Is "All MEEMIES are SCREAMING" a Strong Collocation?

Question

Stormy Petrels:

According to this article Elliott Moreton categorize particular group of words as "Stormy Petrels".

A stormy petrel, also known as a storm petrel, is an Atlantic seabird (also found in the Mediterranean). The term "stormy petrel" in general usage has come to refer to a harbinger of trouble; perhaps people believed that the bird was seen just before a storm. Sometime in the late '80s, Elliott Moreton came up with a category of words which can't be used except in the company of specific other words; having heard the word "petrel" only in the company of the word "stormy," he decided to call such items "stormy petrels." As it happens, there is such a thing as a petrel which isn't stormy, but the term was a catchy one so it stuck.

Examples of Stormy Petrels:

1. All MEEMIES are SCREAMING

2. All DURANCE is VILE

3. All RECRIMINATIONS are BITTER

Note: In example 3, the word recriminations do occur alone. Example taken from Oxford dictionary:

Meaning of Recriminations: An accusation in response to one from someone else.

Usage: "there are no tears, no recriminations."

Strong Collocation:

Strong collocations are when particular words can collocate with very few words. These two words are usually fixed and restricted.

Examples of Strong Collocation(Check strong collocation):

1. Curly Hair

2. Whisk an egg

So, what is the difference between "Stormy Petrels" and "Strong Collocation"? Or Are "Stormy Petrels" nothing, but "Strong Collocation"?

Answer 1

Stormy petrels and strong collocations are concepts that are similar, but the author's insistence on strictly defining stormy petrels as words that have a specific collocation makes it more restrictive than a strong collocation. In other words, a stormy petrel is a strong collocation, but a strong collocation is not a stormy petrel.

Let me highlight the common phrasing in both definitions:

(Stormy petrels) Sometime in the late '80s, Elliott Moreton came up with a category of words which can't be used except in the company of specific other words

Strong collocations are when particular words can collocate with very few words.

As written, the only ambiguity is between "specific other words" (which could suggest exclusivity: maybe only the specified word(s) can be used) and "very few words" (which allows for a small subset of collocations and variation). The source on stormy petrels clarifies later on that it really is being strict about no other collocations being in use:

We sometimes make a distinction between the rare "strong" stormy petrel, which can never occur without the associated word or phrase, and the more common "weak" stormy petrel, which can never occur as a particular part of speech without the companion word or phrase.

A Stormy Petrel is a phrase P containing a word W such that W cannot occur anywhere but in P.

That is more restrictive than a strong collocation, which merely requires one word to collocate with very few other words. In a stormy petrel, no other collocation can exist! As a result, this definition is self-defeating, since stormy petrel itself doesn't meet the rigorous definition of the term. Nor do other words I've tested. For instance, COCA shows that shrift is preceded by short most times (295 results) but also has 13 other results. It is not a stormy petrel. The same can easily be found for durance, meemies, and recriminations.

These examples and similar searches invite a hypothesis: no true stormy petrel exists as defined, and if one does, it is because the word has not been documented with another collocation, not because no other collocation can be used. Strong collocations, on the other hand, do exist, and tend to describe the examples listed for stormy petrel.

Answer 2

Not all meemies are screaming:

noun

US slang

1 In plural With the. Originally: a state of drunkenness, delirium tremens. In later use: hysterics. Usually in "to have (also get) the screaming meemies".

2 A hysterical person. rare.

oxforddictionaries.com

I have occasionally read/heard "meemies" used without "screaming".

As for "durance", virtually all uses in the past 100 years have been references to the Durance river Hannibal crossed. But prior to that it was used to refer to imprisonment and (by Shakespeare, as least) a cloth used to make durable documents. (Shakey made puns on the two meanings.)

From the magazine Bentley's miscellany, 1845:

But for a violent fever which assailed him, upon release from durance, he would certainly have been present as her shameless suitor at the festivity of the Town Hall upon the New Year's Eve.

Even though it's not really French, I suspect that "durance vile" has survived (to the extent it has) because it sounds French and hence hoity-toity.

It's not clear that there is any English word (other than perhaps certain proper nouns) that is never used except in the company of another certain word (or small group of words).

For this reason it's not clear that an absolutely "stormy petrelish" stormy petrel exists. Rather the idiom simply represents an extreme case of "strong collocation".