Ethiopian Fossil Finds Elucidate Elephant Evolution
Ethiopian Fossil Finds Elucidate Elephant Evolution. It’s double alliteration day at Scientific American
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Reader comments
Joey GrammarDec 04, 2003 at 11:15AM
alliteration is only for vowels; fossil finds is considered consonance
jkottkeDec 04, 2003 at 12:39PM
From what I can find online, alliteration applies to repeated sounds at the beginnings of words in a phrase and consonance refers to repeated sounds in the middle or at the end of words in a phrase. Vowels vs. consonants doesn't appear to have any bearing on the matter.
Joey GrammarDec 04, 2003 at 3:19PM
ok, you're right. i'm a jerk. i heard that blowhard david lawrence say this on his radio show and i took his word as gospel. my mistake. last time i ever do that.
dan willisDec 04, 2003 at 10:08PM
The article headline isn't entirely accurate. Its the report that points to the evolution of the various species of elephant and the possible reasons for their extinction, not the fossils themselves.
jkottkeDec 04, 2003 at 10:31PM
But Dan, that doesn't alliterate...
shaunDec 07, 2003 at 2:33AM
It's usually consonants--the definition they taught us in high school was "repetition of initial consonant sounds." Really it's the sound that matters more than the letter (so "university" and "you" would alliterate, for example).
Bonus fact: if you want to, you can use the stressed syllable rather than the first syllable, so "boot" and "about" alliterate.
Uh, anyway...
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.