Concept in Definition ABC

The cacophony is a phenomenon characterized by perception unpleasant sounds, which result when using similar syllables followed or repeated in the same sentence.

Usually the cacophony is the product of a bad or careless drafting, although sometimes it is considered a literary device.

Common forms of cacophony

During writing, words that are acoustically inharmonious may be used, which is due to a number of common errors.

The most common form of cacophony occurs when using words with similar endings such as some adverbs or diminutives. It is also common when narrating events using verbs in the same temporal form continuously or when words with similar prefixes are used.

Another fact that leads to cacophony is the repetition of the same vowel when it is at the end of a word and at the beginning of the next, as occurs for example in the following cases: "a breakdown", "the alert", "much Water".

Cacophony as a literary resource

Cacophony can be used to express ignorance or lack of language referring to another, or with a derogatory character. Great writers like Miguel de Cervantes have used this resource in their works.

Another use of cacophony occurs in the writing of playful texts such as tongue twisters, in which the pronunciation in loud voice is difficult, being common to make mistakes or change words, as is the case in the famous story of the three sad tigers eating wheat in a wheat field.

How to correct the presence of cacophony in texts

The best way to show the presence of cacophony is to carry out the reading of text to analyze out loud, looking for disharmonic sounds, repetitions, or groups of words that are difficult to pronounce due to their similarity.

Once the words that enter conflict any of them must be replaced by a synonym, change their order in the sentence, go to singular or plural, modify the verb tense or even rephrase the idea.

The Spanish language has a series of grammatical rules that seek to give solution to the problem of cacophony. Such is the case of the use of a Article indeterminate masculine before a word that begins with the letter a, even if it is feminine, examples of this situation are: “the water, instead of the water”, “the handle, instead of the handle”.

In the case of adverbs that end in mind, the grammatical rule states that only the last one should bear this ending, while the previous ones must be replaced by the feminine or masculine form of the adjective. An example of this would be: “plain and clear” which should be changed to “plain and clear”.

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