Which line of a ready-made verse can I change without wrecking the rhyme?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn a four-line verse the rhyme normally falls on lines two and four, which leaves lines one and three loose \u2014 change either of those and the poem still holds together when it is read aloud. That is where your own detail belongs: the make of his car, the name of the dog, the job he has been promising to finish since last summer. Keep the length roughly the same by counting beats out loud rather than words, because the ear notices a limp where the eye does not. If the line you want to alter is one of the rhyming pair, change both halves of the pair, or the verse stumbles at exactly the point everybody is listening for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is ‘many happy returns’ old-fashioned now, or still worth using?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is still in ordinary use and it does something no other phrase does: it wishes him more of the same rather than congratulating him on the number, which suits a father who dislikes being made a fuss of. It reads slightly formal, so it works best as a closing line rather than an opening one, and it sits particularly well in a card written by hand. What makes it sound dated is repetition \u2014 three of them in one message, or the same phrase every year running. Use it once, put something specific either side of it, and it reads as warmth rather than wording copied off a shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says he hates poems. Is a rhyme still the right thing to give him?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nUsually yes, provided the rhyme is short and has a joke or a hard detail in it. What most men object to is not verse but being praised in abstract terms while other people watch. Four lines about his toolbox, his tea or his refusal to use a satnav get past that guard, because the laugh arrives first and the affection comes at the end, where he can ignore it if he wants to. Hand the card over rather than reading it out, and do not wait for a reaction. He will fold it, say something dismissive, and then keep it in a drawer for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do you read a verse out at a family meal without everybody cringing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDo it early, before the food goes round and while people are still sitting still, and say up front how long it will take \u2014 ‘thirty seconds, then we eat’ buys you complete attention. Read from paper rather than from memory: looking down at a card is normal, drying up halfway through is not. Speak slower than feels right, pause at the end of each line instead of racing towards the rhyme, and finish on the wish rather than the joke, so the room knows where to clap. If your voice goes, stop, breathe and carry on \u2014 most of the table is simply relieved it is not them standing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every verse here says Dad. What if we call him something else?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSwap the word, but count the syllables before you do. Dad, Da and Pa are all one beat, so they drop straight into any line without disturbing the rhythm. Father, Grandad and Papa are two beats, and putting one of those in means taking a small word out of the same line \u2014 usually a ‘the’, an ‘and’ or a ‘so’ \u2014 or the line will run long and the verse will trip when it is read aloud. If the line ends on the word, check the rhyme as well: Dad rhymes with had and glad, Da does not. For a stepfather or a father-in-law, use his actual name rather than a title he has never been given; a name is nearly always one or two beats and behaves the same way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your father’s birthday comes round again, and the printed rhyme inside a shop card will not do him justice \u2014 but neither will a poem that gushes. Most dads take a soppy verse the way they take a surprise party: politely, and by changing the subject as soon as they decently can. What works is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":5415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3271],"tags":[],"moimportance":[],"motype":[],"moformat":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-greetings"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5418,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions\/5418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"moimportance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moimportance?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"motype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/motype?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"moformat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liverpoolname.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moformat?post=5414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}