Tock – Tick ~ Rules

The Oxford English Dictionary contains a quarter of a million entries. It is not only the words that can be confusing but the flow of each sentence.  I read a fun article from the BBC about some rules we know without really knowing them. (the best kind)

Why do we say tick tock and not tock tick, 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, explains the 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.  For example, mishmash, chit-chat, dilly-daily, shilly-shally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tick-tac, sing-song, ding dong, King Kong, ping-pong.” All these words have a nice rhythm.

There’s another unwritten rule at work in the name Little Red Riding Hood, says the article.  Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-color-orgin-material-purpose-noun.  So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order it sounds really weird”  I have to admit, it is a strange sentence to begin with.  

That explains why we say “little green men” not “green little men”, but ‘Big Bad Wolf “ sounds like a gross violation of the “opinion (bad)-size, (big), noun (wolf)” order.  It won’t though, if you recall the first rule about the I, A, O order. This is getting more complicated.

That rule seems inviolable: “All four of a horse’s feet make exactly the same sound.  But we always, 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.  Sounds like something antacid might cure.    

The good news is we don’t have to memorize these rules.  It’s something we know without knowing we know.  Unlike the rules for the proper use of commas, apostrophes, colons, and semicolons,   I gave up trying to figure out rules for punctuation, I just sort of throw the cute little marks at the words and hope for the best.  Mostly I count on you being a good sport and ignoring the whole thing.