Coxsey
©2001[/url], but it’s only three years old.  How long ago was that Oscar show?

AHA!  Found it!

. . .  Now to those of you who may have heard rumor here or there of my life in Hollywood as a single man.  The poet wrote, "Only solitary men know the true joy of friendship.  Others have their family, but to a solitary man his friends are everything."  So I want to thank you my friends for leading me through those days and finally in fact leading me to Annette.  Please forgive me for making her unavailable to your movies four times, that’s four times. I would like to say I’ll try to do better, but you and I know that I won’t, so let’s say I’ll try to do less.  She is my treasure.  She has given me what I value most—her love.  And she has given me Kathlyn and Ben and Isabel and at the moment this much anticipated and very loved unnamed being who could actually join us any minute right here in the second row if I don’t wrap this up.   . . .

From the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award Acceptance Speech Presented to Warren Beatty on March 26, 2000 at [url=http://www.warrenbeattyfanpage.homestead.com/home.html]The Unofficial Warren Beatty
Fan Page[/url].

Dear Garzo, KatyBr and Stargazer,

Thankyou heaps again for all your help. As usual all my questions are resolved in the agora.

Cheers

Maximillian