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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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 I

ilk

Dialect
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

A Scots term with two distinct meanings: (1) an adjective meaning "each" or "every" (often appearing as ilka), and (2) a noun in the phrase of that ilk, denoting that a person's surname and the name of their estate are the same.

Detailed Definition
In Scottish poetry and literature, ilk functions in two primary ways. As an adjective (often in the form ilka), it means "each" or "every" and appears frequently in traditional and literary Scots verse. As a noun, its most distinctive Scottish usage is in the phrase of that ilk, which historically indicated that a person's surname matched the name of their landed estate—for example, "Grant of that ilk" meant Grant of Grant. This usage arose from the Scottish practice of landowners taking their surnames from their estates. A later, erroneous interpretation of this phrase led to the modern English sense of ilk meaning "type" or "sort".
Example
Example in poetry:
From Robert Burns's Tam o' Shanter (1790): "Ilk man, and mother's son, take heed"—here meaning "every man." From Walter Wingate's poem The Burnie: "Rowin' mists about their heads / Ilk ane sleepin' sound"—meaning "each one."
Additional Notes
Etymology: The adjectival sense derives from Old English ælc (each), via Middle English northern variants. The of that ilk construction is uniquely Scottish in origin. Related forms: Ilka is the more common form for "each, every" in modern Scots, while ilk in this sense is now mainly literary. Common pitfall: Modern English speakers often use ilk to mean "type" or "kind" (e.g., "politicians of that ilk"), but this usage arose from a misunderstanding of the Scottish phrase of that ilk. Some traditionalists consider the modern usage incorrect. Historical note: The phrase of that ilk was used to distinguish the senior branch of a landed family from cadet branches—for instance, "Houstoun of that ilk" meant Houstoun of Houstoun. Cross-reference: Related to the Scots term ilka (each, every).
Also Known As
ilka each every
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