This section is from the book "The Science And Art Of Phrase-Making", by David Wolfe Brown. Also available from Amazon: The science and art of phrase-making.
23. Another class of phrases ignored by the definition cited consists of those in which a brief, compact representation of certain words is attained by arbitrary and irregular methods of expression, peculiar perhaps to a single case or a few cases - not in accord with any general law of phrasing. Of such phrases, vice versa
is an illustration.
 
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