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Alliteration

Take a look at King's speech in his 1963 address at the Lincoln Memorial. Notice the word like color, content and character. What do they have in common? Look at the way how beautifully it was worded. That brings us to the next lesson; ALLITERATION. So the next time when you come across words which you think could at least add a little twist to it just like the quotation above, be sure to it. All you need is a few dollars book of thesaurus.

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be a apotrophe with fur. -Doug Larson

Martin Luther could have simply said; "... judged not by their race but their characters" Why bother to look up in a thesaurus? Well, as said before, speech is for the ears, text is for the eyes. If speech giving is like reading a book, the audience might as well have some material to read instead as whether there is a speaker to speak or not, it makes no difference. Agree? Say for example, the word gather it could be replaced by the word such as; collect, assemble, group, cluster...

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion- Abraham Lincoln

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today -Abraham Lincoln

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living or dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
-Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address.

Those are the few examples on the use of alliteration. Not only it add colors to a dull speech, but it enlivens an uninteresting audience.

Examples of alliteration include well-known tongue-twisters such as "Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran" and "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

Examples of consonance include "Sparkling...Flavorful...Miller High Life" (advertising slogan for Miller beer).

Literary examples

The memories flash like dusk heat lightning,
Or the fireflies that flit and flare
But grow rusty like the screen door, sighing
With creaks and groans in the hot night air.
- From A Long Way South of Now by Torre DeVito
And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his
/ Hath turned his balls to gun stones
- Act 1 Scene Two of Henry V by William Shakespeare

Here the alliterative use of the letter 'p' emphasises Henry's sarcasm.

Alliteration has also been used in the titles of the Lemony Snicket Books.

 

Like rhyme, alliteration is a great help to memory: it is 'catchy', and frequently used in news headlines, corporate names, literary titles, advertising, buzzwords, and nursery rhymes.

At least two notable computer games are named with alliteration:

The Leisure Suit Larry (and other) games often feature alliteration for humorous names of fictional companies, magic spells etc.

Occasionally parents and authors use alliteration in the naming of their children and characters:

It is also common in the naming of many comic book super-heroes:

 

 

 

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