Intuitive Reason that Quantifier Order Matters Is there some understandable rationale why $\forall x\, \exists y\, P(x,y) \not \equiv \exists y\, \forall x\, P(x,y)$?
I'm looking for a sentence I can explain to students, but I am failing every time I try to come up with one.
Example
Let $P(x,y)$ mean that $x$ is greater than $y$.

$\forall x\, \exists y\, P(x,y)$ means that for all $x$, there is a number $y$, such that $x$ is greater than $y$.
$\exists y\, \forall x\, P(x,y)$ means that there is some $y$, that every number $x$ is greater than.

These don't seem to mean different things to me. Is this perhaps an example where they do mean the same thing or am I just translating to English incorrectly?
Take $P(x, y)$ to mean $y$ is a parent of $x$. 

Then $\forall x \exists y P(x, y)$ means everybody has a parent, while $\exists y \forall x P(x, y)$ means there is someone who is the parent of every son and daughter.
I stumbled on this page asking the same question, but I think I understand now why $\forall x\exists yP(x,y) \not\equiv \exists y\forall xP(x,y)$. It seems that the quantifiers for x and y are essentially nested in each other, such that the second quantifier is dependent on the first.

Let's use the parent example where $P(x,y)$ is a predicate function meaning that y is the parent of x, which can also be stated that x is the child of y. Then, $\forall x\exists yP(x,y)$ can be interpreted as "For all children, there exists a parent." Switching the order of the quantifiers gives $\exists y\forall xP(x,y)$, which can be interpreted as "For some parent, there exists all their children." It seems that the second interpretation has the domain of children limited to the children of the parent, whereas in the first it was all children.