Query: why "salt and pepper" but not "pepper and salt"?

[Benjamin Barrett]

I saw a description of this in a Japanese book several years ago, but do not
remember the title or author. The explanation for this sort of ordering was
phonetics. With salt and pepper, you get S U S U (S = stress, U = no
stress), a natural flow. With pepper and salt, you get S U U S, a
cacaphonous pattern for English.

The author had myriad examples that were interesting, and it seems to be
difficult to find very many examples that violate a stress pattern without a
very good reason.

Benjamin Barrett
Baking the World a Better Place
www.hiroki.us

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Cohen, Gerald Leonard

This evening I received the following query: Why do we always say "salt and
pepper" and never "pepper and salt?"

   I suppose the answer is that salt is more important.
 One may have just salt on the table, or both salt and pepper, but rarely
only pepper.

   Or am I missing something?

Gerald Cohen