Something Rhymes with Purple - Battology

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

What do nicotine, the hoover and the silhouette have in common? They’re all eponyms. These are words named after a person. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...

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Starting point is 00:01:21 Leotard is an eponym. What does that mean? But I know where you're going. Leotard is an eponym. What does that mean? Leotard is an eponym. And an eponym is essentially a word that originated in somebody's name. Yeah. And we love it, you and I, the leotard, because we first met recording a television programme in Britain, Countdown.
Starting point is 00:01:40 And it's a words and numbers game, but very often the letters that are chosen at random seem to end up spelling the word leotard. So I think it became the most popular eponym ever. One of the most popular and one of those that was guaranteed to make the then host, Richard Whiteley, guffaw with laughter and throw his hands up in joy. So it's got very special memories for me.
Starting point is 00:02:02 So a leotard is named after the gymnast, tightrope walker? Yes, the trapeze artist, Jules Leotard. Jules Leotard. Was he a Frenchman? He was French. Sorry, that's terrible. I never put on a fake French accent. And that one was particularly bad. Yes, he was. Now he was the original, what was it? The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. He was the inspiration for that. And yes, he developed the art of the trapeze. That is probably what he should be better known for.
Starting point is 00:02:33 But because he loved that one-piece gym wear, that now bears his name. That's fantastic. So he's given his name to the language, the leotard. There's the Wellington boot, of course, named after the Duke of Wellington. My favourites are undoubtedly the Hungarian, Laszlo Biro, also pronounced Biro, who invented the ballpoint pen. The American William Hoover, who was the guy who pioneered the vacuum cleaner, the Hoover.
Starting point is 00:02:56 But my favourite is another Frenchman, the Frenchman who designed the first sandals suitable for the beach, Philippe Fallop. who designed the first sandals suitable for the beach. Philippe Fallop. Philippe Fallop! Philippe Fallop! Philippe Fallop! I love it, I love it, I love it. But the others are real. The others are real. Just while you were making jokes about flip-flops,
Starting point is 00:03:21 I was thinking about modern eponyms, because there aren't actually that many. You were talking about the Hoover, there's of course Dyson. But you wouldn't necessarily say, well, I suppose suppose you might but i'll get the dyson out it's a bit pretentious to say that possibly still so it's quite interesting i'm not sure how many modern eponyms i can think of i know for a while doing adelia went into the dictionary um so if you were following a particular recipe, you would do Adelia. And also, I remember distinctly hearing someone say, ooh, it's a bit Tarantino around here. Oh, a bit Tarantino, meaning it's a bit... It feels a little bit sinister, a bit of a loaded atmosphere.
Starting point is 00:03:55 But I haven't heard that again. So it's sort of, I'm a celebrity, get me in the dictionary. It's not really working so far. But are eponyms significant? Are they important? Well, they are, because I think for any lover of words and any lover of English, they tell so many fascinating stories and we pass them by, like, you know, so often. And we don't sort of investigate their history. So you might hear about a crane, for example, called a derrick. Oh, derrick.
Starting point is 00:04:22 Yeah, sort of hoisting. D-E-R-R-i-c-k yes you might see it on board a ship etc but you may not know that actually and there was a once notorious elizabethan hangman who was called mr derrick and he essentially was obviously such a sort of black figure in the in the popular imagination that it became used generically for gallows and then by extension for anything that was sort of a hoist. So pretty dark history, that one.
Starting point is 00:04:50 Before we go any further, you are listening to Something Rhymes with Purple with me, Susie Dent, and Giles Brandreth sitting opposite me. We are sitting face to face and we're talking eponyms. We are. Is the Mars bar an eponym?
Starting point is 00:05:03 No, I don't think it is. I think there were lots of planetary chocolates, weren't there? Milky Way, Galaxy, etc. Ah, I've got you. Was that Mr Mars? Got you, got you, got you. I had no idea. Mars, you may have to check this.
Starting point is 00:05:14 I think Mars is called Mars not because of the planets at all. I think Mars is called Mars because Mr Mars was the person who had the chocolate company. And he named the bar after himself. OK. So take a look at that one. I am typing Mars Bar eponym. OK, hang on, hang on, hang on. Yes, Forrest Mars Senior.
Starting point is 00:05:39 In Slough, in 1936. I had no idea that Slough was famous for the Mars Bar either. You were correct. That is an eponym. I had no idea. Well, let's do it with a bit of a quiz. I hope we can do that. Have you got a list of eponyms there? Yes, I have got some for you. OK. Let's see if I can guess them and see if people listening to the podcast can get them before we can. All right. What about silhouette?
Starting point is 00:06:06 Frenchman, I think, something to do with the French Revolution. And he would cut out images of people before they were beheaded during the French Revolution. Gustave Silhouette? Interesting. Interesting. I hadn't heard that particular story. No, he was called Etienne de Silhouette. Etienne de Silhouette. More bad French accents. And he, well, there's two theories. More bad French accents. And he, well, there's two theories. He was the finance minister, apparently, and loved austerity. Sound familiar? And he essentially was well into political economising.
Starting point is 00:06:38 So one theory is that people and their money became a shadow of their former self. So that's one theory. So he wasn't the, he didn't actually cut out silhouettes himself. The other theory is that he himself actually loved making silhouettes. I haven't heard the sort of silhouettes of his victims, though, because I don't think he was an executioner. No. Directly, anyway. But rather like Madame Tresord, who genuinely, I think,
Starting point is 00:06:56 would take images of people's heads after they'd just been executed, do a wax model of them. Yes, she did, yeah. I thought the silhouette was down there by the tumbrils as the heads were falling off with his scissors doing little profiles. No, I didn't make a scene as a finance minister, so I doubt that he was sitting there unless he was incredibly bloodthirsty. But this is interesting.
Starting point is 00:07:15 But this is why, you see, this is why it's so fascinating because there's still so much detective work to be done. Lovely. So we've got Etienne de Silhouette who gave us the silhouette. Give us another one. OK, this is one of my favourites. What do I get for that out of five? Do I get two points? You get a cup of tea.
Starting point is 00:07:27 Thank you. Maverick. Maverick. This is American. It's one of my favourite stories. Well, tell us the story then because I loosely remember it, but get it right. Okay. Well, this is a 19th century cattle owner called Samuel Maverick and he became famous
Starting point is 00:07:43 for refusing to brand his cattle, which was obviously the done thing. Again, sort of, you know, lots of theories, but it's thought that his cattle just sort of wandered free much to the annoyance of his neighbours. And because he didn't do things the prescribed way, and we've seen he's a little bit eccentric, if not downright stubborn, he became known as a maverick. And, interesting, I think it was his son or his nephew, I think it was his son, gave us the word gobbledygook.
Starting point is 00:08:11 Good grief. Yes. Oh, but what a family the mavericks were. No, no, you must explore this. I love it. Well, he wasn't called gobbledygook, obviously, but he just thought that that's... What a great name.
Starting point is 00:08:21 He thought that sounded like the such a meaningless babble of geese. And so he said it sounds like gobbledygook. And this was young Maverick. Yeah, this was Maverick Jr. Maverick Jr. gave us gobbledygook. Some people think, why am I, couldn't I be living a life here? Couldn't I be reading a book?
Starting point is 00:08:37 Why am I listening to a podcast? Now you know. Now you know. Maverick was a cowboy who wouldn't brand his cattle, but he bred a son, and the son gave us the word gobbledygook. This has been worth getting up this morning. You live and learn.
Starting point is 00:08:54 Then, of course, you die and forget it all. But in interim, how pleased you must be to be listening to Something Rhymes With Purple with Susie Dent and Giles Bradworth. Challenge me to another. Okay. Though I know nothing, I'm loving your answers. Well, this is one perhaps for slightly older listeners, because I'm not sure it's used that much these days. Slightly older listeners.
Starting point is 00:09:11 Both Susie and I are on tour at the moment doing stage shows, and we're going to a lot of the same theatres. My show is called Break a Leg. And what is your show called? Mine's called The Secret Life of Words. The Secret Life of Words. And she is revealing the secret life of words like maverick and gobbledygook. But on the tickets, it often says, you know, age, you know, 16 plus or 12 plus.
Starting point is 00:09:36 Does it say anything like that on your tickets? Well, it has to be, yes, it has to be 18 plus because there's a little bit of swearing in there. I do the history of swearing. We've done swearing, haven't we? We have. Oh, fuck me, we have. We certainly have. So it says 18 plus.
Starting point is 00:09:50 I think it says 18 plus or the equivalent of PG. 18 plus. Well, rather amusingly, wherever I was the other day, my wife said, have you seen the tickets? I said, well, the tickets. And I thought, is it going to be 12 plus? Is it going to be 14 plus? 60 plus. And when I looked out at my audience, they all were.
Starting point is 00:10:07 Oh, I like that. So you now say we've got something for older podcasters. Yeah, possibly for older listeners. Hobson's Choice. Yes, Hobson's Choice. There is a play of that name. OK. By Harold Brighouse.
Starting point is 00:10:28 name, by Harold Brighouse. Rather a wonderful play, which I saw performed at the National Theatre shortly after it opened in the 1960s with Sir Michael Redgrove playing the part of Hobson. There is a film version of this play with Charles Lawton in the role. He did Galileo. He's a great, he is a heroic actor. But I imagine Hobson's Choice is called Hobson's Choice because the phrase already existed. Nothing to do with the Hobson-Jobson? No, nothing to do with the Hobson-Jobson dictionary. Well, let's explain. Hobson's Choice essentially means the option of taking the one thing offered or nothing.
Starting point is 00:10:58 So it's kind of all or nothing. Oh, rather like some people would have said that what was on offer from the European Union over the Brexit negotiations was a Hobson's Choice. Yes, there's no choice at all. There's no choice. Ah, Hobson's Choice. And who was Hobson? Well, he was Tobias Hobson. So he was a Cambridge carrier who let out horses. And he is said to have insisted that his customers take the horse, which happened to be next to the stable door, because they were the freshest, or to go without. And so that became known as Hobson's Choice.
Starting point is 00:11:31 You had to take that horse. And it's like London cabs to this day. They make you go to the first one on the queue. It's a Hobson's Choice. Even if you don't like that look of the first one, you want the second one. No, no, Hobson's Choice. So he was called Tobias Hobson? He was called Tobias Hobson.
Starting point is 00:11:46 I mentioned Hobson Jobson. Yes. Who was Hobson Jobson? Well, he produced the Anglo-Indian Dictionary, didn't he? I don't actually know who he was. Ah, Hobson Jobson. And it's like a turn of phrase. Oh, Hobson Jobson.
Starting point is 00:12:02 There probably wasn't a a Jobson it's just a Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell why it was called Hobson Jobson in Anglo-Indian English it referred to any festival or entertainment it
Starting point is 00:12:19 is a corruption we think by British shoulders of I'm not sure I'm repeating this properly, but it was repeatedly chanted by the Shia Muslims as they mourned and beat their chests. Oh, wonderful. A sound like Hobson Jobson. Hobson Jobson.
Starting point is 00:12:36 Hobson Jobson. Anyway, this was not exactly an eponym, but fascinating nonetheless. I love our little diversions. Good. I love a diversion. Life is a series of cul-de-sacs. But then you hit the main road.
Starting point is 00:12:47 And eventually you hit the buffers. Okay, give me one more. I'm liking this. Okay, this is an obvious one but I love it anyway. Caesarean section. Caesarean section. Named after Julius Caesar, the Roman geezer, had a nose like a lemon squeezer. Did he? Well, when I was at school there was a
Starting point is 00:13:04 poem that went along those lines. Julius Caesar, Roman Giza, no, squashed his nose in a lemon squeezer, something like that. Anyway. It probably didn't happen one way or the other. I wouldn't worry too much. Julius Caesar, was he born by Caesarian section?
Starting point is 00:13:17 That's the folk belief. I have to say that is what the OED believes as well, that he himself was delivered this way. And of course, it was made famous by Shakespeare. For those who have led sheltered lives, what exactly is a caesarean section? A caesarean section is childbirth whereby the baby is delivered through an incision into the womb, I think, rather than... They cut you open to bring the baby out. They cut you open, yes.
Starting point is 00:13:41 And you mentioned Shakespeare's play, which is known as the Scottish play because it's supposed to be bad luck to say the venue out. And you mentioned Shakespeare's play which is known as the Scottish play because it's supposed to be bad luck to say the word Macbeth. It's supposed to be bad luck to say the title of the play unless you're actually in the play at the time. One of the prophecies of the
Starting point is 00:14:00 witches is that he won't be killed, he can't be killed except by anyone who is by mother born or something. He was untimely ripped. That's Macduff, isn't it? Untimely ripped from his mother's womb. Yeah, exactly. And so he does end up, Macbeth does end up being killed. Yeah. Okay. So the alien section, that's good. One more. Okay. A Mickey Finn. A Mickey Finn. It's an eponym, is it? I suppose if there was a real Mickey Finn. Yes. Finn. It's an eponym, is it? I suppose, if there was a real Mickey Finn.
Starting point is 00:14:26 Yes. Well, it's said to be a notorious Chicago bartender who drugged and robbed his customers. Oh, it's a very strong drink. It knocks you out. I'll have a Mickey Finn. Yes. I think be careful with that one. Next. This is an area that I'm fascinated by, but I'm not sure they fall strictly into the category of being pure eponyms. Because people have lent their names to expressions, but we don't know who they were. So, not on your Nelly.
Starting point is 00:14:51 That's a really old-fashioned British expression, meaning not on your life. Yeah, not on your life. Not on your Nelly. Not on your Nelly. In the 19th century, Nelly Duff was rhyming slang for puff. So, not on your puff was like not on your breath of life, not on your life. So it's a fairly complicated bit of rhyming slang.
Starting point is 00:15:09 But we don't know who Nellie Duff was, sadly. Oh. I mean, indeed, maybe she didn't exist. Likewise, I just add to that one in terms of people who are now anonymous, sadly, although they live on through language, was somebody called Tommy Grant. Tommy Grant became a nickname in Australia for an immigrant, notably British immigrants. And that in turn became Pommy Grant because people arriving on the Australian shores,
Starting point is 00:15:42 if they were British, particularly and fair-skinned, would be as red as a pomegranate. So it became pomegranate. So the poms? Oh, but that is... Susie Dent, you are on fire, if I may say so. I never knew that the origin of the pom, being, as it were, the Brit who goes to Australia,
Starting point is 00:16:01 came from pomegranate, which came from Tommy Grant. Tommy Grant. Tommy Grant gives you pomegranate, which came from Tommy Grant. Tommy Grant. Tommy Grant gives you pomegranate, gives you the POM. Yes. Not an acronym for Prisoner of Her Majesty's Service because of deportees. But yes, lovely story. Let's have a quick break. Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers.
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Starting point is 00:17:06 Find us at dignitymemorial.ca. What I'm interested in are the words that have slipped into the language, like silhouette and leotard, where there is no clue in the word that it was once a person. I'll give you one. I find that mesmerising. Okay. Oh, very nice. Franz Mesmer. Who was he?
Starting point is 00:17:30 Well, he gave us the sort of precursor to hypnotism, really, because he believed in an invisible natural force, a kind of animal magnetism that exists in all of us. And he saw in it sort of amazing healing properties. But I think by some countries even he was seen as a bit of a quack and so had to sort of move on in order to practice elsewhere, as far as I remember. But it's extraordinary, I think, to be somebody who lived maybe 150 years ago
Starting point is 00:18:02 whose name has just entered the language. People talk about somebody being mesmeric, mesmerising a moment. It's a phenomenon. I've got one for you as well. Oh, yes. Nicotine. Do you know where that one comes from?
Starting point is 00:18:16 That does ring a bell. Nicotine. Yes. François de Nicotine. He was essentially a French diplomat who lived in very, sort of very late 16th century. Jean Nicot, he was called. He was an ambassador to Lisbon,
Starting point is 00:18:32 but he is famous because he became convinced of the healing powers of tobacco from a friend of his who was a botanist. And apparently the application of the tobacco plant worked absolute wonders. They tried it on tumours, etc. And it was wonderful. Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, treated her migraines with it, etc.
Starting point is 00:18:53 So nicotine was found, or tobacco, was found to be this sort of, how different, amazingly therapeutic plant. This is extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, there we are, nicotine. People thought it was a wonderful cure-all when it began, and this man has given his name to nicotine in the First World War, and I believe
Starting point is 00:19:12 in the Second World War, too. They gave cigarettes to the soldiers, didn't they? For health reasons, to calm them down, to soothe them. He has a cigarette, and it's obviously a killer. Well, speaking of which, I, when I bought my car last, I only buy a car once in a generation because I'm very caring of the environment.
Starting point is 00:19:32 So once in a generation, I buy a car. When I last bought a car, we were being told to buy diesel cars because diesel fuel was good for the planet. And now I'm being told I did this for the sake of my country. And now I'm going to be punished for buying a diesel car. But Diesel was a person, wasn't he? Yes. Was it Rudolf? Rudolf Diesel. I think he was the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Starting point is 00:19:52 He was a German engineer, Rudolf Diesel, who famously, I think, died mysteriously by falling from a ship. He disappeared from a ship. That's my memory. I may be wrong. So do please correct us to anyone who's listening to something rhymes with purple, because we would love to hear from you. We would, actually.
Starting point is 00:20:10 Do let us know. I mean, I say we'd love to hear from them. Do we want to hear from them? Do we want to deal with correspondence? We do. I do. Oh, fine. So if you don't mind, email Susie Dent, whatever, or text her.
Starting point is 00:20:24 What's the other thing that people do now tweet tweet tweet I meant tweet I meant tweet I'm on Twitter I'm at Giles B1
Starting point is 00:20:32 at Giles B1 G-Y-L-E-S B1 are you on Twitter yes I'm at Susie underscore Dent but we should really be on Instagram or something shouldn't we
Starting point is 00:20:41 I don't really do pictures oh don't you we're being hurried along by the producer he's a bit of a dunce. He's not a dunce. Paul is not a dunce. Where does the word dunce come from?
Starting point is 00:20:49 Dunce Scotus. Who was Dunce Scotus? He was a friar who was actually probably incredibly bright and slightly ahead of his times, but he was a reformer. And was he a reformer or was he an anti-reformer? You know more than me. But his philosophies were seen as being foolish and heretic. Heretical.
Starting point is 00:21:12 Heretical. Thank you. He was a frat, a theologian. Some people considered him a fool, dunce scotus, and people talked about a dunce. What about gerrymandering? Let's get a couple of these in. Yes, gerrymander.
Starting point is 00:21:22 It's a combination of the name Elbridge Gerry and the salamander. It was also to do with dividing districts, voting districts, in a sort of slightly unfair way. A Victorian expression, I think, or maybe a little bit earlier, where you fiddled with the constituency to have certain people vote for you. You basically were indulging in gerrymandering. So the man who was doing this was Elbridge Gerry. And Salamander...
Starting point is 00:21:51 Yeah, well, he came up with a new sort of division of counties that apparently, when drawn on a map, looked a bit like a salamander. One of my favourites, of course, was Amelia Bloomer. Oh, yes. Because people do give their names to clothes, don't they? Yes. Like jeans come from... Genua.
Starting point is 00:22:08 From Genua. Yes. In Italy. Denim. Denim comes from denim, the place. An eye with a little hat on the eye. Those are toponyms, those. Those are toponyms.
Starting point is 00:22:18 Yes. But Bloomer is Amelia Bloomer, and that's a proper eponym. Who was she? She was a blue stocking, wasn't she, as well? Could be. Yes. I thought she was a feminist pioneer. I thought she was a feminist. And she liked to ride a bicycle. And in order to ride a bicycle in skirts, it's quite difficult. So she pioneered wearing these sort of trousers, loose fitting trousers that became named after her, bloomers. And she advocated temperance above all as well,
Starting point is 00:22:49 as well as women's rights, quite rightly. As you would if you're riding a bicycle because you don't want people falling off the bicycle. I guess that is true. Giles, if you had to contribute your name to the English language, what would its definition be? A brandreth. What would a brandreth be? Well, can I tell you something? I would like it to be something gentle and lovely. I have a friend called Anthony Holden, who is a very distinguished
Starting point is 00:23:20 journalist and biographer. And we were at university together. And he's a brilliant man. And recently, maddeningly, he suffered a stroke, which has debilitated him. He's now in a wheelchair, and he can't use his left arm or left leg. But his mind is razor sharp, and he can use his right hand, so he can still carry on writing, tapping away on the computer. But he was saying to me how words can, the way we use words is so important. And that's why you and I actually love words. And he said, you know, the word stroke. He said, actually, the word stroke is a gentle word. It's a loving word. You associate it with a caress. You stroke somebody on the cheek, you stroke them on the hand. It's a beautiful word, a gentle word. And he said, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:05 what happened to me, the stroke was anything but beautiful or gentle. And he said, you know, we call a heart attack a heart attack. And actually, a stroke is a kind of brain attack. Let's call it a brain attack. I mean, if you think of it as an act of striking, so its etymology is fairly hard and aggressive. But the idea of stroking is gentle. So the point is that we give meaning to words by the way in which we use them. And so you can get a word like stroke, which can at one hand mean something beautiful and gentle, and at the other hand means something really quite frightening and alarming. So that leads me to brandreth. When I was a boy, I'm afraid people used to say bad breath brandreth, to be rude. Oh. Yeah, exactly. I don't like that at all. So I want a brandreth
Starting point is 00:24:55 to be the word for something that lingers in the air. Oh, he left a lovely... I'm laughing now. He left a lovely brandreth after him. You know, a little, a faint echo. That's nice. A brandreth. Like a sort of slight... particles of perfume that are somehow sort of left behind. I like that. The spirit of the person.
Starting point is 00:25:20 A delightful... Oh, there was something about them. Oh, he left a lovely brandreth behind. I like that. Very nice. So what will Dent be? Thanks. Well, yes, as you can tell, Dent is never going to sound poetic. I think if I could donate my name to the English language, it would probably be as a synonym for linguistic gap,
Starting point is 00:25:42 because linguistic gap is a bit of a mouthful. So for all those sensations, feelings, emotions, even things for which we have no word in English, I'd like to donate my name to that. So it might be behind a new dictionary of new words for things that we never had words for before. That's what I'd like it to be. Oh, that's very good.
Starting point is 00:26:03 We're still searching for the word that it could be. Oh, that's very good. We're still searching for the word that it could be. Oh, I like that very much. Do you know, I've also just then made up a word, plentifold, which doesn't exist. Plentifold? The only excuse I have is that today is my first real day of hay fever and I am drugged
Starting point is 00:26:20 to the eyeballs with some very sedating pills. So please forgive me if I get my words wrong. That's OK. Which is not important, of course, on a word podcast. Well, it is important to get it right. Oh, I see what you mean. You're being sarcastic now.
Starting point is 00:26:33 Just a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Now, look, even though you are woozy and drugged up to the eyeballs, I still need, because many people tune in simply to get to this last bit, where you give us Susie's trio. Three words to surprise us. Three words that we want to relish and take away as our takeaway. What do people call that when you go to a conference and they say,
Starting point is 00:26:53 we'd like you to give the people something? What do they call it? Yeah, takeaway messages. Takeaway messages. Well, what are the takeaway words? Instantly disposable. That's what these are. But they are great words.
Starting point is 00:27:04 They don't really have anything to do with eponyms, I have to say. They're just three words that I like. One is a Victorian word for an umbrella, which is a bumbashoot. A bumbashoot? I love it. How does a bumbashoot come up?
Starting point is 00:27:19 I think just bumba because it sounds a little bit like a child's representation of umbrella. And a shoot as in parachute, I guess. Although it's spelled S-H-O-O-T. I guess it's shaped like a parachute. So I like that, a Bumba chute. My second word, just because it's so beautiful. We've been mentioning quite a few French words today.
Starting point is 00:27:38 It's chatoyant. Chatoyant. I guess it would be chatoyant in English, which you really don't want because it doesn't sound nearly so nice. So it's C-H-A-T-O-Y-A-N-T. And it means of iridescent shimmering luster, like a cat's eye in the dark. Oh, I like that. I just think it's a beautiful word.
Starting point is 00:27:56 And my third one, cannot accuse you of this, but we can accuse many politicians of it, I think, is batology. Heard of that one? No. What is batology? Batology is the needless and tiresome repetition in speaking or writing. So loathsome repetition is batology. Batology. Banging on. Batology.
Starting point is 00:28:17 Yes. It's something that's batological. It's really tediously repetitive. Do you think it's affected you being called Susie Dent as a person? Because I think people, there is research that shows that people's names do affect how they behave. Nominative determinism. Is that what it means? Yeah, well, you might have an aptronym. Yes, like there's a judge called Judge Judge. Yes. And the famous Cardinal of Manila was called Cardinal Sin.
Starting point is 00:28:43 But he behaved himself. But people's names do often lead to... Yes. I can't say that happened to me. But Susie Dent. It's not great, is it? It's not great. And Brandreth isn't great, actually. It's a dreadful name.
Starting point is 00:28:55 I met Roy Rogers when I was a little boy. You know who I mean by Roy Rogers? Remind me. Roy Rogers was a cowboy. Okay. And he was a cowboy. Okay. And he was a very, he was a hugely famous cowboy. And he had a, I think he had a horse called, did he have, was his horse called Trigger? Oh, okay, yes.
Starting point is 00:29:13 Does it ring a bell? Anyway, I discovered when I met him that his real name was Leonard Sly. And I thought, oh, this is so disappointing. I mean, you know, he had been called, he called himself when he began as a cowboy, Dick Weston, which wasn't a bad name. And then he, somebody said he was the Ginger Rogers of the cowboy scene. So he changed his name to Roy Rogers. And he had 10 children, two boys and eight girls. There was Roy Jr.
Starting point is 00:29:39 There was John. There was Robin, Cheryl, Linda, Lou, Marion, Scottish Ward, Mary, Little Doe and Deborah Lee. Names do make a difference. You know, you've got children, haven't you? I do. Have they got simple names? Quite simple. Lucy. Oh, I like that. Lucy meaning light.
Starting point is 00:29:58 Light from Lux, yes, in Latin. Lux. You say Lux from Latin. People think of it as a soap. She's named after her soap sons. Lucy. And Thea. The Latin. Lux. You say Lux from Latin. People think of it as a soap. She's named after her soap subs. Lucy? And Thea. Thea? Yes. Thea.
Starting point is 00:30:10 Thought that he had not got a lisp. She doesn't have a lisp. No. I say that. I have a daughter called Scythrid. Oh, gosh. Can you imagine? Yes.
Starting point is 00:30:17 Never mind Thea. What does that mean? Scythrid. Scythrid was the daughter, I think, of King Anna, the king of the East Angles. Yeah, it sounds Anglo-Saxon. My wife came up with all these names for our children. So we have Scythrid was the daughter, I think, of King Anna, the King of the East Angles. Yeah, it sounds Anglo-Saxon. My wife came up with all these names for our children. So we have Scythrid, we have Bennet, B-E-1-N-E-T, as he says, who wants to spend their whole life going around being called Bennet,
Starting point is 00:30:35 and Aphra, A-P-H-R-A. Gosh, those are fancy names. Aphra is a great name. Aphra Benn, B-E-H-N, was the first woman to earn her living as a writer. Excellent. Excellent. Anyway, we've had a lot of fun, haven't we? We have. Thank you so much for listening to our meanderings. I would just say, if you
Starting point is 00:30:54 have enjoyed this, please, please spread the word. That would mean a lot to us. So give us a review or rate us. And if you didn't like it, fuck off. Who makes all this? This is a Something Else production. Funny you should mention that. Produced by Paul Smith.
Starting point is 00:31:08 Paul Smith. Can you imagine being called Paul Smith all your life? Paul Smith. Great clothes maker. Great clothes maker. Thanks for the sake, Paul Smith. And also the man who produced Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's called Paul Smith.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Oh, really? And let's not forget Russell Finch. Russell Finch. Steve Ackerman. Who wants to be called Russell Finch? At a pinch, it's Finch. And Finch? Steve Ackerman. Who wants to be called Russell Finch? At a pinch, it's Finch. And Josh Gibbs. Steve Ackerman.
Starting point is 00:31:28 Josh Gibbs, that isn't bad. Named after a toothpaste. And Gully. Let's not forget Gully. Who's Gully? Gully is there in the studio, just over there, through the glass. People may feel they're rather... Short for Gulliver, which is just the best name ever.
Starting point is 00:31:41 Some people listening to this may feel that to have had one, two, three, four, five, six people behind the microphone. Is Overkill? Two in front of the microphone is Overkill. We may be talking about the origins of Roadkill next time.

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