Alliteration
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Voila! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! [slashes a large V through a propaganda poster.] The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. [giggles] Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me "V".
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Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables of a phrase.
It is a particularly pithy practice of combining common consonants at the beginning of words. It's a specific Sub-Trope of two phonetic father phenomena -- "consonance" (consonants) and "assonance" (vowels), wherein similar sounds can occur anywhere in the individual words. Alliteration might just have the same letter at the beginning of the word, like in "Added Alliterative Appeal", even though the leading "A"s do not share the same pronunciation.
Different degrees of alliteration are definitely doable, provided one pays particular ponderance to the proceeding points:
- Alliteration applies to a particular piece's pronunciation more than its specific spelling. As an easy example, "Fatal Family Photo" is obviously indicative of Added Alliterative Appeal ("ph" = "f"), whereas "Combat by Champion" is ...not so much ("c" and "ch" have decidedly different dictations).
- Alliteration doesn't really require every individual word shares similar starting sounds so minor words lacking verbal stress can be effectively exempted. Take "Breaking the Bonds" for example; nobody notices the thorny "the" therein. "Petting Zoo People", likewise, plays on its pair of P's, letting the Z slip by unnoticed. (And your thesaurus will thank you.)
Individual interpretation of this practice varies by viewer: It can range from a good grammar gag to a personal pet peeve. Indeed, it is somewhat susceptible to the Rule of Three, so be careful when considering questionable cases.
- Category:Alliterative Trope Titles: List of all tropes that have this property.
- Alliterative List
- Alliterative Family
- Alliterative Title
- Alliterative Name