Something Rhymes with Purple - Best of SRWP Vol. 3

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Celebrating three years of Something Rhymes With Purple here are our favourite moments from the past 12 months on the pod. Join us as we remind ourselves of the fascinating etymological tales behind words like ‘naff’ and ‘tuxedo’, we relive some of Gyles’ most hair-raising anecdotes, and we explore the tribal language of aircrews and gamers. Plus we take the opportunity to once again hear the Purple People singing in unison…  A Somethin’ Else production  We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them in to [e-mail]  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to join the Purple Plus Club on 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.  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 We'll see you next time. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, where we're taking our annual look back over our favourite moments on the pod from last year.

I can't believe we've been doing this for three years now. We absolutely love meeting up each week to discuss the fascinating facts and myths behind the words and phrases we use every day. And thank you so much for coming along with us and joining us for the ride and for keeping us on our toes with your fantastic questions that have us scurrying to the dictionaries and history books each week. And after three years, we shed no signs of slowing down and there are still so many subjects to dive into. So if there's a topic we haven't discussed and you'd like us to, then please do let us know. The email, as always, is purple at somethingelse.com. And remember, no G in the something. So let's get to the highlights. Where should we start, Giles? Well, as we're celebrating, it only seems right that we put on our finest garb

as we revisit the royal and lupine origins behind what the Americans would call a tux. Yes. And if you look back, it's sort of quite a sort of royal aspect to this as well, because if you go back to the latter years of the 19th century, the Prince of Wales at the time, Edward VII, was fitted with a rather special garment. And he had a tailor in Savile Row make this sort of bespoke ensemble that was more casual than a tailcoat, but more classy than a lounge suit. And thanks to him, really, the dinner jacket became one of the hottest ticket items in tailoring. And it was brought back to the US by admirers of the prince who wanted to look suave and sophisticated and in 1886 the first jacket like this was worn to an autumn ball under the

name of Tuxedo because the ball was held at Tuxedo Park in New York and Tuxedo itself is quite interesting it's a Native American term from it's an Algonquian name, and it's thought to mean meeting place of the wolves. But that's gripping. Extraordinary. That everyday word tuxedo is actually named after a place, and it was because they were wearing a fashion made popular by the Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales.

Later became Edward VII. Yeah. Well, that's a real Anglo-American story, tuxedo. Let's check back from the States now, but whilst in the air, strap in as we remember Giles's most hair-raising tales from 35,000 feet. I have so many terrifying stories. As a child, I used to enjoy going on airplanes, mainly to Europe. And then as a teenager, I began going to the United States of America, and I did enjoy it, though the turbulence I found a bit uncomfortable.

But as the years have gone by, I've got more and more terrified. I think it began when I was flying once about 40 years ago from somewhere in Italy to somewhere in the south of France. Nice. And got onto a small airplane. And I was sitting next in the front seat, right at the front of this small airplane. It only seemed to take about 16 passengers because it was a little hop from Italy to France. And there was just one stewardess who was looking after us. And we took off and she was seated at the back.

And I was seated next to this lady who I later discovered was a lawyer. Anyway, we began to take off. And as we took off, there was a bit of sort of turbulence as we moved into the sky. And she could see that I was nervous. And so I reached out and I began to hold this lady's hand. And we were both equally nervous. We began squeezing each other's hands quite hard. But it got worse because we began sniffing

and we could smell smoke. And then we were sitting right at the front and as the plane was still accelerating, still going up and lurching as it went up, from underneath the door to where the captain and the pilots were, smoke began to emerge, billowing. And then the door of the, you know, the bit to the pilot banged open through the turbulence. And the woman and I were now in each other's arms, squawking and squealing. And we saw through into the captain's cabin, into the pilot's cabin.

And there the pilot was sitting with his co-pilot, both of them smoking small cheroots. No. Yeah. And they were completely relaxed. Totally. They were just, this was, of course, 30, 40 years ago when smoking was allowed, I think, in airplanes, but we didn't actually expect the pilots to be smoking. But these relaxed Italian pilots were having their little, you know, their black Sobranis or their little cheroots. They were as contented as could be. One of our favourite things to do on Purple is uncover the secret lingo used exclusively in certain professions and with certain hobbies. From carnival workers to magicians to cyclists, there's a whole new language to master if you're going to fit in. Actually, should it be master or should it be mistress? Anyway, that's Susie.

Don't answer that now, because before we touch down, let's remind ourselves of the words that might go over your head while you're up in the air. I am full of admiration for the air crew, I have to say. It's interesting because, I mean, obviously, I hoped to be a representative sample, talked to a lovely pilot from British Airways. So, you know, I wouldn't say that these are universal codes, but they were very interesting nonetheless.

One thing that surprised me was that a little bit like hack, which is a term freely used by journalists of themselves, so is trolley dolly actually used by air stewards of themselves, whatever their gender. You rarely hear stewardess and hostess almost never, but they will call themselves trolley dollies, which is interesting. But they have the most fantastic just nicknames for each other and just lovely little kind of nods to their life. So for example, Delsey. Delsey, particularly in the US, I think is a popular brand of cabin luggage. So if you are Delcee dining, you're taking your own food in your suitcase. So when you get to your destination, you don't have to fork out.

A coach roach is a flight attendant who prefers working in the main cabin rather than the first class bit. Sometimes they will call each other flying mattresses, tarts with carts or sky hostesses. Never use these if you're a passenger. Only used amongst themselves. So it's self-deprecating humour, essentially. Absolutely, absolutely. They're sending themselves up. But they always seem to be quite happy people.

There's a kind of community amongst these guys. Absolutely. And they do have a good laugh, particularly at us. So the packs are the passengers, collectively. We are the packs, P-A-X. Children are known as the crumb crunches quite often the crowd of people who rush to the gate eager to board as soon as the announcement comes a gate lice oh god a spinner i was told was an undesirable or annoying passenger who boards late and then looks around helplessly or spins trying to locate their seat. Mango is a hotmail passenger.

Oh, how wonderful. Oh, there's a mango in E7. Yeah, or B.O.B., best on board. Klingon is a family member of a cabin or flight crew. And Um is an unaccompanied miner. And I should just say, going back to something that the flight attendants talk about, I loved this one. This is crop dusting. And that is should just say, going back to something that the flight attendants talk about, I loved this one. This is crop dusting. And that is when they say, when an attendant suffering from wind walks up and down the aisle to distribute it amongst the passengers. I had no idea if that's true. Crop dusting. I love it. So you could look up at them and say, if you smell an unfortunate pong, oh, I see you're crop dusting today, are you?

How tremendous. Yeah. Phooey. Time to touch down and open a window, I think, as we pass the joystick from the cockpit to the desktop and another group of people whose linguistic shorthand has as many levels as the games that they enjoy playing. So there are clans who are groups of gamers

who play the same competitive game together. There are guilds, they're groups with a kind of objective that they all share. It's interesting, it's quite influenced by the film industry as well, because there's quite a lot of things going on. But you mentioned all the different games that have come about, and there are lots and lots of different generations if you like of systems and the console what wars as they were called were people who preferred one company to another so um the seventh generation i think was the longest generation in gaming history and there was a massive competition between the Super

Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega Drive and apparently the war between the fans of each of those still rages to this day and some of them are quite funny so PlayStation 3 owners were called cows because they were willing to be milked by Sony for all the accessories that was the idea and then Xbox 360 fans were lemmings because they would blindly follow Microsoft to its death. And Nintendo's followers were called sheep who could be led down any path. PC owners were called hermits because they'd always stay inside. And so it goes on. So it is really interesting that, you know, this is a very, in some ways ways it's a very

accessible world but it's also a very closed shop you know once you're in it you belong i think very definitely to one clan and you know i'm not in any of these clans but i did find the language really interesting so the companies i've heard of nintendo and sony these are actually companies whereas pokemon and tetris, they are games. Yes. So Pokemon is short for pocket monsters. And Pokemon Go is sort of quite a big thing where you can actually go out and find Pokemon avatars on different sort of locations. What's an avatar? So an avatar, it's your visual representation, if you like. And it's a really interesting word because it comes from the Sanskrit for the incarnation of a deity, of a god when they descend to earth. So it's got a really sacred history, but in a game, you know, you can create

who you are, who you want to be. And that too, it's a little bit like, I guess, the filters on Snapchat and Instagram and things. You can make yourself be the person you want to be. And that itself is quite seductive and immersive, I think. So Nintendo, some people think it translates as leave luck to heaven. But that is anecdotal, possibly apocryphal. No one quite knows where that comes from. Sony apparently is a mix of Sonos, meaning and sunny as in young lad which the founders of sony considered themselves to be at the time uh sega goes back to service games and so on

pac-man's got quite a nice history as well because it was originally called pac-man from the japanese word paku meaning to chomp because a Pac-Man goes around eating lots of dots and they turn into ghosts. I can picture I can picture the Pac-Man character. Exactly but of course Pac-Man or Puck-Man as it was originally called lends itself quite easily to the change of one letter which would have made it quite rude it would have become Fuck-Man essentially and so they decided to change it to Pac-Man instead. And then I mentioned Mario and Super Mario. Apparently Yoshi, who I sometimes am if I choose him, the little green dinosaur, that means good luck in Japanese. Let's get back outside now and wrap up warm in our dirtiest trousers as we look back to our

January episode, all about sliding down the white stuff on the mountains. Salopette. Yes, salopette. This is quite interesting. So salopettes are those trousers with a really high waist and shoulder straps, and they're padded, they're often quite thermal, and they're worn for skiing. And it's strangely, it's related to a french word meaning dirty so why would you wear salopettes to get dirty well the idea was that a salopette became a word used for a bib on a baby and of course when a baby eats it would get the bib very dirty indeed and i guess if you fall down a lot when you're skiing you will also get dirty and your salopettes will you know protect you from that but a bit of a strange journey that one schuss oh yes to schuss or a schuss that's going downhill at speed in a

straight line on a mountain this is what james bond does in the opening sequence of uh i don't quite remember which film it was when he's doing that amazing ski run but schuss goes back to the german a schuss is a shot, because you go like a shot. It's related to schießen, which is to shoot. You're brilliant knowing all this. I know some of it you look up, but nonetheless. What I do know is that snow, it's one of those words that snow itself has taken us into all sorts of areas. Give us some of the phrases that have moved into everyday currency from snow as an origin. Well, actually, I'm not sure many of them

have really moved into general language. It's just that there are so many words for snow that we don't really acknowledge, I think, and possibly because it's not a frequent enough phenomenon for us. But it is in Scotland. And I mentioned that the Scots have this fantastic word hoard

for things related to snow. I mean, one that possibly has crept into the language through a trademark, through a brand name is Nivea. And Nivea was, or Niveus in Latin, meant snow white. And of course, that's the colour of the face cream. And that is why it was called Nivea. But otherwise, we don't really talk about Niveus or Ningwid, which is another beautiful word for a snowy or snowy white landscape. But going back to Scots, you will find, for example, the verb fiefel, which means to swirl of snow. A flindrican is a very light snow shower. If you want to talk about a single flake of snow that might herald more to come, that's a flother or a figurine. And then snowing itself

is variously described as meistering, driffling, skifting. Melted snow is snorbrue. Unbrach is, or unbrach, is the beginning of a thaw. I mean, it goes on and on. Possibly though, my absolute favourite, which is English dialect rather than Scots dialect, and that's crump, to crump. And to crump is to crunch across compacted snow. You know, there is an unmistakable, unique sound to walking across crunchy snow. And that is crumping. You will find that in the dialect dictionary and I absolutely love that one. It's fantastic. While Jans might not have been too comfortable on the slopes,

he was much more at home sitting in the first class carriage of a steam train, sipping a cup of tea and watching the world go by. I'm constantly on them because I've reached the age where I only do old codgers work on TV. I ought to explain this to our listeners around the world. Susie Dent and I appear on television in this country, and I've now reached the age where I only do old codgers work. This means I'm sent on journeys by television companies. I think they do this because they imagine the viewers also either wanting to be on journeys or are going on journeys. And so I'm either sent on canals or trains. And often there are these heritage railways that actually have old genuine old steam trains so I'm very frequently on a steam train and I and I love to be on one it's very

exciting and the steam is so beautiful it is evocative nostalgic I mean it speaks of a of another era. If I tell you one interesting word that might possibly have a link to steam trains and that is jerk. If you call someone a jerk it may not be related but certainly jerk water was the name for a kind of insignificant town in the US. So a jerk water was a kind of remote place because it denoted the places where early railway engines which needed to be supplied with water in those areas, would dip a bucket into a stream and jerk it out by a rope. So jerkwater towns came to be ones that didn't have much else, but they did have a stream. So it was insignificant for anything other than that water, which was then used to propel the trains themselves and the railway engines. And it's possible that idea of insignificant then gave rise to the idea of being a jerk.

This is why I come back to this podcast week in, week out. That's my takeaway of the week, that the word jerk, meaning someone's a jerk, meaning they're a burk, meaning they're absolutely bleh, comes from the idea of a jerk town where people jerked water out of the... It's marvellous. Yes, as one theory, I have to say there are other theories which link it back, which are not so colourful, which link it back to another word for a fool. But certainly jerk water was used as an adjective for things that were inferior or insignificant. 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. You know that feeling when you're like, why isn't there more of this?

This show is so good. That was how I felt when I started to get really hooked on Black Butler that I think is just incredible. Oh, we, yeah, it's coming back. It's coming back. He's like, I'm going to top of it. I got it. I'm very excited.

After like a 10-year hiatus. And this is The Anime Effect, the show that allows celebrities to nerd out over their favorite anime, manga, or pop culture. The Akatsuki theme song, you know what it is. I listen to that one all day. That thing go crazy. That thing give me time. Be in the gym going and they're like, what is he listening to? Oh, it's not even in the gym. I be on the field. I'm Nick Friedman.

I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. Find out which live-action anime adaptations David Dostmalchian is praying he'll get to star in. Or how Jamal Williams uses the mindset of Naruto for his NFL career. Listen to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. A more serious tone now, as we revisit one of the most popular episodes from the past year.

In it, we focused on the topic of mental health, and how our understanding of it has changed even in very recent years, and how our language, as always, has adapted to reflect that change. Maybe we should explore some of those words that I've just mentioned. Lunatic asylum. Where do those two words come from, for a start? Where does lunatic come from? Well, I think just before we go into the specifics,

I mean, it's really interesting that actually we have created, in line with what you're saying, so many euphemisms for tiptoeing around that subject. And, you know, we dedicated a whole episode to euphemisms, didn't we? And our shifting squeamishness over time, whether it was religious profanity in the Middle Ages to, you know, bodily functions these days, but also mental health. I mean, it's quite extraordinary, really. I mean, asylum is a beautiful word. It goes back to the Greek for

refuge or sanctuary, which is exactly what we do when we give somebody asylum. We're giving them refuge. But unfortunately, because of the social attitudes towards what were essentially the historical equivalent of the modern psychiatric hospital, the word asylum took on a sort of overtone that, as you say, was almost the unspeakable, really. But asylum really came from, I suppose, the earliest religious institutions, which provided asylum in the sense of refuge. And one of the oldest institutions was Bethlehem, famously, which began in the 13th century as part of the Priory of the New Order of the Lady of Bethlehem in the City of London. And it's worth saying that before asylums came along,

people with mental illness were cared for almost entirely by their families, but often they ended up destitute and they would beg for food and shelter and there was no provision for them at all. So that the idea of public asylums actually was, in some ways, it was a good one. It was to provide that refuge. But unfortunately, as institutions, as often happens with institutions, they themselves were sometimes corrupt. They were also very poorly kept. I mean, obviously, we're racing through a big, big chapter in the history of mental health. But the use of physical restraints was commonplace.

But at its heart, I suppose, was the idea that they were recognising mental health problems and trying to cure them. And even if that was misguided and in some cases, you know, downright cruel, the idea was that this was going to be a cure, really. And so the sort of changing attitudes to mental health care can almost be charted through the language of these asylums and how they came into the language. But you mentioned lunatic. I mean, that goes back a very long way to the idea that lunacy was the result of the phases of the moon, the changing phases of the moon. So luna, obviously in Latin, is the moon. So that was the idea that actually your mind would be, and a lot of people still believe this, you know, if you have a full moon, I think there might even be some evidence to show that actually your mind would be, and a lot of people still believe this, you know, if you have a full moon, I think there might even be some evidence to show that actually your moods are quite affected and it makes you perhaps behave a bit irrationally. So those kind of beliefs still

prevail, but that was definitely behind the word lunatic. And obviously that's not a word that we use these days. You mentioned the word Bethlehem there or rather the name of the hospital Bethlehem. Is that related to the word Bedlam? Yes. People talk about Bedlam. It is related to Bedlam. So this famously goes back to many, many descriptions of the asylum as being a place of absolute chaos and of commotion with shouting inmates, and they were called inmates at the time, that were said to be barmy. Barmy goes back to the idea of barm, B-A-R-M, being the head of froth on beer or tea even. And so the idea is that these people were kind of frothing at the mouth. So again, not a particularly nice metaphor there. But bedlam almost became london's most iconic symbol for a while and and it definitely entered language through that word bedlam which is again

you know unfortunate because it's portraying that very negative side of um and bedlam is a variation of the word bethlehem it just is a way of pronouncing bethlehem in a different way exactly and also you'll find the idea of of the asylum and you'll see this in shakespeare as well in hamlet and macbeth it's used to explore the question of who was mad who was sane who had the power to decide and you know we've talked about this before jars the fool in so much of shakespeare is actually the soothsayer is actually the one who dares to tell the truth albeit through the lens i suppose of perceived madness. So it's fascinating. Well, however you're feeling, there are few things better at brightening one's mood

than a beautiful bunch of fresh flowers. However, since we had another trot through the garden last July, I haven't been able to look at an orchid in quite the same way again. Now, I know people called Daisy, Poppy and Lily. I don't know anybody called Orchid. It's funny how some flowers names have been attached to people, but others haven't. There were people, there's a generation of people. I had an Auntie Gladys and that I assume is a variation on Gladiolus. Well, gladiolus is so named because of its shape, because its petals are shaped like swords. So gladiolus is actually named after, well, it's a sibling of gladiator, if you like, a sword bearer. But it's a really good point.

I don't know whether gladis is actually to do with gladiolite. Oh, I'm sure it must be. I thought so, yeah. Because it's the same generation, people also called hyacinth. Do you remember the wonderful character Hyacinth bouquet hyacinth bouquet great tv so i'm just looking it up here and it says gladys is a female name from welsh which bears the meaning of royalty princess conversely though it has also been speculated to be from the last intimidative gladiolus meaning small sword so i don't know why Gladys would be associated with a small sword, but maybe Gladys was a warrior. Who knows? Orchid. I think it's rather a good name. I mean,

Poppy, Daisy and Liddy tend to be girls' names. Orchid could be rather a good boy's name. Well, yes, you're spot on there. And I think you might have said something here. There's probably a good reason, to be honest, why children aren't called orchid or orchis these days because it actually goes back to the greek for a testicle because the flower's roots have long been thought to resemble the testicle and you will remember that avocados are also named after the aztec for testicles so um yes bollocks are everywhere and i mean that too botanically because there are lots of plants called bollocks are everywhere. And I mean that too botanically, because there are lots of plants called bollocks or ballocks. So there's ballockwort as well, all because of the shape. I should say ballockwort, not wart. So orchid means testicle.

Yes. And is the orchid look testicular? It does really, if you think about it. Gosh. Yes. Next time you see an orchid, have a study. Well, I will. It's sort of slightly put me off the orchid. Don't tell me the peony is named after the penis.

This is a relief. No, no. This is a lovely bit of Greek myth, actually. So peonies were believed, like so many plants. I mean, you know, we just, of course, herbalists still operate very much today. But throughout the ages, flowers and plants have been thought to have healing powers. So Peony is thought to take its name from Peon. He was the physician of the gods. So it's all about its, you know, offering of a panacea.

One of the most fascinating episodes of the last year came about after a trip to the circus, when we decided to shine a light on the underground language used by fairground workers, theatre performers, and for a time, the homosexual community in London. So let's once more say, bona tavada, your dolly eek, to the wonderful world of Polari. Oh, no, missus, no, titter ye not.

So that's zhuzh. The reverse of zhuzh, because if you're zhuzhed, you're looking pretty good, is naff, something that's naff. Now, is that Polari? Because it's a word we use all the time now. Something that isn't very good is naff. Yeah, well, again, that featured in Julian Sandy, didn't it?

Something like, I couldn't be doing with a garden like this. I mean, all of them horrible little naff gnomes. So Round the Horn definitely brought the word into the wider British vocabulary. And it became really famous when Princess Anne was reported to have told photographers to naff off when they snapped her coming off her horse at the Badminton horse trials. Although apparently, you might know this, one reporter who was there said that this was actually euphemism by journalists. Actually, there's something a lot worse oh i can believe it i can believe yes yes so to what extent the you know the verb and the adjective are connected is disputed so the verb is recorded in the 1950s and that might simply be

a variation on f off so if you naff off you f off and f is obviously a written version of the letter f which stands for fuck so others think that naff is an acronym based on the phrase not available for fucking though that is almost certainly what we call a backronym so that's almost certainly something that is you know what has been worked backwards some dictionaries say it was formed as back slang from fan which was a form of fanny so obviously this is all quite rude. This is in the British sense of the female genitals. And some say it comes from NAFI, N-A-A-F-I, the Navy, Army and Air Force, who provide, you know, canteens and shops for British service personnel.

But why they would be NAF, I'm not sure. Well, because the food wasn't up to much. Oh, it's NAF. Oh, OK. Go to the NAFI, there's NAF food. That, to me, sounds most credible because a lot of these guys, particularly, for example, Kenneth Williams, I know, in the late 1940s, he was in the British Army and in the Far East. And there was a concert party they did where the blokes dressed as women.

And he was there with Stanley Baxter, with John Schlesinger, with Peter Nichols, who then wrote a play about it all that became a film with John Cleese. Anyway, that's by the by. But they would have known the Naffy, and they would certainly have said the food there was Naff. Naff means bad. It's negative, isn't it, basically? Yeah, it's not bad so much. It's a bit Naff. It's just like it's not cool, is it?

And actually, the most likely origin, I know you like the Naffy one, is that it comes, and you have to think about the influences that we talked about with Polari, the 16th century Italian Nafa, G-N-A-F-F-A, which was a not very nice person. And in Polari, you will find things like Nafomi, like a dreary man. So that's the most plausible origin, is that it takes us back to Italian. But, you know, who knows? Often looked at as the naffest form of joke telling, puns are just as likely to make you laugh as let out a tired groan.

Susie certainly wasn't convinced at first, but I think I won her over in the end. Shall I quickly tell you where pun comes from, by the way? Please. It's a kind of a humorous riff, I suppose, on punctilio. And punctilio is a fine or petty point of conduct or procedure. But here the emphasis is on the fine because it's a very nuanced, I suppose, bit of wordplay. I would argue that puns are very often not very nuanced. But anyway, that is the origin of it. And it's also known as paranomasia, which comes from the Greek para meaning beside and onomasia meaning naming. Onomastics is the study of names. So that's where the pun comes from. And it's an art. It's an art. And you're right, it does have an ancient heritage. I mean, many

of the literary giants of the past have been master punsters. Shakespeare reveled in puns. Ask for me tomorrow, says Mercutio, as he's about to die, and you shall find me a grave man. Another English, well, actually Irish playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, punned his way into a lovely compliment addressed to a lovely girl called Miss Payne, spelled P-A-Y-N-E. "'Tis true I am ill, but I cannot complain, for he never knew pleasure who never knew pain.'" It's quite nice, isn't it? It is quite nice. Yeah. And I love the fact that, especially with Shakespeare, it's a bit of a kind of word detection game because quite often his puns are very much based on the vocabulary of the time

and the sort of double entendre of the time. So they're not always very obvious to modern ears, but if you do some unpacking, you realise just how clever they are. That's it. It is the cleverness of it. Hilaire Belloc wrote his own punning epitaph. When I am dead, I hope it may be said, his sins were scarlet, but his books were red. That is clever. There was a headline, Ernest Hemingway, when he died, he'd been known as Papa, Papa Hemingway. And one of the newspapers, it may have been the New York Times, had a famous headline that simply read, Papa Passes, which was a literary joke,

Papa Passes, which was a literary joke because Pippa Passes is a famous phrase, I think, from a poem by Robert Browning. So that really was quite ingenious. Newspaper headline writers, I mean, they rely on the pun, don't they, for their humour, and some of them are genius. Some of them are just slightly annoying. In the Euros, of course, England are playing Germany, and I'm already dreading the puns that are going to appear for that. In fact, by the time this comes out, they'll probably have been and gone, but they always elicit the worst kind of puns, in my view. Some stand the test of time. In my pun collection, I have one from a novel written by Richard Hughes in 1938. The novel was called In Hazard, and this is the sentence. Presently,

she told Dick she had a cat so smart that it first ate cheese and then breathed down the mouse holes with baited breath to entice the creatures out. Do you get it? Baited breath. Baited breath because it's the cheese, which is the bait. Baited, if it's the cheese, is a bait. It's B-A-I-T-E-D. You have to know your english there yes but baited to mean anticipating is b-a-t-e well baited actually baited breath actually means uh shortened breath so you're kind of breathing quite quite shallowly in expectation so it's a shortening of abated so so there's a wonderful

pun two different spellings in the same i mean this is this is i mean that for me there's a wonderful pun, two different spellings in the same. I mean, for me, there's a kind of erotic charge in this. That's a homophone, that one, isn't it, then, the baited? Yes. And a lot of puns rely on those. Homophone, homograph. What is a homophone? What is a homograph? Oh, homograph is a word that is spelled the same of another,

but not necessarily pronounced the same. And usually has come from a completely different route. So if you take bow, to take a bow, and bow, the bow that you might have in your hair. A homophone is a word that has the same pronunciation as another, but again, different meaning, different origins or spelling. So new as in new pair of shoes. And I knew that, for example.

And then you have the homonym, which is not too far away, actually. So homonym is one of two or more words that has the same spelling or pronunciation, but different meanings and origins. So there's a whole collection there. And actually, they are quite often the bedrocks of puns, aren't they? They certainly are. I mean, let me give you an example here. And this is one of my favourites

because I think it could hardly be better and it could also hardly be worse. It's the payoff to a famous story written by Bennett Cerf. And the story is about a private detective who is hired to trace a missing person named Ree, R-H-E-E. And this man Ree used to work for Life Magazine, which was a hugely famous magazine in America, in New York. Eventually, the detective ran his man to ground and exclaimed, ah, sweet Mr. Ree of Life, at last I've found you. And of course, our biggest highlight of the last year

was bringing all those puns and linguistic stories to the stage and visiting thousands of you across the UK, where you asked brilliant questions, pulled us up on our mistakes and even showed off your fine singing voices. Oh, wasn't that an exciting interval? Oh, that's marvellous. There were some traumatic

moments during the interval because more than one person came up and said, Doe! Doe! Nothing to do with The Simpsons. Much earlier than that. Laurel and Hardy. Oh. That's what they're all saying. Wow. So, are they right? Well, I do know that the, I'm just trying to find if I can actually work out how to use an iPad. I do know that The Simpsons is credited in the OED. But whether or not it's the first one, I can... If you keep talking, Jessica... But you see, not everybody knows everything.

It's rather nice to find that the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't always get it right. Or actually, it may get it right because it actually has different standards from others. Well, the work goes on. We were talking about this the other day. It's an ongoing thing. So the word detection and the word archaeology will go on. So, okay, I'm looking at doe. This is the musical doe. Doe, a deer, a female deer. Yeah, thank you Oh good, oh yes Let's do, while she's looking up

Shall we do some group singing? Oh that's lovely Let's see how far we can get with that one Does it begin with Do? Oh Do, a deer, a female deer Sun, far away I call myself far.

A long, long way to run. So beautiful is the day. A hundred miles away. See the beautiful town of Red. And bring us back to Dublin. Brilliant. Oh. Friends, I'm bringing us back to Dublin Brilliant! Oh!

Oh, this... you are... what a musical... I mean, honestly, did I sense there was almost an erotic charge during that? I mean, we all just came together in the most amazing way. As per usual, when there was an erotic charge, I was looking at the dictionary. And I can tell you um 1945 and it was that radio show itma it's ma yes it's that man again that's the first mention of dough and then the simpsons are there but not until um yeah much much later so there you go and that's it for this roundup of our favorite moments from 2021 and 2022 so far thank you again for being a part of the podcast it means a huge amount to us and if you want to get in touch about anything you can do so via purple at something else.com and if you'd like more from us then why not join the purple plus club for bonus content and add

free listening Follow the link in the programme description if you're interested. We couldn't leave without a word to take with you into your week and, of course, a poem from Giles. Excellent stuff. I can tell you, Amplexus, you'd never have guessed this. Amplexus is the mating embrace of a frog and a toad. You're joking. No, should you ever need it. The mating embrace of a frog and a Toad. You're joking. No, should you ever need it. The mating... Embrace of a Frog and a Toad. Well, if you're writing a...

Ogden Nash probably would have found that very useful. People who write... The mating embrace of a frog and a toad is an amplexus. Yes. This is why people tune into this podcast. They also, some of them, tune in because I, at the end, always read a little poem, a favourite them, tune in because I, at the end, always read a little poem, a favorite poem of mine, because I love poetry and I love the way poets just have fun with language.

And one of my favorite poets is a friend of mine, Roger McGough, lovely man. And last week, I went to an event where he was celebrating his new book called Safety in Numbers. Carol Ann Duffy described him as the patron saint of poetry. I'm going to read a short poem about language, really, and it's by Roger McGough. It's called Tensions. Why is the past tense? All that unfinished business and no going back. Why is the present tense?

Having to make it all up as it goes along. Why is the future tense? The weight of expectation and time running out.