Rhetorically Speaking 2: Alliteration

Alliteration is the use of the two or more words in sequence that have the same sound in their first syllables. Take this example

The snake silently slithered

Here the ess sound is repeated three times. The repetition of sounds is very pleasing the to the human ear and sentences using alliteration take on a poetry-like nature. Made-up names for cartoon characters and comic-strip heroes often feature alliteration,

Micky Mouse, Donald Duck, Dan Dare.

Then there are film and pop star names, characters in novels and fictional places,

Ronald Reagan, Janet Jackson, Peter Pan, Heartbreak Hotel

Overuse of alliteration can often become cliched. An example of this is in what we shall politely call the lower-quality press. Headlines like “Fox Found on 72nd Floor” (taken from today’s Sun) aren’t too bad, they just got lucky (and so did the fox). However, all too often, headline writers go out of their way to use alliteration and the results can sound contrived, such as this example which manages to pack two alliterations into one headline, “Can this cute cat secretly sense death?” (also from today’s Sun).

Summing up, use alliterations sparingly. Sometimes they will happen naturally. Don’t give in to the temptation of using words you wouldn’t normally use (or aren’t entirely sure of) just for the sake of alliteration. This, my dear readers, is why this article isn’t titled “Awesome and Awful Alliterations”. For once I am practicing what I’m preaching.