Discussion Main / AddedAlliterativeAppeal

Eh, I don't think they harm much, and in such a long quote single letters could easily drown.

Well-spotted. I would support it, though renames must go through TRS.

On a related note, here is a list of tropes I removed because those A's in the title are no alliterative.

Deleted * Alien Abduction * Alien Arts Are Appreciated * Author Avatar * Alien Autopsy. * Australian Accent * Amphibious Automobile * Always Accurate Attack * Amusing Alien. * Anonymous Author * Audio Adaptation * Australian Accent. * Awesome Art * Awesomeness by Analysis * Awesome Anachronistic Apparel. The a's are pronounced differently and don't have the same sounds * Anonymous Author. More tropes starting in A's should be checked.

reply to Sean Murray I to his edit notes:

Here are the trope names you put back transcribed in IPA. Clearly the beginnings are not the same vowels. If there are some major changes in various accents, then I'm sorry. But in standard Am Emg or Br Eng, there are most definitely not alliterative.

• Always Accurate Attack /ˈɔːlweɪz ˈækjərət əˈtæk/
• Alien Abduction /ˈeɪliən æbˈdʌkʃn/
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated /ˈeɪliən ɑːts ɑː(r) əˈpriːʃieɪtɪd/
• Anti-Air /ˈænti eə(r)/
  • æ — as in cat
  • ɔː — as in horse
  • eɪ — as in train
  • ɑː — as in car
  • ə — as in computer
  • eə — as in air, chair

Well, we're I'm from, myself and others pronounce "alien" with a much softer vowel sound than in AY-lee-en. More like air-LEE-in, making it sound much more alliterative. air-LEE-in ab-DUK-shun.

As far as anything else, I think this is flat out too much of a fuss. Simply put, most soft-A sounds sound alike (they certainly do when grouped as Always Accurate Attack, Anti-Air, Airleein Abduction, and Airleein Arts Are Appreciated). Alien Arts Are Appreciated, in particular, sounds like it contains two like pairings of A-letter words (Arts + Are, Alien + Appreciated). Again, maybe it's just my accent, but any slight differences between any A vowels seems so miniscule, it seems like a fuss to make sure editors are conscious of six or more pronunciation symbols for a single letter.

Other clearly non-alliterative A-pairings like Australian Accent or Amoral Attorney and anything that much more obvious I already look out for and definitely try and keep off this page. Anti-Air though? Any fluctuation in the A sounds are so minimal to me, I don't even care to notice the "differences".

Too much of a fuss? They are phonetically very different sound and 'a' vowels differ very prominently. They are hard to learn for foreigners to pronounce correctly because there are so many and often are "stigmatizing" mistakes: if you mispronounce them, you are recognized as non-native spaeker.

BTW, I saw in the history that you deleted Trivial Title, saying that "tr" is phonetically equivalent to "chr" and sounds nothing like a hard "t". Not alliterative... true phonetically, but human brain is trained to recognize them as very alike sounds because of the same spelling.

So make up your mind, please. Either make a fuss out of everything and hold phonetic standards to every example, or allow that the writing can be thought alliterative as well.

Did you not finish reading what I already wrote?

I'll repeat: "Other clearly non-alliterative A-pairings like Australian Accent or Amoral Attorney and anything that much more obvious I already look out for and definitely try and keep off this page."

Yes, thank you, XFllo; you have found the easily-accessible evidence of me doing exactly what I already told you I've been keeping an eye on this page for. Obvious mismatched consonants that are in no way alliterative, such as S & Sh, P & Ph, P & Ps, soft C & hard C, hard C & Ch, hard T & Th, hard T & Tr, etc. have been purged by me personally for months now.

What you're demanding, though, is that I start fussing over the more subtly perceived differences in phrases like "Alien Abduction", "Always Accurate Attack", "Omnipotent Observer", and "Aunt Annie" which are either perfectly alliterative in certain dialects (certainly in mine) and/or are too subtle to even notice.

You cannot compare the distinct consonant contrasts in Trivial Title with your gripe on Always Accurate Attack, and you already know I'm not going to take you seriously when you push that argument. What else you got?

Please remember to not let this get heated, ladies and gents.

I stand by my statement that Alien Abduction and Always Accurate Attack are not alliterative and that they have very distinct vowel sound. Omnipotent Observer is neither. (Not sure about Aunt Annie in Am-E, but it's certainly not alliterative in Br-E.)

Omnipotent is pronounced /ɒmˈnɪpətənt/ in Br. E. and /ɑːmˈnɪpətənt/ in Am. E. Oberver is pronounced /əbˈzɜːrvər/ with a neutral vowel in both.

I kind of wonder where you come from. :-) Sorry for being nosy, but I'm exposed to British and American media, but I've never encountered an accent that would have that indistinct vowels.

I could be purging the list also. I always use trustworthy dictionaries to check the pronunciation. I certainly don't deny your hard work on the list.

@Telcontar: Thanks for reminding me, I'll try not to care that much. It only seems weird to me that Sean M is so particular about consonants, rightly so in most cases, but vowels sound all the same to his ears when they are not.

But I already acknowledged that vowels don't "sound all the same" to my ears.

I'll repeat, again: "Other clearly non-alliterative A-pairings like Australian Accent or Amoral Attorney ... I already look out for and definitely try and keep off this page."

Honestly, you're not gonna get very far in a discussion like this if you're just going to blatantly misrepresent what I'm already spelling out for you. I never said all vowels sound the same to me, and my curator history on this page shows I am conscious of mixes of hard and soft vowel pronunciations that are more-than-obviously never alliterative. You don't see me arguing "Anvilicious Aesop", "Eerie Encounter", "Idiotic Idea", "Out in the Open", "Ultimate Unicorn", or anything else like that as belonging on this index, so don't suggest that I am.

Most soft vowels, however, sound so similar or vary so much by dialect it's not worth fussing over when it's not as objectively clear cut as most other poor additions that get added this index.

Yet you re-added Anti-Air and Alien Abduction, despite the fact that one word's 'a' is a diphthong (air, alien) and and the other is near-open front vowel ("ash" in anti and abduction). I won't delete it because I don't want to edit war, but it's simply not alliterative.

As the OP noticed, nor is the name of this index.

Anti-Air and Alien Abduction do not sound alliterative to me, either.

I apparently can't find a source that explains alliteration of vowels in detail, but what I know is that in Old English alliterative verse, all vowels are considered as alliterating with each other. While this may not be not the only possible definition, it might be an argument for not being too restrictive in that respect. See also the post by TheNinth just a little below us, who already said essentially the same thing.

By the English definition of alliteration an A is an A, an E is an E, an I is an I, etc. This definition has not changed. Since we're basically arguing semantics anyway, I say we go with the official definition.

So, what's the "official definition" and where can I look it up?

Oy. Barring an agreement soon, I smell a potential Trope Repair Shop in the works.

Man, talk about Serious Business. All over a Just for Fun index. I'm so confused now. O_O

If I'm being completely honest, it doesn't make any sense to me that this is an index, especially considering that practically every link in the site uses it as a trope.

Alliteration may also include the use of different consonants with similar properties or even the unwritten glottal stop that precedes virtually every word-initial vowel in the English language, as in the phrase "Apt alliteration's artful aid" (despite the unique pronunciation of the "a" in each word.

I have something to say about an example pointed out in the "Katawa Shoujo" computer game. This is how one aliteration was described:

◦The scene in Act 1 where you meet Emi while going out with Shizune and Misha is called "Short Sharp Shock".

The phrase actually comes from Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado (and, funnily enough, Misha's family name is Mikado, making her alliterative as well). It's from the Trio in which Nanki-Poo, Koko and Pish Tush (IIRC) are singing that they "don't much care:

To sit in sullen silence in a dull dark dock In a pestilential prison with a lifelong lock Awaiting the occasion of a short sharp shock From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!"

Now THAT's alliteration!