Ever wondered why we say Tick Tock, not Tock Tick? Or for that matter, Ding Dong not Dong Ding and King Kong and not Kong King? It turns out that it is one of the unwritten rules of English native speakers know without being taught.
A BBC article explains: If there are three words, the order has to go I, A, O; with two words, the first is I and the next A or O. Here are a few examples: mish-mash, chit-chat, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip top, flip-flop, tic tac, sing song, ping pong.
Another rule we obey in English, probably without realising it, is the order of adjectives: as in Little Red Riding Hood and not Red Little Riding Hood, for example. Adjectives follow the sequence opinion-size-age-shape-colour- origin-material-purpose before the noun. So a ‘lovely little old green French silver whittling’ knife is fine, but try changing the order of the adjectives and see what mess we can get into. So we say ‘a lively black horse’ rather than ‘a black lively horse’. And a lively black horse would have all its hooves making the same noise, described as clip-clop.
‘Big Bad Wolf’ clearly does not obey the opinion-size sequence. That is because it follows a higher order rule: the I-A-O rule (which incidentally has a technical name, the ablaut reduplication rule!) Try thinking of adjective sequences you might use!
You will recall, I am sure, Donald Rumsfeld’s famous warning that in any situation there can be known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, the last being the most potentially dangerous as they are "things that we don't know we don't know". Here we are adding to that list: the unknown knowns, the things we know, but don't realise that we do. Life is simpler knowing that we obey the rule without knowing it!
Source: Why Green Great Dragons Don’t Exist (BBC News)
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