Thursday, December 16, 2010

Alliterating antonyms

I like lists, I like opposites, I like pairs, and I like alliteration (and yes, I also like repetition, provided it serves a stylistic purpose). I searched the web for examples, but didn't find very much, so here is my own list of alliterating antonyms and the like, grouped grammatically, and ordered alphabetically within the groups. My favourites (the short, snappy ones, especially if they rhyme and/or have a nice rhythm to them) are indicated in bold.

Nouns 1: things
apathy or action
boon or bane
brain or brawn
city or country
competition or cooperation
curve or corner
fact or fiction/fantasy
fight or flight
form or function
free or fettered
heaven or hell
love or lust
method/meaning or madness
mind over matter
mountain or molehill
nature or nurture
pain and pleasure
rhyme and reason
right and wrong
style or substance
sunshine and shade
tit or teat
vice and virtue
whiskey or water

Nouns 2: people
beauty or beast
friend or foe
knight or knave
man or mouse
prince or pauper
sinner or saint
striker or scab

Verbs
do or die
detest or desire
fight or flee
help or hinder
help or hurt/harm
like or loathe
practice or preach
publish or perish
pull or push
sink or swim
stimulate or soothe
strive or shirk

Adjectives
brainy or bubbly
callous or caring
catchy or corny
classy or crass
conscious or comatose
factual or fake
fair or foul
greedy or grateful
nice or nasty
principled or pragmatic
simple or sophisticated
smart or stupid
sweet or sour
thick or thin

The reason I like them (I think) is because they are easy to remember, and because the juxtaposition makes it easier to understand what I mean by each term: when I say "right and wrong", for example, you can immediately exclude "right" as the opposite of left.

I have also started a list of other word pairs (not antonyms) beginning with the same letter called Tweedledum and Tweedledee: alliterating pairs.


No comments:

Post a Comment