The "good" word comes first in a sentence, especially when expressing a Binary Hierarchy.
Lakoff and Johnson, citing Cooper and Ross (1975) say that what we think of ourselves is used to order Binary Oppositions that come to our minds:
> Since people typically function in an *upright* position, see and move *frontward*, spend most of their time performing *actions*, and view themselves as being basically *good*, we have a basis in our experience for viewing ourselves as more UP than DOWN, more FRONT than BACK, more ACTIVE than PASSIVE, more GOOD than BAD.
That governs the ordering of words that have no natural order:
* "Up and down" is more common/normal than "down and up." Relates to the metaphor that Up Is Good.
* "Front and back" is more common than "back and front."
* "Active and passive" is preferred to "passive and active" because people don't like to think of themselves as passive.
Why is the good term first? Because of a conceptual rule that Nearest Comes First. They use "The *first* person on Bill's left is Sam" as an example. Given that the first person in a lineup is typically the leftmost (just like the First Day of the Week on a calendar) what's up with that?
(They're playing a little fast and loose by using the spatial meaning of "near" and its meaning of "similarity" – but they would doubtless argument that we have a Similar Is Near metaphor, justified by expressions like "the negotiators' positions are getting *closer*.")