What goes with what?

Some words belong together, and some do not.  Most of us would not have any problem, for example, with the idea of a “church party,” but some might.  Kenneth Burke called our notions of what-goes-to-what our piety.  He believed that we are all pious to the degree that some paring of terms irritates us and some do not.

Just because something irritates us does not make it wrong.  Irritation is more of a clue to reflect than to stay with our initial judgments.  This actually works both ways.  Sometimes we have become so comfortable with the paring of different words that we fail to see that they don’t really fit together.  Then we need someone to irritate us.  One paring that seems to be on the way from irritation to a fairly comfortable notion is the idea of a corporate citizen.  Ok, I have to confess, I still find the joining of “corporate” and “citizen” somewhat irritating.