Something Rhymes with Purple - A Floral Balls Up

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

Well it’s a new week Purple People, and we’re coming to you from a very rainy July in England. Despite the grey and shortening days (thanks for the reminder Gyles), we’re bringing you a seed of summer with a lovely chat about flowers. Susie reminds us of one of our favourite, most misleadingly named flowers - the Jerusalem Artichoke (do check out our other episode on Flowers called Edelweiss), explains why Poppies are poopy and an excellent symbol of the circle of life, and why orchids are a rather… ballsy flower. Gyles bestows and adopts a new nickname- one that his wife may disapprove of- and reveals that he loves sunflowers and green carnations… he and Susie have a love of Wilde flowers in common! Elsewhere we have more bollocks chat, answer your punny Purple post and, are treated to a poem from Gyles reminding us all to appreciate the rain in summer… Susie’s Trio: Paraph- flourish after a signature Peely wally- feeling ratjer “meh” or under the weather Kenspeckle- conspicuous or easily recognised To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple A Somethin' Else production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main We'll see you next time. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. As we always say, the podcast which is full of musings about language, literature, famous people, not from me, about language, literature, famous people, not from me, and just sort of wordy pensiveness,

I would say. I'm Susie Dent, and with me, as ever, is Giles Brandreth in his basement again. I'm in my book basement, the book bunker, surrounded by books that I've either written or edited over the years. And that's one of the reasons, actually, that I'm able to do the name dropping. Because many years ago, when you were still at school, I'd started a business, Susie, where we did book packaging. It was a new phenomenon. We, as it were, created books. We packaged together books and then sold the finished book to a publisher. And it hadn't really been done before in the UK. And we did a lot of

celebrity books. And essentially, I wrote out of the blue, because this is the days when you still wrote letters to stars of stage and screen that I'd admired, saying, I've had an idea for a book that you might like to write about, a subject you might write about. And often they wrote back. to write about, a subject you might write about. And often they wrote back. And our first big success was with Kenneth Williams, who, if you're international, you may not know Kenneth Williams. He was a much-loved British actor, entertainer. He had an extraordinary voice and an amazing way of speaking. Made famous in this country through a series of films called the Carry On Films. But he was also a serious actor. He appeared in St. Joan in the 1950s. He appeared in a play with Laurence Olivier in the 1950s as well, a cabaret artist with people like Maggie Smith. Anyway, he wrote a book called Acid Drops, which we did together, which was little put downs, acid drops. But that's

the point. People think, oh, my God, all these people. How do you know all these people? I basically went out in the 1970s and 1980s and collected them. So that's why also most of my stories are half a century old. And as my grandchildren say to me, Grandpa, we don't know what you're saying or who you're talking about. We just don't understand anything you're saying, Grandpa. I really don't. But there we go.

So what are we going to talk about? What do you want to talk about today, Susie Dent? Well, we're sitting here. This is July, right? This is the peak of the English summer, supposedly. And I am sitting, I'm showing you this on our video call here, Giles. I'm sitting here with a hot water bottle on my lap. Have you got piles?

No. On your lap, on your lap. I've been freezing all morning. I sit at the computer, the sun's not shining. In fact, it's quite chilly outside because the sun is certainly not shining where I am. And it's the middle of summer. So I thought, even though it's not actually happening, my end, I don't know if it's happening in London, we should kind of encourage it in and maybe discuss things of beauty. And do you remember we did an episode on flowers, which was called Edelweiss?

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, go on. Brilliant song. If people wanted to hear the origins of their favourite flowers, that's a good place to start. But there were lots that we didn't cover. So I thought, why don't we do more beautiful flowers? Because sometimes they have the most entrancing origins. I love that idea. Two things to say to you. One is I'm concerned that you're feeling the cold in the way that you are. The reason that the word piles came into my mind,

it's an unfortunate ailment, is that I seem to remember in fact hearing, and I got it wrong, that if you sat on something hot, remember when I was a child at school sitting on the radiator and the teacher saying you'll get piles sitting on the radiator. I don't know if that's true. That must be a whole load of rubbish, don't you think?

Probably an old wives tale. But you are having to keep yourself warm with a hot water bottle in July. In the Countdown studio, because it's usually male presenters, I have to say, like it to be cold in the studio so quite often they're there with their sort of vests and their shirts and their jackets and their ties and the women are there in usually things that are much less warm and um so it's always too cold for me and for rachel my co-presenter so we always have joint custody of a hot water bottle, but I didn't expect it in July in my own house, I have to say. But our Nesh, you know the word Nesh?

Nesh, no. That's the English dialect for susceptible to the cold. That is me. I've always been Nesh. You are Nesh, susceptible to the cold. Yeah. The other thing to say to you is, of course, here we are. We're first putting this out on the 6th of July, but you can listen to it any time.

It's here for eternity. out on the 6th of July, but you can listen to it anytime. It's here for eternity. But this means that it's after the summer solstice. The point is, the nights are drawing in. The days are getting shorter already. Christmas is coming. I mean, it's extraordinary. So we must relish our summer, whatever there is of it. And we're going to talk about flowers. Could we begin with perhaps my favourite flower? Mm-hmm. The sunflower. I love a sunflower.

As you know, I'm an enthusiast for Oscar Wilde. I'm the president of the Oscar Wilde Society. I think he loved flowers, and one of his favourites was the sunflower. There were cartoons done of him in the 1880s in America depicting him as a sunflower, a sunflower with Oscar Wilde's beaming face in the middle of it. Why was that? a lover of fine art. And an operetta was written by Gilbert and Sullivan called Patience, parodying this, including the line, when I walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily

in my ornamental hand. I'm remembering this. I'm getting this from memory, so I may not have got the quotation quite right. But he was associated with flowers of every kind and he just looked particularly gorgeous inside a sunflower and some people as it were mocked him affectionately some people mocked him less affectionately and I think the sunflower cartoon was not totally affectionate but I adore sunflowers

so a sunflower is very simple it's a flower associated with the sun because it looks like the sun. Well, it also turns towards the sun. So in Greek, it is helianthos or helianthus. And that comes from the Greek helios meaning sun and anthos meaning flower. And it's worth reminding everyone, and I'm sure a lot of people know this, but the kind of scientific naming system for plants and animals, in fact fact was made kind of systematic by the 18th century Swedish naturalist called Carl Linnaeus and he created this sort of system of using Latin and Greek names for the groups because that was the international language of science at the time so a lot of the time we have our what we call vernacular

botanical name, and then we have the Greek name. And very often, if you go back to the Greek or the Latin name, you will find out the reason behind the naming of the flower. So the sunflower turns towards the sun. It is a heliotrope, which also means turns towards the sun. And if you'll remember, the Jerusalem artichoke, which isn't actually even an artichoke, that is a heliotrope, has nothing to do with Jerusalem. Remember, it goes back to the French girasol, which also in French means turns towards the sun. So because we couldn't pronounce girasol, it sounded a bit like Jerusalem, so we stuck that in instead. Oh, funny, I'd forgotten that. Yes.

Oscar Wilde loved flowers of all kinds, as well as the sunflower. He particularly loved the lily and the poppy. What are the origins of those? I'll start with the poppy because it has had such significance, really, in folklore and in our kind of cultural history, really. So in folklore, it was valued for its narcotic and its medicinal properties um it's the source of codeine and opium but the poppies have always symbolized sleep particularly the sleep of death so poppies were emblems of eternal sleep on tombstones and the associations that we make now between the poppy and war and the battlefields,

that was actually already around during the Napoleonic Wars. And it was because people noted in the aftermath of battle that poppies became abundant, I suppose, on fields where the soldiers had fallen. And that was kind of what then made people draw the comparison between the vivid colour of the poppies and the blood spilled, obviously, during the conflict. And then the First World War, that became really cemented because we had so many famous war poems in Flanders fields, for example. So it's had quite a history. We don't quite know where poppy comes from

it might start with the romans name with the for the flower which was popover which may in turn come from an ancient word meaning to swell that might be because you know the flowers bloom and as they bloom they look like they're kind of swelling to maturity but it's relationships are quite surprising so you know when a baby is born, the poo discharged by a newborn is called meconium. Did you know that? I did not know that. Oh, okay. Any newborn mum will know about meconium because it's really, really dark. And actually, that goes back to the Greek meconium, meaning poppy juice,

because of the similarity in colour. And I think there's something rather lovely in that because it's a kind of associated with birth as well as death, really. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. So I think that's just quite an amazing flower in terms of its history and in terms of its associations, really. Lily, I'm quite happy about as well because my name, Susan or Susanna, goes back to latin for a lily as well

which is quite nice actually it might be the hebrew sorry not the latin and we don't completely know where that one comes from we know that it began in old english and the latin word passed into lots of different european languages dutch and german the viking word etc but quite where that comes from we don't know but it's an absolutely beautiful flower just beware of the pollen. So lily and poppy neither of those do we know absolutely for sure where the word springs from we know the journey that it's taken after the origins but neither can we get right to the root of either of those? No. So some people speculate that Lilium means passion or rebirth, which would be rather nice, but no one quite knows for sure. We just know that as so often,

the Latin had a major influence on lots and lots of different languages across the world. Please give me Daisy again. You often mention this, but I find it so extraordinary that I just want to spread the word about the origin of the name Daisy, the word Daisy. Yeah, I was thinking about this one just this morning. It is one that I mention perhaps most often because it's on my greatest hits when it comes to origins, just because it wears its heart on its sleeve. Only we just walk on by because we don't really consider it. So Daisy is a shortening of the Old English for Day's Eye. Daisy is a shortening of the Old English for day's eye.

So day's eye, daisy, because the flowers petals close at dusk and open again at dawn. And when they open, they reveal that central yellow sunny disc like the eye of the day as it sleeps and then wakes again. So beautiful, isn't it? It is beautiful. Now, I know people called Daisy, Poppy and Lily. I don't know anybody called orchid it's funny how some flowers names have been attached to people but others haven't there were people there's a generation of people i had an auntie gladys and that i assume is a variation on gladiolus yeah i well gladiolus is so named because of its shape, because its petals are shaped like swords.

So gladiolus is actually named after, well, it's a sibling of gladiator, if you like, a sword bearer. But it's a really good point. I don't know whether gladis is actually to do with gladiolite. Oh, I'm sure it must be. I thought so, yeah. Because it's the same generation, people also called hyacinth. Do you remember the wonderful character Hyacinth Bouquet? Hyacinth Bou you remember the wonderful character hyacinth bouquet hyacinth bouquet great tv so i'm just looking it up here and it says gladys is a female name from welsh which bears the meaning of royalty princess conversely though it has also been speculated

to be from the last intimidative gladiolus meaning small sword so i don't know why Gladys would be associated with a small sword, but maybe Gladys was a warrior. Who knows? Orchid. I think it's rather a good name. I mean, Poppy, Daisy and Liddy tend to be girls' names. Orchid could be rather a good boy's name. Well, yes, you're spot on there. And I think you might have said something here. There's probably a good reason, to be honest, why children aren't called orchid or orchis these days because it actually goes back to the greek for a testicle because the flower's roots have long been thought to resemble the testicle and you will remember that avocados are also named after the aztec for testicles so um yes bollocks everywhere. And I mean that too botanically because there are lots of plants called bollocks or ballocks. So there's ballockwort as well, all because of

the shape. I should say ballockwort, not wart. So orchid means testicle. Yes. And does the orchid look testicular? It does really, if you think about it. Gosh. Yes. Next time you see an orchid, have a study. Well, I will. It's slightly put me off the orchid. Don't tell me the peony is named after the penis. No.

This is a relief. No, no. This is a lovely bit of Greek myth, actually. The peonies were believed, like so many plants. I mean, of course, herbalists still operate very much today, but throughout the ages, flowers and plants have been thought to have healing powers. So Peony is thought to take its name from Peon. He was the physician of the gods. So it's all about its, you know, offering of a panacea. Lovely. Foxglove is another favourite of mine.

Do you have an interesting etymology of foxglove? Isn't that in A Midsummer Night's Dream? I know a bank with a world time growth. Oh, yes. Is there a foxglove in that or have I just made that up? There could well be. There's a whole list of... One of my ambitions once was to have a garden full of all the flowers and plants named in Shakespeare.

There is such a garden, I think, in Washington, D.C. by people. If there's a listener in Washington, D.C., you can correct me. I think at the Great Cathedral in Washington, D.C., I know there's an herb garden, but I think there may even be a garden there that contains, as well as all the herbs, I'm saying that, the American pronunciation of herb, as well as all the herbs, I think they may have all the flowers. I'm saying that, the American pronunciation of herb, as well as all the herbs. I think they may have all the flowers named in Shakespeare. Oh, that would be amazing. I've looked this up in the meantime, Giles, but it's not the foxglove. It's, I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where ox lips and the nodding violet grows,

quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses and with eglantine. There sleeps Titania sometimes of the night, lulled in these flowers with dances and delight. No foxglove. We should maybe, we're going to do some live podcasts later in the year. Maybe we should do a theatrical one and you could play Titania and I can be your bottom, you know, with the ass's head and you can fall for me. Yes.

I would love that. Yes. Okay. I think I'd quite like to be Helena. Yes. I would love that. Yes. Okay. I think I'd quite like to be Helena. I think I'm more of a Helena than a Hermia. Hermia always gets her sort of, you know, her wish. And Helena is always the one kind of running up behind.

I think that's probably me. And back to Foxglove. Yes. Lots of different stories about this one. The easiest one, I suppose, is it's called Digitalis, which of course is poisonous. I think, is it poisonous called Digitalis, which of course is poisonous. I think, is it poisonous or does it restart the heart? I'm never sure. Well, I think as with all things, too much is not good for you.

But a little touch of Digitalis could be good for you. I'm not speaking as a medical advisor. Please do not try this at home. It increases cardiac contractility, apparently. So it directly affects the heart. So I think it's actually a good thing for a disease-weakened heart. I'm sorry, I have to interrupt you because I still wake up in the middle of the night sweating about this. About 50 years ago, I appeared on a radio programme in this country called the Today Programme. And it was around Christmas time. And I recommended to people to start their Christmas morning with a cup of

mistletoe tea. I said, nothing more flavoursome gets you going on Christmas Day. Oh my goodness. Well, you know, did you know that? How many people ended up in A&E? Well, exactly. Within minutes, we had doctors from all over the land saying, for God's sake, get this man off the air. It's a killer. Drink mistletoe tea and you're dead. So please ignore what I said about digitalis. Oh my goodness, you must have been absolutely terrified of saying that. I felt, because I was very young and I was so appalled that I'd encouraged people. But it sounds nice, doesn't it? It does. The lovely flavour of mistletoe. It does. But yes, be careful with digitalis. So it's used medicinally, but is very toxic and consumption can lead to death. I've now ascertained this. So steer clear of the foxglove other than to

admire them. Digitalis is its Latin name because it looks like a symbol. And so it can be fitted over a finger, a digit. Brilliant. That's the kind of easiest story the sweetest one possibly is that it is a variation of folks glove its flowers look like the fingers of a glove as we've ascertained and it was said that bad fairies gave the blossoms to the fox to put on his toe so that would be fox glove or that they would use them themselves as little toe warmers so folks folks glove or fox glove, that's quite sweet. And finally, the kind of runner up really is that it comes from an old English word, fox's glue, G-L-E-W, which means fox music,

apparently because the flowers resemble a bell, an ancient bell of the same name. So lots of beautiful ideas there. Again, the jury's out. After the break, I'm going to tell you which flower you remind me of. And I'm going to tell you which flower you remind me of. And I'm going to tell you also which is my favorite flower. And I want you to reciprocate.

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And to me, Susie, if you were a flower, I think you would be a tulip. Because you are tall and elegant. And I see you with your head slightly to one side, like a beautiful tulip. I have learned how to keep my tulips erect because... I was going to say, I'm a bit prone to wilting. That's true. Well, I'm afraid that maybe that's subliminally why I thought of a tulip. I have learned that if you put a pin through the stem of the tulip,

just below the bulb of the flower, it somehow makes the tulip sort of stand up. It may shorten its life, I don't know, but it makes it look, you know, in the vase, it stands more erect. I love tulips. I love the shape, the eleg elegance and the variety of colours in a tulip so for me you are

a tulip what am I to you if I'm a flower? Gosh I would say you are hmm this is a really tricky one

this is marvellous scrubbing brush is I think the phrase that's coming to mind you can't even think about while you're thinking what is the origin of tulip since i mentioned it tulip goes back to a persian word for turban because of the shape of the flowers so that totally makes sense i'm really i'm trying very hard here to think of it's got to be something that's kind of quite variegated and i think you'd be don't take this the wrong way i think you would be like ivy because you know so many people you get absolutely everywhere and you've got lots and lots of different kind of markings so lots of different sides to your character.

And yes, you have tendrils in all the right places. There you go. It's so funny because my wife really loathes ivy. She says, you know, ivy growing up the South. She's always pulling down the ivy. She can't bear it. Gets everywhere. That's very amazing.

I can call you Wisteria. It has the same properties. Yes. And the other thing is my wife has never been able to get to Wisteria to grow. She yearns for Wisteria. Now, you have named me as Ivy and that's going to be my nickname from now. You're Tulip Dent and I'm Ivy Brandreth. What is your favourite flower, as it were, that you would like if somebody sends you a bouquet or gives you an individual flower, what would you like to be given? I always like wildflowers. Simple colours. I'm not really into kind of gaudy colours. I think my favourite flower, well, I have to say it's very simple. I think it's a bluebell,

because there is nothing like a bluebell wood. So it has to be a bluebell in situ. A bluebell wood is the most magical thing. Come across it and it becomes, you suddenly believe in everything, including fairies when you see a bluebell wood is the most magical thing. Come across it and it becomes, you suddenly believe in everything, including fairies when you see a bluebell wood. You really do. Obviously, the name of the bluebell is very obvious, but absolutely beautiful. Carnations. How do you feel about carnations? Again, not my favourite always. Well, they're quite high up on my list, interestingly enough, partly because you love wildflowers, W-I-L-D, flowers, and I love wildflowers, capital W-I-L-D-E, the flowers that Oscar Wilde

loved. And of course, Oscar Wilde famously wore a green carnation. Indeed, the opening night of one of his plays, he had several of the cast members wearing green carnations in their buttonholes. He believed that a man who was not wearing a flower in his buttonhole was completely undressed, that it was the final sort of touch that you needed to complete your costume. So he had various male members of the cast wearing green carnations, and he also had people in the audience, in the stalls and in the circle and in the boxes, wearing occasional green carnations. And people thought, what is this?

And rumour went around and indeed continues to go around that it was a kind of coded signal that you belonged to a kind of gay mafia of the period if you wore the green carnation. Not so at all. As he explained, he simply got people to wear the green carnation so that people would talk about why were people wearing the green carnation. So did it become a kind of code?

No, it didn't become a kind of code. But people thought it became a kind of code. It was simply an amusing idea, just to be a bit different, just to have something for people to talk about. Oh, how interesting. The green carnation. And I, when I was a boy and going through my first, you know, adolescent Oscar Wilde phase, I used to get carnations and dip them in green ink in order to turn them. You just put the stem in green ink. It's a beautiful green, isn't it? It's so kind of subtle and delicate.

It's not like a sort of deep green. It's very beautiful. What's the origin of carnation as a word? Well, nothing to do with green, actually, but all to do with possibly the original colour, which is flesh coloured or was flesh coloured. We think it goes back to the Latin carne, which gave us carnival. Carnival, like the Mardi Gras that came after Lent,

was all to do with, sorry, before Lent, was all to do with the putting away of meat for Lent. So carnevale, carne vale, it was carne levare, to put away meat. And carnal and carnage and all sorts. And it's also linked possibly with coronation because of the toothed petals resembling crowns. But if you look in the Oxford Dictionary, it will tell you it's because of its flesh colour rather than the green worn by Wilde. I have in my copy of the complete works of Oscar Wilde, which I was given, I think, around my 11th birthday, I have got still the crushed green

carnation that I made for myself at the time. So, you know, this is 60 years old and it's still there. And I love opening the book just to see this carnation. Did you ever keep any of the flowers that in your, in younger days, or do you need to quote Oscar Wilde, in younger and happier days, you may have been given by a bow seeking your smile? No, this probably says too much about me. I've measured out my life with champagne corks. Oh, well, that's fantastic. But, you know, if you have a champagne cork,

you can write something on it. You can cut a little bit at the top and put a coin in it from the time. That's what I did and wrote the occasion on the cork. Oh, that's brilliant. So I've got lots of those. Oh, I'm pleased to hear it. Excellent. Well, I used to, when I was a teenager, I used to give girls that I fancied flowers. Occasionally they kept them. Sometimes they even dropped them in my presence, which was a little bit hurtful. And I gave carnations,

though I think the best flower to give is probably a rose because of the fragrance. Speaking of fragrance. Then again, they're quite evanescent, aren't they? What does evanescent mean? Well, their beauty is evanescent. It's kind of fleeting. What's the origin of evanescent? It's Latin, meaning sort of disappearing.

Evanescent. Oh, how awful. His beauty was evanescent. That was the problem with Oscar Wilde falling in love with beautiful young people. They don't necessarily stay beautiful. Oh, superficial beauty. Let's not talk about that. Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the fragrance of lavender.

I love it. Some people think lavender is an old lady's smell, that you need to be called Auntie Gladys or Auntie Hyacinth. Or Ivy. Or indeed Auntie Ivy, and have little lavender bags that you use to keep in the drawer with your smalls and your sort of special linen. You kept it fresh with lavender bags. The little lavender sachets, yes. But I love lavender. I think it's had a real resurgence

recently because it's in every single pillow spray that you can find. And pillow sprays have become very popular. These are the sort of calming, soothing, soporific sprays that you put on your pillow just before sleep and is said to be incredibly efficacious. So lavender actually goes back to the Latin lavare, meaning to wash, because lavender was traditionally used to scent washed fabrics and also you would put it into a bath. So not too dissimilar to the way we use it today. But as I say, I think it's becoming more popular now. I remember those little sachets, I think my grandmother used to put those amongst all the linen. But as I say, I think it's become a bit more trendy recently. Well, eventually, maybe it should be something we add to our line

of merch. We could have little lavender bags with an explanation for you of the origin of the word on the back. We do have merch and you can work out how to get hold of it. I might, before the end of the show, give you the details of where you can go if you want to get our merch. Should we go to some correspondence? Yes, let's have some. And if people want to write to us about flowers, their favourite flowers, or they would like Susie to tell them the origin of any particular flower that we haven't touched on in this episode or in our earlier episode, Edelweiss. Do get in touch. It's purple at somethingelse.com. Who's been in touch? Well, last week's episode,

Paranomasia, was all about puns, if you remember. You had a field day, Giles, and we asked the purple people to send in their favourite punning shop names, do you remember? Because we had quite a few ourselves. And as always, they've stepped up to the plate. So Lynn MacDonald has let us know about a cafe in Airdrie that has, on first appearances at least, a very Italian sounding name, Bacchialdi's. However, it's called that because it's round at the back of the Aldi supermarket. Oh, that's funny. Bacchialdi's. Bacchialdi's.

Very funny. Bacchiali's. Bacchiali's. Very funny. And this is Bacchiali. Anyway, either way, it's absolutely brilliant. There's also one nominated by Gerald Gourier or Juryet. Gourier, I think. Gourier, a shop in LA

that sells old gramophone records that's called The Vinyl Resting Place, which is excellent. A pun on The Vinyl Resting Place. I get it. The Vinyl Resting Place. The. The vinyl resting place. Brilliant. And from Lester Mack, we have a picture, actually, he's sent in a picture, thanks Lester,

of a food van that sells wraps at the Chiswick Dog Show in London with an absolute brilliant, brilliant pun. So this is, we're looking at the picture now, Bohemian Rhapsody, So this is, we're looking at the picture now, Bohemian Rhapsody, spelt W-R-A-P-S-O-D-Y. Brilliant. Genius. Love it, actually. Love it, love it, love it. Congratulations.

Well done. Nutmegged. Now, look, I think we've covered this before when we were talking about our football episode, which was appropriately titled Nutmeg, but we felt it would be amiss not to do a football related question in this turbulent week yes been absolutely compelling but this is from sam from huddersfield a language loving land lover love the alliteration there sam he says hi susan giles with the euros on i couldn't help but wonder how the term nutmeg made its way into football i can only think that it must be related to the other nuts between the legs is this right right? When I was a child, we also shortened this to Meg, as in he

just Megged him. And Sam, yeah, you are absolutely spot on. We think that, well, we know that nutmegs were slang for the testicles, lots and lots of testicles in this episode. And to nutmeg someone obviously is to pass the ball between someone's legs below the nutmegs. Also, there's a possible bit of rhyming slang in there, nutmegs, legs. So either way, it goes back quite a long way and all to do with the gap between the legs. I think we've got the title of the episode, Floral Balls Up. Joe Dodds from... Let's just call it bollocks and be done with it.

Joe Dodds from Northumberland in Englandllocks and be done with it Joe Dodds from Northumberland in England has written in to ask us about a phrase she recently heard an American gentleman use the expression was

hemming and hawing hemming and hawing the English version of this phrase is to hum and haw isn't it we say hum and haw don't we

I think more often but you will find hem and haw this is surprisingly old actually so to hem and haw is to speak indistinctly or to make pauses or to act indecisively it's kind of to to whiffle as we might say uh using another english word and when someone's prevaricating they will often say um and

ah which is something i do far too often and if you look at the oxford dictionary you'll see hem is an imitation of the sound of clearing your throat. And then by extension to kind of stammer or hesitate in speech. And to whore is defined as an utterance marking hesitation. So they're both what we would call echoic. They both imitate the sound of that sort of thing. But I think the biggest surprise for me there was the 17th century, but it's really, really old.

I'm loving the phrase echoic, meaning like an echo. It's got an echo to it. Like an echo. So hemming and hawing is echoing the sound that it actually makes, the words. That's brilliant. Yes, yes. Susie, you are so brilliant. Can you give us your trio of interesting, unusual words

that you'd like to see brought back into currency? Yes, I can. So I'm going to start off my trio with the word paraff. Who? And as I say this, this is sounding a bit familiar. I may have told you this before. Paraff, which is P-A-R-A-P-H. P-A-R-A-P-H. P-A-R-A-P-H. P-A-R-A-P-H. Yeah, I don't think I've actually seen your signature particularly.

When you do, you know, sign your name, do you have a bit of a flourish or is it quite simple? I have a bit of a flourish. You haven't seen my signature because I'm very careful when I send notes to you to make them anonymous. I hope you recognise that they're from me, but I never sign them. You never know when I may not be called back into government and I can't risk anything. So yes, I do sign with a bit of a flourish. I first began practising this signature when I was about nine.

Oh yes, didn't we all? Yeah, and I worked on it for years. So it is quite a fruity signature. I hate mine now. And when you're signing books, I want to make each one special. And by the end of it, it's just a complete mess. And I feel very sorry for the people who have the ones near the end of the pile.

A paraff is a flourish after a signature. Originally, it was a precaution against forgery. So it was something that was very, very hard to replicate. But now it's just a sort of embellishment. And some people have big paraffs, others not so many. It comes from the Latin for short horizontal stroke. But as I say, some people's paraffs are anything but short. I'm going to use that word, paraff, P-A-R-A-P-H. I love that. And I'm going to add, I'm going to say to people as I'm signing a book, and yes, a little extra paraff for you.

Love it. Good. Oh, yes, that would be excellent. The next one is for anyone who's been feeling a little bit under the weather for whatever reason, obviously we've been having quite a time of it. You might, as the Scots would say, be feeling a bit peely wolly. So this joins frobbly mobbly as possibly my favourite expression for feeling a bit meh, neither sort of here nor there, a bit meh neither sort of here nor there a bit pale and unwell you're feeling a bit peely wally i really like that one and finally another scots word this actually i love riffling through

the scots dictionaries ken speckle ken speckle which is sorry about that k-e-n-s-p-e-c-k-l-e and it means conspicuous or easily recognized ken Ken speckle or ken steckle? Ken speckle. Ken speckle. Like a speckle of dust. Ken speckle. Yeah, ken speckle. Three.

So those are my three. Three great words. And you mentioned us feeling under the weather. And the weather has been strange all over the world. I don't know. We do have listeners in Canada quite a lot and also in Vancouver. And there was last week this extraordinary sort of heat wave, which resulted in people dying of heat stroke, quite terrifying. And here we've had unexpected rain and one should be grateful for the rain in the summer. And so my

poem today is a poem. Well, it's an old poem. It's called Rain in Summer, and it's by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And, well, it's a poem really reminding us that we should value rain, perhaps more than we do when it comes unexpectedly at the wrong time of year. How beautiful is the rain? After the dust and heat in the broad and fiery street, in the narrow lane, how beautiful is the rain. How it clatters on the roofs, like the tramp of hoofs, how it gushes and struggles out from the throat of the overflowing spout. I like that. Lovely.

I love being inside when it's raining oh so do I and that's a poem that's a bit echoic isn't it I mean they manage the words the language in it sort of gives you the sound of the rain which is fantastic no I'm absolutely with you there we would love to hear other people's words their favorite words you know the ones that they find funny the ones that they would like to get rid of because Because remember, we have a word jail, which is quite full, but has room for new inmates. So if there's any word that you particularly hate and would like to get rid of, do let us know. It is purple at somethingelse.com.

Something Rounds with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale, and the Invisible Man, really. He's called Gully and I'm going to send him a postcard with a very florid signature accompanied by my own paraff. And maybe a few bollocks thrown in there as well.