[Lexicog] Phrase: a long word with gaps?

[bolstar1]

Phrases -- in the form of idioms, proverbs, witticisms, quotable 
quotes, aphorisms, etc. virtually abound. It's no wonder that besides 
the relatively recent linguistic focus on corpora, phrases have taken 
on a similarly enervated importance. The basic noun phrase is 
virtually ubiquitous, though given short shrift in dictionary 
entries – as main entries. They are overwhelmingly subsumed under the 
root word. One point about this in this post. 
      Phrases, particularly idiomatic, non-literal phrases, usually 
have one meaning, one level of intensity, and usually one level of 
formality. If you are poorly understood in a comment, a polite 
response might be "I beg your pardon?" (But who actually takes the 
ords individually and literally and thinks of it as begging, or 
expects forgiveness (pardon) for not understanding.) Connotation, 
meaning, and contextual usage are clear. 
     Less formal would be "Pardon (me)?" (Note the British 
boyfriend/acquaintance of Elaine on Seinfeld, who took offense at 
Elaine's response to something she didn't hear him say clearly. She 
said, "What?", and he said, "You should have said, "Pardon?" (Two-
syllable words are more formal than one.) Not the kind of nicety that 
Elaine was enchanted with (or Americans in general, especially with 
acquaintance-level-or-higher relationships). A litany of possible 
phrases could have been used – "I'm sorry, could your repeat 
that?"; "Sorry, I didn't get that."; "Come again?"; "Say 
what?"; "Huh?"; or the abbreviated grunt "Mmm?" – with slight upward 
intonation, and slight twitch of the head in the direction of the 
speaker. 
     The point is, these rarely make it into standard dictionaries, 
or if they do, they are found in phrasal, or idiom dictionaries – and 
even then the entries are never exhaustive.        In English, when I 
say that you are barking up the wrong tree, it can only mean that you 
are accusing the wrong person about an offense, or possibly you are 
the wrong path to finding the instigator of an offense. It always has 
a negative connotation, and it always used in informal settings, with 
equals or inferiors in contextual status. 
    One way to do this without producing a ten-inch desk volume would 
be to list them in a phrasal sub-entry, in decreasing order of 
formality -- bing-bing-bing -- without explanation, perhaps under the 
root `sorry.' Granted, this is done, but without order, or sometimes 
thought to frequency, extremely important – as I mentioned in a 
previous post. My choice would be to form a separate entry, something 
intuitively understood -- self-explanatory in nature. In this case 
under the entry `say again.' 
     Hopefully, as the paperless revolution takes hold, a click of 
the mouse will take the searcher to a higher level of lexical 
nirvana, and afford the lowly phrase a place amongst the gods. After 
all (is said and done) are phrases simply multiple words with gaps? 

Scott Nelson




 
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