All about alliteration

REMEMBER Lingering over lingerie (by Dr Lim Chin Lam, MOE, Sept 24)? Who would have thought that prim and proper senior with a cool, calm and collected demeanour could induce a lady like me to linger languorously over his choice of a cheeky, nay, titillating title? Well, I did, and came away fired by another fascinating facet of my favourite language – its amazing alliterative agility!

“Alliteration” (pronounced ah-lit-err-RAY-shun) is described as “ the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words that are close together” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2002; p31), as in “sing a song of six … Sen!” (and why not?) This repetition of initial sounds in neighbouring words is sometimes also termed front rhyme, head rhyme or initial rhyme. To help teachers understand the familial relationship between alliteration, assonance and consonance, I use this handy description: “Alliteration is the genus, whereas assonance and consonance are the species.” However, since I’m not on a family outing here, I will fête alliteration.