Alliteration

As you will learn in your public speaking course humor does not need to be extremely outrageous to be effective. A mild form of humor you can use is alliteration. Alliteration means the repetition of the same first letter or the same first sound in a group of words, or in a line of poetry. 

Advertisements use alliteration in their titles all the time because it tends to catch your ear and eye. Learning to catch the attention of your audience is part of knowing your skills learned in a public speaking course. One of my humorous speech topics is titled 'Pranks for Profit: Confessions of a Paid Practical Joker'. It has four 'p' sounds. 

Here is an example of alliteration used to give a positive message.

'We (B)agged the (B)aldridge award (B)ecause our (B)rainy, (B)eautiful (B)usinesspeople are the (B)est.' 

If you have a negative message you can soften the blow of the message without appearing uncaring. Example: 

'The strike by one of our suppliers has put a (C)runch on our division. Even though we are (C)runched, we are still (C)reative. We are still (C)redible. And we will (C)onquer this problem.' 

Alliteration in this area can heighten the glow, or soften the blow.

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