When a friend of ours, Steve, pointed out that "Ariel, Aidan, and Asher" looks suspiciously like a pattern, I realized that a public statement needed to be made.
So: Alliteration in writing is good (if you do it subtly, suitably and sparingly...). Alliteration in children is bad. When your kids are a few years older, they will point out what you were somehow unable to see at the time: it is cheesy. So Lindsay and I want you to know that the recurring A-letters in the males of our family were coincidental, not intentional. Aidan and Asher have already been informed. And now you know. We did not alliterate our children, as if they were mere nouns to be toyed with.
While I'm on this topic, I may as well bring up a related blight in the world of children's names: Cutesy-Pants Assonance. Since you probably don't know what assonance is--and if you did, we would wonder about you--I'll give a few examples.
"These are the kids, Wayne, Jane, and Lane!"
"Meet the fam: Meera, Deedra, and Shakeera."
"I'd like to introduce Jim, Kim and Tim."
There are a lot of warning labels you could attach to small children (feel free to suggest your own), but one of mine would be: Do Not Alliterate This Child! or equally important Do Not Assonate This Child! (The Word Itself and the Fact that I Just Created a Verb Form to Express it Should Tip You Off!)
All right. I feel that I've adequately cleared Lindsay and myself of any verbal wrong-doing.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Disambiguation: We Do Not Alliterate Our Children
Subscribe to:
or 
or
5 comments:
AJ:
Quick note here. Saw your March blog on The Crossing. I brought Cormac up in a comment at www.homilygrits.blogspot.com I think you may want to engage.
And google my blog up at asfoxseesit for some McCarthy news you will want to see.
More later
Sfox, Alabama
I had one rule in naming my nine children: each child's first name must start with a different letter of the alphabet. So I have R, C, H, E, J, M, I, B, and Z. I have enough trouble calling the correct name of the child in question without tongue-twisting alliteration.
By the way, congratulations on the new addition to your family. He's a handsome little A.
Hello Ariel! Just a few things...
1. Asher is beautiful
2. I greatly appreciated your post about heaven below. In fact, i'm saving it.
...and 3. Nothing can compare to an amazing family i know who also have an amazing oddity...Their names all begin with J. Dad and mom are John and Jackie, and the 4 kids are Joel, Jeremy, Julie and Joy. And there's nothing wrong with them. In fact they are all remarkable human beings.
Anyway...just wanted to drop in. Cheers!
~c
Such a funny, great post. :) Being A & A ourselves, I was adamant that not all of our children would be A's but if we had girls instead of boys, there would have been at least one A. :)
Sherry, your kids have excellent and highly differentiated names. If we'd taken a page out of your playbook I wouldn't have needed to write this post. Thanks for the congrats!
Nothing can compare to an amazing family i know who also have an amazing oddity...Their names all begin with J
And see, that's why you couldn't have written this post. Only because I wasn't aware of any such amazing families could I do so with a clear conscience. And now...you've compromised my position. You're sure there isn't anything wrong with them? Eccentricities? Do they have a family bell choir? Are they MU fans? C'mon, anything to make me look better... Thanks for the encouragement re: the heaven post.
if we had girls instead of boys, there would have been at least one A. :)
Well, you dodged the bullet. But if you have any girls in the future, you'll find yourselves staring alliteration in the face again. Be careful.
Post a Comment