The 5 R's: Recreation, Rants, Reviews, Ramblings, and Revelations

11/3/2010

You know, I actually hate alliteration, especially first letter alliteration. You wouldn't know it looking at this blog, so far. I have my five R's, "month of madness," there's probalby more to come. Dominic Deegan (comixpedia) should be plotting my doom right about now.

I guess, I should say I used to hate it. Now, if it's used right (and by "right" I mean, according to my aesthetic senses), I can take it small doses. See, I have this thing about similar sounds or words used in close proximity.

One of my writing professors once said that alliteration and other such structures showed good sentence flow. I feel like it draws too much attention to those items. If sounds, words, or even sentence structure are similar, it feels like they belong together, even if they have nothing in common. When they have nothing in common is when it bothers me the most. If they aren't meant to stand out, they shouldn't conglomerate into a force like that.

That's just me though. My friend reaLLy Likes aLLiteration (see, that's getting too close for me). After HEL (history of english lit), I found that alliteration works really well as a poetic form; it strings together a phrase nicely, especially mid-word alliteration that plays more with rhythm, but only if it's consistent. Alliteration really does work better with English; rhyme is a much more Latin construction.

I've also found I like it when Disturbed uses it in their lyrics, or some strange form or pseudo-alliteration (see "Ten Thousand Fists" - song - lyrics). It tends to highlight the staccato rhythms of their songs. They have a habit of mixing alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm rather well (THere's THose r's again). But again, that's an offshoot of poetry, and it stays consistent.

Maybe it's the random cropping up of the form that bothers me in prose. Rhymes, repeated words, and recurring sentence structure (What's With these damn r's?) bother me, too, if the form/structure doesn't persist or have particular meaning. I think it just throws off my internal rhythm.

OK, so maybe I don't hate alliteration. I just want it to harmonize with the form around it. I don't like poetry Feeling Forced, and I don't like being jolted out of my reading rhythm… (R'S!!! ARRRGH!!)