Listen to the author reading this blog post.
by Liz Walter
Back in 2017, my colleague Kate Woodford wrote a couple of posts on ‘binomials’, which are pairs of words joined with ‘and’ or ‘or’, that are used together in a fixed order. Today I’m taking this one step further by looking at ‘trinomials’ or groups of three words always used in the same order.
Some common trinomials are completely literal and, while rather clichéd, can be used in any situation. Examples include tall, dark, and handsome; cool, calm, and collected (meaning very calm and able to control your feelings); good, bad, or indifferent and ready, willing, and able:
Her new boyfriend was tall, dark, and handsome.
He was always cool, calm, and collected, even under great pressure.
He didn’t really care whether his exam results were good, bad, or indifferent.
Prices should be set at a level that buyers are ready, willing, and able to pay.
However, trinomials are often used for emphasis. If you say you will beg, borrow, or steal something, you mean that you will do anything to get it. Similarly, if you have put blood, sweat, and tears into achieving something, you have used a huge amount of effort, and something that happens morning, noon, and night happens all the time:
See if you can beg, borrow, or steal a copy of his latest book.
We put three years of blood, sweat, and tears into making our business successful.
Planes were taking off morning, noon, and night.
If someone completely believes something that was intended to trick them, you could say that they fell for it hook, line, and sinker, while if you talk about moving something or buying something lock, stock, and barrel, you mean every single part of it:
She told him she was a model and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
We moved our entire company, lock, stock, and barrel, to India.
There are a couple of common trinomials connected with position. If something exists or happens here, there, and everywhere it exists or happens in many different places. Right, left, and centre (UK)/center (US) is similar, but is often used rather negatively and can refer to frequency as well as position:
I’ve been rushing around here, there and everywhere all day.
New vape stores are opening up right, left, and centre.
I’ll finish with two colourful trinomials which are well-known quotes in English. Lady Caroline Lamb described her former lover, Lord Byron as mad, bad, and dangerous to know, while the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously said that life is nasty, brutish, and short.
I hope you will find these phrases useful and be able to use them here, there, and everywhere!
Tom, Dick, and Harry
The good, the bad and the ugly.
This is not a test. This is reality. Or maybe…
… It’s THE test?
~ Misty Price
That is a great example, Shalom!
Another one I am thinking of comes from FANTASTIC MR FOX by Roald Dahl:
“Boggis, Bounce and Bean
One was fat; one was thin; one was terribly mean”.
The “beg; borrow; steal” impulse came over me at a bookstore.
With trinomials I wondered if the first word modifies the other two?
You could make them more interesting by varying the words so they are not a set or fixed phrase: for example – “handsome; tall and dark”.
And then there is the pseudo-trinomial – “Sarah, Plain and Tall”.
It is pseudo because it is the lady’s name.
And when our feelings are collected they line up and correspond and are congruent with the situation.
The spelling of “trinomial” might be tricky for an English language learner because they might expect that another N is before the -al
[or even an M like nominal].
I wonder if they go quad and quin?
When I find myself using a trinomial I find myself saying – “Beg! Borrow! Steal!”
or: “Cool! Calm! Collected!”
Also I find myself using “Left; right; centre” where the “Left” part is first.
And I think of the Scarlet Pimpenel and “They seek him here; they seek him there”.
I would accept the outcome: good; bad and indifferent!
You’ll notice that most trinomials are adjectives. This is likely why they appear in the form and order that they do.
When using multiple words to describe the same object we do have an order/rule that we stick to, whether you know it or not.
I am adding this link here https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adjectives-order though I don’t know if it will make a hyperlink automatically. There you can see the order we follow.
[quote=]or even an M like nominal[/quote]
I don’t quite understand what you mean by this. You had said that non-native English speaks may thin an N belongs in trinomial before the -al (making it trinominal) and then you have this on the next line. The M in nominal is not before the -al but it _does_ have an N. Apologies for misunderstanding but could you please explain it.
Bred, Fed, and Parlayed.
Bred, fed and parlayed.
beg, borrow, or steal I heard this for the first time more than thirty years ago from our Indian doctor while I was at first semester in the English department when he mentioned a good book that we should read. I liked it and memorized it, but I have never heard about such word trinomials. Thank you to let me know…
I believe Hobbes said that life is “mean, NASTY, brutish and short!” 🙂
The full quote is “…and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”
Leviathan XIII.9
Hobbes was not aiming at any particular number of words, just the minimum necessary to describe the condition.
Hello
I am looking for a job.
Care to comment on the “oxford comma”? Or the implied subject in a sentence, for that matter?