Today's question, spurred by the round of thunderstorms we endured:

[conuly]

Why do we say "thunder and lightning" when it clearly should be the other way around? Lightning first, then thunder. It's a silly question, I know, but it'll keep me up tonight.

Comments

[steorra]

I don't know why, but looking at the OED it looks like that and similar collocations in that order go back at least to the 1400s, maybe earlier (there's one from around 1000 that I'm not entirely sure about.)

[crystalpyramid]

Maybe we don't like how "-ng and" sounds as a string of phonemes?

[crystalpyramid]

Or: can you hear thunder at a farther distance than you can notice lightning, so it seems like the thunder is the first part of the storm you notice? I haven't paid enough attention to have a sense for this.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Phonetics. It's easier to say than the other way. It puts the heavier syllables at the beginning. Also, "lightning and" would be harder to say than "thunder and".

[l33tminion]

The "d" in "and" also flows better with the "l" in "lightning" as opposed to the "th" in "thunder". If you pay attention to the motion of your tongue during the transition between those consonants, you'll see why "and lightning" feels better than "and thunder", too.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Yes. Phonetics probably helps a lot of stock phrases, such as 'past history'