Two things native English speakers know, but don’t know you know

@MattAndersonBBC over on Twitter has shared an amazing bit of language trivia:

We looked this up and it’s from a book called The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase by Mark Forsyth.

The next paragraph on the vowel sounds and how words are ordered is equally good:

We’ve literally spent the last hour trying to think of phrases that don’t fit and we’ve found none.

Here’s some that DO fit:

Chit-Chat
Click-Clack
Clitter-Clatter
Dilly-Dally
Ding-Dong
Drip-Drop
Flim-Flam
Flip-Flop
Flippity-Floppity
Helter-Skelter
Hob-Nob
Hodge-Podge
Hoity-Toity
Hurly-Burly
Mish-Mash
Namby-Pamby
Pitter-Patter
Randem-Tandem
Ribble-Rabble
Riff-Raff Roly-Poly
See-Saw
Slish-Slosh
Teeny-Tiny
Tick-Tack
Tip-Top
Tittle-Tattle
Wiggle-Waggle
Wishy-Washy

Have fun thinking of ones that don’t fit. The best we’ve got is clunk-click, but that was made up for an old Government information film, so that doesn’t really count.

Source: https://twitter.com/MattAndersonBBC/status/772002757222002688