Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Yes. As per etymologynerd, English speakers tend to like trochaic stress rhythm in sentences, like "salt and pepper" or "lee and sophie" where a different ordering sounds weird.


Maybe, but there are plenty of counter examples:

“Chicken and egg”

“Cookies and cream”

“Heaven and Earth”

“Chapter and verse”

Seems like some phrases just are a certain way, and inverting them sounds wrong just because that’s what we’re used to hearing.


I think it's entirely what we're used to. Mainly when I hear one the other way around it's a non-native speaker, but sometimes the inverted order is used for effect, e.g. A Song of Ice and Fire sounds off-kilter, like its world and characters.


These examples all consist of a trochee followed by an iamb--another word for this specific metrical foot is choriamb [0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choriamb




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: