Phraseology and Culture in English

www
examples 
considered
78,353
179,320
96,270
371,730
90,370
95,220
13,169
1,386
37,530
37,786
.ca
8,340
19,300
9,940
39,700
8,620
6,460
1,710
174
2,840
3,380
.us
8,900
11,900
6,400
32,500
6,010
6,410
444
34
1,690
4,250
.edu
19,700
60,800
30,300
151,000
20,300
20,700
5,370
408
6,870
12,300
.za
744
3,850
2,950
5,130
2,220
1,970
142
20
711
703
.ie
699
4,180
1,850
12,000
1,780
3,740
304
20
1,600
643
.nz
3,920
3,690
2,930
7,500
2,440
6,340
199
22
699
570
.au
7,650
20,300
11,300
28,500
16,500
17,000
1,520
167
5,020
4,840
.uk
28,400
55,300
30,600
95,400
32,500
32,600
3,480
541
18,100
11,100
COBUILD
Collocations 
Database
768
878
632
782
700
628
83
22
461
241
BNC
571
369
112
271
266
225
36
10
193
94
Collocation 
deep breath 
early age 
biggest 
problem 
coming year 
bad luck 
heavy rain 
greatly ex-
aggerated 
wildly exag-
gerated 
badly dam-
aged
severely
damaged
NB: date of access: 11 March 2004 

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Varieties of English around the world
461
2. Frequencies for selected variety-specific collocations and idioms in 
the British National Corpus and selected top-level domains on the 
World Wide Web 
This table contains the raw counts providing the basis for the diagrams and 
tables in Section 3. In addition to the idioms and collocations reported on in 
the text, the table contains the figures for some other, less clear-cut cases. 
Idioms which are not variety-specific, such as foot the bill or spill the beans,
have been included for control purposes. For items given in CAPITALS, all 
morphological variants were collected, so that GET to first base represents
get, getting, gets, got, gotten to first base, and NOT get to first base repre-
sents not get, didn’t get, don’t get, doesn’t get (though not the many addi-
tional forms involving contracted modal verbs such as can’t get or wouldn’t
get). Search items have been categorised into (1) idioms, whose meaning is 
not compositional, (2) colligations, representing preferred grammatical con-
texts of occurrence of particular words, and (3) collocations, whose mean-
ing is compositional. 

---

462
Christian Mair 
.ca
2,340
477
16
177
–
–
–
37
.us
1,730
1,080
8
53
–
–
1
9
.edu
3,190
545
16
317
–
–
1
48
.za
640
2,330
2
13
–
–
1
97
.ie
654
165
1
13
6
5
5
50
.nz
331
229
2
30
–
–
37
226
.au
2,730
693
29
343
6
8
34
652
.uk
7,730
3,570
12
231
39
39
337
4,352
sum of all 
www
examples 
considered
18,945
9,089
86
1,177
51
52
456
5,471
BNC
80
23
3
–
1
–
4
49
Collocation / Idiom 
(1) idioms 
foot the bill
spill the beans
(NOT) get to first 
base
GET to first base
KNOCK them for 
six
KNOCK us for six
knocked for six
TAKE the mickey

---

Varieties of English around the world
463
.ca
11,100
2,870
524
834
5,080
227,000
49
51
46
134
835
14,300
2,450
21
.us
16,300
7,460
475
1,500
628
105,000
46
16
38
140
620
10,100
1,870
10
.edu
65,700
10,300
734
2,640
13,600
738,000
422
291
164
199
1,600
33,200
8,430
43
.za
663
191
30
31
462
35,300
5
5
7
5
219
952
720
3
.ie
652
240
27
32
8,010
36,00
5
3
9
–
132
2,170
495
4
.nz
1,530
276
262
186
325
36,800
8
6
6
7
233
3,320
618
4
.au
6,540
1,740
412
566
6,620
185,000
220
145
43
18
1,740
13,200
4,700
17
.uk
12,800
4,950
817
1,640
61,400
450,000
412
248
198
144
3,050
21,600
30,300
57
sum of all 
www
examples 
considered
115,285
28,027
3,281
7,438
96,125
1,813,100
1,176
765
511
647
8,419
98,842
49,583
159
BNC
49
65
16
8
310
1,598
23
9
9
–
7
151
753
4
Collocation / 
Idiom
(2) colligations 
began working
began to work
I like watching
I like to watch
I should like to
I would like to
give it me
give it him 
give it her 
wish he would 
have
wants to 
out the window 
out of the win-
dow 
ever so kind

---

464
Christian Mair 
.ca
102
656
32
383
2,240
–
7,240
3,000
9,340
11,200
4,130
1,954
50
1,800
328
.us
9
141
11
49
2,690
–
5,410
2,310
11,000
9,040
4,490
2,096
99
358
59
.edu
138
807
52
369
3,510
–
8,300
8,360
17,900
41,000
7,170
3,646
292
632
73
.za
15
159
6
31
1,420
–
1,300
202
993
1,690
2,140
649
91
523
69
.ie
149
754
8
28
37
–
2,510
210
535
2,690
982
1,064
284
130
16
.nz
7
135
7
71
549
–
2,560
470
1,720
9,500
2,310
1,685
344
1,730
297
.au
149
1,650
49
567
2,650
2
15,900
2,500
5,900
22,900
6,390
7,319
631
6,080
635
.uk
459
4,710
280
2,400
15,700
1
34,000
4,640
15,400
62,700
32,500
32,447
18,600
4,590
811
sum of all 
www
examples 
considered
1,028
9,012
445
3,898
28,796
3
77,220
21,692
62,788
160,720
60,112
50,860
20,391
BNC
5
28
6
36
3
–
500
20
96
596
12
238
9
6
2
Collocation / Idiom 
(3) collocations 
surely that is not
surely that is
surely that’s not
surely that’s
second of all
it in five minutes time
fair enough
reasonably close 
real good 
quite good 
get a life 
CAN NOT be bothered 
bog standard 
good on you 
good on him

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Varieties of English around the world
465
NB: dates of access: 11 March 2004, 17 March 2004 (for CAPITALISED items), 
17 April for good on, 23 April for bog standard 
Appendix II: Diathetic uses of 
see in the ICE-New Zealand (press texts) 
A step in that direction comes today in Hamilton, when Mr Palmer gives a 
“winter lecture” - a vision of where he sees things going - and later attends 
the big rugby game between Waikato and Australia.  
Some 10,000 investors were hit by the collapse which could see some, par-
ticularly shareholders, left with nothing.  
There is though an opportunity for a result. A day and a half down the track 
I can see this being an excellent game.  
“Labour has argued that pulling millions of dollars out of the economy would 
seriously impact on domestic activity. The resulting loss of retail sales has 
seen an extraordinary number of women lose their jobs,” she said.  
In this society it is generally accepted that the majority of people wish to 
see standards applied to films and videos that eliminate the excessively vio-
lent, explicitly sexual and pornographic trash that seems to be too widely 
available.  
[…] we are certain that, in the manner of these things, if the pendulum swings 
too far towards conservatism, pressure will build up once more for liberali-
sation. But at the moment we are happy to see it move towards more con-
trol.  
Appendix III: Diathetic uses of 
see in the ICE-East Africa (press texts) 
And to prove it, women cited individual cases which they would have liked 
to see firm decisions taken.  
Unfortunately for them and fortunately for those who wish to see Kenya 
continue playing a leading role in her efforts to bring about peaceful de-
mocratic and political change, all these attempts to incite wananchi have 
miserably failed.  
Can we be that much trapped in multi-party political bickering that we fail to 
see our brothers and sisters equally trapped in such a sad tangle?  

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466
Christian Mair 
Violence can, therefore, see South Africa engulfed in a conflagration fuelled 
by blood in which there can be no winners.  
One of the most common accusations made against those who expressed 
dissatisfaction with the system was that they were selfish, well-to-do people 
who did not wish to see the benefits of education extended to other Ken-
yans.  
Finding fees has become a problem of unbearable proportions for the aver-
age parents who daily see their purchasing power remorselessly eroded by 
inflation.
To give such people the management of a ministry as central to the democ-
ratic process as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is to bring to 
question the seriousness of the government’s declared intentions to see the 
country fully democratise.  
It is from these youths that we see those hawking commodities on the streets 
of Dar es Salaam and other townships.  
Though it is a pity that these negotiations are resuming only after Monday’s 
Bisho massacre which saw 28 supporters of the ANC shot dead and another 
200 wounded on the orders of Brigadier Oupa Gqozo, leader of the so-called 
nominally independent Ciskei homeland, the time is right and ripe for talks. 
 
The picture that emerged towards the end of the last decade was bleak and 
African countries saw the prices of their primary export commodities failing 
in the world market and the costs of imports escalating.  
We have seen both the clergy and the secular leadership err in many areas 
of human endeavour.
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1999 The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: 
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1999 
‘From out in left field? That’s not cricket’: finding a focus for the 

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Varieties of English around the world
467
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468
Christian Mair 
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Epilogue

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