Patrick Comerford
While I was wnandering aoround Oxford yesterday (16 June 2026), by the boathouses, the rivers and the islands in the river, I was musing on Bloomsday and the wandering of Ulysses. But I also recall a holiday on an Ionian island in Greece about 20-25 years ago, when I also visited Ithaki, the island home of Odysseus. On that same holiday, I met an Irish couple who introduced themselves as Joyce and James from Dublin.
They never, ever, introduced themselves in the reverse order, as in ‘I’m James, … Joyce.’
But inevitably, for many of the people staying in that same small apartment block, this became known as their ‘James Joyce holiday’. The pairing was irreversible.
Another holidaymaker in the same apartment block found out, as he was packing to go home, that his suitcase had ripped. Rather than buying a new case, he found a large, pre-used cardboard box, packed all his belongings inside and wrapped it up in bubble wrap, with strong brown masking tape.
At the airport, as he was about to place the box on the scanning machine, a policeman asked him to take it off, and open it.
‘I can’t,’ he pleaded.
‘Take it off’.
Lesson 1, Do not argue with a Greek police officer, any police officer, at an airport.
The lesson was being ignored, but two other tourists – eager to defuse the situation and more eager not to miss their flight – without any airs and graces or fuss and bother removed the box, hoping to restore peace and calm and wanting to minimalise any confrontation with law and order.
‘What is it in the box?’
‘Just me Bits and Bobs’, said the elderly Dub casually, unaware of the chaos or mess that could unfold around him – what Greeks call τα πάνω κάτω (ta páno káto), ‘the ups-downs’.
‘Bobs and Bits?’ the policeman asked.
We all began to smile, he noticed our spontaneous response, tensions were defused, and soon the box was on its way back through the scanner.
Pardon the pun, but it was an open and shut case. Perhaps all he had in his bag and baggage was odds and sods, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Not in there, I am sure from his holiday attire, were a shirt and tie.
Despite the smiles, we had all minded our Ps and Qs. No-one had to bow and scrape, no-one lost an arm and a leg, and we all went through security, happy after a holiday on a Greek island that for two weeks had been our Land of Milk and Honey.
When we got home, I am sure, nobody unpacked their flop flips, put their holidays nacks and nicks in appropriate crannies and nooks, or had conversations in the days that followed with their dad and mum about the days of the Tans and Blacks.
Who speaks of ‘breakfast and bed’ rather than ‘bed and breakfast’ for a B&B? … Park Villa Guest House in Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)The pairing of words known in English as an irreversible binomial, or a frozen binomial, also exists in Greek. This is a pair of words linked by a conjunction such as και (‘and’) and that always occur in a fixed, non-reversible order. Έτσι κι έτσι (Etsi ki etsi), which means ‘so-so’, is a classic example of this paired rhythmic pattern in Greek. The phrase literally means ‘thus and thus’ and is used to describe average health, mood, or a mediocre experience:
Τι κάνεις; (ti káneis), How are you?
Έτσι κι έτσι (Etsi ki etsi), So-so.
Other common examples of the use of an irreversible binomial in Greek include:
Πέτσι και κόκαλο (pétsi ke kókalo, skin and bones), meaning emaciated or extremely thin.
Απ' έξω και ανακατωτά (ap' éxso ke anakatotá, inside out and upside down, completely mixed up), referring to knowing something perfectly.
Ήθη και έθιμα (íthi ke éthima, morals and customs), a standard frozen phrase encompassing cultural traditions.
Στο κάτω κάτω της γραφής (sto káto káto tis grafís, after all, bottom line), literally ‘at the bottom bottom of the writing’.
Τα πάνω κάτω (ta páno káto, upside down, chaos), literally ‘the ups-downs’, used to describe a mess.
Άνω κάτω (ano kato, ‘up down’) or ‘topsy-turvy’.
Μπρος πίσω (bros piso, ‘front back’) or back and forth.
Έθιμα και έθιμα (ethima kai ethima), ‘customs and habits’.
Μισός κι άλλος μισός (misos ki allos misos) ‘one and the other’.
Ένας κι ένας (enas ki enas), one by one.
Common Greek irreversible binomials feature entrenched phrases, historical idioms, and common collocations. In Greek linguistics, irreversible binomials or idiomatic, fixed-order word pairs, similar to the order of ‘bread and butter’ in English, are heavily shaped by iconicity or the chronological or logical sequence of events, and by end-weight, with longer or heavier words appearing toward the end of the phrase.
Verbs expressing sequential actions must follow their natural temporal order (as in going in before going out). In Greek, this appears as μπαινοβγαίνω (bainovgeno, ‘go in and out’) or ανεβοκατεβαίνω (anevokateveno, ‘go up and down’).
When nouns or adverbs of similar meaning are combined, the element with the more sonorous or longer vowel, or a greater number of syllables, is usually placed at the end to provide a rhythmic cadence.
The most famous example of an irreversible binomial in Greek is Ελευθερία ή θάνατος (Eleftheria i Thanatos), ‘Freedom or Death’. This pair of words is ordered by established convention, and they are fixed in sequence. Swapping their order, as in saying ‘Death or Freedom’, sounds jarring to any Greek speaker.
As a linguistic convention, the pairings in an irreversible binomial are anchored by cultural, psychological, and semantic rules. When faced with an ultimatum, we instinctively priorities the positive or desired outcome first, followed by the negative alternative. Positioning ‘Freedom’ before ‘Death’ frames the statement as a pursuit of life’s highest ideal, with death accepted only as a last resort.
The phrase Ελευθερία ή θάνατος (Eleftheria i Thanatos) has become the Greek national motto. It originated in the 1820s during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. The nine blue and white stripes of the Greek flag represent the nine syllables of this rallying cry.
The phrase gives its name to Freedom or Death, also known as Captain Michalis, a 1953 novel by the author Nikos Kazantzakis from Iraklion in Crete that is became a key work of modern Greek literature.
The binary choice between liberty and life without freedom is mirrored in other historic rallying cries, such as the Patrick Henry’s ‘Give me liberty, or give me death!’ The late Seumas Phelan, when he was a sub-editor at The Irish Times, would cry out during lulls and dull moments on the subs desk, ‘Give me copy, or give me death’.
In English, the fixed order of irreversible binomials or frozen binomials means that changing the order sounds jarring, even if the meaning remains clear. This fixed order is largely shaped by linguistic patterns rather than arbitrary rules.
The natural rhythm or ablaut means English speakers naturally prefer pairs with specific syllable stresses, or where a shorter, high-frequency word precedes a longer one, as with short and sweet or sick and tired.
Iconic sequencing means phrases often follow a chronological or logical order of events in the real world, such as cause and effect, or trial and error.
But cultural conventions and historical and semantic traditions also cement phrases into our long-term memory, processing them as single holistic units rather than individual words. In law and official documents, there are many irreversible binomials consisting of near synonyms, such as the oft-expressed terms and conditions and cease and desist.
There are hundreds of these expressions in English and they generally fall into a few key categories, such as food and objects. Think of how we link Fish and Chips, Salt and Pepper, Knife and Fork, or Bread and Butter. In everyday conversation and idioms, we refer to Give and Take, Back and Forth, Safe and Sound, Bed and Breakfast, but never to Roll and Rock or Blues and Rhythm, and we ask for explanations and excuses to be Short and Sweet.
The term ‘irreversible binomial’ was introduced in 1954 by the Ukrainian-born etymologist and philologist Yakov Malkiel (1914-1998), although aspects of the phenomenon had been discussed since at least 1903 under different names such as ‘terminological imbroglio’ and the now politically-incorrect ‘Siamese twins’.
Many irreversible binomials are catchy due to alliteration, rhyming, or ablaut reduplication, and have become clichés or catchphrases. The mix and match of idioms includes phrases such as rock and roll, the birds and the bees, and they have survived the wear and tear of generations among generation of native English speakers, even one word in a pairing has become obsolete as in spick and span. Spick is a fossil word that never appears outside the phrase spick and span. Who uses words such as such as vim or abet except when using sayings such as vim and vigour or aid and abet.
No-one is ever caught between a hard place and a rock, high water and hell never come, and I know no-one who has had a tuck and nip, even among the famous and rich. Although, if I wanted to be little more Greek in my turn of phrase, or a Joycean reference, then instead of ‘a rock and a hard place’ I might chose to be caught between the equally dangerous and threatening Scylla and Charybdis.
Previous words in this series:
1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.
2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.
3, Bread, Ψωμί.
4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.
5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.
6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.
7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.
8,Theology, Θεολογία.
9, Icon, Εἰκών.
10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.
11, Chaos, Χάος.
12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.
13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.
14, Mañana, Αύριο.
15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.
16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.
17, The missing words.
18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.
19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.
20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.
21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.
22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.
23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.
24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.
25, Asthma, Ασθμα.
26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.
27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.
28, School, Σχολείο.
29, Muse, Μούσα.
30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.
31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.
32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.
33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.
34, Cinema, Κινημα.
35, autopsy and biopsy
36, Exodus, ἔξοδος
37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος
38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς
39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια
40, Practice, πρᾶξις
41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός
42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή
43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή
44, catastrophe, καταστροφή
45, democracy, δημοκρατία
46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric
50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
51, Bimah, βῆμα
52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.
53, Τὰ Βιβλία (Ta Biblia), The Bible
54, Φῐλοξενῐ́ᾱ (Philoxenia), true hospitality
55, εκκλησία (ekklesia), the Church
56, ναός (naos) and ἱερός (ieros), a church
57, Χριστούγεννα (Christougenna), Christmas
58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia), Epiphany and Theophany
59, Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros), the West Wind
60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow
61, καλημέρα (κaliméra), ‘Good Morning’, and καλαμάρι, κalamári, ‘squid’
62, Ελευθερία ή θάνατος, ‘Freedom or Death’
Series to be continued
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