blend: "slowly by slowly"

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:09 PM -0600 12/17/03, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>   For those interested in syntactic blending, here's one I heard the
>other day.
>A fellow named Rick Francona was being interviewed on MSNBC about
>interrogating Saddam Hussein. Getting him to reveal his secrets
>involves a gradual process of wearing him down, and during Francona's
>explanation, he said that "slowly by slowly" (something will happen,
>I forget just what).
>
>   This is clearly a blend of "slowly" and "step by step."
>
>Gerald Cohen

With maybe a smidgen of "slowly but surely".

Larry