Something Rhymes with Purple - Alphabetician

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Jump into the linguistic playground with Susie and Gyles as they spin through the magical world of alphabet this week. Join us for a joyous jaunt through the whimsical origins of our beloved alphabet. This week we go from A to E! We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Cattywampus: something that is in disarray. Half pace: A landing in a stair which separates two flights of stairs. Zoanthropy: a monomania in which a person believes himself changed into an animal and acts like one Gyles' poem this week comes from one of our Purple People! It's called 'My Worry Tree' by Carol Mugano I have a little worry tree, I was given by a friend. If I didn't have my worry tree, I'd go right round the bend. When things are getting stressful,  and particularly manic, I know I have my worry tree, so there's no need to panic.   I'm so fortunate to have this tree. It's such a special kind.  It's not growing in my garden, it's just planted in my mind. So, whenever I am anxious,  and I don't know what to do, I will go and find my worry tree,  and my big scissors, too.  Then, the subject of my worry,  that is causing so much grief, I will scoop it up so gently,  and I'll place it on a leaf.  Then, with my enormous scissors,  The offending leaf I'll sever,  and I'll watch my worry blow away, to disappear forever. A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience, and the Purple people often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. And if any of you are new to this podcast and you're not yet fully inducted as a purple person, then welcome. This is a podcast in which my co-host Giles Brandreth and I talk, witter, enjoy ourselves with the subject of language in all its glory. And I can see Giles as it is his wont, sitting in front of a gorgeous picture of Marilyn Monroe in his basement, which I tease him about often. Hi, Giles.

Well, I'm in a state of high excitement today for a number of reasons. I had a wonderful experience at the weekend. I watched a film with Marilyn Monroe that I'd never seen before. And I'm trying to remember what the title is now. It also had in it Yves Montand, Frankie Vaughan, a wonderful American actor called Alan somebody, who I always recognize when I see him and love what he does, but I can't remember his name. Alan Alda? No, no. The film goes back to 1960. It's an old film. And it's a little bit of an oddity, and yet it worked. It could be called something like Love for Sale or All for Love. Anyway, it's a very amusing idea in which essentially a show is being put on off-Broadway featuring dance, singing, and satire. And the show is going to satirize famous people, including Elvis Presley, this is 1960, Maria Callas, the great opera singer, and a character who is an invented character who is like a huge international mega rich person.

You know, one of the world's richest people. I don't know who it would be today. You know, Elon Musk, shall we say. And the Elon Musk figure gets to hear about this and thinks i don't know that i want to be satirized in this musical so he goes down to investigate uh where the theater was being put on and he is mistaken for being an elon musk look-alike who's come to audition and basically he gets cast in the show and of course he falls in love with marilyn monroe and then eventually it's revealed that he

is Elon Musk, but people won't believe that he could possibly be Elon Musk appearing in this show. It's ridiculous. It's too real. I love all of those films. I grew up, my mum used to always sit me in front of the sofa and I'd watch all the Cary Grants and the Doris Days and some like it and so actually that's right up my alley as well. And I have to say, Cary Grant is in my view, the greatest ever. Yes. Don't you think?

And Susie, I've now remembered the name of the film. It's called Let's Make Love. And I say I remember the thing because I'm now not letting myself leave subjects until I remember, you know, you think of somebody's name and you can't quite think of it. And then you think, oh, I'll think of it later. I'm now working it through. So I remembered it's Yves Montand, Marilyn Monroe, Let's Make Love. I was right

about 1960 and the director was George Cukor. So it's a little curiosity, but I think worth exploring. Excellent. And I am like you, although I am, as you know, what is called a tartler. And a tartler, if you remember, is somebody who hesitates whilst introducing someone because they've completely forgotten the name. I am like you now, I won't give up. So I go through every letter of the alphabet and somehow there should be a word for this. There is a sort of instance of recognition in your brain when you hit the right letter. Don't you think? There's a sort of personality to the name that you somehow hold on to, even if you can't

remember the name itself. Totally. And in fact, you hope that the person you're meeting has a name that is early in the alphabet because you can't sit there, stand there, shaking their hand and saying, how lovely to see you. And they're going through it. Is it Alan? Is it Vernon? Is it Vernon?

Is it Charlie? Is it Desmond? Oh no, this is long after the tackling incident. Oh, it's Elliot. Hello, Elliot. Lovely to see you again. But if in fact you're meeting somebody called Zebedee, it may take some while to greet them. Well, this is a nice and unplanned way of introducing the theme that you have chosen

for this week, which is to a little bit explore the alphabet and words that come from the alphabet. Can you help me by telling me, I assume the alphabet is so-called because of alpha, beta, gamma, delta, which are letters at the beginning of the Greek alphabet. I know. I remember the moment of recognition when I learned that, and it was only in my late 20s that I actually found out the etymology of alphabet. But yes, of course, alpha, beta is named after the first two letters in the alphabet. We use the Latin alphabet, the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. Well, why not take us through the alphabet either correctly from, well, I say correctly from A to Z, who's saying whether or not you should go forward or backwards? Why? Isn't it odd? Why does it come in this particular order?

But it does. Is there a reason that it's the order it's in? A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P? Yes. I think, I wonder if there is a job called an alphabetician. Wouldn't that be lovely to say, what do you do? I'm an alphabetician. In other words, you're an expert on the alphabet and its orders and things.

So you're asking me lots of really good questions today. I can definitely start with the letter A and tell you how it began its life. Please do. Which was in 1800 BCE. So, take a capital A, Giles, and you turn it upside down. If you imagine it in your head, you can see something of its original shape and it looks a little bit like an ox with its horns sticking up in the air looks a little bit like an ox with its horns sticking up in the air. It looks very like an ox with its horns. So that was the letter's original name, really, ox or aleph in an ancient Semitic language. And

then by the time the Phoenicians used it, it had changed shape a little bit. It almost looked like a K because it was lying on its side. And then because we began to write much more quickly, it changed its shape again. And it was more like a horizontal form of our modern A. Ancient Greeks, as we know, called it alpha and they reversed the shape of it so that the point was on the right-hand side because they wanted to write from left to right. And then, and so on and so on, you know, The Greeks rotated it, and then the Romans added the serif, which you can see in various inscriptions. So, every civilization has had a hand in crafting the alphabet as we know it today. And when did capital letters, I mean,

we're talking capitals here. The description you've given me of an A is of the ox now upside down standing on its head. It gives me the modern A. But the lowercase A, or rather the small a, that would be in the middle of a word, actually, now I stop to think about it, doesn't look anything really like the capital A. When did that evolve? No, it's interesting, isn't it? It seems to have produced, first of all, an upside-down V shape. So, if you take that capital and then flip it on its head, it was like a V. And then it slowly acquired this connecting loop, which is what we see now. And that probably began during Charlemagne's lifetime when his scribes produced what was called a Carolingian minuscule. So that was what the lowercase was called in those days.

And Charlemagne, I do remember him from my days at the French Lycée in London. He was the great ruler of France. Charlemagne, when would he be? A thousand years ago, more. He was the Holy Roman Emperor, wasn't he, really? Oh, was he? As good as that, was he? He was King of the Lombards. So this is between around 750, so the middle of the 8th century, to the beginning of the 9th century. And he was the first emperor of the Romans, what was called the Holy Roman Empire.

Yes. I think when I was taught about him, indeed, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, he was known as the king of the Franks. We thought of him as French, but you are completely right. He was also king of the Lombards, and he was crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in the year 800. Yeah, there you go. So, it's just so much involved here, isn't there? So, the upper case, really, is the Magi-School. That's kind of the capital. And the Latin or Roman alphabet uses,

are kind of the capital and the latin or roman alphabet uses obviously both of them and the first earliest known roman magical or capital letters can be seen chiseled and you can tell i'm reading this in the stone of numerous surviving roman monuments they are distinguished by their slightly heavier down strokes and lighter up strokes and by their use of serifs. Square capitals, because of the short line stemming at right angles from the other ones, set a standard, it says here, for elegance and clarity in the Roman alphabet that has never been surpassed. Well, I like A in that description. I've always liked the letter C because it's the same in en majuscule, when it's big, as when it's small. But B has always confused me because B, when it's big, has got a double bubble, but when it's small,

it's got a single bubble. So sometimes it's like a dromedary, other times it's like a bactrian. And I can always remember the difference between a dromedary and a bactrian. The dromedary begins with the letter D and therefore has only one hump, but the bactrian, think of a capital B, Commodory begins with the letter D and therefore has only one hump, but the Bactrian, think of a capital B, like the letter B, has two humps. But isn't that strange? Well, it started off with two, and again, everybody had their hand in it. So, the Semitic word for house began with a B. It was bait, B-A-Y-T, essentially. And as I say, people changed it, and the Phoenicians wrote from right to left. So when the Greeks switched their own writing from left to right, they flipped the B to make

it what we would now think of as being in the right direction. And they called it beta. So it's one upright, two closed loops, thanks to the Greeks. And the first creators of the lowercase B were monks in their scriptoria. And again, this was all about speed writing. So, if you can get away with one loop, then you don't have to bother with two. So, they were sweating over these manuscripts, as you would know. And if they could speed things up just a tiny bit, then that would be great. So, it was they who produced the lowercase. Also, this going from left to right or right to left i wonder i'm sure research has been done on which is easier to do

or maybe they're equally easy to do i have no idea but i mean in terms of the hand you can see how it's almost slightly easier to move from right to left or left to right i think we move from left to right because we're not smudging the ink. Whereas if you move from right to left, your hand, if you're right-handed, is actually smudging potentially the ink that you've just left on the page. But millions of people are doing it. Are they all ink smudgers? Maybe they're all left-handed. Shall we take a quick break?

And then I want you to take me, please, through some of the letters of the alphabet and words that they've given us. Okay. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit.

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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.

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I absolutely don't know it all. But I'm having great joy in learning it, I have to say. Yes, the letter A, A1, as you say, well, it's not me, but it means first class. And that goes back to Lloydoyd's register of shipping and so the condition of a ship's hull particularly is produced in letters and the equipment that the ship contains by figures so a1 is top of the list on both counts and so it means excellent ship shape and is a okay the same sort of thing? It supposedly stands for all systems OK.

Some people think that it was invented by someone in NASA who used it in 1961 and that he over, he misheard a simple OK as A-OK and relayed it to reporters and radio listeners. It was quite possible it had a life before then, but that kind of propelled it into popularity. Okay, good. Okay, give us some more. I'm liking this. Okay, well, shall we talk about the letter C? That incidentally is a rounding of the Greek gamma, the G, and that was a change from a Phoenician sign for a camel originally when we think about pictorial representations of this. I'm trying to think if there are any sayings related to sea. Well, you have abbreviations. You think of a sea section, which is short, I imagine,

for a Caesarian section. Yeah, so-called because it was thought that Julius Caesar was born this way. Oh, wasn't he? No, not completely sure about that. I think it was probably one of his relatives. But yeah, the jury is out. But that is why it is so called. And of course, we talk about the C word, don't we? Ah, yes.

Which is possibly the biggest taboo of all. And finally, it is quite right too. I often find myself, often there are meetings that take place on a Thursday. And certainly I do a lot of events, award ceremonies and public dinners and things that I speak at. And invariably the most popular night for these events is a Thursday. I mean, by a long way, many more things happen on a Thursday. I am booked up every Thursday all the year round. Many more things happen on a Thursday. I am booked up every Thursday all the year round.

So I regularly see emails to people saying, except I don't write this, see you next Thursday. I would say, see you on Thursday. See you next Thursday. So you're thinking about see you next Tuesday, right? Is this where we're going? Oh, I was. Oh, it's next Tuesday, is it? Well, for me, it's always Thursday because I'm always saying to people, see you next Thursday. And then I think, no, I can't put see you next you next thursday because obviously when i'm writing it i'm writing in the letter s e double e but also

it could be uh an acronym um for the c word it could indeed so do you ever do you ever do that do you ever find yourself writing see you next thursday by mistake or see you next tuesday no oh interesting thursday is not such a busy day for me clearly um well i'm just looking through the oed as to what c can stand for as an abbreviation and you have chapter century you have c in cricket meaning caught by centigrade you have centigrade you have c in dentistry terms for canines uh You have C for carbon, for cardinal, for cocaine, for an electrical current, and for a paper laid before parliament, you might know about this, short for command paper. Oh, I didn't know that at all. I haven't come across that one.

No. So, that's good. Now, we turn to the letter D, if you like. So pictorially, this was the outline of an archway or a door. And in Phoenician and Hebrew, there was Daleth meaning a door, and in Greek there was Delta. And I think in Egyptian hieroglyphics, it represents something else, not a door, but a hand. But we have, of course, D-Day, in which D simply stands for day, because essentially it was not fixed because of impossible weather conditions, and it was postponed at the last moment. It was fixed for the 5th of June, postponed until the 6th of June, but D simply stood for day. So, D-Day is a bit of a tautology. Oh, so there wasn't an A-Day and a B-Day. No. I assume there was one. B-Day assume there was one. Yeah, that's good.

A day, B day, C day. They actually did it on the fourth day. They had a sort of window and they went for the fourth day. But actually D day was referred to as the day we do it. And that will be the day that we do it when we decide when we do it. Yeah. How intriguing. Exactly. Yes. That's a very good pub quiz question, isn't it? What does the D in D-Day stand for? It stands for day. No one would guess that, would they? They wouldn't.

Well, listeners to Purple now will be setting it in their Christmas pub quizzes. Yeah, okay. As you say, it's a very, very good one. And of course, you've got E.E. Cummings as well, haven't you, who famously wrote everything in lowercase? And I discovered didn't write everything in lowercase. Oh, okay. But he did, but he wrote a great deal in lowercase. But it turned out it wasn't,

because when I was doing my anthology of poetry to learn by heart, I wanted to include some E.E. Cummings. And I wrote to the agents who look after his estate, and they said, no, no, no. They wrote back, you know, Mr. Cummings and E. E. Cummings spelled in a normal way. And in some of his poetry did that, but he also wrote with capital letters as well. Okay. That's really interesting. E. E. Bygum. You've learned something there. E. That's a word, isn't it? E. E. E. Yeah. And so to Yorkshire, so Bygum is, E, E? Yeah, and sort of Yorkshire. So by gum is just a euphemism or what we call a minced oath. Oh, as in by God, is it?

For God, yes, it would be. I'm going to see if E is actually in the dictionary as... I think it will be because it sounds to me like a word that now is a very useful scrabble word. You know, you've got a surplus of letters. Yes. So 1847 and in Anne Bronte, actually. Is it Anne Bronte? Was it Anne Bronte?

Who wrote Agnes Grey? Who wrote Agnes Grey? I think it's going to be Anne Bronte. Yes, well done. The novel that no one's read. Oh, I have. Agnes Grey is gorgeous. And there's actually a really lovely dramatisation of it on BBC iPlayer.

I recommend. Yes. So 1847, the first record in the OED, E, my word, but he shall sweat for it. So presumably one of the characters with strong dialect. It says, chiefly in speech or recorded speech used to express a range of emotions or responses, both positive, pleasure, eagerness, surprise, and negative, doubt, consternation dismay so yeah pretty useful and because i have a son-in-law who's a vet i've heard of e that's a virus the eastern equine encephalitis virus is known as e among vets oh that isn't good that's inflammation of the brain isn't it is it encephalitis yes oh well that isn't that isn't it and that is it and several and and kef i'm going to well i don't know you you can check it up i mean i have always used the soft c so this is another good as you say if we if we had a chance to do it all over again maybe we would actually indicate what is um i would say i would say encephalitis okay oh it gives you both uh it gives you absolutely both um first one it does say encephalitis but nk's and kephalitis is also equally valid

let's hope your horse doesn't get it but if it does get in touch i know a very good vet who i hope will well certainly do his best to sort it out. Also, isn't there, there are drugs called E's. I mean, I feel like- E for ecstasy. Ah, that's what it is. E for ecstasy. Never, you and I have never experimented with drugs, have we? Well, I certainly haven't.

No, not in that sense. I mean, did you not even smoke pot? We talked about this on Celebrity Gogglebox, didn't we? Didn't you never even smoke a joint? Of course not. I've never smoked anything. I even felt bired when I was about six years of age, putting in my mouth those sweets that had a little sort of rice paper across them.

They were like a, you know. What were they called? They were like spaceships and they had sherbet in the middle. Those ones. No, it was a toy cigarette, really. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That would light up. Yes, exactly.

Light up at one end. Oh, I love those. But I never even did that. No, I've never dropped an E. You've never dropped an e i haven't that's if that's what you say so it's not never been my thing ease no so it's ecstasy and who named it ecstasy well it's very interesting isn't it that if you take the names of certain drugs like heroin was supposed to make you feel like a hero the idea is that it was incredibly empowering i suspect it was the well i don't know whether it was the vernacular name for it or uh colloquial so it says recreational

amphetamine based drug having euphoric effects 1985 typically associated with clubbing but it does say colloquial so i assume it wasn't the drugs company unlike heroin because I think that actually was the name that was given to it might have been Bayer I might be um um it was commercialized by the German oh no it was Bayer it was commercialized by the German chemist H. Dreser who was working for the Bayer company and the use of heroin as its name was registered as a trademark by Bayer in 1898 and uh yeah, so it was because at that point, it was because your personality was supposed to be amplified once you took the drug and it was supposed to be exhilarating

and make you feel like a hero. But obviously its future life was probably not on the cards then. We don't encourage listeners to try any of these things unless under the guidance of a qualified medical practitioner who's advising them to take them for their health's sake. Not, you mean like being out of control? I'm frightened of all these things because I don't like being in control. Yes. So the idea of this to me, I don't want to be out of control. I want

to be in control. So the idea, I just think it's one of the reasons I no longer drink alcohol. I want to be for what it's worth in command of the situation. But I think you do, because you're a more curious person, you're a more daring person. I'm really not when it comes to narcotics, I'm afraid. I've never eaten a magic mushroom, for example, because I'd be terrified of what happened. But no, I do like a glass of wine. Well, of course you have a magic mushroom. I can see you coming around for a magic. Oh, yes, tonight I'm going to Susie's. She's doing magic mushroom. I can see you coming around for a magic. Oh, yes, tonight I'm going to Susie's. She's doing magic mushroom omelettes. But then there were people who used to give you hash cakes going back to obviously the sort of 60s or 70s when pot, as you called it,

was a thing. You would go around and people would have made- I have no idea. Was it chocolate brownies? I think I feel slightly sad that I never was offered these things because people always assumed, I suppose, I was just a completely square person that would never try any of these things so well i know i've told you before i was invited to go to an orgy yes and i didn't i didn't have the nerve i've not been invited to one of those either thank god goodness no no the idea did not appeal to me at all no this was a swing party wasn't it essentially

i suppose it was that what it's called i think so or a swing party you're right they didn't actually maybe they'd use the word audrey look before we leave the letters which we must do in a moment can you quickly tell me where the word audrey comes from if you know such a good word yes it goes back to a Latin and Greek word, Greek word ultimately, meaning energy. And weirdly, it's related to ergonomics and to the idea of working. So working and orgies and allergies, weirdly, are all part of the same linguistic family. That's great.

Working from home, have an orgy. I just happen to know that. That's very good. Look, we've got to the letter E, which I think is, is that seven letters? I think things in life fall in sevens. Shall we stop that for today and come back to it another day? Because we've got so many letters to read from people. Is that all right? Are you happy with that, Susie? I'm very happy with that because we slightly went, I'm very sorry to all our listeners that we went

off and started talking about orgies. But yes, very happy to start talking about our correspondence. But yes, very happy to start talking about our correspondence. And to be honest, I get high just on talking language with you. Who needs pot or E or heroin when they've got dent? So have people been in touch? Who's been in touch? And what do they mean writing to us about? Stuart is from Tainmouth in Devon.

Do you have his email address? I do. And is it Tainmouth or is it Tinmouth? Maybe it's Tinmouth. It's spelt T-E-I-G-N and then mouth. And I imagine it's the mouth of the river Tyn? Tain? Yeah, I am absolutely terrible at place name pronunciation. So let's see where Tyn, Tyn, Muth. Yeah, Tynmouth, you're absolutely right. Do you want to read his email? Yes. I was enjoying a lovely walk today and was unceremoniously reminded of the power of nature

when monsoon-esque rain fell from what had just been a gloriously blue sky. As we resigned ourselves to the deluge, I found myself chatting to a fellow walker about the warming pleasures of anticipating the hot chocolate that awaited us on our arrival at the cafe. The lady I was speaking to commented that it will warm the cockles of my heart. This fascinated me, as I'd only ever heard the shortened

phrase, to warm your cockles. I'm afraid I'd assumed that cockles were yet another euphemism for sexual organs, but hearing the full phrase suggested that I was wrong. I'm not sure if the fact that the lady was 87 years old is relevant here. Maybe the phrase has changed in recent usage. Regardless, now that we're heading into deepest autumn, I'd love to hear more about the phrase's roots. Huge thanks for your thoughts and for a much smiling, juicing podcast. Well, Stuart, we think you're wonderful. And Susie has the answer. We think you're wonderful. And Susie has the answer. Yes, wonderful. Even though you did assume, I imagine that cockles were all to do with testicles.

And there is indeed a very long lexicon or a big lexicon of slang terms for testicles, jellybags, nerves, aunt pollies, etc. Twiddle diddles. But that is not what this is about. It was indeed exactly as your nice correspondent told you, the woman that you met, because it was the cockles of my heart. And that is because a cockle obviously is that sort of burrowing bivalve mollusk with a really strong ribbed shell. That is because some of the, I guess, the ventricles of the heart are said to resemble in shape a cockle. So when you talk about the cockles of your heart, it's a kind of play on words, really. But you are actually talking about the sort of innermost workings of your heart, which is lovely. And we had guests, or we've actually had contestants on Countdown with cochlear implants. And if you look at cochlea as well, that is to do with spiral objects, because it goes back to the mollusk, the snail shell, if you like.

And the spiral cavity of the inner ear looks exactly like that. Well, you are a mine of information. And so thank you, Stuart Riddle, for asking that question. Stevie has been in touch from Scotland, and he writes, I have a question regarding the word pants, P-A-N-T-S. Growing up in Yorkshire, we would use the word pants as a catch-all to mean trousers, jeans, chinos, whatever. This was so normal to me that when I left Yorkshire and used the term, I got some funny looks, as it seems the rest of the country uses this word to mean underwear.

I note that American English uses the term pants to mean trousers too. I wonder if you could explain the origin of this. Did American English take the word, with its meaning as I understand it, from the Yorkshire dialect, or did we unwittingly take it from them? If American English did adopt the word, why was pants only used in Yorkshire to mean trousers and underwear across the rest of Britain? Thank you. That's the question from Steve. And Steve, as questions go, it isn't pants.

What's the answer? Okay, so let's go right the way back to the origin of pants. And we have to look back to Italian comedy and the famous theatrical movement called the Commedia dell'arte with lots of stock characters. And we're talking 16th to 18th centuries here, really the predecessor, I suppose, to the English pantomime. And there was a character called Pantalone. And he was a foolish old man who wore a red costume that included long, very close-fitting trousers that actually covered the feet. And because he was so recognizable by this slightly strange question from the 17th century, pantaloons was given to a whole host of kind of fashion choices in the

nether regions, including the one worn by Pantaloon himself. And then in the US, first of all, from the mid-19th century, pantaloons became a name for any trousers, and obviously pantaloons were then shortened to pants. And it was we in Britain who took those pantaloons or those pants and decided in a way that was actually much frowned upon by quite a lot of linguistic observers, we decided to apply the word to underwear. So it was we who sort of corrupted it. But what's really interesting, and I've tried to get to the bottom of this, as in why in Yorkshire do they still mean trousers, which is fairly extraordinary, Stevie says. And it sounds like almost exclusively because they used pants, as he says, to mean anything, trousers, jeans, or chinos. I cannot find the answer to this at all. I mean,

dialect is quite unpredictable, but given that we took pants anyway from the US, clearly in one pocket of Britain, we preserved that original meaning of trousers. And in the rest of Britain, we went with underpants. But why, Stevie? I have no idea. And I wish I could explain the idiosyncrasies of the British mind, but I can't. But if I do discover it, because it's now a puzzle on my list, I will let you know, let the purple people know. Well, if somebody does have the answer, they can get in touch with us, can't they? If there is somebody out there who thinks, actually, I can solve this one, please contact us. The address is very simple very simple it's purple people that's one word purple people at something rhymes.com purple people at something rhymes.com yes um also i have just a little bit to

add about the cockles of one's heart really because cockles obviously we still eat don't we and you may i don't know one might eat um but their zoological name is cardium edule in which cardium is from the greek cardia meaning heart we talk about a cardiac arrest and edule means edible so almost means edible heart so it's almost the other way around i think to what I was saying about cockles being either the muscle first and then the heart. I think actually the heart shape came first, and then we decided to call the British cockle the Cardium Adullae. So it is a bit of a play on words, the cockles of the heart. You take us down such wonderful byways, listeners, that for our 250th anniversary, which is coming up any minute now, we're going to say thank you to you by actually sharing some of your choicest questions.

So if there's something you want to know about, an etymology or just a question you'd like to ask us, however big, small, complicated, easy, just write to us. Send us a voice note even from all over the world. We'd love to hear from every continent because we have listeners, Susie, literally in every continent on planet Earth. It's wonderful. Which is fantastic. So, we'd love to include one from every continent. That would be wonderful. Anyway, it's purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. And obviously, we'll try to answer as many as possible in that episode. This episode, we have got time still for your trio, Susie. What are the three words you're going to intrigue us with? Well, the first one I think will be familiar to many of the British purple people.

It comes in various spellings, but it's cattywampus. And a catawampus, particularly in the US, was a sort of bogeyman, if you like, a sort of fierce and imaginary animal. But we in British dialect use cattywampus to mean askew. So if something is just what in other regional dialects, they say on the her, it's just a little bit wonky. You might say it's cattywampus, which I just love because it sounds gorgeous. The next one is now i suspect giles because you have such a lovely grand house that you might know this already um it's a staircase where the stair you reach a point and then the stair turns back in exactly the reverse direction

of the lower flight so it kind of goes back on itself and then up and then back on itself again do you know what the platform is where it turns back do you know what that's called well we call it the landing but what is it technically called no but it's not really a landing because it's just a tiny platform before you then go up more steps so it's not it isn't when you reach the top and have the landing it's the half pace what's a half pace a half yeah i didn't know that and i suspect there are other words for it but i i love the half pace? How lovely. Yeah, I didn't know that. And I suspect there are other words for it, but I love the half pace. I like the idea. Well, I shall say to my wife when we're going up this evening to bed, carrying our cocoa, I shall say, darling, we've reached the half pace.

Shall we pause for a moment? Let's stop for a little while. Exactly. Yes. Have a little moment of reflection on the half pace. On the half pace. And have you ever been under the delusion that you are an animal, even for a second? Have you imagined yourself to be a cat or a werewolf?wolf. Have you? Yes. Not a werewolf, certainly. But funny enough, only the other day, I was imagining I was a cat. I was envying our cat Nala, who was lying looking so completely relaxed. I thought I would love to be a cat and I love to be stroked as I'm stroking you now, Nala.

And I did. I envied the cat because I wasn't a cat. I'd love to be stroked as I'm stroking you now. And I did, I envied the cat because I wasn't a cat. I'd love to be a cat. Well, I think that if you were a zoanthropist, you probably would imagine that you are actually a cat. So, zoanthropy is the delusion of someone who believes themselves to have changed into an animal. So, they actually believe that they have become an animal. I don't know why I threw that one in. I suspect no purple person has felt this way, but I would love to hear from you if you have. Do you think that's fair enough or should we be scared? We don't know. I'd love to hear from somebody who has. But if there are people who are zoanthropists, that's the word, is it?

Yeah. So that's from zo meaning animal and then anthrop, you know, when the anthropi, anthropos, anthropological, etc., meaning human, a man, if you like. Yeah. And there are characters, you call them anthropomorphic. Exactly. If there are stories, I mean, Rupert Bear, because he talks and walks, is an anthropomorphic animal. He's not like a real animal. It's a character. Yes.

Is an anthropomorphic animal. Yes. He's not like a real animal. It's a character. Yes. And one of my favourite words, which sometimes comes in useful at the end of the Christmas break, is apanthropy. And that means a without pan meaning all, and then throppy, short for apanthropos meaning people.

So you want to be on your own. You are without all people. Wonderful. What about a poem for us today? Well, the poem I've got for you this week comes from a listener. Carol Mogano has written to me from Hinkley in Leicestershire, and she's been raising money for worldwide cancer research by publishing a book of her poems called The Patter of Poetry. And she had 50 copies printed locally, sold them. She raised £200

for the cause. So I thought, this is marvellous. And so I've got her book in front of me. I think it's now probably available on Amazon, and she's giving all the money away. And I just opened the book by chance. I thought, I dipped into it earlier, and thought, oh, these are rather nice. And I just opened it by chance today and came across a poem called My Worry Tree. I have a little worry tree I was given by a friend. If I didn't have my worry tree, I'd go right round the bend. When things are getting stressful, and particularly manic, I know I have my worry tree, so there's no need to panic. I'm so fortunate to have this tree. It's such a special kind. It's not growing in my garden, it's just planted in my mind. So whenever I am anxious

and I don't know what to do, I will go and find my worry tree and my big scissors too. Then the subject of my worry that is causing so much grief, I will scoop it up so gently and I'll place it on a leaf. Then with my enormous scissors, the offending leaf I'll sever, and I'll watch my worry blow away to disappear forever. Oh, that's lovely. It's a charming poem from The Patter of Poetry by Carol Magano, and well done raising all that money for worldwide cancer research. Good person. Amazing. Lovely idea. And, well, that is our lot today. We have

really enjoyed, well, we had a few digressions, but we really enjoyed touching on the first bit of the alphabet and I'm looking forward to returning to the rest of it. Please keep following us and do subscribe if you have a chance and would like to be reminded when we have a new episode out and please recommend us to friends and family. Yeah. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Naya Deo, Harriet Wells, Hannah Newton, Chris Skinner,

Poppy Thompson, and you notice I emphasise Harriet Wells because she's actually there in the room. She is. I'd love to have Harriet. Yeah, she's there. We love seeing her again. And somebody we haven't seen for a long while.

No. But he looks like, well, he looks like Edward Lear, one of the characters drawn by Edward Lear. You know, the man who had all those birds in his beard. There's a limerick about him. That's what he looks like.

It's Gully. It is the lovely Gully who now has another beardy person, or at least creature, in his studio in the form of Rolo. And, you know, the saying, I think, Giles, is really true, that have a dog and you will choose one that looks just like you.