Theme: The problem of colloquial style abstract

Set phrases possess certain properties of individual words.
Some of them are elevated: an earthly paradise; Some are subneutral: to rain cats and dogs; to be in one's cups (= to be drunk);
Among the elevated phrases we can discern the same groups as among the elevated words:
a) archaisms — the iron in one's soul ('permanent embitterment'); Mahomet's coffin ('between good and evil'); to play upon advantage ('to swindle');
b) bookish phrases — to go to Canossa ('to submit'); the debt of nature ('death'); the knight of the quill ('writer'); gordian knot ('a complicated problem');
c) foreign phrases — a propos de bottes ('unconnected with the preceding remark'); mot juste ('the exact word').
Subneutral phrases can also be divided into:
a) colloquial phrases — alive and kicking ('safe and sound'); a pretty kettle offish ('muddle');
b) jargon phrases — a loss leader ('an article sold below cost to attract customers');
c) old slang phrases — to be nuts about ('to be extremely fond of); to shoot one's grandmother ('to say a non-sensical or commonplace thing'); to keep in the pin ('to abstain from drinking'); to kick the bucket, to hop the twig ('to die').
Even what might be called neutral phrases produce a certain stylistic effect as opposed to their non-phrasal semantic equivalents (to complete absence of phrases in the whole text)r Correct English and good English are most certainly not identical from the viewpoint of stylistics. Idioms and set expressions impart local colouring to the text; 
Absence of set phrases makes speech poor and in a way unnatural: something like a foreigner's English. On the other hand, excessive use of idioms offends the sense of the appropriate.
A very effective stylistic device often used by writers consists in intentionally violating the traditional norms of the use of set phrases.
Often the key-words of well-known phrases are purposely replaced. Thus, unmasking the inhuman 'philosophy of facts' in his novel Hard Times, Dickens ironically exclaims Fact forbid! instead of God forbid!.
Mark Twain replaces the epithet in the expression The Golden Age, naming satirically his contemporary epoch The Gilded Age. A number of curious instances of distorting 'literalizing', combining mid opposing phraseological expressions to achieve stylistic effects are adduced by L. A. Barkova, who studied commercial advertising.
The expression is obviously derived from the internationally known phrase the other side of the medal. Changes in spelling (attaining a new meaning and at the same time preserving the phonetical form of the original set expression) are also resorted to. The well-known precept Waste not, want not (the idea of which nis 'wasting will make one suffer from want of what has been wasted', or to put it shorter, 'wasting brings suffering') is used by the producer of dietary foods, hinting in his advertisement at the disadvantage of being fat: Waist not, want not.