Catagories of phrases question

Posted by Word Camel on September 15, 2004

I have been thinking about this on and off for awhile now. I was also reading about catch phrases in Eric Partridge and the definition seems loose enough to include almost anything. And yet it seems like there are fairly clear divisions between phrase types that become apparent over time

There are some phrases that do seem to be catch phrases like: "let's face it.", "my bad". There arebproverbs like "A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush", or "even the devil eats flies." Then there are turns of phrase that come down through the years. Phrases like "all of a sudden" or the recently queried, "to get stuck in". And then there are some that I'm not sure are really phrases in that they aren't repeated enough... like "was bring bumped up" which someone asked below.

So has anyone thought about this or know more about how phrases are catagorised? I might be over complicating this. I'm just curious.

• Catagories of phrases question Bruce Kahl 15/September/04
  • Thanks Word Camel 15/September/04
    • Thanks Brian from Shawnee 15/September/04
      • Types ESC 15/September/04
        • Just came across a printed version of your original post Word Camel 17/September/04
        • Well gee... Word Camel 15/September/04
          • Well gee... Brian from Shawnee 16/September/04