Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard.

William Wordsworth used alliteration in both of these lines from "Lucy Gray"

                  And sings a solitary song
                  That whistles in the wind.

Write a short serious poem using alliteration.
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If too much alliteration is used, we get a ridiculous sound, as in a tongue twister

           Example:
                  Stuart Stevens rode astride his stallion down the sandy seashore.
                  Seeing surfers, sailors, sun bathers, and swimmers, he stopped.
                  Stuart stood and stared at the scene.

Your turn to write a tongue twister.
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      At sometime or another, all of us have stumbled over tongue twisters - those tricky combinations of words that are very difficult to say. For example, try saying this short tongue twister three times in a row.

      Mixed biscuits

Difficult, isn't it? Here are three more well known tongue twisters:

            • Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
            • She sells sea shells down by the seashore.
            • Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

What makes tongue-twisters so difficult to say? Here are a few characteristics:

            • Frequent repetition of a consonant sound.
               Example: the p in "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers".

            • Use of words that are almost - but not quite - the same.
               Example: she and sea, sells and shells.

            • Use of sounds that are similar, especially when one occurs right after the other.
               Example: the ix and is sounds in "mixed biscuits".

Try writing some tongue-twisters of your own. See how difficult you can make them. Test them by saying them out loud.

1. Write a tongue twister that uses the c and cr sounds frequently.
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2. Write a tongue twister that uses the words best and bets.
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3. Write a tongue twister that uses the words sisters and slipped.
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