Something Rhymes with Purple - AM

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Rise and shine Purple People. We’re kicking off the new year with a whole host of wonderful words to carry you through every moment of the day. From getting out of bed with an expurger or a jobblyjock we’ll help cure your dysania and clinomania and make the very best of the morning to come.  Plus Susie spins some poetry out of all the different words we’ve invented over the years for time-wasting.  If your new year’s resolution is to widen your vocabulary then this is the episode for you. Warning: contains some swearing.  A Somethin’ Else production  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to sign up to Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  If you would like to see Gyles and Susie LIVE and in person on our Something Rhymes With Purple UK Tour then please go to https://www.tiltedco.com/somethingrhymeswithpurple for tickets and more information.  Susie's Trio:  Ruelle - an alleyway or the space between the bed and the wall Whindle - a feigned groan Butter shag - a slice of bread and butter 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

losses and real talk with special guests from the Athletes Village and around the world you'll never have a fear of missing any Olympic action from Paris. Listen to Olympic FOMO wherever you get your podcasts. Make your nights unforgettable

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 event,

skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Something else. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. 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. that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Happy New Year and welcome to Something Rhymes With Purple. I'm Giles Brandreth and I'm joined as ever, week in, week out, by my friend and the world's favourite lexicographer, it's Susie Dent. Susie, happy New Year to you. Happy New Year to you, Giles. Lovely to see you on my screen. We can see each other on screens.

Susie is in Oxford in England. I'm in London in England. But we're speaking to the world because for us, one of the great joys of Something Rhymes with Purple is that we've somehow managed to create a community, which we feel is more of a family than a community, literally stretching around the globe. So wherever you are listening to this, thank you for spending time with us. We really appreciate your company and we also appreciate your input. What we thought we'd do today to begin the new year is actually

take ourselves through a day, our day, your day, everybody's day, from dawn till dusk, and explore some of the words to do with daytime and the passing of time during the day, and also some of the things that we get up to during the day. And because this is a new year, do you have New Year resolutions that you want to share with us? And we can monitor how they're going as the year goes by. But do you, Susie, have New Year resolutions? Do you always start the year with New Year resolutions? No, I gave up New Year's resolutions ages ago. The one that always, always crops up in my head, but I never managed to quite fulfil it, is to not worry so much. So if you ask me for my

resolution, it will always be that one. And I just need to work on it. And how does one work on not worrying so much? I don't know because the sort of general response is people say, well, it's not happened yet. So, you know, there's no point in worrying about it or worrying doesn't help. And I know all of that rationally, but you know, people saying worrying is not going to help you does not, in my mind, at least, does not particularly get rid of the worry. So there are lots of things I can do. Walking is absolutely brilliant, going for long cycle rides, I need to do more of that. So all the usual stuff,

exercising, etc. How about you? What have you decided? Well, in terms of worry, work is for me the solution to everything. And I know our lovely producer was saying to us earlier, Lawrence, oh, you know, it's still holiday time for many people. You know, all the fun things you can do. Be relaxed, don't be at work. But for me, I rather agree with the late, great Noel Coward, who believed that work, as a rule, is more fun than fun. And that's my experience too. Does that mean, I know you say that work, as a rule, is more fun than fun. And that's my experience too.

Does that mean, I know you say that work defines you and you genuinely never stop. I mean, I don't think our listeners will appreciate quite how much you do. I can't remember a day where you just said, oh, I had a nice day chilling. Well, you wouldn't say chilling anyway. I had a nice day relaxing because that's just not you. So does that mean actually that holiday time is quite stressful for you? Yes, that's a very, very good point. Holiday time is quite stressful. In the old days, I used to contrive, for example, always to be working at Christmas. I mean, right from 50 years ago, my wife and I, our first Christmas after university, there was a new radio station in Britain called LBC. It was their first Christmas. And we volunteered to be the Christmas Day presenters. We chose to go in to do a Christmas Day show. And so I've worked on radio on Christmas Day, television on Christmas Day. I've been in

pantomime, where you really are working hard at Christmas, not on Christmas Day itself, but on Boxing Day, often doing three shows. So I like that. This year, New Year, I'm going to write a book, a big book. I've signed up a contract to a big book, and I'm really looking forward to it. And I believe in hitting the ground running. I rather envy writers of an earlier generation, people like Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward, who would wake up very early and would start working at about six or seven in the morning and would really work until lunchtime because then they could have a drink and a snooze and unwind for the rest of the day, maybe rereading the work they'd done in the morning before starting again early the next day. But I think work is a good thing. It's a great distraction.

But I'm very lucky because the work I do is not what you'd call real work. I'm not actually, you know, digging holes in the ground, doing anything useful. I'm just popping up on radio and television, writing books, making speeches. It's more, it is more fun than fun, in my experience. You mentioned a word there, and this is what the show is about, language and the roots of language. You said I wouldn't use the word chilling for chilling out. I know what the expression use the word chilling for chilling out. I know what the expression means. But given that chilling is something cold, what's the origin of chilling? I think it's simply the idea that you just slow down so you don't have the heat of activity. You are simply playing it cool.

And cool, if you remember, has been an adjective meaning an adjective of approval meaning great wonderful or just right for a very very long time came to the fore in the jazza of the 1940s but actually has been recorded since english public school days in the late 19th century so i think it's it's that idea um but it's funny isn't it i mean well should we start with waking up please we start with the vocabulary of waking up? If you put on an alarm clock, I don't know if you exist with an alarm, but I do during the week, then you are woken by one of two things. One is an exberger factor, which is a very old and posh term for something that wakes you up, an alarm. An exberger factor, I've never heard of that.

Exberger factor, yes, I know. something that wakes you up an alarm. An ex-burger factor. I've never heard of that. Ex-burger factor. Yes, I know. I don't think anyone's really going to use it, but it's nice to know that they had this kind of early wake up call,

even if it wasn't a digital one, many, many centuries ago. And it's as in expurgation, is it? That's the word. It's not ex. I remember it was ex-burger as in hamburger. It's expurgation. Oh no, ex-burg. Yes.

Yes. So you're expurging sleep or?g, yes, yes. So you're ex-perging sleep or? Yes, you'll rest, I think. You are simply being roused and kind of called to action. So do you remember that alarm itself goes back to the Italian alla arme, to arms, because it was a cry to rouse soldiers and tell them that they needed quickly to arm themselves to face an impending attack. And another thing that might wake you up is a jobly jock, which is a lovely old dialect word. A jobly jock is something that disturbs your domestic peace, which in my eyes is actually an alarm clock. I mean, does anyone like the sound of an alarm clock? It's just no matter what notes

you choose on your phone, and I use my phone, it's never going to be a pleasant sound. So jobbly jock, I think particularly useful when you've got small kids bouncing on your bed very early in the morning. Jobbly jock. Is there a reason why the phrase is, the word is jobbly jock? I think it actually was originally a jobbly cock. So it's a good job we don't say that anymore. But it was to do with a cockerel rousing you a little bit too early in the morning. Well, that's people who lived in the country. I mean, when I go to the country, the silence is what wakes me up. I can't bear it.

Bird song. I'm not really into that. I live in London and therefore I'm towards Heathrow Airport. And it's the airplanes that wake me up from 6 a.m. And they're reasonably low when they get to me, but when they get near Heathrow, they're going literally virtually over Windsor Castle. And the Queen, apparently, whose main home now is Windsor Castle, can actually tell from the sound which airplane it is, and does it as kind of party piece.

If you're having lunch with the Queen and an airplane goes over she can tell you oh yes that's a 747 i know that yeah that's amusing i don't have that anymore i grew up with airplanes going over all the time and i have to say i don't miss it but i have to tell you about the i mean you'll remember this because i think we've talked about it in an earlier episode but the sort of very old system of waking people up was to use a man called a knocker upper or a knocker up do you remember where they had basically a sort of long pole and they would tap at your windows as far as i remember that's a marvelous idea not really what you want we may have touched on this before but of course one tends to wake up around dawn dawn tell me about dawn where does that come from?

Dawn. I love to think, speaking of things that wake you up, that we might actually get woken up by an Obad, which is a sort of serenade at dawn, which is beautiful. So we have lots of different words for dawn. We have the aurora and we have the dawning. That was originally the dawning rather than the dawn. So we would talk about the dawning sky That was originally the dawning rather than the dawn. So we would talk about the dawning sky and it simply comes from a German word, which means the same, tagen from German,

and we had dagen in Dutch, which is also related to day. So yes, the dawning sky, it's a beautiful word, isn't it? It's the coming of the day. I love it. When day breaks, you wake up,

you get out of bed. Do you have early morning tea or early morning coffee? Cup of tea always, first thing for me, two cups of tea. And then coffee comes a little bit later. How about you? Well, a mug of tea. And I have a whole range of mugs, including our lovely purple mugs. I have a whole range of mugs. And I'm purple mugs. I have a whole range of mugs.

And I'm very fussy about the mug. My wife is even fussier. She has to have a thin lip on the mug. And if inadvertently, you know, all the mugs are in the dishwasher and there's only a thick... She'll wash one up. I have to wash one up because she's got to have a thin-lipped mug. So the right mug is right. But I always have to also have the tea bag left in.

I like to see it floating about on the top. And I always think of the movie Jaws because it looks like, you know, you see a little shark swing around. I love all that. So that's my... It's very, very necessary. It's an important ritual, isn't it? Yes. And I need to ask you a personal question here, Giles.

When you wake up, are you piss-upressed? Am I piss-upressed? What does that mean? Yes. Are you absolutely dying for a pee? Oh, when I wake up? No. The reason being, I've usually had one at four in the morning. I wake up once a night. Now, this is where I need calm and not only the app, but there are probably medicines, herbal remedies I could take. My only unhappy time in every 24 hours is about four in the morning when I've woken up, been to the loo, got back into bed. It's too early to get up, to read anything, et cetera, and getting back to sleep. That's my challenging time. So what that word again, what was it?

If you're piss-upressed, I mean, micturition is the intense desire to urinate. If you're piss-upressed, it generally, actually, if I'm honest, would describe sitting in the car, being desperate for the loo, and not being able to go, or actually the worst condition, which is actually finally getting to the loo and not being able to pee, possibly because you've held it in for too long. But it's nice to know that there is a word for it. I'm sorry to interrupt. I know one of my new resolutions is not to interrupt Susie

on our podcast. I was quite good about that last year, and I'm going to be good this year. But since you mentioned that, I must just tell you that many years ago, when I broke the record for the world's longest ever afternoon speech, I spoke all night for 12 and a half hours and couldn't leave the room, couldn't go to the loo. And I had suppressed going to the loo for so long that when the 12 and a half hours was up, I went to the lavatory. Nothing happened. And for two and a half days, I was unable to micturate. Oh, that's horrendous. Was horrendous.

So what micturation is weeing? Micturation. Micturation. Yes, well, that's the intense desire to wee. But then on the other hand, you might actually be a dysaniac, which has been one of my trios before now. And if you're a dysaniac, you feel it is almost impossible to wake up and get out of bed. Dysania is the inability to actually force yourself to get out of bed.

And, you know, there may be a sort of real medical condition behind it. It goes well with cleanomania, which is once you've got up, the intense desire to lie back down again. Oh, you know, I forget who it was who said that when you no longer look forward to the post, you no longer look forward to life. That's the expectation. But I think the nature of post has so changed. I think this dates from a period where you got fun letters through the post. Now you just get depressing bills or even don't get those, you get circulars. So the post isn't quite the adventure that it used to be. But you look forward to getting up, don't you? Well, I don't have much choice really, but yes, I don't mind it. Once I've had my cup of tea, then I can sort of rouse myself and get going. But I have always imagined

you to be the type of person that would have a bit of a levee, L-E-V-E-E, which is when you, it's a very formal, used to be a very formal ceremonial occasion where the monarch would lie in bed and all his or her inferiors or courtiers would come and kind of stand around the bed and basically be at your beck and call. So I've always imagined you as that type of person. Thank you. Perhaps not. Definitely not. I'm not that sort of person at all, but I know that I can picture it. I'm seeing sort of Louis XIV or Louis XVI having a lovet, It's a French word in origin, isn't it? And there were people, I'm like famously the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Prime Minister during the war and

in the 1950s, who liked to work in bed. He would wake up and he would dictate and he would get the secretaries would come in and take dictation from him. And he would sit in bed smoking his cigar, I think even drinking champagne in the morning and giving his dictation I'm not like that at all I'm the same I feel a bit useless if I lounge around for too long but if you um if you're the sort of person who I mean you know we're sort of straddling holiday end of holiday time and going back to work time at the moment aren't we and I think if you are ergophobic, which means having a fear of work, you might invent another word

that I know I've mentioned to you before, Giles, which is a humdudgeon, which is an imaginary illness, which makes you take to your bed. A humdudgeon. I love that. I love it. You text your employer,

you text the boss saying, I'm suffering from a terrible attack of the humdungeons. Yes, I need a duvet day. Duvet day, how long has that been around? That means being under the duvet all day, does it? Yes, that just means if you take a duvet day, you just take some time out and, yes, essentially watch kind of book sets in bed all day. And a duvet day dates back in the OED, I've just had a look, to 1996. So the first mention actually is in Financial Times. It's defined, by the way, as a paid day's leave from work granted at short notice

for rest or recovery from stress, etc. First record we have here is there are days when one's mood is so sour that the only solution seems to be to stay in bed. Staff at text 100 can take a Oh, that's intriguing. Pretty nice, isn't it? Well, it is very nice. And actually, getting a surprise day, I do love that when a surprise day off comes. You are due to go to speak at some conference and the conference is cancelled. Suddenly, oh my gosh, there's a whole gap in that. I love that because then you can catch up on things, which is fantastic. Listen, we better get beyond waking and actually guess about our day.

What do you think? Okay, keep going. Tell us where do you want to go next? Okay. Do you wear slippers? No, I've got some slippers, but I don't wear them. In fact, curiously, I often put on shoes instead of slippers. I've got house shoes, as it were, because we got into the habit when the children were small of taking our shoes off when we came through the front door. So we've got sort of indoor shoes. Do you wear slippers? And why are they called slippers? No, likewise. You slip them on, I suppose. You slip them on, yes. But they used to be called pantoffels uh which in german you will

still find pantoffel as your slippers or pantoffel pantoffels is a kind of fictional saint i think called saint pantoufle who was invented in france in medieval times so a very long long time ago nobody quite knows why but i just love the word pantoufle. Pantoufle is the French word for slippers. It is pantoufle and pantoufle, yeah. Would you wear pyjamas or a nightie? I don't know. I don't either. I wear a dressing gown. No, you wear a vest, don't you? No, of course I don't wear a vest. I haven't worn a vest since I was at, you know, junior school. A vest. You're the last person in the world I would ever expect to wear a vest. Can you imagine a vest? But I do.

I like to get up and get dressed. My experience is that lingering in bed, it's rather like watching a television series you like, watching that extra episode. I can't do that. It's like eating too many. I love a Bendix bitter mint chocolate. But after the third, you go for the fourth and it isn't as satisfying. Then you go for the fifth.

I think you and I are very similar from this point of view yeah maybe we're just too controlled but the one thing i do always wake up with every single day elf locks so elf locks is such a lovely uh reference to really tangled hair when you are very disheveled and the reason they're called elf locks is that it was believed that elves would sneak into your bedroom at night and just basically play havoc with your hair. And the result in the morning was a set of elf locks, which means that when I look in the mirror in the morning, I am fairly idio-repulsive. What does that mean? So I look in the first thing, look in the mirror and I just think, oh my goodness, I should not have looked. Idio repulsive.

Idio. That's such a good word. This is how I feel every morning because I actually bounce out of bed. I bounce out of bed and I think, hey, it's another day. It's going to be good. This is going to be action this day. I say, quoting Winston Churchill every day. I've got a mug that says action this day on it.

And I get up. I think this is the day. Then I go into the bathroom. I throw off the dressing gown. And this, I turn from this youthful figure. In my head, I'm about 18, well, maybe 24 on a mature day. And I throw off the dressing gown. And then in this full length mirror, this hideous old man appears like a sort of sinister goblin gazing at me. And I'm then having what you call it

idio idio repulsion. You are idio repulsive which means you disgust even yourself. I disgust myself I quickly lock the bathroom door in case my wife should inadvertently come in and want to file for divorce immediately it's so depressing. I'm totally with you. And the main thing not to have at this point, and I recommend for anyone who's interested in the vocabulary of the day, as you go through the day, I recommend Mark Forsyth's Horologicon, which does exactly what we're doing, actually, is takes certain parts of the day and then looks in the corners of the dictionary to find words to express the things that go on and the things we feel anyway he introduced me to the through cough do you remember the through cough which is coughing and breaking wind at the same time i can imagine nothing more careful you don't

do that well you will be even more idio repulsive can i say that's something i'm very very good on i couldn't live with somebody who broke wind on a regular i told i said that to miriam margolis who was so proud of her breaking wind capacity I said we're never going to live together Miriam I know she suggested it once or twice she has and I said it's not it's not going to be for me because somebody who breaks wind and is proud of it is not I'm the same no I'm the same I think it's um for me I think it's the sort of convent thing I don't know it's just all of that and also just being in yeah having a sister and never actually sort of living with with boys until I was much know it's just all of that and also just being in having a sister and never actually sort of living with with boys until I was much much older I just think yeah it's just it's just

not attractive is it's the same with people who will go in while their partner's having a bath and then sit and go to the loo I just that for me again complete no no I do know that sort of thing happens. Don't ask, you look so horrified there. Yes, listeners, we are on the screen so we can see each other. The reason we like to be on the screen is to see each other so we can actually see when the other one's trying to speak. So, you know, so we don't try and speak over each other. That's the reason that we do it. But I was so horrified by the idea. I do know exactly what you mean.

Absolutely not, Giz. Anyway, that kind of gets us nicely to the morning. We are morning people and I'm with you on that one. And I think, idio repulsion aside, we probably just move and get on with our day. And what are we going to do? Are we going to assume it's a work day or are we going to be at home? Well, we can be both. I mean, I work from home and increasingly a lot of people do work from home.

And what's intriguing to me, they work from home, but I appear on a television programme in the UK called This Morning. And the figures have gone up and up and up during lockdown, understandably, more people at home. But they haven't gone down when people are going back to work. So people are still working from home. But people clearly have got the television on in the background while they're working from home. And being a male, I cannot do two things at once. So I cannot listen to the radio. I certainly can't have television on. I can, if I'm doing something that doesn't require absolute focus, I can have the radio on, never the telly. I never have the telly on during the day, but which is a bit ironic given that I work on daytime TV. For me, the treat of the morning is elevenses. And I imagine it's so-called because it happens traditionally at eleven.

And that is a little break. Many years ago, before you even joined the Oxford English Dictionary, as I think I've told you before, I was a friend of Dr. Robert Birchfield, who was the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1970s. Robert Birchfield, who was the editor of the Oxford News Dictionary in the 1970s. And he used to have, all his staff, I remember, at 11, he made the entire team, because working on the dictionary was quite a solitary occupation. Everybody at 11, whether they wanted to or not, had to come down and stand in the corridor with your mug of tea and your digestive biscuit and be there. You could take part in chatting or you could stand on your own. biscuit and be there. You could take part in chatting or you could stand on your own.

But he felt it was an opportunity for people in the team to meet up for elevenses, to mingle. Are there any other words for elevenses, that mid-morning break? Yes, there are. I think there is a nuncheon. Let me remind myself. So, nuncheon, oh no, nuncheon is actually a drink taken in the afternoon. So that's definitely not what we're talking about. Snatch in 1570, which is a hasty meal or a morsel. But that's riveting. You're snatching some food. Is that where snack comes from?

No, but it's the idea of speed with snack, for sure. It's the idea of almost sort of smacking your lips, just as I smacked the microphone there, sorry. Snack, I think you will find in lots of different languages as well. It says, yes, in the german dialect schnucken is to gasp to desire to talk or chatter but again the idea of something sort of quick snappy uh is behind all of them i think um so yeah so that's the snack i've just realized the time actually it's time that we had some 11s and stopped for a break. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey.

No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder, that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President.

And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. This is Something Rhymes with Purple, where we're working our way through the day quite slowly. We haven't got to lunch yet. We've just been having our lemons. And I'm looking at Susie Dent, who is in her study in Oxford.

I can see her on screen. Are you wearing, have you done your makeup? Do you do makeup in the morning? Not a lot, if I'm honest. So maybe a bit of mascara is about as much as I do if I'm not going on telly. I mean, I do lots of moisturising and that kind of thing, but no, I don't slather on the foundation and things if I'm not working. Are there interesting words associated with the makeup routine? Well, just by looking in the mirror, I mean, going back, we've been talking about idio repulsion, where you just look at yourself in self-loathing, but you might remember the word grog blossom, which I love. You might spot a grog blossom or two if you're a drinker, which we're not really, are we, Giles? But a grog blossom is the kind of spot that pops up in the

morning because you've drunk too much or alternatively, the sort of redness of the nose that comes from habitual drinking. That's a grog blossom. And then you might have some frumples, the crow's feet, or the wrinkles on your face. Yes, there's just quite a few things that you might notice when you look in the mirror. But putting on your makeup, I don't know, do you actually wear makeup? I do quite a lot of sort of breakfast time television. And I like it because you go in there and you look a bit bleak and they add a little bit of colour to your face, which I do like.

But I've reached the age where actually all I need to do is smile because I've reached the age where if I'm not smiling, this is very true, for example, of the Queen, who is going to be 96 this year. But she's got one of those faces that when in repose, it looks quite grumpy. And I realised that I look quite morose. I mean, often in the street, people say, you know,

shout out, cheer up, mate. It's not that bad. And I was feeling quite cheerful until they did that. So I've worked out that if I smile, then I look reasonably happy. But if I'm not smiling, I look quite miserable. The bags under the eye, I want it all covered up. Yes. Okay. So you need quite a lot of foundation on a good day then. I do. I think in Shakespearean times, that was called surfle-u-r-f-l-e i might

be making that up well also people wore makeup in earlier times to cover yeah the plague scrofula yeah diseases that had made their skins pockmarked and all that yes exactly yes surf surf all was just overall embellishment it could be decorative embellishment on clothes, but also on your face. There is, I mean, obviously there's pucker paint for your lipstick, blush and rouge for your blusher. Not sure about mascara, actually. Mascara, if you remember, is quite interesting because it goes back to a very old word linked to mask. So the idea is that you are applying a sort of mask to your face. And do you remember that the word person itself also originally meant a mask? It's linked to a persona. So the idea is that it is something that you put on for other people. I always find that's quite philosophical, a persona. That was mascara.

And coal, if you remember, is linked to alcohol because al-kol, al in Arabic means the, and al-khol was originally a distillation, if you think. It was finely powdered antimony that was used to darken the eyelids, but also the distillation was used to produce alcohol. So, khol that you put on your eyes, spelt K-O-H-L, is linked to alcohol, which was originally a fine powder produced from the same thing. There are some people who feel totally undressed unless they put on their face, as they call it, put on the slap. And there are some people who wear such a strong makeup that they're almost unrecognisable when they're not wearing it. I have a friend who lives near here, near me, who's a well-known actress, and you'd recognise her if she was wearing her makeup. If she wasn't wearing her

makeup, you would literally not recognise her. I've always wanted to be one of those people that could be transformed by makeup in exactly that way. So you look, not that the people without makeup look plain, but as you say, they look very different. And then suddenly they become a totally different person with makeup. I look exactly the same, only a bit sort of too made up. So I don't have one of those faces that can be transformed, unfortunately, but I do know lots of people on telly who are. You're too young to remember this, but in the 1960s and 1970s, young women regularly wore wigs. It was quite the thing to wear a wig. I was lucky enough to work with the late, great Dame Barbara Windsor, who was a lovely person and a most brilliant entertainer and

a fine actress as well. And she had a whole range of wigs for every time of the day, every mood, every situation. And she always wore a wig. You never saw. And that's that was just she wasn't complete till she put her wig on. I didn't know that. Okay. Oh, I made a terrible mistake many years ago. I interviewed the great Dame Joan Collins, of whom I'm a huge admirer. What an achiever. What a lady. What a goer. What a star. And still, I know this is not everything, but still just looks exactly the same. I mean, decades later. She does look exactly the same. And she does occasionally wear a wig, it must be said.

I interviewed her and the wig was sort of coming, was a little bit too far down her forehead. And I mentioned this when I writing up the interview and it was not gallant. It was not a good thing to do. It was, I'm embarrassed to be telling you this. Anyway, she was not amused. I'm quite right too. One shouldn't make personal comments, particularly in my case, given what I need is a wig. How did you say it? How did you put it? I think I described, because I said to her, the photographs are about to be taken, Joan. Maybe, you know, just pull the wig back a bit. Has she spoken to you since? Yes, she has.

She's good news. And her husband, Percy, is good news. I love that name, Percy. They're good people. In a dark world, we like these shining stars. Okay, we've got our wigs on. We've got our slap on. We're ready to go out into the world if we're commuters.

Word commute. What's commuting? Coming and going? Commute actually goes back to a commutation ticket. And a commutation ticket is one that you would buy. Commutation meaning sort of cutting short, if you like, i.e. discounted. So that was a commutation ticket. And it meant that you travelled regularly, so you would be charged accordingly. And also commutare in Latin meant to exchange, to give one thing in exchange for another. You commute to work, you get to work if you're working that day. And if you're working in a huge office block, you now have these ridiculous lifts where you have to choose the floor you're going to before when you summon the lift and then it tells you which lift you're to have you come across these

lifts oh yes you can't you can't change your mind when you get into the broadcasting companies no and i know i agree that bbc have these don't they um and they have different music and depending on which lift you go in so they will already be playing the radio station that you're about to visit it's very cool but yes you go up in the lift or you climb the stairs if you are feeling energetic. And it kind of depends whether or not you are on time or whether you're kind of rushing to get there and yet want to look as if you're not rushing at all. And there's a lovely Italian word, actually, which is called Sprezzatura. I'm giving it a German pronunciation there, spresatura. And spresatura is total nonchalance.

So it's a kind of casual nonchalance that, you know, you threw everything together and yet you look absolutely immaculate. And even though you've been kind of rushing and scurrying behind the scenes, you up and just look as cool as anything that in italian is your spressatura people no longer clock in do they or maybe they do still in factories i don't know but that that was to do with i'm not sure clocking in is literally putting a card into a clock yes and then you sit down at your desk um as you say a lot of them will be at home these days and it depends what you do you might spuddle or fudgel two words meaning to look as if you're incredibly busy but actually you're not doing very much at all and uh oh there are so many it's quiddling as well which i love quiddling is kind of paying attention to the trivial tasks in order to avoid the

important ones oh yeah i'm i'm i'm so guilty of that at the beginning trivial tasks in order to avoid the important ones. Oh, yeah. I'm so guilty of that. At the beginning of the day, I do all the easy emails and sort of postpone the difficult stuff. That's called quiddling? Quiddling. Quiddling, yes. I mean, the dialectic shmoo is absolutely full

of terms for loitering, but quiddling specifically is pretending to look busy while actually not doing very much at all. But there's also niffle naffling. Give me niffle naffling. What does niffle naffling mean? Niffle naffling is the same thing, really. I mean, if I was to look up futz in the dictionary, F-U-T-Z,

which is a wonderful word that sounds Yiddish, doesn't it? And in fact, going back to breaking wind, it might go back to the Yiddish futz and to break wind. But to futz is to mess about, waste time,ish farts and to break wind um but to farts is to mess about waste time tinker with something rather than kind of get to it so if i look in the historical thesaurus you will find a host of words uh for doing exactly that to pottering or waste time in trifling activities you've got trifle itself loiter tiffle pick a salad from the 16th century pick a salad pick a salad it's been going

around for 600 years i've not heard it before i love it pick a salad what do you say it's from the 16th century yeah pick a salad play the wanton uh fiddle daunt piddle dally pittle pingle puddle thrum caps and i'm only at the 16th century at this point obviously we've been doing this for a very long time. It's a poem. Bawble. Read all those words again slowly. It's a poem. Trifle, loiter, tiff, tiffle, pick a salad, play the wanton,

fiddle, daunt, piddle, dally, pittle, pingle, puddle, thrum caps, bawble, meech, pudder, dabble, fan, fralouche, dawdle, tiddle, pedal, gamma, quiddle, muddle, niddle, poke, falal, potter, footer, putter, shuffle, piffle, muckabout, tinker, fool around, frivol, slummock, moodle, fart about, plouter, arse about, frig, boondoggle, screw around, bugger about, piss about, dick about, jerk about, fart arse, fanny around, slop, dork, twat about, or back to dick about. That's genius. In the historical history. I felt that my wife is in the background saying that that's your autobiography,

Giles. Get it to print it up. We'll have it on a tea towel. That's fantastic. What a list of words. I mean, the language is so poetic and expressive, isn't it? Yeah, I'd moodle. I'd forgotten about moodling. It's beautiful. It's dawdling aimlessly to moodle. I love that. To moodle, to niffle naffle, to be a quiddler. I love all those words. Oh, Susie Dent. I mean, I think it's lunchtime now. So should we call it a day for today? If you want to hear about afternoon words and evening words, you'll have to wait for another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, because we've futzed about quite enough for today. We love your contributions, and they're key to Something Rhymes with Purple.

And thank you, Purple people from around the world, for keeping in touch. And the first letter is from Chris Cullen, and he's inquiring about a very interesting word, dimpsy. He kindly says the show is essential listening, especially when I'm working in my photography darkroom. In a recent episode, a listener asked if there was a name for pre-dawn

light. Well, this is a good day for asking about this. I remember my grandmother referring to it as dimpsy light. I grew up in Edinburgh, but my grandmother, born in 1906, was from Harrogate. I grew up in Edinburgh, but my grandmother, born in 1906, was from Harrogate. Any ideas about the origin of Dimpsy and Dimpsy Light? Well, I was intrigued to hear from Chris that actually his grandmother came from Harrogate because I've only really heard Dimpsy from the southwest and particularly from Devon. So it's always in the top five of my favourite dialect words, I've always mentioned Dimpsy because it's just so beautiful. And there's something about twilight, isn't there? And twitterlite as it used to be called, that is just gorgeous somehow. It's kind of slippery and

elusive and just slightly haunting, which I love. So if you look in the dictionary, and it is recorded in the OED, unlike many, many dialect words, although they're making great inroads there, it is recorded in the OED, unlike many, many dialect words, although they're making great inroads there. It is basically thought to be either a version of dim, because the light is dimming, or actually related to dumps. And I mentioned the sort of hauntingness of this time of day and the slight melancholy that might accompany it, perhaps, because they think it might go back to dumps being sort of a low mood, if you like, low spirits. So again, the idea of lowing and things sort of gradually getting darker. But they don't, they haven't come up with a definitive etymology, but that's their best

guess, either from dim or from the idea of being in the dumps. Thank you, Chris Cullen. Jack Hughes now. As a Yorkshireman, he writes, I have a query about a word I heard all the time growing up, fettle, F-E-T-T-L-E. As a lot of dialect words do, the word became so ingrained within my mind that I forgot how many seemingly disparate usages there are for the word in God's own country. There's the well-known phrase, infind fettle, used to denote high spirits and general well-being, But I've heard fettle used in the context of beating someone up, tidying something up, vomiting from too much alcohol, and having sex with someone. I imagine there are several more meanings and would love it if you could shed some light on them and the origin of this distinctly multi-purposed

Yorkshire word, fettle. Fettle, yes, in fine fettle. So, fettle certainly does mean in a sort of condition, if you like, the condition that you're in. Hence, if you're in fine fettle and good fettle, you have a good bill of health. But that goes back to the verb to fettle, which certainly does have many, many different meanings, as Jack says. So, the first meaning that you'll find in the 15th century is to put in order or tidy up, which is one of the things that he mentions. Also to attend to your livestock, to groom a horse. It was to put something to rights, in other words. But around the 19th century, you will find, for example, in Charles Kingsley's Water Babies,

you will find it being used meaning to beat, to beat up, which is another meaning that Jack mentioned. So the first mention here is 1863, Tom offered to fettle him over the head with a brick. And again, I suppose the idea is, well, I'll see to him kind of thing, you know, to sort of put something to rights in your own mind to do something that you consider to be justified, in this case, hitting someone, I guess. Then you will also find if you're fettling yourself, it means to prepare yourself for battle. It also, we've just had a long list of words for mucking about or, you know, trifling about. It could mean that as well. Jonathan Swift used it to mean to fuss about the room, to sort of busy oneself, if you like. So many, many meanings, but they all seem to go back to this idea of kind of girding yourself and getting ready for something. The one meaning that he mentions that I've not heard of is vomiting and actually the

sex as well. I've not heard of either of those, but you know, I guess if you take it to its nth degree, I can get the sex reference. I don't really get the alcoholic reference. So if any purple people have heard fettled use in this way then do let us know. You just mentioned nth degree why is it the nth degree as opposed to the you know the mth degree or the xth degree or the zedth degree? Yeah very good point I think because n in maths is an unspecified number, isn't it? It's a variable number, which is why for the nth time is kind of similar to umpteen. And if you remember, umpteen comes from idiompty in Morse code for a dash. So again, something sort of unspecified. So I think that's where it comes from, the kind of mathematical formula. I love it. I love the way I throw things at her and she knows instantly.

Doesn't have to look it up. It's just there in that extraordinary brain of hers. You're remarkable, Susie Dent. Have you got three special words with which to launch ourselves into 2022? Yes. Well, actually, they're all related to a life in the day of,

which has been our theme today. And again, I have to thank Mark Forsythe here because I mentioned his horologicom because these are ones that he's mentioned as well. So the first is something I know well. It's a French word and it's the rouelle, R-U-E-L-L-E, which can mean an alleyway in French,

but actually in English, it's the space between the bed and the wall where your socks or anything else always falls. The rouelle, I love it. It's also, this isn't mentioned in his book, but there's also a great dialect word for it, which is squinch, which again is a sort of narrow space. And I always think, you know, it's the space at the back of the sofa where all your money goes and other things. That's the squinch. Anyway, Ruel is my first one. Then there is also to windle. Now I mentioned the hamdajin, which is the kind

of imaginary illness that might stop you going to work. If you windle, you are pretending by groaning, it's feigned groaning. So if you are sort of, oh, I feel so ill, that is windling, which I really like as well. And then I would just again be be interested i think this is a dialect word and it would be really interested to hear from the purple people as they still use it this way but a butter shag and a shag was simply a slice of bread and so a butter shag was a slice of bread and butter have you heard it used that way butter shag i seem to remember a film with marlon brando last tango in paris in which there was a butter shag, but I think that was a totally different.

What a memory. Yeah, there you are. Now, I'd not come across it in this context before, a butter shag. No. It's a good word. So shag like fettle, lots and lots of different meanings. But anyway, so those are all related to, you know, not necessarily to the new year, but to the beginning of the day. Well, this I felt was appropriate. And I thought, this is my poem, except it isn't a poem. It's simply poetic language. And I don't think I've ever read anything, chosen anything from the

Bible before. This is from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three, verses one to eight. And my favourite version of the Bible is the King James' version of the Bible. I love the language from that era. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up,

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to lose A time to keep and a time to cast away A time to rend and a time to sow A time to keep silence and a time to speak A time to love and a time to hate A time of war and a time of peace Oh, that's beautiful.

Yeah. That's absolutely beautiful. Time to dance. I think that should be um the refrain of the new year it's time time to dance and enjoy the moment thank you giles and thank you so much to all the purple people who have been listening to the show and who have got in touch with us via purple at something else.com as we always say we love genuinely hearing from you and everything is read even if we don't have time to reply to everything. Something Right with Purple is, of course, a Something Else production.

It was produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale. And he's always in fine fettle. Yes. We're not quiddling in the background. The old niffle naffler himself. It's gully.