Something Rhymes with Purple - Alcatraz

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

One in the hand, is worth two in the bush... This week Gyles and Susie dig into the surprisingly significant etymology of birds. From the unlucky albatross to the onomatopoeic cuckoo, find out what Professor Dumbledore has to do with bees and what parrots have to do with the Kama Sutra... Elsewhere, Susie has her trio of words for you to sprinkle into casual conversation this week and Gyles reads an original 20s poem you can wash your hands to.... A Somethin’ Else production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple, a podcast about words and language. Listened to by you, we call you the purple people who have a passion for words and language too, and a lot more besides. I'm looking at my co-host via Zoom, but he's very much present. It's Giles Brandreth. Hello. Hello. I'm very present indeed. And I'm in a state of high excitement being with you again, Susie.

What sort of a week have you had since we were last together a week ago? I've had an okay week. I mean, I think like everyone, ups and downs. There's sort of days when you just think, okay, what actually am I going to do today? As I think I mentioned to you, I had a scurry of scurry funging where I was madly, in the first week, just madly spring cleaning. I'm feeling really quite joyous about it. That's completely gone out the window. The cupboards are a complete mess again. I've just lost that urge, I have to say. It's the kind of

equivalent of nesting before you have a baby, which is what women notoriously do. So that's kind of gone. I'm still cycling. I do have bits and pieces of work, but no countdown, obviously, at the moment. I'm missing that a lot. But I'm okay. We're all well. And that's the main thing. How about you? You may be missing countdown, but the nation isn't. Have you seen how the countdown viewing figures have soared? Yes. It's brilliant, but how wonderful. Congratulations. You are satisfying the nation with your linguistic skills. It's completely brilliant. I've simply lost track of time here. I've no idea.

I mean, I know we put this out on a Tuesday, and that's about the only way I know what day of the week it is. Tuesday is podcast Tuesday. Otherwise, I really don't know where I Tuesday. And that's about the only way I know what day of the week it is. Tuesday is podcast Tuesday. Otherwise, I really don't know where I am. And that is a little bit confusing, but I'm coping with that. I'm aggressing, I think. I'm having dreams that take me back to my childhood. And I literally went back a few years, one day this week, because I tuned in via YouTube to a daily program that is being put out by my friends Anne Diamond and Nick Owen. Oh, I think I saw you put something on Twitter about this. I first met them in the year that I first appeared on Countdown, right at the beginning of the 1980s, 1982, 83.

It was the same time that TVAM became the first commercial breakfast television station in the UK. And when the station began, there was literally no audience, nobody tuned in or a few tuned in on the first day, they didn't like what they saw. And it was literally registering nil, zero in the ratings, zero, not sort of 0.1, zero. And they didn't know what to do. So they got rid of everybody who was presenting it except for David Frost. And they brought in Nick Owen and Anne Diamond. Then they brought in Roland Ratt. And as the headline said, yeah, exactly, Ratt joined Sinking Ship.

And then they brought in me. I joined the team and I sat there with Roland Ratt, me wearing my funny jumpers with Anne and Nick. And we had a little get together earlier this week and we talked about the old days. I know you're working incredibly hard because you've got more writing to do. So it's not as though you are twiddling your thumbs. No, but also I'm one of those people, and my wife will tell you it's a sadness really, I'm defined by my work.

Yeah. And I know that a lot of... I know, me too, I think. A lot of people are like that and they say it's a bad thing. I'm not sure quite why it's supposed to be a bad thing. But anyway, I'm defined by my work. If I don't feel I'm working, I feel I have no value. And I'm very lucky because I do a variety of things.

And one of the things I do is I write books. So I'm writing another book. My wife said to me, oh, Giles, another book. Does the world really need another book by you? Well, we both know the answer to that. Nonetheless, I am writing the book and I'm a disciplined writer. I do a thousand words a day. The evening won't begin until I've done that thousand words. So my routine is I wake up early, we get up and we go for our walk. One thing that you, I know, have commented upon and a lot of

friends have commented upon too, is now that things are quieter, even if they're ramping up a little bit, you can hear the birds. And that's what we want to talk about today. Bird song. And we're also going to be involving, I hope, our listeners, because I had a lovely email, we had a lovely email from William Young from Arlington, Virginia. William says, in your most recent show, you mentioned Captain Hook. I was in Paris in 2018 and saw a poster for a play about him, Picture Attached. It's a wonderful poster. The French translation of Captain Hook is Capitaine Crochet.

Isn't that lovely? Which, of course, doesn't sound at all menacing. Crochet being the French word for hook. It is. Is it? Yes, which is why when we crochet, we're constantly using the needles to, I don't crochet myself, but in wrong terminology probably. But yes, that's what we're doing is we're hooking the material.

And William goes on to say, and this is the point, that he's teaching online classes about birds. And would we consider doing an episode about birds? Guess what? That's the plan, isn't it? Yes, that is the plan. We love birds. We're not alone because they've been so important since ancient times when they had such huge significance that, you know, the Romans wouldn't

do anything unless the auspices, which comes from the Latin auspex, meaning bird, were correct. And, you know, the flights of the birds were in the right direction at the right time. And they would do all their divination and the fortune, not fortune telling, but future telling through that. And another word was auger for the people who actually did this divination and telling of the future. And so an inauguration was done when the birds were favourable, if that makes sense. So augur, meaning it augurs well, it bodes well, the future looks good. Augur, that word, A-U-G-U-R, has a connection with birds? Explain that connection. In ancient Rome, an augur was an official who observed the behaviour of the birds, and he

would interpret them as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a particular action. So an inauguration was done when the birds, as I say, were favourable. It depended upon flight patterns, which birds it was. Some birds were auspicious and some weren't. And as I say, auspicious too has a link with the auspicium, which was taking omens from birds, that comes from avis, bird, and then specere, to look. So those two words are hidden there. And that's how important birds were in ancient times. Can I say, I think there's something very auspicious about the return of the birds. On my morning walk, the bird song is brilliant. And I

think the birds are telling us they prefer a world with fewer motor cars and fewer aeroplanes flying overhead. They are liking lockdown. I saw a robin this week. Ah, the robin. Yeah, the robins are gorgeous. And on both sides of the Atlantic, robins are thought of as our friends, aren't they? So robin is simply a diminutive of the Norman name Robert. Quite often we do give personal names to birds. I think I've mentioned before that the magpie comes from Margaret. The pie is related to the pie that we eat because the magpie collects all sorts of little assorted objects. Just as a pie contains lots of different ingredients goes back to latin pica but it was margaret of the magpie that was its personal name

so the robin the tameness around people was always interpreted as reciprocal affection from the robin and their red breasts were said to go back to the time when the robin gallantly plucked at Christ's crown of thorns, and it was from the blood of Christ. So that's the robin redbreast. Wonderful. I saw a parrot this week. Did you? We have lots of parrots and parakeets in West London where I live.

Oh, which have escaped. Okay. Well, my father claimed to be the author of all this. I remember. Yes. Do you remember my mother's parrot called Mitu, which I think may be a Hindu term of affection for a parrot. Anyway, my father couldn't stand it, left the window open in the flat one night, the parrot flew away. And he claimed that all

the subsequent parakeets in London were as a result of Mitu escaping. And we had some emails about that, didn't we? Well, it's funny you mentioned parrot after Robin, because that goes back to another common name, this time from the French Pierre. And that was often used for a priest. It's said that the birds were popular props, if you like. Rather sad for them, for the birds, but props of clowns. And then they were used to make fun of the church. Can you explain that again? Props? Props, did you say?

Parrot comes from Pierre. That was often used as a nickname for a priest. And that may go back to the fact that parrots were used by clowns to make fun of the church, you know, just to sort of jabber away and possibly repeat insults towards priests. Talking parrot fashion, as it were. Yes. And a popinjay actually goes back to the Arabic for parrot.

So a popinjay is somebody who loves gaudy dress and, you know. Now, I thought, and maybe our listeners can advise us on this, I thought that the French calling the priest Pierre was to do with Pierre meaning stone, meaning also the name of Peter. Peter being the founder of the first bishop of Rome, Saint Peter, all connected with that. Yeah, you might well be right. That might well be where the nickname comes from.

Little known fact about parrots is that one of the 64 practices apparently required in the Kama Sutra was teaching a parrot to talk. That's a cool one. That is a cool one. I don't know what number it was. I don't know off by heart. An early kind of threesome, you know.

You're up to it with your partner and the parrot is giving a running commentary, falling about laughing. Pretty Polly, pretty Polly. An owl. I didn't see an owl this week, but I love my son's joke. I think I've told you this before. He's written this story about a pedantic owl who only ever says, to wit, to womb, to wit, to whom. What is the origin of owl? from an old english word which described their howl obviously i didn't didn't do that with much i guess or from ulula or alula in latin and of course that gave us the brilliant word alulate or ululate which is to howl and lament and actually an owl's cry is uh has long been thought to be kind of prophetic of doom because ours were associated

with evil maybe because they eat snakes and frogs and rats um as in macbeth so that was one one version of the hours but in ancient greece that they were thought of as being lucky so you can take your pick i think they're beautiful the bird that's supposed to be very unlucky is the albatross yeah that's from the ancient mariner the rhyme of the ancient mariner famous poem by coleridge coleridge samuel taylor coleridge yes well the albatross actually it's lovely because ultimately it goes back to an arabic word i don't speak arabic so apologies to arabic speakers i think it's al kudus i'm sure the purple people will put me right but that meant bucket because it was applied to

lots of seabirds that hold water in their bills like little buckets and in spanish this is the bit that i love that became alcatraz which originally denoted lots of different pelicans and obviously that's because the pouch under its bill and it's used to hold fish, but also, according to legend, used for drawing up water to carry to its young. Anyway, the island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz, famous for its prison, was home to hundreds of these birds. And that's why it got its name. What about vultures hovering overhead? Vulture? I suspect. I don't know this. I'm going to look this up. It sounds German to me. What do you reckon? Oh, I would have thought more Latin.

You're absolutely right. From the Anglo-Norman-French vulture, which eventually ultimately went back to the Latin. Don't know what it meant for the Romans, apart from the bird. But it's unlucky because they're hovering over you and you're feeling terrified. Yes. They have a hard rap, don't they? Yes. What are some other interesting ones? What are the ones you like? Well, my favourite bird of all is the kingfisher beyond doubt um and they're just so beautiful and i always thought they were called kingfishers either because they caught fish so brilliantly or more probably because of that shimmering plumage which is just so beautiful and it could

be like the precious metals that you might find worn by kings. But ultimately, they were called halcyons, my all-time favourite word, if I had to choose one, and I've talked about halcyon days before. The halcyon was another name for the kingfisher, and it was said that the kingfisher would lay its eggs upon the sea in a floating nest, and the god of the winds would calm the seas until the eggs were hatched so those were the halcyon serene days of the past i love that i know you like a name drop i'll throw one in at this stage neil armstrong the man the first man to step on the moon yeah he said to me when he went to visit uh sheikh muhammad bin rashid al maktoum in dubai

that he was kept waiting and he said where is the Sheikh? And he was told, the Sheikh has gone to shoot the bastard. He wanted to shoot, God, is this the sort of country I've arrived in where they shoot people? And what was meant was the Sheikh had gone to shoot the bastard. Because the tradition is that the leader of the country is the person who is allowed, when the bastard shooting season begins, has to claim the first busted is busted any connection with busted busted is a kind of bird isn't it the busted is a kind of bird and it might come from the latin avis tada meaning slow bird which is a bit odd as the bustards are fast runners. And I only discovered last year, having enjoyed this cartoon for ages,

that there is an actual roadrunner. Did you know this? It's a fast-running bird of the cuckoo family. I thought it was just a cartoon creation. There's a cartoon. It runs along the road, doesn't it, with the dust spreading all around it. I didn't know they actually existed. You brought in the cuckoo family.

Cuckoo, that must be on a matter big. It is. It absolutely is. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Of course, it gave us cuckold as well. Remind us what a cuckold is. Okay, so a cuckold is the husband of an unfaithful wife.

And it was said that the cuckoo song, I think Shakespeare wrote this, mocked married men. And of course, to be cuckoo song i think shakespeare wrote this mocked married men and of course to be cuckoo also meant to be crazy which is a bit odd not quite sure where that comes from but probably the connection is from its kind of slightly giddy voice during spring but we're not quite sure why maybe it just sounds cuckoo sounds i love it again on matthew pick cuckoo yeah and the hummingbird is so called because of the hum it makes, I assume. Yes.

So to one early naturalist, the flight sounded like what they called a humblebee. Humblebee being an old word for a bumblebee, as was Dumbledore. And J.K. Rowling absolutely knew that because she knows her OED very well, the Oxford Interstitial News. So, yeah, it sounded like a bumblebee. And so they called it a hummingbird. But there's a lovely legend attached to hummingbirds, which was that for the ancient Greeks,

that they would hop inside a crocodile's mouth to eat leeches. And it was thought the crocodile likes this. So it never, ever hurt the bird. I mean, it's not true because they're new world birds. So you'll never find them in and out of crocodiles' jaws. But that was the legend, which is quite beautiful. One more. Can I ask you one more before we take our break?

Wren, Jenny Wren. Jenny Wren. The Wren is beautiful. I mean, Jenny Wren was believed to be the kind of rather demure wife of Robin Redbreast. Again, very unusual scientific name of troglodytes troglodytes, meaning cave dweller in Greek. And that's because wrens dive into their nest holes, which, you know, once used to be in hollow trees.

It probably still is, but it was in any hollow they could find, including coat pockets quite often if they're left hanging around. So troglodytes troglodytes is the wren cave dweller. Before we creep into our cave for our little break i've got a poem that's been sent to us you know i've been doing these 20 second poems to help people wash their hands oh yes and timothy mcinty has written his own it's inspired by the birds outside his window during lockdown and he sent this to us from somewhere near Chicago in Illinois. So it's wonderful for us to feel we've got this global audience. I feel like we're armchair travellers at the moment. I love this.

It's wonderful. And his poem goes like this. For the birds, they know no difference. For them, their life goes on. Exempt from isolation, they sing their cheerful song. No quarantine, no closures, nor worry or despair can take away their freedoms, still free to roam the air. I listen and admire them with envy in my heart. Their song, so sweet, it calms the soul until the day shall part. Beautiful. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. the day shall part. Beautiful. checkout. Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Shrink the Books is back for a brand new season. This is

the podcast where we put our favorite fictional TV characters into therapy. Join me, Ben Bailey Smith, and our brand new psychotherapist, Nimone Metaxas. Hi, Ben. Yes, this season we're going to be putting the likes of Tommy from Peaky Blinders, Cersei from Game of Thrones on the couch to learn why their behaviour creates so much drama. So make sure you press the follow button

to get new episodes as soon as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shrink the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Also from Something Else. Mel Gedroych is quilting. Listen to Mel

and good friend Andy Bush as they learn a great new skill and tell some brilliant stories. All whilst having some good wholesome fun. In a nutshell, I took a pair of scissors and I went into my husband's wardrobe. Now, this comes from a shirt that I bought him that I know he doesn't like. So I'm testing him by... This is brilliant. Yeah, by finding out when he discovers that the shirt has got a big patch out of the back of it.

And which area of the shirt is this taken from? Bottom right. OK. Listen now in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all good podcast apps. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. And Giles and I are talking about birds, the beauty of birds, their sort of lyricism I guess within language, the origin of bird names and also one thing I'd love to talk about Giles is the kind of unexpected birds that hide behind

some of the words that we use in English. Give me an example. Well pedigree is a bit of a favourite because that actually involves the crane. The crane has given us lots of the bird, has given us lots of words and expressions in English. So when we crane our neck, we're looking like the bird. The crane that you will find on building sites has an incredibly long neck. So that looks back to the bird as well. But pedigree is a word that has the crane behind it because in medieval manuscripts, a mark consisting of three curved lines was used to indicate family descent

on a family tree. These days, they're sort of a bit more straight, aren't they? But you still get those little sort of divisions on a family tree. But in those days, they were curved lines and people saw a resemblance between this mark and the claw or the track of a crane. And they would call them crane's feet. And in the French spoken by the descendants of the Norman settlers after 1066 called them Pied de Grue, which comes from Pied de Grue, crane's foot. And say that quickly enough and then try and sandwich it into English in a way that sounds vaguely English. Pierre de Creux became Pedigree, and it goes back to the name Crane's Foot, Crane's Foot.

And that dates back to the days when pilgrims would go to Canterbury on the road. And I know, but I can't remember what it is, that pilgrim is a word with a bird connection, isn't it? Absolutely right. Yes. So that is linked to the peregrine falcon, because in Latin, peregrinus meant a foreigner or a wanderer. Pere was through and the agra bit also goes agriculture, et cetera. So it meant land. Both of those words, pilgrim and peregrine come back to the peregrinus it will peregrinus in latin and the peregrine falcon was so named because it travels thousands and thousands of miles every year gosh give me some more um do you ever i've never played this but my mum likes this game marjon do you ever play yes i have tried is it impossible actually lockdown would be a perfect time to master mahjong yeah because it really does you need to get into the

vocabulary and the way it works okay well she loves it she's loved it for for years and years and years but in chinese mahjong or something very close to it means sparrow because a sparrow or what they call a mythical bird of a hundred intelligences appears on one of the tiles um so sparrows behind that i like the fact that jargon once meant again in the sort of english that came in after the normans so they spoke in a sort of hybrid tongue called anglo-norman jargon meant the twittering of birds the chattering of birds and it came to came to me in our modern jargon because, you know, birds understand each other perfectly. It's just the rest of us who haven't a clue what they're talking about. Gosh. And how long ago is that jargon?

So that would have been 13th century, probably. So quite soon after the Norman conquerors arrived. I do remember you telling me once when I referred to myself as an old codger. Yeah. You said, oh, well, actually, that's got quite a distinguished etymology. Yes, you would have been the helper of the falconer. So you would have been the person carrying the cadge. They were carrying the falcon or the hawk in a falconry.

And actually, that aristocratic pursuit, and it wasn't mostly the French aristocrats who were engaged in falconry and actually that aristocratic pursuit and it wasn't mostly the french aristocrats who were engaged in falconry whereas famously the english speakers were the ones who kind of did all the menial tasks but falconry gave us a haggard because a haggard was an adult bird that was caught in the wild and these birds were kind of more difficult to tame more likely to go astray but also they look a bit disheveled because we think it goes back to the old English for a hedge so it looks literally looks if they've been dragged through a hedge backwards and a muse as well so if you're lucky enough to live in a muse in a city a muse was once the name for a molting house it goes back to the French muet meaning to meaning to molt. And the royal falcons

would have been kept in the royal mews. So that's another falconry term. So lots and lots. A lure, as in a trap, was once a trap for hawks and falcons. So lots and lots in there. And the cockpit of an aeroplane

is something to do with the cockpit where fighting cocks were put to... Is that right? Horrible sport. Horrible, horrible. I mean, hesitate to right? Horrible sport, horrible, horrible. I mean, hesitate to use the word sport. But yes, so it was the arena. Not quite sure why it came to be the cockpit that we now associate

with planes, et cetera. Probably because things, it was quite small, so it's quite kind of squashed and contained, but also perhaps fighter aircraft, all-time aircraft, you know, you were sort of fighting to the death. So not completely sure, but definitely does go back to that original horrible sport. And what about pipes? That rings a bell of some. Yeah, that's a good one.

Well, pipe is onomatopoeic, I guess, because it's from the Latin pipare, which meant to chirp of birds. Pipare. Pipare. And pipa was a musical pipe, possibly because of their sound, but also because pipes were often used to imitate bird calls for trapping purposes.

So that's possibly the link there. And then, of course, the shape of these pipes gave us the pipes that we use for water and plumbing, et cetera, today. Well, you know, I've been piping this week i've been allulating i've been singing another of my name drops coming up okay the treats my treats of the week have included singing with um though in my case it was not very musical alfie bow and vera lynn wow can you imagine vera lynn now a centenarian the reason I was asked to take part is that my theatre show has been postponed.

So they got in touch with lots of people whose shows have been postponed and said, Vera Lynn wants to do something for theatres that are closed. Oh, nice. Are closed. And she'd like to introduce a new version of We'll Meet Again. Oh. So she begins it and she ends it on song. Vera Lynn, over 100 and then great musical theater stars led

by alfie bow sing and i crop up in it as well so that's been an excitement for we this week were you the kind of captain tom moore to michael ball is that what you were doing thank you yes well honestly what a man i'm so what he is a. I mean, we shouldn't eat ore too often, but I really was an ore of him. Not just for what he did, but just the way he spoke and his view of life. I just think it was amazing. So well done, Captain Tom. What is marvellous about these older people? I mean, he is now 100 years old. Vera Lynn is over 100 years old. I spent some time this week with another mature person, aged 85, Dame Judy Dench. She told me, now this is a funny story, she told me a funny story via Zoom. She said, I can't see you. I said, well, press this button. She said, I don't dare. I said, why not?

She said, because my daughter, her daughter is a daughter called Finty, said, you've got to Zoom these people and have a conversation with them because it's their birthday. So wish them happy birthday. So anyway, Judi Dench wished them happy birthday, successfully on her laptop, closed the laptop, thought, oh, that's gone well. Then Judi Dench went upstairs and thought, well, it's time for my bath, got ready for her bath. True story, true story. Clambered into the bath, had the laptop on the bath edge, thought, oh, I'll look something up now. She opened the laptop and there was the little green light. And they were still all sitting there.

So she was wishing them happy birthday in her birthday suit. Fantastic. I love that. I hope so. Isn't that hilarious? Not only does Judy don't look 60, I mean, there's no way she's 85, but also she can TikTok now. She can do, do you know about TikTok?

Of course, I do know about TikTok. That was very cool with her grandson. With her grandson, who was an Ed Sheeran lookalike. He was, isn't he? Yes. The point is, these people are role models to us, aren't they? People in their 80s and 90s, and indeed their hundreds, who are full of optimism energy and keeping going you know they've been the real heroes actually of this lockdown and and apart from obviously all the

wonderful frontline workers and key workers but in terms of of kind of suddenly switching from our dismissal our cultural dismissal of old people which we tend tend to do, you know, the press are horrible about people aging. Suddenly, age and wisdom have really come to the fore. And I love that. That's one of the really positive things to come out of this. Well, among our heroes are the purple people, the people who get in touch with us. We've got a whole raft of queries. Let's rattle through some of them. One that's quickly come to me that I want to share with you. A lady tweeted me at Giles B1. The question this lady had was, take the word what. Why is it pronounced what? When you take the letters H-A-T on their own, they're pronounced hat. Put a W in front of it and suddenly it becomes what? That's a really good question. Most of our, what we call interrogative pronouns or

interrogative words in English, the sort of questioning, why, what, who, et cetera, which do start with a W. And in Old English, they had an H in front of them, which would have been aspirated. It would have been pronounced. So it would have been hot. And that's why I think the pronunciation has changed, but we've still got the legacy of the Anglo-Saxons there. Does that make sense?

That makes total sense. That is the answer we needed. Oh, you remember you were talking about your fear of fingers going wrinkly in the bath, prune-like. Yes. Pruney digitophobia was the only thing I could come up with. Well, Kevin Faulkner tried to find a Greek cognate to Latin-based macerate, meaning soften in liquid, and came up with diluphobia oh okay freddie raymond emailed to say

i came across the word quabbled q-u-o-b-b-l-e-d yes that's an old dialect word and they talk about old women they're not particularly complementary terms with quabbled fingers from the wash tub um so yes quabble. That's a really good one. I'd forgotten that, so thank you for that. Freddie Raymond is suggesting we call this a version quabblophobia. That's quite good. With the almost disgusting feel these syllables make in the mouth,

one can imagine Rowan Atkinson doing great things with this. Yes, that's brilliant. Just discovered this delightful podcast, writes Joe Daly from Coleraine in Northern Ireland. Thank you, Joe. I was taken by the phrase, Charlie's dead, to cover petticoat showing. When I was younger, if someone's trousers were too short,

one would say, his cat or cats has or have died. Died. Yeah. Oh, I haven't heard that before. They're really odd. And I think the only explanation I can think of, and I won't be alone in this, is that if your petticoat or your knickers or whatever are sort of a bit lower than they should be, perhaps the idea or your trousers is that you're flying at half mast. And so the flag is at half mast when someone's died. And all sorts of people came into the equation, whether it was your cat or Charlie or whatever. That's the only thing I can think of. That's a good thing to think of. I want your trio, the three words with which to increase our vocabularies. Okay, well, I'm staying with

birds for the first one. And it just tickled me really. And we all need a laugh at the moment, obviously. And it's what the Americans sometimes call, and if they still call them this, but bitterns, you know, the bitterns with their booming, booming voice. Now they move back and forth when sounding this boom, and they use apparently their whole bodies to choke up this cry. And one name for them is thunder pumpers. But in America, apparently sometimes they're called belcher squelchers, which I just love the sound of. A belt, say it again. Belcher squelcher. A belcher, squelcher. Yes, that's great. I love that one. I did an article for the iNewspaper last week on the

world's most beautiful words. And I had such lovely responses from people that really gladdened my heart, I have to say. They were just lovely. And there are so many beautiful words, but this was one that was sent and it comes from Japanese so you can imagine what's about to come out of my mouth it is not going to be Japanese but I'll give it a go it's like it's when you're not hungry but your mouth is lonely in other words you just come for eating and the last one is something that I have been doing quite a lot of I suspect most of the nation have been doing this at some point. Forgive me if I've mentioned this before,

but I love it. It's an old dialect word, cruiseling. And cruiseling, with a Z, is nestling under the covers. Well, those are three very good, rather apt words. I normally give you a quotation, but you said there we need a laugh. And I'm pleased to say one has been supplied

by one of my grandchildren. They are quite young. Great. And this is the joke. Well, I think it's quite funny. An onion just told me a joke. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I like that.

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