Sometimes it’s the sound of the words- I noticed a while ago, most of my cousins are a pair of siblings and everyone says the older one first… except with one pair. They’re always said younger first. The older just has a name that sounds wrong when said first. I can’t quite put my finger on why.
In linguistics, these are called irreversible binomials. There is of course a Wikipedia article.
Not necessarily the same as the OP but in English we do have an order for adjectives. Opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. That article also covers the “rule of ablaut reduplication”:
“Reduplication in linguistics is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong. If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O. If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O. Mish-mash, chit-chat, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic tac, sing song, ding dong, King Kong, ping pong.”
Neither of these rules explains the examples given here, but they do hint that English speakers love their rules and we all know how to stick to them. Or something.
ETA: Ninja’d by markn+ who had a well better answer than mine! With a cite!
Ran off with the dish.
Spoons ran away with the dish? :rolleyes:
If it was Lieutenant Dish, I can understand why he did.
For some binomials, the order is fixed due to history, just like any other fossilized idiom, like “better late than never”. No one would rearrange this to something like “never is worse than late”. There is also an interesting process called “ablaut reduplication” however which determines the original order in some cases. The rule determines the order based on the vowels in the words:
That’s why we say “zig zag”, “mish mash”, “jibber jabber”, “pitter patter”, “tick tock”, “splish splash”, etc. but never the reverse. Like many aspects of grammar, all English speakers use this rule but very few could articulate it.
In Die hard With A Vengeance, this is the shibboleth that trips up a German thief posing as a police officer (see at 0:07). He speaks with no discernible German accent, but when he mentions expecting that “it’s gonna rain dogs and cats”, his disguise is blown.
Peanutbutter & Jelly
There is no spoon.
telephone poles, because motorcycles don’t have doors
I use both variants of this, though this one is more common.
Similar issue: In my circle of friends who are couples, almost everyone is referred to by the man’s first name and then the woman’s first name. But… for almost all of them, the man’s name has one syllable and the woman’s has two:
Bill and Mary
Jim and Jenny
John and Carrie
Jeff and Amy
(names have been changed to protect the innocent)
I always wondered if this was because it just flows better with the one-syllable name coming first, or because it is more natural to pronounce the masculine name first.
I suppose one could raise another question: why do most men go by one-syllable variants of their names, while most women go by two-syllable versions? Yes, obviously there are exceptions, but I think the majority follow this rule.
Probably because “and” often sounds very similar to a girl/woman’s name.
During the late-60’s “Paul is dead” craziness, Mad magazine wrote:
Ringo, George, Paul and John
Played a trick and put us on
Dropped hints Paul was dead as nails
And rocketed their record sales
I wonder whether Two Smoking Barrels, Stock and Lock would have been a somewhat different movie. It certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.
Garfunkel and Simon. Mary, Paul and Peter. Cream and peaches. Kaboodle and kit. Them good old boys drinking Rye and Whisky.
Yeah, but there is Garfunkel & Oates
(because, somehow, “Oates & Garfunkel” would just sound wrong)
But no Oates and Hall.
I answered it in post #5. There is no rhyme or reason. And that is the truth. It just sounds right or wrong, as opposed to wrong or right.
My best friend since childhood is named Jim. I always thought it came out as “Gemini”. My mom would tease me and say, “Who’s Gemini?” I usually end up overpronouncing it. Jim. And. I.
Re: couples’ names, e.g., Bob and Carol, it does vary according to which family is referring to them. Carol’s family is more likely to say “Carol and Bob,” and Bob’s family to say “Bob and Carol.”
I’m not sure if that rule works with friends. Do Alice’s friends say they’re going to “Alice and Ted’s” or “Ted and Alice’s”?