A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter D

Dysphemism

Rhetorical Devices
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Dysphemism uses a deliberately harsh, offensive, or disparaging term instead of a neutral one. It can express anger, contempt, satire, or emotional bluntness.

Detailed Definition
Dysphemism replaces neutral or polite language with words that are coarse, belittling, frightening, or insulting. Where euphemism softens a subject, dysphemism intensifies its ugliness or hostility. In poetry, it may reveal a speaker's rage, prejudice, disgust, grief, or refusal to sentimentalize painful conditions. Poets also use it in satire to challenge polite language that conceals injustice. Because its diction can wound or shock, dysphemism makes tone especially important and can expose conflict between speakers, classes, or values.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The battlefield was a butcher’s yard”; “He called the city a concrete cage”; “The old car was a rust bucket”; “War is described as a feast for crows”
Additional Notes
Dysphemism deliberately lowers the tone of a subject through blunt or insulting naming. It can voice rage, satire, contempt, or social critique, but its effect depends on audience and speaker position. Compare euphemism, which softens expression, and pejorative diction more broadly.
Other Meanings of “Dysphemism”
Also Known As
Harsh Naming Pejorative Substitution Disparaging Expression
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