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Idiomatic Doublets
Doubles Troubles
I'll have an assonant hendiadys to go, please --
and hold the mayo...

Lewis's Doublet Categories

Now where we were...?
Lewis was about to enlighten us again, wasn't he...

Lewis's Categories of Assonant Doublets

Category 1) Where both words in the doublet have a normal meaning, independent of the doublet -- like, kör; blind and topal; lame, which, when they meet in a doublet, mean after a fashion.

Example:
Işler bildiğin gibi, biz de kör topal idare edip gidiyoruz işte...
You know... business is so so, and were getting along, in a half-assed way...

Category 2) Where one or the other word in the doublet doesn't have any independent meaning -- like, sıkı (which means close) and fıkı (which has no independent meaning). Taken together, they mean intimate.

Daha dün sıkı fıkıydılar; bugün bozuşmuşlar. Until very recently they were quite intimate; but today I heard they're breaking up.

Category 3) Where neither word has independent meaning, like mırın and kırın -- which, when paired side by side, mean hemming and hawing and making feeble objections.

Mırın kırın edip durma, canımı sıkıyorsun!
Stop that hemming and hawing, you're annoying the hell out of me!


And, as usual, Lewis is right on the money about these three categories.

Still, when you stop and think about it...
these doublets can be categorized in more ways than that in Turkish...

Doublet Categories galore...

Why don't we have a look at some of these 'other categories' -- and, at the same time, learn some new and uniquely interesting Turkish vocabulary...

By the way, if you feel that these
doublets qualify as idioms,
then join the crowd -- 'cause we do too.
And whenever we find one,
we dutifully add it to our full-sized
Turkish Idioms Dictionary for English Speakers --
a sampling of which may be found on our page called
The Plain English Meaning of Turkish Idioms...
To
İkilemeler --
"Things consisting of two"

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