Literary notes about collocation (AI summary)
In literature, "collocation" is often invoked to describe the deliberate or natural grouping of words, ideas, or even objects that together evoke a particular aesthetic or meaning. Writers speak of collocations as the arresting pairing of terms, as seen in the evocative mix of "delicate bosom and death" [1] or the intrinsic order in which characters always appear together [2]. It is also used to underline that a city, for instance, is more than merely a gathering of houses [3], and to emphasize the expressive effect produced by the harmonious arrangement of words in a passage [4]. In some works, collocation transcends mere syntax to encompass the causal or thematic relationship between elements, suggesting that the unity of a phenomenon can depend on the specific configuration of its parts [5].
- The Swinburne collocation of delicate bosom and death is both arrestive and interesting.
— from Ptomaine Street: The Tale of Warble Petticoat by Carolyn Wells - Jim always precedes Brown, and Brown always follows Jim--it is a natural collocation.
— from The Forgery; or, Best Intentions. by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James - Nobody knows really what a city is except that it is something more than a collocation of houses.
— from California: The Land of the Sun by Mary Hunter Austin - Particularly note the use of sustained sentences, and the happy collocation of words.
— from Successful Methods of Public Speaking by Grenville Kleiser - Causation is viewed merely as the collocation of conditions.
— from A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1 by Surendranath Dasgupta
