Leoxicon is about to clock up ten thousand visitors and I thought I should do something to celebrate this achievement. At first I thought I'd revamp the look of my blog but you need time for that and there is not much you can do on Blogger until they improve their Dynamic Views templates. Then I thought since this blog is all about collocations and lexical chunks I should add a nice little widget somewhere on the right displaying a new chunk every day. But my internet search for "a phrase of the day" or "an expression of the day" widget drew a blank. It's funny that despite all the evidence and research, whether cognitive or psycholinguistic, pointing to the phrasal nature of the lexicon, i.e. words are remembered, stored and retrieved in chunks, all the EFL teaching materials are still preoccupied with words, words, single words. The integration of web technologies doesn't seem to have helped either. Having said that, I've stumbled upon two interesting websites: |
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Phrase Mix posts a new colloquial phrase every day and Tweet Speak English - every week or so. Both come with audio and accompanying activities but unfortunately not all the content is available for non-members.
Since my search for a lexical gadget has proved futile, I decided to open it up to you, my readers, and ask you to post your favourite chunks. But first of all, what's the difference between a collocation and a chunk?
Adj+Noun: reckless driving
Noun+Noun: a chance encounter
Verb+Adv: talk freely
Adv+Adj: ridiculously expensive
Noun+Verb: the bomb went off
Even though they statistically occur together very often, most methodologists agree that the following combinations are not considered collocations:
Adj+dependent preposition: afraid of
Incomplete fixed phrase: sort of
All other multi-word phrases, which are not readily identifiable as collocations, can be considered chunks: See you later (formulaic expression), Come to think of it...(discourse marker), a few years ago (prepositional phrase), If I were you... (sentence head), The more... the better (sentence frame) and many others.
Perhaps I should start with my own. One of my fave chunks is
ReplyDelete"to put it mildly"
Why? Firstly, perhaps I rarely put things mildly myself - I usually do it bluntly :) Secondly, I like this use of "put" when it means "to say something", e.g.
"Very nicely put"
"Hmmm, how can I put it?
well hi, my favourite chunks is
Deletefor the time being
Before giving an exact answer / request, I need to do some thinking and make a little justification first.
Probably 'fancy a coffee?' I think.
ReplyDeleteHi Sue, I'd also 'fancy a coffe' and Leo, congrats :)
DeleteCheers,
Eva
That's a good one, Sue. Not "fancy a cuppa"? :)
ReplyDeleteI like all your 'put' ones, Leo. On that note, I'll go with 'say'.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that...
Well said...
...to say the least
Hi Tyson
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and adding your chunks. I actually used "having said that" above :)
Hi Leo!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on nearing 10,000 hits and wishing you thousands more!
I would say that my favourite chunk is "whoop yay!", but I will be serious ; ) My favourite chunk is "to get to the point", probably because very often I get sidetracked myself when talking ; )
Good stuff, Leo!
Vicky
Yes, congratulations indeed, Leo.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite discourse marking chunk is "The thing is..."
So f*cking hard to teach them, of course. :)
This one came to mind for me too because I realised about 10 years ago that it was all over my vernacular. Not so much now, I think.
DeleteHi Vicky and Alan
ReplyDeleteI often get sidetracked too or should we rather say that we talk in hyperlinks?
Both "point" and "thing" are really important and very frequent words in English which are often overlooked in teaching. They appear in so many different chunks:
What's your point?
That's beside the point
OK, you've made your point
etc
and if you take "thing" - even more!
I like teaching The (funny / interesting) thing is...
Thank you for your wishes and contributions.
Congrats on your 10,000+ visitors, Leo.
ReplyDeleteI like "the thing is" and "having said that", but they've already been taken so I'll go for "Mind you..." or "...but mind you..."
Here's to the next 10,000!
Steve
My favourite has to be anything that starts with chocolate: chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream. Now is that a noun-noun collocation or an adjective-noun one? I'm sure some clever clogs (now there's another interesting collocation) out there will tell me.
ReplyDeleteThe chunk I really can't stand is "to tell you the truth" - you mean that most of the time you lie to me?
Leo - please can I have my article now.
I can't really think of a favorite chunk, but the one I use the most is "Throw it out!" As in - Gum in the garbage! But today I came across a collocation that I find delightful - eagerly await.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve
ReplyDeleteThank you for your wishes. Yes, "the thing is..." seems to be very popular (see Alan's and Tyson's comments above).
I like "mind you" - bloody difficult to teach! I usually give an example of McDonalds. It's fast food, junk, not healthy etc but "mind you it's quite cheap".
I also like "eagerly await", Michele or rather "eagerly awaited (book / sequel)".
Never knew you were a chocaholic, Amanda. Thanks for stopping by. Yes, you can have your article now :) Was it Laufer? Will send it by email.
Thank you all for your comments!
"lay it out" "lay it on me" "give me a lay of the land"
ReplyDeleteDon't know why these are coming up... but I'm a big fan. Also love teaching all of the "talk up, down, around, to vs with someone" etc.
Congrats on the 10,000... we'll be celebrating 100,000 soon, I'm sure! Cheers, Brad
Hi Brad
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for your comment :) and to see what your favourite is.
"A lay of the land" actually came up in class the other day as "suss out the lie of the land". I assume lie/lay is the same thing.
I am not sure about your "talk" examples though - aren't these just multi-part verbs?
LEO
Hey Leo,
ReplyDeleteSorry it took me so long to get back! Huh "suss out the lie"... haven't heard that version, so but it sounds like it's the same. And yes, multi-part verbs indeed. Adding another just for giggles: "make yourself at home" because it's oddly imperative and yet polite ;-) Cheers, Brad
Your post has made me become conscious of chunks I like saying, even more than before. Here are a few more gems:
ReplyDeletegive or take (e.g. The word limit is 3500, give or take).
as if (i.e. in response to something you can't believe)
when pigs fly
Thank you, Brad and Tyson, for returning to this post. I am happy it has made you even more aware of the chunks you use. That's what has happened to me ever since I got into this whole business of lexical chunking: I notice chunks everywhere and encourage my students - not always successfully - to do the same. The other day my boss sent me an email asking something like "Are they still on track to get these books delivered by 13 February?" and I replied "Still on track to do something - that's a nice chunk, I should use it more often".
ReplyDeleteWhen pigs fly - haven't heard anyone say that for a long time - a nice one!
This morning in class we were talking about belated presents and I couldn't possibly came up again. My students can't seem to grasp it - I couldn't possibly what? where is the verb? Vicky Hollett has written this nice post about it and generally gift-giving customs across cultures: http://www.vickihollett.com/?p=1797
As for my fav chunks, maybe "put into perspective" or "at the end of the day"?) I use them quite often in conversation classes, sometimes a bit too often though :))
ReplyDeleteConrats on 10 000 visitors, Leo!)
My favorite chunk is the oxymoron "dry humor".
ReplyDeleteIzzy
cohen.izzy@gmail.com
My favourite is "think clearly"
ReplyDeleteFor me, my favourite chunk is "stay cool".
ReplyDeleteMy favourite chunk is "pay attention".
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your comments!
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, my favourite is always, "Pay Attention"... and "Be Silent"
ReplyDeleteMy favourite chunk is "If I were you"
ReplyDeleteMine is "stay happy!"
ReplyDeleteMy favourite chunk is ' By the way'
ReplyDeletemy favourite chunk would be, Come to think of it, "It's is great!"
ReplyDeleteoh...dear...my favourite chunk is" If I were you...."
ReplyDeletebut" by the way" is always comes with thousand excuses
My favourite chunk would be, 'get up and go' as it kind of motivating me, 'stay cool' because I always want someone to cool me down.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite chunk would be, come to think of it, sort of,give it a try,pay attention,silent please...
ReplyDeletemine is "at the end of the day..." :)
ReplyDeleteWell, when I come to think of it, I would say I like all the lexical chunks known to me. My favourite is 'from the corner of my eye' I can see that...
ReplyDelete