The Cat in the Hat Somewhat Deconstructed

Collaborating on a children’s book...

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Roy: A story about the weather...like...

“The snow swirls about,

Hear how the wind blows.

Rhythm and Rhyme

We sit by the fire

Toasting marshmallows.”

.

Theodor: Even simpler...

“The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

We sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day.”

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Voice-over

Start with the beats, five for the first line, six for the second.

Character and costume off-beat, rhyme every second line.

Throw in a bit of reduplication.

Cat in the Hat overthrows Dick and Jane.

...

Rhyming as a signal of verbal intelligence

GM likes to rhyme responses.    
wh5: Robert only had 40 friends on Facebook a couple of months ago. Now he’s got over 200.
GM: Friends? What means friends?  I saw George’s profile. He claims 500 PLUS “friends.”
wh5: Well, maybe such people just collect people. Like stamps. Or insects. Grab them. Pin them. Display them. Label them “friends.”
GM: So is all this connecting to “friends” becoming a competition?
wh5: Seems so. And what is a “friend”?
GM: Someone you spend time with, send messages to, lend things to.
wh5: And an acquaintance?
GM: Someone who you glance at, meet by chance, then exist in an expanse.
wh5: And is this “competition,” you allude to, coming from people competing, or companies wanting growth?
GM: It’s froth. It’s growth. Both.

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Voice-over    
In structure, this is a cooperative conversation of question and counter-question to reach consensus.

Stylists sometimes caution against peppering our prose with alliteration, puns or rhymes. But there can be fun in it. Some like Geoffrey Miller go so far as to say rhyming is difficult to do, that a speaker has to try harder to make a rhyme, and likens it to a peacock display, or in a human context, a signaling of verbal intelligence.

Being there

JB has bought an expensive pair of earphones, better than FG's standard issue.

...

FG: But, c’mon, why spend that much? You get a free set of earphones with your iPod. Why would you want to spend more than the music player on just another set of earphones?

JB: Upgrade. More than an upgrade. Think of it this way. You’ve got this great stream of music in the player and it reaches your ears through a pathetic little pipe.

FG: Doesn’t say much. You can still hear what’s coming through.

JB: OK. Sound coming through those little el-cheapo one-dollar earphones is merely dynamic vibrations. These earphones have three mini-amplifiers, each dedicated to a different range of frequencies. They separate the sounds so you hear each instrument, like seeing bright colors instead of a muddy blur.

FG: Really?

JB: Not only that but the earphones sit tightly in your ears and block out surrounding sounds.

FG: Is it worth the extra?

JB: It’s like being there. Actually being there. Your eyes start to see what your ears hear.

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Voiceover

JB is on the defence but he’s marshalling some convincing arguments.

He reinforces (Upgrade. More than an upgrade… like being there, actually being there…).

He uses contrast by denigrating the lesser product (el-cheapo one-dollar… pathetic little pipe…).

His similes show the upgrade in a superior light (like seeing bright colors instead of a muddy blur).

Oh, he alliterates and rhymes (You start to see what your ears hear). Poetic style. He gets my vote despite the economics.

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