A friend sent this to me. Hadn’t ever thought about this before. POSTED ON OCTOBER 10, 2019BY TODDE
Ever wonder why we say tick-tock, bit tock-tick, or ding-dong, not dong-ding: King Kong, not Kong King? Turns out it is one of the unwritten rules of English that native speakers know without knowing.
The rule, explained in a BBC article, is: “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.”
There is another unwritten rule at work in the name Little Red Riding Hood, says the article.
“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in the order” opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”
That explains why we say “little green men,” not “green little men,” but “Big Bad Wolf” sounds like a gross violation or the “opinion (bad)-size (big)-noun (wolf)” order. It won’t though, if you recall the first rule about the I-A-O order.
That rule seems inviolable: “all four of a horse’s feet make exactly the same sound. But we always say clip-clop, never clop-clip.”
This rule even has a technical name, if you care to know it—the rule of ablaut reduplication—but then life is simpler knowing that we know the rule without knowing it.
Rule of thumb: Play It By Ear: If a word sequence sounds wrong, it is probably wrong.
Sally Jadlow writes historical fiction, inspirational articles, poetry, and short stories. She teaches the beginning writers for Kansas City Writers Group. Her books are available at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007F5H0H4