There's nothing theoretically wrong with alphabetical order for nouns. Like a lot of English, there's no explicit rule but there's a way that sounds best. It often depends on what the items are. If history is involved, chronological order makes sense. If they're items you'd find on the shelf at an auto parts store, sorting by function helps the reader find them.

If the list is made of adjectives, on the other hand: a dragon that is "great, old, and green" sounds fine, but "old, green, and great" sounds like the speaker is clumsily making it up as they go along. What's happening here is covered in "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth (2013), where he says

"... adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out."

There's nothing right or wrong with alphabetical order for nouns. Like a lot of English, there's no explicit rule but there's a way that sounds best. It often depends on what the items are. If history is involved, chronological order makes sense. If they're items you'd find on the shelf at an auto parts store, sorting by function helps the reader find them.

If the list is made of adjectives, on the other hand: a dragon that is "great, old, and green" sounds fine, but "old, green, and great" sounds like the speaker is clumsily making it up as they go along. What's happening here is covered in "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth (2013), where he says

"... adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out."

There's nothing theoretically wrong with alphabetical order for nouns. But like a lot of English, there's no explicit rule but there's a way that sounds best. It often depends on what the items are. If history is involved, chronological order makes sense. If they're items you'd find on the shelf at an auto parts store, sorting by function helps the reader find them.

If the list is made of adjectives, on the other hand: a dragon that is "great, old, and green" sounds fine, but "old, green, and great" sounds like the speaker is clumsily making it up as they go along. What's happening here is covered in "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth (2013), where he says

"... adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out."

There's nothing theoretically wrong with alphabetical order for nouns. Like a lot of English, there's no explicit rule but there's a way that sounds best. It often depends on what the items are. If history is involved, chronological order makes sense. If they're items you'd find on the shelf at an auto parts store, sorting by function helps the reader find them.

If the list is made of adjectives, on the other hand: a dragon that is "great, old, and green" sounds fine, but "old, green, and great" sounds like the speaker is clumsily making it up as they go along. What's happening here is covered in "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth (2013), where he says

"... adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out."