Abstract
Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-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 in the slightest you’ll sound strange.
If somebody said the words zag-zig or cross-criss, you would know that they were breaking a sacred rule of language. All four of a horse’s feet make exactly the same sound, but we say clip-clop, never clop-clip. Every second your watch or clock makes the same sound, but we say tick-tock, never tock-tick. You will never eat a Kat Kit bar. The bells in “Frère Jaques” will forever chime “ding dang dong.”
This follows a principle in linguistics termed reduplication. This is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong. If there are three words the order has to go I, A, O. If there are two words 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.