alliteration

Definition:

The repetition of an initial consonant sound, as in "a peck of pickled peppers." Adjective: alliterative.

See also:

• Alliterative Absurdities
• Complimentary of Chess: An Exercise in Alliteration
• The Siege Of Belgrade: The Alliteration Poem
• Ten Titillating Types of Sound Effects in Language


• Assonance
• Consonance
• Homoioteleuton
• Reduplicative
• Rhyme
• Tautophony
• Tongue Twisters
• The Top 20 Figures of Speech

Etymology:

From the Latin, "putting letters together"

Examples:

• "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife."
  (advertising slogan for Country Life butter)



• "Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross."
  (Clement Freud)



• "A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow."
  (Vladimir Nabokov, Conclusive Evidence, 1951)



• "Guinness is good for you."
  (advertising slogan)



• "A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!"
  (Albert Brooks as Aaron Altman in Broadcast News, 1987)



• "The soul selects her own society."
  (Emily Dickinson)



• "The Gramercy Gym is two flights up some littered, lightless stairs that look like a mugger's paradise, though undoubtedly they are the safest stairs in New York."
  (Edward Hoagland, "Heart's Desire," 1973)



• "[S]he had no room for gaiety and ease. She had spent the golden time in grudging its going."
  (Dorothy Parker, "The Lovely Leave")



• "Forget the most obvious problem with collegiate calorie counting, that studying Kierkegaard or Conrad after a dinner of seitan and soy chips would render even robust stomachs seasick, sometimes outright ill. And I won’t harp on the clear link between vigorous salad consumption and sulkiness."
  (Marisha Pessl, "Seize the Weight." The New York Times, Oct. 6, 2006)



• "I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me."
  (George Orwell, "A Hanging," 1931)



• "Miss Twining teaches tying knots
  In neckerchiefs and noodles,
  And how to tell chrysanthemums
  From miniature poodles."
  (Dr Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, and Lane Smith, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! Knopf, 1998)



• "The verdict last week on Karen Matthews and her vile accomplice is also a verdict on our broken society.
  
  "The details are damning. A fragmented family held together by drink, drugs and deception. An estate where decency fights a losing battle against degradation and despair."
  (David Cameron, "There Are 5 Million People on Benefits in Britain: How Do We Stop Them Turning Into Karen Matthews?" Daily Mail, Dec. 8, 2008)



• "In a somer seson, whan soft was the sonne . . ."
  (William Langland, Piers Plowman, 14th century)



• "The sibilant sermons of the snake as she discoursed upon the disposition of my sinner's soul seemed ceaseless."
  (Gregory Kirschling, The Gargoyle, 2008)



• "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
  (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)



• "The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life."
  (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)



• "Pompey Pipped at the Post as Pippo Pounces"
  (sports headline, Daily Express, Nov. 28, 2008)



• "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."
  (James Joyce, "The Dead," 1914)



• "Up the aisle, the moans and screams merged with the sickening smell of woolen black clothes worn in summer weather and green leaves wilting over yellow flowers."
  (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1970)



• "My style is public negotiations for parity, rather than private negotiations for position."
  (Jesse Jackson)



• "Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed."
  (Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay")

Observations:

• "Like many another literary device, alliteration is best used sparingly, serendipity being a better inspiration--as in the Daily Mirror's LEGGY LOVELY LANDS UP LEGLESS--than midnight oil. It is to be doubted whether Cigarette-sucking Henry Cecil was sending up smoke signals before a steward's inquiry cleared his flying filly came to a Star sports sub in a frenzied flash."
  (Keith Waterhouse, Waterhouse on Newspaper Style, rev. ed. Revel Barker, 2010)



• "Alliteration, or front rhyme, has been traditionally more acceptable in prose than end-rhyme but both do the same thing--capitalize on chance. . . . This powerful glue can connect elements without logical relationship."
  (Richard Lanham, Analyzing Prose. Continuum, 2003)



• "[T]here are only about 20 consonant sounds in English, and most of them get repeated fairly often anyway. If you find a repetition of /s/ in a text, it may go unnoticed in normal reading, because /s/ is very common in English. So when writers want to draw attention to sounds, they are more likely to use certain sounds, and place them in certain prominent positions. Some sounds stand out more than others--for instance those that are made by stopping the airstream completely with your tongue or lips and then releasing the air. The sounds in this class are made for the letters p, b, m, n, t, d, k, and g . . .."
  (Greg Myers, Words in Ads. Routledge, 1994)

Pronunciation: ah-lit-err-RAY-shun

Also Known As: head rhyme, initial rhyme, front rhyme