Susan
Why tock tick does not sound right to native English speakers

I ran onto this interesting article tonight:  http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know

It made me think about how intuitive language is to a native speaker--- I can´t imagine ever memorizing the grammar rules he talks about in this article. I hope spending enough time in my target language will eventually give me the ¨feel¨ for some of the more complex parts too!

Apr 21, 2018 3:41 AM
Comments · 4
3
What a fascinating article! I was hoping it would address why we have certain word orders like black and white, macaroni and cheese, salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly. Is there a rule for why we don't say white and black, cheese and macaroni, pepper and salt, jelly and peanut butter?  :)
April 21, 2018
2
There is something interesting going on with the sound that a clock with a pendulum makes.  In reality, the two different sounds that we describe as tick and tock in English are the exact same sound.  Your brain is organizing the sounds into groups of two.  If you try, you can change the tick sound to a tock sound.  Listen to the clock, and think this:  tick tock   tick tock   tick tock   tick tick tock   tick tock. 
April 21, 2018
1
That is great. Thank you for sharing it!
April 21, 2018

This is called onomatopoeia. 

Not to be confused with echomimetic

April 22, 2018