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Alliteration

Alliterations are sentences which have similar sounding starting words. Focus on the word ‘sound’. This means that the words can have different starting letters, but the sounds are similar for the sentence to be alliterative. For example, “the cat ate my kit-kat” – here, cat and kat have different starting letters but make the same sound so the sentence is an alliteration.


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  Ramya Shankar  —  Grammar Tips
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Alliterations make sentences and phrase words sound catchier and more attractive. There are many well-known companies that use such brand names that can easily fit into the minds of people. For example, Coca-Cola, Dunkin Donuts, Best Buy, PayPal etc... There are many cartoon and other fictional characters that have an alliterative effect on their names – Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Peppa Pig, SpongeBob SquarePants and so on. Some famous people also have names that are difficult to forget – Kim Kardashian, Marilyn Monroe, William Wordsworth etc…

Mostly, alliterations are used to make teaching interesting for kids. When there are rhyming words that sound funny, they can relate and learn in a better manner. For example, alliterations are widely used in rhymes –

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?”

 

“Betty Botter bought some butter,

"But," she said, "the butter's bitter;

If I put it in my batter,

It will make my batter bitter;

But a bit of better butter,

That would make my batter better.”

 

It is easier to memorize rhymes that also have alliterations.

 

It is easy to create alliterations of your own. Let us see some example sentences to familiarize ourselves more –

•  The greedy gamers got into a grisly fight.

•  The kids ate all the cookies in the kitchen.

•  We while away time while the whole world is working.

•  The children were cheerful to see the cheesecake with the cherry toppings.

•  Having healthy food makes you hale and hearty.

Can you try to make some alliterations? Try making some for your emotions right now. For example, I am happy, so I can say – “Happy heart is a healthy heart.”

There are many phrases and idioms where alliterations are used –

•  Busy as a bee

•  Neck to neck

•  Home sweet home

•  Making a mountain out of molehill

•  Pleased as punch

•  Out of order

Tongue twisters are alliterations. However, the vice-versa is not true. Some famous tongue-twisters are –

•  She sells seashells by the seashore.

•  I scream, you scream, we all scream for icecream.

•  He threw three free throws

•  How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

•  If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

Alliterations make learning fun and easy. They are also a great way to enhance speaking and pronunciation skills. Hope this article gave you good information about alliteration with relevant examples.

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