What are the principles that make certain lists sound euphonious?

Question

Has this ever happened to you: You write a question, include a list or two in the discussion, and then come back to edit that list because the order doesn't sound "right"? For example, I changed "God, man, and nature" to read "man, nature, and God". Why in fact do certain constructions of lists sound more pleasant to the ear than others? Why can't it be "child, man, and woman" rather than "man, woman, and child"? All the principles I can think of, such as ordering by "natural" progression, ordering by length of word, and ordering to preserve internal rhyme, seem to have exceptions or be violated for some sayings. Does one principle have supremacy over the other? Are there any others I'm missing? And finally, how can we be sure what sounds pleasant isn't just historical inertia carried over from a first well-recognized coinage?

Answer 1

The closer the proximity of vowel sounds in the mouth the easier they are to speak and the better they sound in relation to surrounding consonants, even if the 'sound' is just silent sub-vocalization, as it is when reading words we've just written on a page. You'll find that word order tends to sound better or worse depending on the fluidity of the vowels and how much effort it takes to stitch them together with each other and with surrounding consonants to form syllables, words, phrases, and, finally, sentences and paragraphs. I took this notion of the proximity of vowel sounds from principles of bel canto Italian opera instruction, but I think it applies here.