III. The subdivision comprises stable word combinations in their interaction with the context:

A cliche is an expression that has become hackneyed and trite: clockwork precision, crushing defeat, the whip and carrot policy, rosy dreams of youth, the patter of little feet, deceptively simple, effective guarantees, immediate issues, statement of policy, reliable sources, buffer zone, to grow by leaps and bounds, to withstand the test of time, to let bygones bygones, to be unable to see the wood for the trees, to upset the apple-cart, to have an ace upon one’s sleeve, the patter of the rain, part and parcel, a diamond in the rough.

Proverbs and sayings.

Typical features: rhythm, sometimes rhyme and/or alliteration. But the most characteristic feature of a proverb or a saying lies not in its formal linguistic expression, but in the content-form of the utter­ance: brevity+ the actual wording becomes a pattern which needs no new wording to suggest extensions of meaning which are contextual

Proverbs are brief statements showing in condensed form the accumulated life experience of the community and serving as conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas:

To cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth.

Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Come! he said, milk’s spilt. (Galsworthy).

First come, first served.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Epigrams.

An epigram is a stylistic device akin to a proverb, the only difference being that epigrams are coined by individuals whose names we know, while proverbs are the coinage of the people:

Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instru­ment of its own purpose. A God that can be understood is no God.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. (Keats)

Quotations:

A quotation is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech and the like used by way of authority, illustration, proof or as a basis for further speculation on the matter in hand. Quotations are usually marked off in the text by inverted commas (“ “), dashes (—), italics or other graphical means: Ecclesiastes said, ‘that all is vanity’.(Byron)

Allusions:

An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. An allusion is only a mention of a word or phrase which may be regarded as the key-word of the utterance:

“Where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life’, old honest, pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder where are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?” (Thackeray).

“Shakespeare talks of the herald Mercury

New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;

And some such visions cross’d her majesty

While her young herald knelt before her still.

‘Tis very true the hill seem’d rather high,

For a lieutenant to climb up; but skill

Smooth’d even the Simplon’s steep, and by God’s blessing

With youth and health all kisses are heaven-kissing.”

(Byron)

Decomposition of set phrases.

The stylistic device of decom­position of fused set phrases consists in reviving the independent meanings which make up the component parts of the fusion.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. (Dickens).

You know which side the law’s buttered. (Galsworthy).

It was raining cats and dogs, and two kittens and a puppy landed on my window-sill (Chesterton).