Something Rhymes with Purple - Bafflegab

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

This week Susie and Gyles get lost in the world of nonsensical language, and embrace the weird, wacky and wonderful ways the English language can be. Your favourite duo also pay homage to the masters of nonsensical language – Dr. Seuss, whose fantastical worlds and playful rhymes have enchanted generations of readers; Spike Milligan, the irreverent genius known for his zany humor and inventive wordplay; and Edward Lear, the Victorian poet and artist renowned for his witty limericks and nonsensical verse. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our 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:  Spissitude: Thickness or compactness.  Latescent: Slowly becoming hidden.  Gronk: Fluff between your toes. Gyles' poem this week was 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' by Edward Lear I The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea    In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money,    Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above,    And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,     What a beautiful Pussy you are,          You are,          You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!" II Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!    How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried:    But what shall we do for a ring?" They sailed away, for a year and a day,    To the land where the Bong-Tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood    With a ring at the end of his nose,              His nose,              His nose,    With a ring at the end of his nose. III "Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling    Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will." So they took it away, and were married next day    By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince,    Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,    They danced by the light of the moon,              The moon,              The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. 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

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

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amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. other conditions apply. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. Susie, you find me in skittish mood today. Ooh, tell me why. Well, I'll tell you why. By the way, if you're new to this podcast, it's all about words and language, and it's presented by two of us. One is Susie Dent, known to her close friends as Susanna. The other is Giles Brandreth, known to his as Sir.

Anyway, we have been presenting this podcast for about five years, but I'm excited about today because we're in the world of nonsense, the world of words that are gobbledygook or even gibberish, words that are, well, that are playful and ridiculous. And I love all that. Have I ever told you my story about Spike Milligan? Possibly, but I would love you to refresh my memory because I obviously can't remember it.

I know we have spoken about him before and we've spoken about his epitaph, but I'm not sure. Oh yes, his famous epitaph. I told you I was ill. Yes. Yes, it's brilliant. And I think he really did have it put on the tombstone. It's not just an idea. So, no, tell me.

Spike Milligan, I was lucky enough to know him. He was an eccentric person, a brilliant person, extremely funny. He wrote a lot of poetry, some of which was nonsense, often though within the nonsense was a lot of good sense. But he was truly eccentric. And we did together, we compiled a book called Every Man's Book of Nonsense for the Everyman Library. And it was a collection of nonsense prose and nonsense poetry. And it was to be launched at the Poetry Society in Earls Court Square. And I was there really as his editor. He was the star of Traction. Anyway, I turned up on the relevant day. No sign of Spike Milligan. We waited anxiously in the room for, you know, we got a big crowd because Spike Milligan was a big star. And we waited. Seven o'clock came when

the party was due to begin and I got up. There was all sighs and groans because it was just me. And then as I began speaking behind me, in the corner of the room, a box began moving, sort of heaving from side to side, a huge box. And as I apologized for Spike Milligan not being there, the box burst open and out popped Spike Milligan. You've never told us that story. I love it. He had been hiding in this box. It was now 7pm. He'd been hiding in this box since 5pm. He had arrived before everybody else. He got into the room. He'd hidden himself in this box and he'd waited there for this moment. Is that extraordinary? Could he sleep in it? I mean, how big was this box?

It was a very large box. You could certainly, I mean, but he must have been crouching down in it. Maybe he was sitting on something in it. I don't remember the detail, but it certainly was an amazing coup de theater, wasn't it? Oh, totally. Yes. And I think everybody loved it. At least coming out of a cake. Yeah.

So I don't know why I'm talking about him, except, well, except we're going to talk about nonsense. Though before we do actually get into our load of gibberish and gobbledygook and whatever, I must tell everybody, well, we must tell everybody about our special subscription podcast. Because you know, each week, well, some people know this, some people don't.

Susie and I, we go a bit wild after the show in the Purple Plus Club. And we try to go into more depth about the origins and evolution of words. And we've had some new ideas about what's going to happen in the Purple Plus Cub room. But prepare yourselves. At the moment, we're nearing the end of our Wit and Wisdom series, an alphabetical run through writers and others who we think are both witty and wise.

But we've got some new stuff coming along. Anyway, to become a subscriber, you get all of the normal main episodes absolutely ad-free. And on top of that, you get to be part of our Purple People Plus Club, which is rather fun.

It is rather fun. Apparently, Susie, do you know that 113 episodes already recorded? Isn't that amazing? Wow. So lots and lots of content to catch up on. It's only $2.99 a month, which, you know, is the price of a tub of ice cream or a mini magnum. The mini magnums are getting smaller and smaller. That's not a good word.

Shrinkflation, no. I'm with you. That's what it's called. Yes. It's not a very good word, is it? Shrinkflation. I mean, it's quite a clumsy portmanteau, but I suppose everybody knows what it means. Well, we're going to come up to some portmanteaus because, of course, one of the people we may be talking about here will be Lewis Carroll, who is considered the father of the portmanteau word. Am I right? Yes, absolutely. He invented that very word. And he certainly created some nonsense words. Can we begin with nonsense? If nonsense is our theme, sense is obviously an old word. Nonsense simply means not sense, I assume. Exactly. That which is not sense, so absurd words or meaningless ideas. The first record that we have in the Oxford English

Dictionary is 1612. And it talks about others making non-sense and infuse loathing into the nice stomach of the reader. There we go. So, hopefully we will not infuse loathing into the stomachs of the purple people. But there's so many words in English, and particularly in the historical dictionary, for nonsense. You know, there's balderdash, there's codswallop, there is, oh my goodness, you mentioned gibberish, there's gobbledygook yeah but is gibberish something to do with an animal why do i have a faint regulation gobbledygook is to do with an animal uh so gibberish is was purely born for its sound jibba jibba jibba jibba and so it's yes apparently onomatopoeic although i can't quite see that it's

the case with many onomatopoeic words so I just think, really? Did someone really think that's what, particularly with bird names, for example, you know, the Pee-Wit I can sort of get, but things like the Kitty Wake and things, you just think, really? Anyway, gobbledygook is one of my favourites because it was coined by, in imitation of a turkey. So the turkey just kind of going around making unintelligible noises, much like me at the moment. But it was coined by the grandson of Samuel Maverick. And you will remember, Jess, we've talked about Samuel Maverick. So first of all, the grandson in question was called Maury, M-A-U-R-Y. I don't know if that was short for Maurice or if that was his name anyway. And his inspiration, as I say, was the turkey.

short for Maurice, that was his name anyway. And his inspiration, as I say, was the turkey. And he said that the turkey is always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity. So it's a really, really good word and we owe it to him. But just a reminder that Samuel Maverick was quite an important lawyer, actually, but also a ranch man. He had lots of sheep, lots of cattle, and he became famous for not branding his animals. And history doesn't relate whether he found it too cruel or whether he just didn't have time. But either way, his unbranded animals would often wander off into neighbouring farms. And because they were sort of wandering off the beaten path, people would look at these animals and say, there goes another maverick. And so maverick became a byword really for somebody who doesn't

conform to the sort of standard, if you like, and who is often a little bit eccentric too. And you're telling me that this guy, maverick's grandson yeah the unusual name conjured up the word gobbledygook he did well it's extraordinary coincidence isn't it it's great isn't it well grandpa gives his name to the language the grandson creates a word that's part of the language exactly well i think samuel maverick wasn't he certainly didn't uh try to get his name into the dictionary but that is what happened whereas maury i think probably was was looking for some kind of linguistic legacy. But anyway, I love that one. He's achieved it.

I think Maury is a very interesting name. M-A-U-R-Y? Yes. I've not heard it before. Well, there's a name I hadn't heard before, except I had heard it before. As you know, last week I was introduced to an interesting name because, as you know, Susie, I am the Chancellor of the University of Chester. You know this because we were thrilled to be able to give you an honorary degree.

I have this certificate right in front of me here. Well, it was a very special day and you spoke brilliantly at the graduation. There was another graduation last week and one of the students graduated, lauded in the name of Thumbelina. Oh, that's amazing. Wasn't that an enchantment? That's fantastic. Yes. I was so pleased when she came up. I mean, I could hardly, you know, I could hardly let go of her hand as I was shaking it. I said, this is wonderful. I wanted to say Thumbelina dance,

Thumbelina sing. Anyway, isn't that a lovely name to have? That is lovely. That's brilliant. Interestingly, she was not the size of a thumb. She was tall. She was tall and beautiful and clearly brilliant because she got a degree. So congratulations to Thumbelina. Thumbelina, that's wonderful. Wonderful. Well, definitely no nonsense there at all in Chester. But there's another word. Have you heard of folderol?

Not only have I heard of folderol, but there was an entertainment troupe, I think in the 1920s and 1930s, called the folderols. Not only have I heard of folder roles, but there was an entertainment troupe, I think in the 1920s and 1930s, called the folder roles. They were a kind of pierrot group. They are performed on the end of piers. And I know about it because I have a feeling that my friend and sometime mentor, a British comedian called Cyril Fletcher, who wrote nonsense poems himself, which he performed, odd odes. He was a member of the Faldarols, I believe, in the 1930s. So, Faldarol, is it some kind of dance or folly? What is the origin of the word?

Well, it was more a meaningless refrain in songs. So, it's been around for a while. I think its first record is 1701, but that suggests it was around in the 1600s as well. And it's a little bit like la-la-la or fa-la-la. And in fact, fa-la-la seems to be the inspiration for folder roll, weirdly, although obviously it morphed a little bit along the way. But yeah, something that is just, as I say, without substance and a little bit meaningless, but a useful filler nonetheless, as nonsense often is. So yeah, there are many, many words. I mean, balderdash was once a really unappetizing concoction of different liquids. So it was ale that was watered down with milk. And there's one recipe from centuries ago that

advises adding quicklime and pigeon dung to this balderdash. So that's another one. What's interesting about the word balderdash, though, is I think of balderdash meaning it's rubbish. Somebody says something almost, if I may be a bit vulgar for a moment, almost as though it's a longer version of balls. Whereas I think of gobbledygook as something amusing, as nonsense. Whereas Balderdash I think of as you're talking pejorative. Am I right or wrong? Same with Codswallop. No, absolutely. There is a distinction between the two. And I think we are talking very much about nonsense in the sort of quite fun and lighthearted, frivolous sense,

whereas Codswallop and Balderdash aren't. But if you do want to dismiss something, I think Balderdash is brilliant and should make a comeback because it's now very, very old fashioned. But yeah, gobbledygook, I think to me is a little bit like, there's another word for it, which is bafflegab. And bafflegab is kind of unintelligible or indecipherable bluster, really. So I think it can be used insultingly, but it's got that sort of slightly bouncy, trippy sound to it, hasn't it? So should we get on to Spike Milligan? Because he was just, I don't know, he was kind of ahead in various polls, wasn't he? There was one in the 1990s, which was basically asking people for their favourite comic poem. And he came out a long way ahead of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.

And I don't know too much about Spike Milligan, other than that he had struggles, didn't he? Yes, he had mental health struggles. Yeah, which he was very open about. And actually, maybe he was one of the sort of first, well, not one of the first probably, but a really important person who opened up the issue of depression, etc. And his nonsense verse and his nonsense music of the Ning Nang Nong, maybe you can read it to us that she

does. Or maybe you should read it to us, because I'm always reading poems. Why don't you read it to us? Just for people around the world who may not know who even this character is. Yes. I agree. character is um you know he is a great his real name for what it's worth who was terence allen milligan he was known as spike okay and he was irish by birth so that when he got his knighthood um yeah he couldn't call himself sir spike it was he had a kbe and he was born back in 1918. He was born in India. India was very much part of him throughout his life. And he lived to the age of 83. And he died in Rai, a city, a town with many literary connections because the great Henry James, the American novelist who lived in England, he also lived in Rai. E.F. Benson, who created these wonderful

comic novels about Mapanuchia, came from Rye as well. Anyway, he was famous in a variety of ways. I mean, we remember him now, I hope, as a poet and writer. But he also was part of the Goons, which was a comedy group in the 1950s. And he created all these wonderful characters like Eccles. He was huge fun. He wrote some wonderful books. The first one I remember coming across was Pacoon. And then he did, I think, about seven volumes of autobiography, beginning with Adolf Hitler, my part in his downfall. And these were basically surreal, but real. They told the real story, but with surreal inflections. Yeah.

And he was much loved by the now king, Charles III, when he was Prince of Wales. And in fact, when he was even younger, in the 1950s, he heard the goons on radio and loved them. But this poem you're going to perform is, well, it's just a delightful poem. And it is pure nonsense in the tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Take it away, Susie. On the ning-nang-nong, where the cows go bong, and the monkeys all say boo, there's a nong-nang-ning, where the trees go ping, and the teapots jibber-jabber-joo. On the nong-ning-nang, all the mice go clang, and you just can't catch them when they do. So it's ning, nang, nong, cows go bong,

nong, nang, ning, trees go ping, nong, ning, nang, the mice go clang. What a noisy place to belong is the ning, nang, ning, nang, nong. It's lovely. Oh, excellent. Love it. Yeah. And apparently it is amongst the 10 most commonly taught poems in primary schools in the UK. And you can absolutely understand why, can't you? Because it's just fun and it introduces you to the joy that there is in poetry and indeed in nonsense verse. Now, when it comes to nonsense verse, I think for most of us, of our generations, Edward Lear is probably one of the supreme masters of the art. And he was just phenomenal. I wouldn't ask you if you ever met Edward Lear because he died in 1888. But he put together lots of recipes and different alphabets and songs and short stories, etc. But he is known

principally, isn't he, for his nonsense collection of poems. Yes. And Alan the Pussycat, perhaps the best. The best. I say yes with a little hesitation, my boys, only because now he is recognised as a very significant Victorian artist. Okay. And his paintings can sell for many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gosh.

Even if they have not touched a million, which they may have done. He was a fine landscape artist. He taught drawing to Queen Victoria. Oh, how amazing. Among other things. But of course, the owl and the pussycat. I'm intrigued if the Nin Nang Yong poem

is better known than the owl and pussycat, because I think the owl and pussycat probably is the best known. I agree. A nonsensical poem written by um edward lear it gave the title to my collection of poems to learn by heart dancing by the light of the moon it's an absolute enchantment as a poem i think completely wonderful he also loved and maybe we could read the on the pussigat very well at least the first stanza i think i i kind of almost think I remember it, but I'd worried that I'd fall down somewhere. But he also loved limericks, didn't he? He loved the form of the limerick, and it always focused on a particular individual. And one of my favourites

is, there was a young lady of Norway who casually sat in a doorway. When the door squeezed her flat, she exclaimed, what is that? This courageous young lady of Norway." I just love those. But will you just read us maybe a tiny bit of The Owl and the Pussycat? Well, I thought maybe it should be my poem of the week. We can keep it to the end. Oh, that's a lovely idea. Yes. I have to say about the limerick, it's very interesting and you can help me there because people think, some people say, oh, yes, he invented the limerick. I don't think he did. I seem to recall that the limerick is actually something to do with limerick in Ireland.

I know if you look at the dictionary definition, it simply says the five live nonsense poem known as limerick originated in the 18th century as an alehouse chorus. Will you come up to Limerick? Is that so? I mean, I've read that in a dictionary once. What is the origin of the Limerick? Do you know? Well, it's interesting. So the first record in the OED is 1885, but that is just the name. So the verse form was around in England in the early 18th century. And it was indeed popularized by Edward Lear, although interestingly, he didn't ever use the term limerick. So, the first reference we have is from the Sporting Times in 1885, a man who would keep whispering limericks. So, I think etymologically speaking, it is apparently from a parlor game in which each player recited some kind of verse and it was followed by some chorus containing the phrase won't you come up to limerick um so

absolutely right i didn't know about the alehouse connection but that makes total sense uh because i you say the 18th century i've got one here that i think is even earlier than that i would say is probably the 15th 16th century really amazing well it's got the aabba rhyming scheme let me give it to you it's a little bit cheeky okay it goes like this you as in ewe the animal you bleateth after lamb louth after calf too bullock starteth buck farteth medicine cuckoo it does sound very similar yeah you're absolutely right with the with the verse form i have got really interesting i've got in front of me and i might share it with you just a couple of uh edward lear's limericks there was an old person of ischia whose conduct grew friskier and friskier he danced hornpipes and jigs and ate thousands of figs that lively old person of ischia and what edward lear tended to

do was repeat the phrase from the first line in the last line um which people i think would say now is a bit tame there was an old man in a boat who said i'm a float i'm a float when they said no you ain't he was ready to faint that an old man in a boat who said, I'm a float, I'm a float. When they said, no, you ain't. He was ready to faint, that unhappy old man in a boat. Listen, before, I'm so glad that you're choosing the owl and the pussycat, but we need to have a break. But I really, really want to talk to you about Blackadder because we have to talk about that episode. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic.

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where Giles and I are talking about nonsense, but nonsense with particular application to some of the best producers of it. And not just in terms of Bluster and Coswallop, as we mentioned earlier, but people who really made it into an art form. And I mentioned just before the break, I really, really want to talk about Blackadder because it's surely one of the best episodes when it comes to any kind of reference to lexicography in the history of British programming is Blackadder. And I'm very aware that people may not be aware of it. I think a lot of people in the UK will be. But essentially, yeah, you know about Blackadder.

Of course I know about Blackadder. Yeah. I love Blackadder. Good, me too. Well, Blackadder essentially is a series of, I can't remember how many series there are actually, maybe four, which ran in the 1980s. So from 1983 to 1989. And each series is set in a different period of British history. And Edmund Blackadder is always a member of the same British family

dynasty, but obviously is playing different characters. And the reason that I have to mention this is, of course, the very famous scene, certainly in Britain, which involves Robbie Coltrane, who played Samuel Johnson, and who comes to show off, really, his completed dictionary. And he thinks it's completed when he says, here it is, the very cornerstone of English scholarship. This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language, at which point Blackadder picks him up. And do you remember what came next? I do. Go on. He says, every single one, sir. And Dr. Johnson, his confidence is still quite strong at this place. And he says, yes, every single word. And then, of course, Blackadder is off. He says, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the

doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities. And Dr. Johnson looks around at him and says, what? And Blackadder says, contrafibularities, sir? It is a common word down our way, which points Samuel Johnson takes the pencil from behind his ear and frantically starts writing it in as Blackadder continues, oh, I'm sorry, sir, I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to, of course, do such pericum bobulation. And it's just the most wonderful piss take, if you will allow me that phrase. It's just extremely clever. Because these words are all what I earlier on called unwords, aren't they? They're not real words at all.

These are words that have been conceived by the writers. Yes, and actually, interestingly, the script had slightly different versions of it. So, Rowan Atkinson, who plays Blackadder, riffed on them and came up with his own version. So, he didn't stick entirely to the script. But the reason I love it, and all lexicographers will love it is that it points at an absolute central tenet of dictionary making, which is that you can never hope to capture every aspect of language. You can never hope to capture every single word that's out there in the ether. And so he just does it in the most sort of perfect way, puncturing Samuel Johnson's balloon,

because Samuel Johnson probably was a little bit pompous at times. And as I am talking to you, Giles, I'm being clawed by my cat. So if my voice goes slightly higher, you'll know what's going on. She's coming up to say hello to you in a minute. Oh, I love it. Obviously, she likes these as well. Come on, Pete. Very good.

Well, we love your cat. You love my cat. I want to give credit where it's due due and that is to the writers i i think i'm right in saying that the first series of blackadder was written by richard curtis and ron atkinson who conceived it and created it yeah and then the the next three series series two to four and i know there were one else as well where they were all written by ben elton but the team just came up i mean this is is just, it was consistently funny. Could you, those words that you've given us there,

one of them I think is a real word. Isn't compunctious an actual real word? Three of them are unwords. One of them is a real word, but maybe not. So yes, I actually think that one is. Yeah, 1616, characterised characterized by compunction in other words remorse so uh so yes nice that he slipped a real one in there actually i've never really looked at the history of that one so that's nice um but it's just as i say it's just it's just a wonderful

um takedown really of someone who thinks that they have caught it all we should probably before we get to the correspondence because time time is running out, we should probably also mention Dr. Seuss. Were you a fan of Dr. Seuss? Please, I feel we should do a whole episode about him because, I mean, in terms of the United States of America, one of the great children's writers, creators of nonsense, and creators of a whole world. And though I am afraid I did never meet him, my mother did. My mother lived for many years in La Jolla in California, and he visited for a signing session, a local bookshop. And she queued up and bought some of his books and got them autographed for her grandchildren. So my children. So we have books signed by Dr. Seuss zeus um i know i'm not quite sure

how to pronounce it i think it's zeus i think yeah but he came up with lots of words i mean was one of his turns of phrase wasn't it yes and well i i love it really because of nerd because he was the first as far as we we know, to mention a nerd. It was a fictional animal in his children's story, If I Ran the Zoo. Oh, I thought it was a character he'd created called Mr. Nerd. It is. Absolutely. It's an animal, is it? Well, it's a kind of humanoid creature, one that's really unkempt and small, but with a large head and is always kind of disapproving.

So he's got nerdish qualities, and that's why people like that. We call them nerds because of Dr. Seuss. Well, we think. I mean, it's not definitive, but that's our best guess. Wow. I know, but I think you're right. I think there is more to be said for sure about Dr. Seuss. Can I say something? We must, because I've just seen that Dr. Seuss was born on the 2nd of March, 1904. This means it is the 120th anniversary of his birth. And I think we need to celebrate him.

And this is why he was in La Jolla, California. That's where he lived and died. So that's why my mother met him. There we are. Well, honestly, I think we do need to celebrate him. The cat in the hat. Is there a better book ever written? I wonder.

I wonder too. Let's come back to Dr. Seuss because I'm just looking at him here and there's so much to say about him, including what his real name was. Do you know what his real name was? I have no idea. Theodor Geisel. Ah, yes. Seuss was a family name, a middle name, under which he wrote all his books,

which I see here, the 60 books, are reckoned to have sold over 600 million copies. Good grief. Yeah, exactly. He's done even better than you and me. Maddening, isn't it? What can you do? What can we do? Well, over to Helen Barrett, who has a question for us, which is not directly about nonsense,

but it is to do with the real complexities and intricacies of the English language. This message has come to us from Helen all the way in Kalamunda in Perth, Western Australia. My husband was expressing a very mild annoyance that a modern car manufacturer has named a new model their shooting brakes, when it is in fact merely a wagon. He then explained to me what a shooting brake was, and we wondered where the name would have come from. Could shooting brake be related to a fire brake or a wind brake? Is there any relationship between brake and brake? That's B-R-E-A-K and B-R-A-K-E, which is how you spell brake when it comes to a shooting brake. You might put on the brakes in a car and also hope something soft will break your fall from a height. If not, please could let us know where

and when on earth the word break, B-R-A-K-E, comes from. She adds, I love your podcast and my family and friends seem to enjoy it when I pass on one of your gems, be it an etymology or you'll never guess who else Giles has met. So, thank you for the ever entertaining and illuminating show. Best wishes, Helen Barrett. Good. Okay. That's the answer. Give us a break. Okay. So, the shooting break. Well, there were many, many different types of vehicles around at the beginning of the 20th century. So you had wagonettes, you had shooting brakes, you had luggage cars, and many more besides. And brake here was, and that's B-R-A-K-E, was and had been from the 19th century, a heavy carriage frame that had two or four wheels, and that was actually used, it had no body to it, it was used for training or breaking in

horses. And then a little bit later, it came to be a horse-drawn wagonette that was designed to accommodate passengers and goods. But if you remember that breaking in horses, you will get an answer to the question, are the two spellings of break, B-R-E-A-K and B-R-A-K-E, related? Because the answer is yes, if you go back far enough. B-R-A-K-E, related because the answer is yes, if you go back far enough. So I'll start with the breakers in breaking one's legs. That actually has, if you again take it all the way back, it has relatives in a Latin word, frangere, a verb, which means to break. And that shows up in fragile, fragment, refract, and lots of different things. And of course, to break is to divide into fragments or pieces. And the old past tense of that break, as in break one's leg, break one's stride,

was break, B-R-A-K-E. So, coming onto that break, as in the breaks of a car or a shooting break, the very first meaning of that in English in the 16th century was actually an instrument for crushing or pounding something. And that did come from the same Old English root that gave us the other break. And the word was applied to lots and lots of different crushing implements. So, for example, a break, B-R-A-K-E, was a tool that would break up the woody part of flax in cloth making. And if you take that idea of a machine breaking something up, the other break, and add to that an old French word, so you add to the mix a bras in French, meaning arm, and you get the idea of a lever or handle that controls a machine and can also stop it because it breaks, B-R-E-A-K-S,

the motion of something. It literally breaks the stride. And it was that that gave us the modern meaning, a mechanical device that stops motion. So it's complicated, but if you do take it back far enough, the brake and the brake are related. And the brake that is the vehicle, the shooting brake, as I say, probably began with the idea of breaking in horses. And I don't really like that phrase because it suggests that you have to break a horse's spirit in some way. But anyway, that's how it was. So, the two are actually relatives of the same very big family. And the vehicle that's known as the shooting brake. Yeah.

How did shooting and brake come together? What was the first shooting brake? Because I think it was used for all the equipment used for shooting or hunting. I think that was the idea there. Yeah. So it was a car in which you carried all your hunting. All your stuff. Yes.

Yes. Oh, that's very good. Gosh, you know an awful lot. It's complicated, isn't it? Well, no, I had to do some digging for that one. That wasn't off the top of my head, as you could probably tell. Well, you dug well. Thank you. Good.

Ellen, I hope that gives you the answers you were looking for. Oh, we've got a voice note for our next one. This is from somebody. Oh, Frances van Velsen. But actually, her maiden name is Saunders. My husband of 35 years is of Dutch heritage. So this is why the accent turns out really not to be a Dutch one. Dear Giles and Susie, thank you for your deeply

comforting and truly interesting podcast. I find Susie's dulcet tones and Giles' genteel tones very soothing to listen to, as I'm having to convalesce in bed currently. Thank you for helping me through this tough time. I would like to ask about a word my mum, a Dubliner, used sometimes as I was growing up. If an item was in need of repair or replacement, she would declare, oh that's in flitters, before whisking it away for repair or mending. This was a time in the 1960s when darning socks and repairing clothes, passing on hand-me-downs to siblings etc was still commonplace. Where does this word come from? Is it quite old? My mum's family came from inner city Dublin originally,

and I wonder if it's a particularly Dublin expression or has wider use. Thank you again for all you do. You have helped this listener pass the time pleasantly. Kindest regards from the west coast of Ireland, Francis van Velsen. And Saunders is my maiden name. My husband of 35 years is of Dutch heritage. Don't we love Francis's Irish accent? Isn't it charming? Talk about a soothing tone. What do you think? We do. And we send Francis also all our love too for a speedy convalescence. Convalescence. I love Dublin. Do you go to Dublin much? No, I haven't been. No, in fact, I haven't been for six or seven years, actually.

You haven't been since the opening of the Museum of Literature Ireland. No. Which is now in Dublin. It's a new museum in a very old building. And they celebrate Irish literature in the most wonderful way. I think it's called M-O-L-I, so it could sound a bit like Molly, as in Molly Bloom, because they do a lot of celebrating of James Joyce, who created Molly Bloom in the museum. But all the great Irish writers are celebrated there. I do recommend it.

It only opened, I think, not that long before lockdown and the COVID horror. So, anyone going to Dublin, I recommend the Museum of Literature, Ireland, right in the centre of that great city. Now, what is the answer to her Flitter's problem? It was lovely to look into this, actually, because the original version of the phrase was in fitters rather than flitters. And fitters from the 16th century onwards were fragments, so little pieces, little atoms. And you would find them in various phrases, such as to break something into fitters, to tear to fitters, and that kind of thing. And it's actually probably related to the fit that we have if we have a conflict of some kind,

you know, a sort of fit of the blues or a seizure if you actually have a fit. And of course, if something convulses, it's likely to break into pieces. And flitters and fitters, it did become flitters. They don't seem to be confined to Ireland because I also found in fitters and flitters in a glossary of Lincolnshire dialect. But one of the reasons I really loved Francis's questions is it actually reminded me of a wonderful word also from Lincolnshire dialect, which is flisms. And do you know what flisms are, Giles? No idea. They are the tiny particles of various things, so little floating particles. And I always apply

them to the little bits of biscuit if you have dunked too many of them in your tea, or if you've waited too long and it kind of breaks up. I like to think that those little bits at the top, which let's face it, I think make your tea undrinkable, but others may disagree. Those are called flisms. Well, there we go. Look, if people want to get in touch, it's very simple. Our address is just purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. It's purplepeople, all one word, at somethingrhymes, all one word, dot com. And if you've got weird words, wacky idioms, unwords, new words, old words that you would like to know the origin of, just send us a voice note to us at that address, purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com, and you could be featured

in a not-too-far-away episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. Perfect. Well, it's almost time for us to say goodbye, but I very quickly got my usual trio, trio of words that I have either rescued from the historical dictionary or which should probably stay there, to be honest, but which interested me nonetheless. So, the first one is actually, it sounds to me like something Blackadder would say or would have said to Samuel Johnson, spicitude. And spissitude means thickness or compactness. So you might say, well, make sure you have the right spissitude of clothes for your suitcase. But it just sounds funny, spissitude, not something you will hear these days. The second is slightly poetic. I just love it.

Laetessant. And laetessant describes the act of something that slowly becomes hidden. So the sun might become Laetessant at sunset. And there's a lovely poem from 1914 that talks of the last step stills of swift Laetessant night, sunrise a thought, death permeates the light. I think it's really beautiful. So that's poetic. now uh for a real bit of bathos because this this word is actually really quite horrible what do you call the fluff between your toes oh well some people really horribly refer to it as toe jam which always makes me and it's no fluff between my toes and pleased to say good fluff between your toes well if you just got a particular if a new pair of socks, for example, you might end

up with some. Anyway, it's gronk. Ooh. Yeah. None of that is particularly nice, but it kind of made me laugh. But how interesting that there's a word for it. Yeah, there's a word for everything. Just as there's a word, isn't there, when you peel a banana for those little bits of-

Oh, yes. The flume. Yeah. And actually, what am I saying? There isn't a word for everything because there are lots of linguistic gaps, but we we're all doing our best to fill them well so that's what the fluff put in your toes is your gronk is your gronk anyway moving swiftly on to one of the best poems of anybody's childhood yeah it is take it away and if you want a performance of it that is more memorable than the one i'm going to give you now go onto youtube or social media and put in my name and that of Dame Judi Dench

because as part of a show that we do and we've done it around the country a few times we're doing it some more this year we performed The Owl and the Pussycat together and I have to say her reading of it is fantabulous but this is just me doing it so give us the first verse, brilliant The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. They took some honey

and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five pound note. The owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar. Oh, lovely pussy. Oh, pussy, my love. What a beautiful pussy you are. You are. You are. What a beautiful pussy you are. P are, you are, what a beautiful pussy you are. Pussy said to the owl, you elegant fowl, how charmingly sweet you sing. Oh, let us be married, too long we have tarried, but what shall we do for a ring? They sailed away for a year and a day to the land where the bong tree grows, and there, in a wood, a piggy-wig stood, with a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose, with a ring at the end of his nose.

Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring? Said the piggy, I will. So they took it away, and were married next day by the turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mints and slices of quince, which they ate with a runcible spoon, and hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon. The moon. The moon. They danced by the light of the moon. Beautiful. You read all of it. It's lovely.

I did read all of it. Forgive me. It's just a poem I can't resist. No. He invented the word runciple, didn't he? He did. And no one knows what a runciple spoon is. How interesting. And did he invent the bong tree as well? Quite possibly. Quite possibly. Well, that's our lot today. Thank you so much for keeping us company as always. And for more Purple, please do consider the Purple Plus Club, soon to be renamed, I hear, for ad-free listening and some exclusive bonus episodes on words and language.

That's it. That's it from Something Rhymes with Purple, which is a Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Naya Deo. Gosh, she's brilliant. With additional production from Charlie Murrell, Jennifer Mistry, Matias Torresole,

and Ollie Wilson. Matias has been pressing the levers today, hasn't he? He certainly has. He's not pressing the brakes. But I have to say that when Naya Moonlights on other shows, Giles, she is called by the other presenter, she's called a goddess. So I think we need to up the ante. A goddess? Yes. She is a goddess, but I think we need to find even more superlatives well what can we is a queen higher than a goddess because she's the queen of the controls i don't think so so what is the supreme she is the supreme being she is the supreme being she is the top of mount olympus she's zeus never mind dr zeus she is our zeus was he the was he the champion god? Oh, I see.

I thought he was talking about Dr. Zeus. No. Yeah, he probably was. I have no idea. But either way, honestly, Naya is absolutely brilliant. Brilliant. And thank you to the whole team, and thank you to everybody who's listening. Yeah. Zeus is feeling very guilty about forgetting your birthday, Naya.

This is the way it goes.