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 S

Slap on the wrist

Idiomatic Phrase
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 mild, lenient punishment for wrongdoing; suggests light slap on wrist rather than severe penalty, indicating minimal consequence, forgiveness, or insufficient deterrent for offense.

Detailed Definition
Slap on the wrist means a mild punishment or warning that seems too light for the offence. In poetry, the idiom can expose injustice, privilege, institutional weakness, or unequal accountability. The bodily image suggests discipline reduced to a small gesture, more symbolic than corrective. It may appear in satire, legal poems, political critique, or family scenes. A poet can use it to ask why some wrongdoers suffer little while others face severe consequences. The phrase is useful for moral contrast.
Example
Example in poetry:
A satire might show the corrupt lord receiving only a slap on the wrist while a hungry child is punished harshly; In a school poem, the prank earns a slap on the wrist rather than disgrace; The phrase means a very mild punishment; A poet can use it to expose unfair justice.
Additional Notes
A slap on the wrist means a mild punishment for wrongdoing, often judged too lenient. In poetry, it can expose injustice, hypocrisy, class privilege, or institutional failure, especially when serious harm receives only token discipline. The bodily image suggests correction without real pain or consequence. Students should ask who receives this mild treatment and who would be punished more severely. It pairs well with courts, schools, offices, and uneven standards of accountability.
Also Known As
mild punishment
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