Some time ago, I wrote an entry on alliterating antonyms. Now it's time to do the same for other types of alliterating pairs that are not antonyms. Here is what I have collected so far.
Two grammatically equal elements, with complementary or related meaning:
Names of fictional characters (only the most well-known ones, see this link for more):
If, BTW, you happen to have a particular preference for the letter C, you will have to buy "The Fry Chronicles", by Stephen Fry. In it, he talks about addictions, and alliteration is definitely one of his. The Table of Contents consists completely of words commencing with a C!
Another interesting psuedo-factoid (called "pseudo" because my evidence is very sketchy, being limited to my own personal experience and bias): the frequency of letters used to create alliterating pairs is very different from the average frequency of first letters of words. According to the wikipaedia entry on letter frequency, the relative frequency of first letters are as follows:
Two grammatically equal elements, with complementary or related meaning:
- bed and breakfast
- bread and butter
- fad and fashion
- fame and fortune
- forgive and forget
- guts and glory
- murder and mayhem
- poetry and prose
- pride and prejudice
- ranting and raving
- rhyme and reason
- treachery and treason
- false friends
- fire-fighting
- mealy-mouthed
- mild-mannered
- milk maid
- murky management
- pet peeves
- the rat race
- topsy-turvy
- busy as a bee
- dead as a doornail
- get your goat
- give up the ghost
- good as gold
- last laugh
- leave in the Lurch
- method to the madness
- out of order
- pleased as punch
- right as rain
- ride roughshod
Names of fictional characters (only the most well-known ones, see this link for more):
- Betty Boop
- Bugs Bunny
- Daffy and Donald Duck
- Fred Flintstone
- Lois Lane
- Mickey and Minnie Mouse
- Moaning Myrtle
- Peter Parker
- Peter Piper
- Porky Pig
- Tweedledum and Tweedledee
- Woody Woodpecker
- Boris Becker
- Kevin Kline
- Jesse Jackson
- Jesse James
- Marilyn Monroe
- Michael Moore
- Mike Myers
- Rembrandt van Rijn
- Robert Redford
- Ronald Reagan
- Simon Schama
- Simon Stevin
- Sylvester Stallon
- Wim Wenders
- Sense and sensitivity
- American Airlines
- Best Buy
- Coca-Cola
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- PayPal
- Rolls Royce
If, BTW, you happen to have a particular preference for the letter C, you will have to buy "The Fry Chronicles", by Stephen Fry. In it, he talks about addictions, and alliteration is definitely one of his. The Table of Contents consists completely of words commencing with a C!
Another interesting psuedo-factoid (called "pseudo" because my evidence is very sketchy, being limited to my own personal experience and bias): the frequency of letters used to create alliterating pairs is very different from the average frequency of first letters of words. According to the wikipaedia entry on letter frequency, the relative frequency of first letters are as follows:
| t | 16.67% |
| a | 11.60% |
| s | 7.76% |
| h | 7.23% |
| w | 6.75% |
| i | 6.29% |
| o | 6.26% |
| b | 4.70% |
| m | 4.37% |
| f | 3.78% |
| c | 3.51% |
| l | 2.71% |
| d | 2.67% |
| p | 2.55% |
| n | 2.37% |
| e | 2.01% |
| g | 1.95% |
| r | 1.65% |
| y | 1.62% |
| u | 1.49% |
| v | 0.65% |
| j | 0.60% |
| k | 0.59% |
| q | 0.17% |
| x | 0.04% |
| z | 0.03% |
while in alliteration, we have a clear tendency to avoid most vowels, and a preference for certain consonants, some of which are only used occasionally (in relative terms) as first letters, such as j, d, n, g, and r (k and q are also used more than average in alliteration, but they don't really count because they are phonetically equivalent to the "hard" c).
What an interesting and curious entry. I started to think of all iterations after reading II. What about Coco Chanel? One for your C list?
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice addition, but it is a slightly different category, because although the initial letter is the same, the sound is not.
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