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

[Wilson Gray]

On May 17, 2005, at 11:53 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Query: why "salt and pepper" but not "pepper and
> salt"?
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>
>>> This evening I received the following query: Why do we always say
>>> "salt and pepper" and never "pepper and salt?"
>
>> I believe it's one of the "freezes" or fixed binomials listed in
>> Cooper & Ross's "World Order" paper on the topic in the CLS
>> Functionalism volume (1975).
>
> But the order is not fixed in all contexts, surely. MW3 defines
> "salt-and-pepper" simply as "pepper-and-salt", under which is given the
> usual meanings along the lines of "flecked dark and light". There are
> also
> entries for "pepper-and-salt cat" and "... moth". In my experience
> "pepper-and-salt mustache" for example is more frequent than
> "salt-and-pepper ...".
>
> As for "please pass the ..." etc. I've heard "pepper and salt" although
> less often than "salt and pepper". However, presumably the combination
> of
> condiments is ancestral to the color expression, so I suppose "pepper
> and
> salt" cannot have been too absurd in the popular mind even in the
> condiment
> sense.
>
> It is my casual impression that the order here is less fixed than in
> some
> other combinations such as "bread and butter".
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>

Not to mention "black and white."

-Wilson Gray