English Collocations in Use – Advanced

Strong, fixed and weak collocations

Strong collocations
A strong collocation is one in which the words are very closely associated with each other.
For example, the adjective mitigating almost always collocates with circumstances or
factors; it rarely collocates with any other word. Although she was found guilty, the jury felt
there were mitigating circumstances. [factors or circumstances that lessen the blame]
Here are some other examples of strong collocations.

Fixed collocations
Fixed collocations are collocations so strong that they cannot be changed in any way. For
example, you can say I was walking to and fro (meaning I was walking in one direction
and then in the opposite direction, a repeated number of times). No other words can
replace to or fro or and in this collocation. It is completely fixed. The meaning of some fixed
collocations cannot be guessed from the individual words. These collocations are called
idioms and are focused on in the book English Idioms in Use.

Weak collocations
Weak collocations are made up of words that collocate with a wide range of other
words. For example, you can say you are in broad agreement with someone [generally in
agreement with them]. However, broad can also be used with a number of other words –
a broad avenue, a broad smile, broad shoulders, a broad accent [a strong accent], a
broad hint [a strong hint] and so on. These are weak collocations, in the sense that broad
collocates with a broad range of different nouns.
Strong collocations and weak collocations form a continuum, with stronger ones at one
end and weaker ones at the other. Most collocations lie somewhere between the two. For
example, the (formal) adjective picturesque collocates with village, location and town, and
so appears near the middle of the continuum.

Types of collocations in this book
The collocations in this book are all frequently used in modern English. We used a corpus
(a database of language) to check this. We have also selected the collocations which will
be useful to you as an advanced learner. We pay most attention to those that are not
predictable. A broad avenue, for example, would be predicted by any student who knows
broad and avenue. However, the use of broad to mean strong as in a broad accent is more
difficult to predict.

English Collocation in Use – Advanced pdf:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tlKXnaBoJ_p5cXkjP4tCiqw9j41TG9f3/view?usp=sharing