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Aug 4, 2026
Some words go together like jelly and peanut butter… wait, that sounds super weird. A pair of words that is used in a fixed order in an idiomatic expression is called an ‘irreversible binomial.’ ‘Pe...
Summary
Irreversible binomials are pairs of words used in a fixed order in idiomatic expressions, like 'peanut butter and jelly.' Their order is determined by various patterns including alliteration, rhyming, phonetics, and historical usage, and sometimes extend to trinomials or proper nouns.
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