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Alliteration: Definition and Examples
Exploring the lovely literary device
“The clever old conniver continued to cogitate.”― James D. Doss
Alliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in a series of words. It’s a literary device often used in poetry, humor, and writing to create a musical or rhythmical effect. Alliteration can also be used to add humor to writing and also to teach language learners how to enunciate a bit better.
Show me someone who can say “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if the woodchuck could chuck wood?” in under three seconds and you’ll be showing me someone who’s impressively proficient in speaking.
Personally, I love using alliteration to sharpen a point I’m trying to make in an essay or article. It’s a beautiful way to make people pause, ponder, and put on their thinking cap when you really want a reader to pay attention.
Plus, it just sounds good to the eye, doesn’t it? Of course, it does! So, let’s explore the concept a little more.
What is alliteration?
Many people think alliteration is simply when two or more words in a row start with the same letter. But like many things in life, it’s not that black and white. True alliteration focuses on the sound of the beginning of each word, rather than how its spelled.
- “Certainly city cats” is an example that doesn’t work. Even though each of the first letters are “c”, they don’t all make the same sound when spoken out loud.
- “Karl’s cats kill” on the other hand does work, even though there are two “k’s” and one “c.”
The other general rule to remember for alliteration is the words don’t always have to be one after the other. They also can’t be too far apart, of course.
- “Peter ate a pile of pickled peppers” is still alliteration even though there are several words in between.
- “Peter ate a giant pile of spicy, somewhat pickled peppers” is mostly not alliteration (except the last part) because the important consonants are too far apart.
So, if you ever have two or more words that start with the same consonant sound, and they’re close to each other when read aloud, you’re likely…
