No Such Thing As A Fish - 493: No Such Thing As An X

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Dan, James, Andrew and Susie Dent discuss algorithms, calculations, 'X's and 'Oh No's. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hey everyone, Dan here. Welcome to this week's episode of Fish. Before we get going, I just want to let you know about today's guest. Joining us this week, we were so excited to be joined by someone who is genuinely British nerd royalty. It is, of course, the lexicographer, the star of dictionary corner from countdown, and eight out of ten cats does countdown, and that is Susie Dent. Now Susie Dent is someone that we basically monitor her Twitter account on a 24 hour basis.

She's just always pumping out incredible words with these definitions and you've never heard them before and we've never met her before. So this was such an exciting moment for us, not only to be able to meet her in person, have a nice chat but also to sit down with her on stage in front of a crowd and dork out with her. So yeah, I really hope you enjoy the episode. We absolutely loved it. And outside of that, I just want to quickly mention that you need to get your hands on Suzie's two new upcoming books.

The first one comes out September 28th, and that one is called Interesting Stories about Curious Words. So it's sort of all those phrases that we know, stealing thunder, red herrings. September 28th, and that one is called interesting stories about curious words. So it's sort of all those phrases that we know, stealing thunder, red herrings, but what do they actually mean? So this book is going to be looking into all those phrases in terms on your behalf so that you now know who was sweet fanny atoms or why are circles vicious? All those questions that you might have had, she's put it into an ultimate compendium to explain it all.

So that's out September 28th. But then on the 5th of October, she also has a book coming out called Roots of Happiness. A hundred words for joy and hope, and that is a book for kids. Basically, Susie had the idea when looking through a dictionary that there's far too many negative words in there and that we should be highlighting the more happy ones, the more uplifting ones. So reading directly from a blurb here, it's going to lift you out of your mubble fubbles, which is a slightly sad mood, make you grin like a giggle mug, which is someone who never

stops smiling, and have you feeling foreblessed, extremely happy. So do pick up both of those books, but until then, enjoy Susie here, live at the Soho Theatre, with no such thing as a fish, on with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast this week coming to you live from the Soho Theater in London. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray and Susie Dents. And once again, we have gathered around our microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days.

And in a particular order here, we go starting with fact number one, and that is Susie. OK, Simon Yoljomson, in his dictionary of the English language from 1755, decided that he would not include any words beginning with the letter X because he said, thus begins no word in the English language. That's my fact. And is that true?

Were we xylophone lists at this point? Yeah, zylophone was a century later. But also he was quite picky. You know how Lex Cogf is today? We are really careful about not giving any opinion whatsoever. Even with words like Trump arenas, which my favourite meaning something completely showy but utterly worthless. We're not allowed to say anything. But he was notoriously rude to the scots, about Americans.

So I think he probably didn't have much track with anything from Greek. OK. But we did have X words at the time. We had a few X words, but a lot of them came later. Lovely words, often great, like Xenium, which is a gift to strangers, which I think is really nice. But what was lovely is that it came from the Phoenicians

and they had a letter, a sameg, which could actually give the letter S, we think. But that meant fish. So you could say there's no such thing as an X. Oh! That's a title of the episodes. Exactly. Yeah. Is that the quickest we've ever got our titles? Yeah, that's right. Wow. Did they have xenophob in those days?

They have a xenophob. Zenophobia, I think, most phobias are based on Greek, but we kind of made them up a little bit later. Sure. But we based them on classical things, like cool refobia, fear of clowns, which I have. They didn't have clowns in ancient Greece, so they chose the word fistilt walker.

Oh, yeah. It's quite cool. Wow. And are you also afraid of them because of the sort of knock on? Well, still, no, I like stilt. Oh, good. Yeah. But yeah, clowns, definitely not.

Really? No. Have you seen the new, is it the Smiler, the Horror? No. No, OK, don't. Wow. The reason I ask her as xenophobia is because Johnson, as you say, probably didn't like the Scots very much.

No, did not. Did not like Americans. Yeah. And like the French, for sure. He predicted that he'd write the dictionary in three years. And then when someone pointed out that it'd taken the French 40 years to write their own dictionary, he said, well, this is proportion. Forty times 40 is 1600, as 3 to 1600.

So is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Wow. So 42,000 words made it into this first dictionary that he did, right? 42,000 definitions.

And he had self-deprecating jokes that he kind of included in there, which is quite fun. So yeah, the word for dull, the description for the word dull, he explained to make dictionaries his dull work as part of his description. And then also the definition of lexicographer, he wrote a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge. Yeah.

I'm looking at it by heart. Yeah, so is he. That's incredible. And look, he would never admit that he didn't know a word, which was quite funny. Oh, it by heart. Yeah, Susie. I do. That's incredible. And I'll see who's quite... He would never admit that he didn't know a word, which was quite funny. So, or the origin of a word. So, spider, I loved, he couldn't quite get the root of spider. So he just said, is this not the insect that spies from a door?

Ah, and then one said... It's not an insect, mate. It's an arachnid. Exactly. It feels like right lid. Exactly. It feels like such a, like the any old Bollocks era of study. It just feels like such a great time to be alive. Right, Dan, you would have absolutely... I would have been... Right.

I would have been king back then, yeah. Yeah, that is true. He was one of the last people in England to be touched for Scroffula. Oh, yeah. So cool. So if you're such a horrible word, scruffy language. Scruffy lady, yeah. And he is just a skin condition

and the monarch would touch people and effectively cure them, but, ineffectively, cure them of scruffy lady. And Samaritan's parents took him to London from his hometown. When he was three years old, you know, your local parish will maybe club together, raise the money they'd send you off, and the queen, Monarch would touch you

It'd be big cues as well, right? Like cues. Yeah, Charles the second I think we might have mentioned this before he touched something like 2% of the population of England. Wow. Wow. Yeah Steady it was a different time. It was a different time. And And like and and Johnson had he had a gold, which is a touch piece, which is the sort of, yeah, it's cool. It didn't work though.

And actually, he's quite this figured, his face through scoffular, which is pretty sad. Yeah. Yeah, and there's some really weird, but lovely, etymologies in there. So Tarantula was an insect, he does say, call it an insect again. His bike can only be cured by music,

because it was thought it could be cured by the tarantella of the dark. Was that proper doctor's advice at the time? Yes, that's the belief. Really? Wow. Is there a doctor in the house, Dr. Johnson? Yes. Getting a herni-gurdy to this woman now.

And then he had retro-mingency, which means pissing backwards. That's how he defined it. When you say pissing backwards, you don't mean sucking it up into your body. Oh. I think it's like... Is that flexible? I hope not.

I think it's like some animals their penis points backwards, right? I think. And so a retro-mingent mammal in pisses on the back of its feet... Let us know. All right, I think. This is a bit like Roy Keene think.

Shave it up your bollocks. He's like, I'm going to have it up your bollocks. It does feel sometimes when you need to pee and you don't want to, that the hold has a suck action to it as well. LAUGHTER Does... Does it?

Am I alone here in that? I think you might be alone. No, no, no, but properly think about it. You're kind of like, I really need to pee. And you're doing, you are, I am. Oh. I am. Does word for that as well, if you are holding on so tight,

it's piss you pressed. And what does, oh, that's just the reaction. That means desperate. It's used to forces mostly. It's kind of desperate to pee, but holding it in. Piss you crest. Piss you press, it's like piss suppressed. Ah, that's a press. Piss you, crest. Piss you, crest. It's like piss, suppressed. Ah, that's piss.

I don't do it, Dan, because... Take a breath, he supposedly died from doing that, didn't he? Yeah. He was a dinner. He was, yeah, famous astronomer, and he did, was it a dinner, and he was too polite? Yeah, and his bladder exploded. Oh, yeah. So don't do that, Dan.

Well, he, I imagine Johnson would have had to pee a lot, because supposedly, he could drink in one sitting, 25 cups of tea in one go. No. He loved his tea. He loved his food. Boswell wrote about this. Boswell would say that to watch him eat

was like watching the most intense thing ever. He would not have any conversation. He was just rampaging through his food. The veins on his head were pulsating. He was just a man obsessed with needing to get the, and he did that with reading as well. He would just have to read really hard and 25 cups of tea is what I read as well.

Wow, that is amazing. He lived at the same time as Francis Groce, who really was, Groce, by figure. Yeah, right. So Johnson always chose the classical references for his dictionary. He was quite a purist originally anyway. And then Francis Grays went to the brothels and the taverns

and picked up all the streets line. And I don't know if they ever met. But they would have had a good dinner party. They would have known about each other. They definitely would. Yeah, so while he's sort of harmlessly dredging away, he's thinking of this other guy who's going in the front. Having fun, yeah. Must have been front. I'm having fun, yeah.

Must've been terrible. I like some of his definitions. So the word etch is a country word of which I know not the meaning. LAUGHTER The word deflection, the definition is a deflection. LAUGHTER That's a real Friday afternoon word, isn't it? I got to go into the brothel.

I just put any else... There's 25 cups of tea wavy just across the room. Oh! LAUGHTER That's great. A sock, something put between the foot and the shoe. It's good? Lunch?

This is good. Lunch, as much food as one's hand can hold. Oh, there is a word for that. A galpin and a yepsin. So galpin is as much as you can hold in a single hand, which, and I think, yepsin is two hands. So it's good for biscuit measurements. Mm-hmm. That's brilliant.

I've got a couple of X word things. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so the word X-ray. You know what the X and X-ray stands for? Unknown. Unknown. Just X. He didn't know what it was. I'm just going to put X here for now.

When they work out what it is, we can change it. It just hasn't been changed. Maybe called Brunken-rays. That would be a nightmare. Is that who? It was Chow. Brunken, he was called from Germany, was an A.C. Yeah, Brunken-rays.

Brunken-rays. Brunken-rays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you know this one. The X-men. Why are they called the X. Yeah, I couldn't raise. I couldn't raise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you know this one. The X-Men. Why are they called the X-Men? I don't know idea. Is it because they spend all the time on Twitter? LAUGHTER

Yes. Yes. Well, I thought it was because Professor X, Professor Xavier, Professor X, X-Men. Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, yeah. But no, it's extra power, which was said in a comic book. Oh, really? Yeah, and just while we're, if you insist, we continue on X-Men.

Just discovered an amazing character for X-Men today. Oh, I've never heard of before. So, did you know that there's a character in X-Men called, Forget Me Not? Oh, no, I can't do that. You don't, because they don't either, because if he is out of your sight, no one can remember him.

Amazing. So the first time we meet him is someone from X-Men going, how do you do him? He's like, I've been here six years. And no one can remember this guy. It's, and it's a great superpower. Not if you want to be part of the team. Yeah, but, you're robbing a bank. Yeah, but... For robbing a bank.

Yeah. Go in, you rob a bank, you leave. That's true. They just carry on with their day. I think that's a really good superpower. I think the superheroes generally aren't robbing the banks. LAUGHTER Oh, yeah. But Professor X, the only reason he knew he existed,

because he set, like, a alarm on his iPhone or whatever, to remind him every so often, like, forget me or not, so a character in our comic book. Oh, okay, cool. So that's the... Professor X isn't aware that it's a comic book that he's taking part in. Yeah, I was just...

Yeah, I was leaving. I broke the fourth wall there for him. Anyway, I don't know. All right. Thanks for letting me get that out. I've got another X for you. Oh, yeah. X when you watch things like it, not the normal speed, like one times... Two times one more time. Yeah, yeah. Uh, X when you watch things like it, not the normal speed.

Like one times two times one times five times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, just a quick show of like, whoops. Who here regularly watches things sped up? Who regular listens to podcasts sped up? Who listens to podcasts sped up? Okay, that's really intense. I know, our voices are probably like, why are they talking so slow on stage?

Hello, I'm Mark, I, welcome to another episode. Yeah. It's a little bit of a dual podcast, but up. Slow down. Slow it down. Slow it down. Yeah. Good. Do you follow an etiquette for your exes or messages? Because I was having this conversation

with brilliant Greg Jenner, his story. Oh, yeah. And so he said, ex, it's only just been kind of okay when the last ten years to put on a platonic text, you know, between friends. XX is more romantic. And he would never put three X's and I said, well, I put three X's in my best friend all the time. He looked up on his phone, all porn. I didn't realise. Did you realise that? Three X's? No, not by saying something about Greg's phone. No. No, it's what it means love, right?

Yeah, you think so. But the interesting thing about that is the first use we have of adding X for kisses or a greeting like that is from 1763 and they did seven X's. Wow. That's a lot, isn't it, to just go straight in with seven. Whoa. Yeah, that's intense. That's it., isn't it, to just go straight in with seven? Wow. Yeah, that's intense. That's huge.

I thought it was like a Christian X. Well, yeah, they think that it was like a blessing, right? Yeah. So it was like the bros. Yeah. But yeah, well, this is in relation to X rated that it was based on the skull and crossbones maybe. Oh, really?

Yeah. It was exclusively films which featured pirate activity. But yeah. Do you know why Blue Joke is called Blue? Is it? Do you know why Blue Joke is Blue? Yeah, it was exclusively films which featured pirate activity. LAUGHTER Do you know why Blue joke is called blue? Is it? Sorry? Do you know why Blue joke is blue? No. No. Because Stencers used to have a blue pencil and also...

Oh! ...facts work is in prison had to wear blue gowns. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, blue gowns. Blue gowns, yeah. Oh, wait, sorry. They prisoners in this. In prisoners? Sorry, I thought they were like visiting Your friend like sorry we've run out of the white for visitors. You might wearing blue Andy while you

What a visit I've had Good Lord They used to of the cocaine. Sorry. Too much? Too much. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast.

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Okay. I'm with the podcast. I'm with the show. It is time for fact number two, and that is James. OK, my fact this week is that in 1986, a group of maths teachers organised a protest in Washington, DC against the use of calculators in schools. Their protests failed because they couldn't get the numbers. Yay! That felt a bit ironic.

At that moment, you became a dad. That sounds a good fact. Yeah, I just noticed maybe time for numbers rounds. See the CZ. Oh, yeah. I bet you're the first person to make that connection. Since 1986, I bet no one even did at the time as well. Do you know the thing?

Wasn't it a maths? It was a gathering of 6,000 maths teachers that they were at. Who texted about calculating? It wasn't a massive story in the newspapers, I must admit. But it was in the newspapers. And like you say, it was a national council of teachers

of mathematics. So they were all maths teachers, was 6,000 of them there. And they were about 15 of them we think, who had placards and songs, and they were protesting against Calcucolix, because they thought that these kids, because they were using calculators, they wouldn't be able to do normal maths,

they would just kind of rely on them, and they wouldn't be able to do any kind of multiplication or anything like that. Yeah, it was a simpler time, wasn't it? It was. Oh, no, our kids and their screens, sort of terrible stuff they're doing. It's typing in boobs upside down. It was more in a certain time.

Yeah, their slogans were amazing. The buttons, nothing till the brains trained. And they chanted, calculators later, we should not be moved. Calculators later is good. They interviewed them in the newspaper I was reading. They interviewed the leader, John Saxon, who organized this whole thing, and they said, well, Mr. Saxon, why are there no teachers?

You know, why have you only got 15 people? And he said teachers don't like to demonstrate because they are shy. Ah, fair enough. I guess a mental arithmetic is an important thing. I read something about you, Susie. I want to know if this is something you still do. But according to an interview you gave, every single morning you do your 75 times table.

I think I was being a little bit whimsical. No, it's because for a very, very long time, if 75 came up on the countdown board, I just gave up because I can't do... If I have 75, I have to write it down, I don't know what it is. And the more I struggled with it, the worse it got because I became fixated on it. So that was probably where it came from. I don't know why, it's stupid. It's not your job to get the numbers, though, is it? Like, you can just let Rachel do all that stuff. No, I really do try. And she's very good at giving 30 different tips. 35.

Yeah? Well, you can't see it at home. Is that these guy calculates her under the paper? Yeah, and that we've edited this. That took him 15 minutes to... The guy who listens to it slowed down is not going to get to it for half an hour. But I love all those old calculating methods,

because calculators from calculus, little pebble, because they counter with stones. And then they had abacuses, didn't they? It is a political hot potato, though. Calculator. Well, yeah, so, for example, does it harm whether you can do mental arithmetic if you use a calculator all the time, in your opinion?

Yes, probably. OK, well, you're in good company because in 2011, there was a British MP who led public concerns on this and said, I would describe this country as in love with the calculator from a very early age. And so the two easy access to calculators is available in local schools. Oh, that MP?

Liz Truss. Oh. The command of large numbers, is that parallel? So, Susie, you're a great person. Lovely, lovely. That reminds me of the petition to get rid of all French words from the British passport. And it went online, it got quite a few signatures,

without realizing that passport is French. Thanks for the words on their reference. But yeah, it's exciting to nothing, I think. Human calculators are amazing. People who can do incredible something ahead. So I was reading an interview with the 2020 World Champion, who is an Indian guy who's called NeiliCanthabanu Prakash. And he got to it quite an interesting way.

He was confined to bed as a child for a year. And loads of people who are amazing at mental maths have either been confined to bed or they've been in solitary confinement or something's happened where they've lived in their imagination for a long time. So all the way through school, he would spend six to seven hours a day

practicing mental arithmetic, just doing that. When he was interviewed by the BBC, throughout the interview, he recited his 48 times table. And when he's talking to someone, he will count how many times they blink, just to keep himself engaged in the conversation. Wow. Yeah.

That's amazing. That's cool. Yeah, there's been loads of them over there. In fact, one of the things that you have to do, if Guinness wants to find out if you're the fastest at working things out is they'll give you a 100 digit number and ask you to work out the 13th route. So the square root is two things that you times

together to get to that number. So imagine then a cube root is three things you multiply together to get to that number. You have to go all the way down to 13. So it might be 37 times 37 times 37 times 37 times. The answer to the power of 13 is the number they give you in the first place. That's right. That's right. That's the question. I'll be honest, I don't think you're going to trouble the Guinness World Hearts people. Even you describing this has put me into a sort of

defensive crouch position. Okay, so the 33rd. I was. Yeah, and I was reading about a guy called Vim Klan, who was the record holder. This was in the 80s. He must be still quite close. He managed to do it in one minute, 28 seconds, but his tactic was to mutter in Dutch while he was doing the calculations and he would only mutter swear words. So imagine I'd actually be like, fucking out of fuck up. And he got 263.

And it would be right every single time. But there is so much science behind swearing, lowering your cortisol levels and raising your serotonin levels. And that experiment with you, dip your arm in ice cold water and hold in twice as long if you're shouting bollocks and if you're shouting bus. And there's a little yellow key here, is exactly it. So that's what he was doing.

Wow. So it works. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Would it help doing this podcast if I just said Bollocks all the way through? Because that's what Dan's been doing for the last 10 years. LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE Oh, you wouldn't say that if we lived in the time of Samuel Johnson, mate. Here's the thing you have to do at the mental calculation world cup, just another example of what. So, the calendar, there's the calendar round, this is an exciting round, you get given a list of dates from 1600 to 2100, a year, and you're given 60 seconds to name the day of the week that every one of those dates happened on. Oh! Okay, so you get a minute to do it, okay? to name the Day of the Week that every one of those dates happened on. Ah!

You get a minute to do it, okay? Yep. And this great long list of days, like 24th of February, 1603, Monday. Right, okay. You're going to say Monday to all of the Monday. Have you got the answers? No.

It's quite obvious. I can't disprove that it was a Monday, but the point, oh my god, that's so odd. Well done, Dan. No it was a Monday, but the point might... Oh, my God, that's so annoying. Well done, Dan. No, no, no. He may have got it right. That's true. But what I'm saying is... Next question. There are people who can do it even more effectively than just randomly guessing, incredibly rapidly.

So the record... The record winner in 2012 was someone called Nafumi Agasawara. Okay, they got 57 in a minute. Wow, they weren't old Monday though, were they? They were all Monday. That was the trick that year. Yeah, yeah. That is amazing.

That's incredible. That's been saying down a little. It's Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Saturday. I think there are tricks, aren't there? There are. Really? I've met someone who can do that. It takes them a tiny bit longer, obviously,

but we're talking about a champion here. Yeah, but you can say any day and they go, and they work it out quite, there are tricks. You can marker history in certain ways to get you to that day. What? I don't know. Like a Civil War broke out on a Wednesday.

I'm happy for you. Three and a half years earlier. Who knows? Yeah, but there was, when they used to be people who would go on stage and you would ask them to multiply two numbers together and they'd just be able to do it. And that would be the whole act. Pretty good. It's pretty cool. And it's verifiable for everyone in the crowd as well.

That's true. But that's good. But that's, oh no, because if you've got someone on stage who's doing their sum while they do it, then that's the thing that they'd have to order. Yeah, but they would be able to be, they would be able to do it much quicker than that for sure. But so you're right, it would be quite unverifiable. But the tricks that they used to use, basically, there's loads of math tricks that you would see on countdown. It's like your nine times table is one way of doing it. Removing things or adding things to 100, all these different tricks they have.

But the way that they would mostly do it is someone would ask you to multiply this by this, and then you would go, OK, what were there again? And you keep stalling a few times, but you're already doing it in your head. And then you would go, okay, what were they again? And you keep stalling a few times, but you're already doing it in your head. And then you would multiply all the numbers. And if I multiply two numbers, I would always start from the digits

and work my way up to the highest number. But they would always start with the highest number. They might say 17 million, and they're working out the next ones as they go along, but they haven't even got there yet. Wow, so they would be able to say, I can answer the question immediately, but actually, they're kind of working out

as they went along. Amazing. It's pretty clever, isn't it? Yeah. I once got brought up to the front of my school when I was a teenager in high school and told on the spot, Daniel has achieved the top percentage of people in New South Wales, Australia,

from mathematics in the recent exam that we took as part of the thing. And it was a multiple choice exam. No, no. It was a... Every answer was... Monday, Monday, Monday. I literally guessed every single answer, because I knew nothing about mathematics, and I just happened through fluke to get it right.

And I still have a certificate at home from being one of the greatest mathematicians in New South Wales of my period. Well, did they sort of say, well, this is great, because we've been wanting to put some of them on the junior profile. Thank you. Come on, Dan, you'll get your big older ward. I was like, I was an idiot. They...

No, it was humiliating. I still got the certificate. That's amazing. Yeah. It is fascinating watching countdown, and I know that you're saying that you like to do it as well, but watching Rachel be able to get to those sums is, it does feel like magic, doesn't it, when you see it? Yeah, it really does.

The Cameraman crew who've been with us for such a long time as well, they're also very nerdy. So they give nods of approval for two things. One is when I ever mention an orphan negative, which is when you have things like really gruntled, shevelled, well shevelled, doesn't exist, but roof full, gorgmed, full stuff like that. Whenever I mention a orphan negative, they go,

and whenever Rachel says, yes, that's the sum of two primes. Sure, the witch was going, yeah. Wow. That is how you hear me out. That's the sum of two primes. Sure, the... We were supposed to get one. Wow, wow. That is how you hear me out. Did the cameraman like play along with the game? I think they do, yeah. I think a lot of camera women as well, but they're all brilliant. Oh, it's possible.

Sorry. I haven't changed. I wasn't ticking you off of it. But, yeah, I reckon they do. I really think. Quite a lot of them get the conundrum. Not the women though. They are more often than you would think.

I got a quick protest thing, another protest thing you just chuck in. Is it the protest waiting for James outside the hood? Camera folks in the world? It's just me too. We have so many camera women, it would be really bad for me not to mention them. But I honestly wasn't having a dig. They're called cinematographers, James. No, I like that.

So the thing I want to mention about protests is one of my favorite things I've learned recently. In 1966, the procrastinator's club of America held a protest against the War of 1812. And they made signs and everything. They were protesting it. And the club newsletter that came out after it announced that the protest had in fact been a success because a treaty has now been signed. Oh, good on him.

That's so good. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is that for 30 years Tibetan Buddhists have been saving fish from certain death and releasing them back into nature. Unfortunately, it turns out they have unwittingly been feeding them all straight to the local otters. So there's this ritual called Fangsheng. It's very, you know, ancient traditional thing.

You do, it's called like life release is what it means. You get animals that were destined for slaughter and you sort of, you free them and you your way of like paying a debt back to the universe It's that kind of thing and since the 1990s there are lots of buddhist into bet have been buying up fish from fish markets at live ones and releasing them into local rivers thousands of them every year Unfortunately, there's a recent scientific report which has looked at the state of the nearby rivers because I mean, it's not a great thing to do in terms of ecology. You know, lots of, that's really invasive species,

risk and it'll completely mess up the local ecosystem. Anyway, turns out that there are almost no fish left in the rivers and the otter feces are full of the fish that have been released into the river. So they have been kind of helping they train away in that they've like, a lot of very, very fat happy otters on this river, yeah. But the otters are stopping the non-native fish from destroying the ecosystem.

So in many ways, is that a happy story? But not for them, if they realized what they'd been doing, right? No, no, no. Nor for the fish that get reduced, confused, and immediately. And no karma for the buddhist, sir. What are you, Ecken? Above my pay grade, I don't know. There's a German word for this, which is,

I don't wonder if you've heard it, Suzy, is the Shlimbeeserung. The Shlimbeeserung. Yeah, and the definition. It's an attempted improvement that makes things worse. Yeah, that's been right. That's a great one. I can't believe you just knew that.

I mean, I did see you peek at my note here. No, I didn't see that. No, she didn't, she didn't. But yeah, now this whole industry isn't there of people capturing animals so that they can then be released, I think. And obviously, it is quite bad in lots of places. And they looked in Singapore and in Southeast Asia.

And they're just finding all of these lizards and stuff which shouldn't be there and yet they are. And so the Singapore Buddhist Federation is saying that maybe you should just maybe just not eat meat instead. Oh, I've given some money to animal shelters. Yes. There's anything other than doing this thing which is inherently quite bad. It's slightly, it's slightly less things up. There is something to be said about if you go to a restaurant, I speak

as a G-Hee, but you go to a restaurant and you see a tank full of lobsters. I mean, that's just, I would do anything to rescue those things. I thought it would go and dump them in a local loch. Yeah. I can see why. I can see why. Definitely understanding, yeah, for sure. You get, in Shanghai, what happens is that, again, when the people turn up to carry out the Fangsheng ritual, a lot of people turn up selling them live turtles at very inflated prices, so already they've created a secondary market

in turtles at this point. But then there are also fishermen waiting, sorry, fish afoke. Uh, look, ang afoke. Uh... Look. Anglers. Um... Waiting with nets... But literally 20 metres away. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It creates a lot of... It's interesting for a economics point of view. Yeah, but also, like, the temple puns tend to be full of turtles, because people just shove loads and loads of them in, and obviously you can only have so many turtles living in a pond before they have a bad time of it. Yeah. So these fish were carp, weren't they?

Yes, they were. Why do you have to go? I was just sitting in there that I weren't thinking, why do we carp on about something or whether that's got anything to do with the fish? But I know that is from a Latin webbing to pull to pieces. Likewise carp is sort of tough to pull, but I didn't exactly do it with fish. What about carp? Do we say that carp? I thought it was harp on. You kind of harp on as well. So what's harping on versus climbing?

It's just endlessly playing the same note on a harp. Oh, right. And to carp on this, to criticise and just kind of constantly have a go. Stop carping, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, OK. I didn't exactly with the fish. I've got a question. Yes.

Is carp pulling something apart related to carpal tunnel syndrome? Oh. Condition. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know the answer. That's a very good one. I think it is related to carp. My favourite fish is the cod, because cod meant scroachum, and the fish is supposed to look sorry, sorry James. What?

A bit of your beard. Oh, I'll have the haddock. Yeah, yeah And it's because it looks like a bag apparently the fish. Yeah, and a cod piece piece of the years grow to them and Brackets go back to his banish word meaning cod piece because they're a bit of support So architectural brackets, but also they kind of support a bit of your sentence. Oh, yeah. Well, it's not that lovely Andy. If you heard the start of the scroll, I think it's not nice. I think it's nice that you think if your scroll term is a sort of set of brackets, yes. So gently supporting the things that need keep going. But with word otherwise's a width, width, width,

or otherwise, isn't it? Code-a-piece. Code-a-piece? Yeah, I thought about that. I wonder if you... What if you code to someone? Because the code is a practical joke, as well, isn't it? Oh, it's... I'm kidding, but I'm...

No, I'm coding. Yeah, I'm coding. I'm coding. I wonder if I've got anything to do with... Are you talking balls or something? I don't know. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what,, there's 10 people. No, no, no, no. I've never heard of capping, I've never heard of codding. I've never heard of capping, either.

No. Yeah. To cod, to cods, I think it might be Irish, I'm not sure. And cods, wholip is completely different. Well, learning a lot. Oh. That's amazing. That's okay. And cods wholip, that's cool. Do you know Gary Larson, the far side? Yeah, the comic books. He was someone

who was also into saving animals and sort of... Oh, yeah. So when he was a cartoonist in his early days, he was being paid, but it wasn't a lot of money, so he needed to get a secondary job. So he applied to be an animal cruelty investigator for the Seattle Humane Society. But he never ended up doing the job,

because in the car on the way to the interview he hit a dog. And so he thought that's a bad start. The dog was fine, but he didn't end up doing it as a result. I was reading a bit about reintroductions. You know, because this is about reintroducing an animal, maybe where it should be, maybe it shouldn't. And you know, Britain is kicking off beaver reintroductions, which is very exciting, because they've beavers are a bit controversial, but basically they do do a lot of good in a lot of places.

They create wetlands and wetlands store carbon and they're more resistant to fire and they're very endangered, like wetlands themselves were endangered, feavers help bring them back. So this year, North London got two beavers called Sigourney Beaver and Justin Beaver. Oh my God. Lovely. Did we literally only get two because they were the only puns we could think of? I think so, yeah. That's her. Sort of coming back.

But anyway, like I say, it has caused some controversy, so there was a headline from The Daily Mail earlier this year, could rewilding animals turn Britain into a modern-day, Jurassic Park? With beavers. Well, firstly, exactly. daily male earlier this year, could rewilding animals turn Britain into a modern-day Jurassic Park? With Beavis. Well, firstly, exactly, yeah. Beavis, exactly. Jurassic Park is set in the modern day.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sloppy headline writing. LAUGHTER And there's a problem in America, you know, when if you go to the coast, often there are baby turtles that are born and you might wander into the city because they see the lights. You often get people going to the beach and they see these turtles and put them in into the water.

But the problem is that in those areas, especially around Florida, there's also a lot of tortoises around there. And people don't know the difference between turtles and tortoises. One difference being that one can swim and one can't swim. So number one, don't go around wrapping turtles anyway because you know there are people who will do it who know what they're doing. But secondly, tortoises have toes. That's the way to tell. Oh that's good. Public service. That's what happens. Let's call them totals. Oh yeah, that'll do it. It helped me. No, it's a total. It's hard to say. That's probably why it didn't happen. It loads of red kites near me. They're red kites they've really done well with. Yeah. Yeah. And the kite that we play with is from the bird.

So nice. Yeah, they're beautiful. They're gorgeous. Yeah, and they've done amazing. They're at all everywhere. Wild cats might get new wild cats in Devon and Cornwall. This is exciting. Right.

And you don't need permission to introduce them because they're already a few in Scotland. So if something is non-existent in the UK like a wolf, then you need permission from the Environment Secretary and very boringly, they are not allowing us to have wolves everywhere. So could you and I just drive up to Scotland, grab a few wild cats, drive down and just set them free? It doesn't sound like it's loud, it would be loud, wouldn't it? I feel like we've held a car ride. I mean, I feel like we've held a car ride. The thing is, we both have electric cars as well, so we don't have to stop about five

times. I don't know if it would, and I'm sorry to rain on your parade, James, but the problem is, the wildcats in Scotland, they get described as functionally extinct. So this is weird, they're real, they exist, but they're also extinct because they, there are a few hundred of them left only and basically they spend all their time shagging domestic cats to the extent

that the gene pool is just completely... Like scientists have studied lots and lots of dead cats from about the last hundred years and they found that you need a particular cat. Wild cats are quite a specific thing, but they're randy, and they will just... But what's the Wild Cat? Are they really vicious Wild Cat? Or are they just quite cute? A bit of a loaded way of describing them.

No, I don't know. I don't know what Wild Cat is. They're not massive either. They're two cats. And the size of two cats, I would say. Okay. Roughly, a cat and a half, two cats. They're not... They're not... OK. No, no, no. I think they very rarely take a human young. Er...

But I mean, domestic cats are quite fissure, and they kill a lot of birds and stuff like that. Yeah, they make me think... Well, cats are quite similar. I just think it must be a pretty exciting day if you're just a normal domestic cat. And a wild cat comes in town. Ah, wild.

If you like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, wouldn't it? It would just be like the leather-bound dude walking in. It must be like if a Yeti was to approach you and have sex with you, Dan. Because it's bigger, it's hairy. Yeah. It's a slightly different species, but still recognisably humanoid. Yeah. And it's on. And it'soid. Yeah. And it's on.

And it's on? Yeah. And it's... My wife and I have an agreement. We are completely monogamous. She's got a list of celebs. She's got Yeti. You have.

Yeti and Brian Blessed, those are the two that make it in. and Brian Blassett, those are the two. Let's make it in. Oh. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ It is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is mathematician David Cox has two things named after him,

a geometric coordinate ring, and an algorithm that he invented with Stephen Zucker. They are known as the Cox Ring and the Cox Zucker machine. So, what's particularly exciting about this is that, in the 1970s, Cox and Zucker met each other and went, oh, we've got to ride a paper. LAUGHTER The invention came after the juvenile dream

of having a Cox-ucker paper. So, Dan, these things are coordinate rings and algorithms as the greatest mathematician New South Wales has ever produced. LAUGHTER Can't you explain perhaps what they are? Yes, I would, James. Because I have a mass degree and I fucking can't. Is it complicated? I really tried.

I really tried to understand it. When I say I really tried, I just knew I was going to throw it to James. And if he can't understand it, I feel fine. It's, yeah, no, it is really, really complicated. The second thing that he invented was not an invention. It was attributed to him by two other students because he was the inspiration for it. So the cox ring was inspired by his earlier work. And they thought, let's play into the gag here.

But they came up with it and they named it up. Yeah, and it's just this wonderful thing about academics having a sense of humor. This is something, this is interesting. There's a thing called Stigler's Law of Eponymy, right? And what it states is that no scientific discovery is actually named after the person who discovered it in the first place. So like Pythagoras' theorem,

named after Pythagoras, not discovered by him, Halley didn't discover Halley's comment, it would have been known about a bit earlier. And so this is the Stigler's Law of Economy, and it was coined by a sociologist who was called Robert Merton. LAUGHTER Who named it after someone else, yeah?

And these two guys, when they did this, by the way, they were studying at Princeton University. So the reason I came across this fact is because I found out that you studied at Princeton University for a new study in German there. I know, I'm weird. No, that's very cool. Was it a good girl? Was it a good girl? Was it a good Greek or was it a verschlimpishing?

But you met someone, you know, it was brilliant. I mean, German is just so, it just gets given such a hard wrap in it, is honestly the most lyrical, beautiful. We're just used to people shouting orders in more films, but it's really, really beautiful. But people always say, why isn't there a word for this in English? And then they will always say, well, I bet there's one in German. And usually it is. a'r ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd yn ffordd fford basically finding as many gaps in English as you could find, and then getting a German translator to make up a word. My favorite one was Depp Mffaga Beuygung,

which is a compulsion to stare at the person you're overtaking in your car. LAUGHTER Just perfect. That's wonderful. That's really good. Yeah, well, that was him. It was very good. These people, Cox and Zucker, I was looking at some other people with similar kind of names that are what we call that double barrel names.

If you go on the internet, you can find loads of examples of people who got married and had quite unfortunate names. I'm not sure all of them are true, but I have looked at them all in the newspaper archives and found some that are definitely true, and I'm going to do a little quiz. See if you can, I'm going to tell you the name of one of the people in this relationship. And you can see if you can guess the name of the person they married.

Oh, OK. This is an easy one. Elizabeth McDonnell. And John Hadifab. LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Oh, what?

LAUGHTER E-I-E-I-No. Yeah. Jennifer, Jennifer. No, um, um, um, um, um, you can get this. Wait, so say again. Let's both make Donald married. Oh, oh, double barrel the names.

Yeah. Take away. Berger? Berger, Joel Berger. Yeah, they didn't necessarily always double barrel, but when you have the newspaper things, it says this person married this person, they call it the McDonald Burger Wedding. Beautiful.

So... I can pull this back. You got it, right. You can do this, Andy. Amy White. White. I have you, H-Y-D-E. Steve and Fanny. LAUGHTER

Sorry. Birth? Birth is good. That would be great. You were closest. It was Alexander Hull. Hey! Amy and Alexander White Hull. Gosh.

Joe Looney. Joe, what Looney? Looney. June. Judy, Tune. Tune. Ben? Ben, though.

Tune. Close. Isn't quite normal of surname. Matthew Tick. Looney Tick. Looney Tick, very good. Shelby Ward. Looney Ward. Looney Ward. One final one.

Theresa Cuman. LAUGHTER Michael England? LAUGHTER Tim. Michael Tim. Come on, Tim. Come on, Tim. Come on, Sam. Arnold Mabak.

LAUGHTER Down, down, down, down. Come on down. Come on. So, Mr. Ali, David Ilead. No. Anyone in the audience? No.

It was Theresa Cormard and Frankie Toppamy. Oh, and I should also say that I was reading the Reddit of Jill Stein, you know, the Green Party leader in America. Yes. And she did an AMA, so know the Green Party leader in America. Yes. And she did an A&A, so it was like, ask her anything. And the second most popular question they asked Jill Stein was, Dr Stein, have you ever thought about marrying Senator Al Franken and hyphenating your last name?

LAUGHTER Very good. That was very good. There's only one street in the world named after John Major, and he didn't know it was named after him, and no one told him they were naming it after him. Right. It was going to be Sir John Major Close, sounds menacing.

But it was going to be called Sir John Major Close, but then the London Fibergate said, that's a bit complicated, we might get confused if someone rings up and says, they just called it Major Close. It was cut out of the Sir John. And then when he was asked bit complicated, we might get confused if someone rings up and says, so they just called it major close. There's cut out the search on. And then when he was asked about it, he said, I think it's most unlikely that their name is straight after me.

And he just hadn't been told, no, it informed him. Margaret Thatcher has loads of stuff, Margaret Thatcher has a peninsula named after her. Anyway. LAUGHTER That's quite interesting, because in Europe, every 10 streets that are named after a man, there's only one named after a woman.

It's much more likely that you would be named after a man if you were a woman, is it? Well, interestingly, okay, taking that in mind, the most popular person in European streets names is a woman. Open your guess who it is. In Europe. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. No, Andy's guess who it is? In Europe. In Elizabeth. Elizabeth. No, Andy's right, it is the Virgin Mary.

Oh, yeah, yeah. In Europe, of course, so lots of, you know, Catholic Jews and stuff. Yeah. Do they actually have Virgin in the names or is it just a Virgin Mary? No, it's usually just Mary, and it's usually named after the church. Yeah, it goes to, so yeah. Well, Santa Maria. Santa Maria. Which I would argue is named after Santa and the Virgin Mary.

So we should lob those off her numbers. That's a dumb fucking joke. Oh, that's brilliant. Love it. Love it. Tordry is another religious one. That isn't an eponym, because Tordry comes, you know, something's Tordry.

It's really shoddy. And that goes back to St. Tordry, that she was an abyss and eventually a saint and she wore lots of kind of necklaces in her youth and then as a nun she got throat cancer and she thought this was revenge because she would just wear such a fripperine but anyway lace such as the one that she wore around her neck was sold at fairs and it was st. Audrey Lace and then it's a Killed Audrey Lace. What was it about being 55 minutes into this show that you think of the word Tordry? Oh nothing. It's the religious

the religious side of the game. You know the Chippendales the dance troupe. You know what that named after? The the the the Talvin and yeah oh no I was thinking of a Talbis Chippendale the person who the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the They performed. That's interesting. It designed to look like classic Thomas Chippendale furniture. Because they were kind of, you know, like muscular, I guess they were sort of muscular and, you know, impressive looking. So with the chairs. Oh, I think they do sit on stage and you sit on their laps, right? Sure, you do.

I think so. Where do they become the chairs? I think so, that's what I'm saying. They are. Oh, don't put chairs in. Oh, I think. This is from the man who suggested, come on my back a few minutes ago. I was looking into just a scientist who have humor. I like it when it makes it into a paper,

and I just found a couple of papers that have been published that I really like the titles of. So a couple of them here they are. The mouth, the anus, and the blast of poor, open questions about questionable openings. LAUGHTER Good. Another paper, the effects of having Christmas dinner A master pour, open questions about questionable openings. LAUGHTER Good. Another paper, the effects of having Christmas dinner

with in-laws on gut microbiota composition, and then the third one, head and neck injury risks in heavy metal, head bangers stuck between rock and a hard base. Oh! That's a good one. I'm going to have to wrap us up. Oh, I'm going to say, guys, we've got to the up. I'm just going to get unintentionally, unintentionally,

because it's about something where it was intentionally very rude. I was trying to find examples of things about unintentionally rude. I've just looked like a couple of very tiny quick ones. So, Yolo Williams, Welsh naturalist, was a co-presenter on Springwatch. In 2016, he was discussing diving seabirds with a female conservationist and they watched one plunge into the water in front of them and he just turned her and said,

so is that the deepest check you've ever had? LAUGHTER And she got to say, no, we have had deeper than that. LAUGHTER And I feel like we should end with that. I mean, I think some of you have one of her before I know that the all-time classic Harry Carpenter, after the boat race, 1977, was reporting it live on TV

and said, ah, isn't that nice? The wife of the Cambridge president is kissing the cocks of the Oxford crew. LAUGHTER Well, can I just do one more? I know that's really good, but in 2012, Pfizer, the drug company, came up with a new drug for osteoarthritis in dogs called Rimmadol.

I went on to the newspaper archives for the adverts for this. This is genuinely true. There was an advert that said, Pfizer Animal Health, the manufacturers of Rimmadol, have launched a program available only through veterinary hospitals, register online at rimadog.com. Okay, that is it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said on this show, we can be found on what are the

fuckies decided to call it this week. But for now, I'm calling a Twitter. I'm on Atch Tribal Anne James. At James Harkin. Andy. At Andrew Hunter and Susie. At Susie on this cool event. Yeah, you can go to our group account, which is at No Such Thing, or you can go to our website. Nosuchthing is a fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there. You can also find links to Club Fish, which is the Secret Members Club.

Any Club Fish members in the crowd tonight? Woo! There we go. There's the six of them. And so do join that. It's really, really fun. Check out all the merch. Check out everything else.

We'll be back again next week with another episode. So, Hothier, thank you so much. That was awesome. Say thank you to Susie Denton. We'll see you again next time. Goodbye. you