Alliteration

Alliteration is the term used to describe successive words starting with the same sound, and usually with the same letter. “She sells seashells by the sea shore” is a tongue twister, and it is also an example of alliteration. You’ve probably encountered many examples of this poetic technique in your day-to-day life. Advertisements, tongue twisters, nursery rhymes, and pop songs use the technique.

Why do writers choose to repeat the first letter of a string of words? What does the technique do? Alliteration may be challenging, humorous, or even ominous. The repeated letters announce themselves visually and aurally, and this draws the reader's attention to those words.

In ordinary fiction writing, and sometimes in non-fiction writing, authors can reasonably use alliteration in small amounts, and it's often used when titling an essay or article. Alliteration is used more heavily in poetry.

References

• Egan, J. (n.d.). Alliteration. ENG134 – Literary Genres. The American Women's College. Retrieved 2024. Some of the above content was copy/pasted from here.