Something Rhymes with Purple - Boffola

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

This week’s podcast is an absolute joke… in a good way! Join Gyles and Susie as they whisk us through the history of the things that make us laugh. From the first recorded joke in history (newsflash: toilet humour is nothing new) to the best jokes of recent Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, prepare to guffaw (and groan) your way through the next 45 minutes. We’ve got chickens crossing roads, a banned Christmas cracker joke, the origin of Knock Knock humour, and Gyles keeps things ticking over by dusting off a few old classics as well as throwing in a couple of up-to-date rib-ticklers for good measure. In the second half Susie dives into the etymology of humorous language, from puns to shaggy dog stories, and always, sends us off with a trio of words to take into the week. Get ready to slap those thighs! A Somethin’ Else production. Susie’s Trio: Bovarism - an unreal or romanticised perception of oneself Balatronic - characteristic of a buffoon Chawbacon - a country-dweller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Do what moves you. Live passionately. Drink responsibly. Copyright 2024. Bacardi, its trade dress and the bat device are trademarks of Bacardi and Company Limited. Rum 40% alcohol by volume. Something else. Hello and welcome to, well I think this is a special episode of Something Rhymes With Purple. We're celebrating today, which we will come to in a minute, but I am Susie Dent and I'm speaking from Oxford

and with me in a little Zoom square on my screen is my co-host, Giles. Hi there. You look like you're in a dungeon, to be honest. I'm down in the basement of my house because I had some people here from Channel 4 this week, socially distanced, of course, all masked up. I think they were from Channel 4. That's what they said. And they came to record a voiceover with me. And I went, took them to the room where we normally record our podcast every week, every Tuesday.

And they said, oh, can we look around the house a bit? Anyway, they discovered this room downstairs. And they said, come here, come here. This room you're in. I said, what about it? They said, what is this room? I said, well, you can see we keep books in this room. It's a sort of storeroom.

They said, but you see, it's acoustically fitted out. Look at the acoustic ceiling. And then I remember that when our children were teenagers, this is a room they used for their outrageous parties. There was a drum kit kept in this room. And my youngest daughter, Afra, used to play the drums very loudly. And that's why we had it kitted out as an acoustic room so you couldn't hear beyond it. very loudly. And that's why we had it kitted out as an acoustic room so you couldn't hear beyond it. From where I'm sitting, it looks absolutely tiny, but does it go on for miles? It's reasonably sized. I mean, you could fit the Beatles in their prime into this room, all of the Beatles, all four of them, but they were quite small people. People find that hard to believe. Unless you've been lucky enough to meet the Beatles, you won't necessarily know that they're smaller than you would expect. You might have thought that Paul and Ringo were small, but not necessarily John and George. What you have to do, if you go to Madame Tussauds, I think it's open again, they've still got them on show there,

and you can go and stand next to the Beatles. And do they can't believe how small they are almost everybody is taller than the Beatles wow life is full of surprises now I I want to talk about jokes I know this is this is what we're celebrating isn't it because it's been a special week for you we're both celebrating and also we're coping the celebrating part is this yes I have written a book called What's Black and White and Red All Over. It's the best worst joke book in the world. And I'll explainon Holmes and his wife, Ruth, and they're delightful people. Anyway, during the course of this, Eamon said to me, oh, tell us a joke. Tell us a new joke, Giles. And I said, oh, well, Eamon, let me tell you my favourite coronavirus joke. And then I paused and said, of course, Eamon, we'll have to wait two weeks to see if you get it.

Uh-oh. I thought that was quite original. And indeed, Eamon, we'll have to wait two weeks to see if you get it. Uh-oh. I thought that was quite original. And indeed, Eamon thought it was quite original. How many complaints to Ofcom did you get? Yes, exactly. Did you seriously? Not just, no, exactly. Complaints to Ofcom, headlines in The Sun.

No. Yes, no, no, seriously. Actually, that wasn't a serious question. Okay. Exactly. Happily, most people said it's clearly a joke. It was meant as a joke. No harm was intended.

And we ought to be able to laugh about most things. And I think we ought to be able to laugh about most things. And in fact, in dark times like these, we do need the flash of light that a joke provides. Because a good joke makes us laugh. And according to the latest research from your university, Oxford, and indeed the Aalto University in Finland, laughter leads to an endorphin release in the brain that promotes a sense of calm and well-being. And apparently, even bad jokes are beneficial. According to the

scientists, sharing them, these bad jokes, groaning together, can help establish social bonds. So I've got a few groaners to share. Do you have a favourite joke at the moment? I am one of those people who infuriatingly cannot remember a joke. And when I do, I just ruin it completely. It's been one of the bane of my lives. I mean, you know, we deal here in my house with things like what's brown and sticky a stick oh yeah i think it's very funny yes what's brown and sticky a stick is very funny but obviously i work on a comedy show i mean i have to say i'm not a comedian that becomes extremely obvious whenever i have to speak and i did worry very much at the beginning this is a program called eight out of ten cats does countdown which is a very bawdy version of the afternoon

show that you and i work for viewers around the world because we have a lot of people in the uk but also globally i ought to explain that this show which is in the evenings and hosted by jimmy carr who's a friend of both suze's and mine is both hilarious often very vulgar but it's huge it's an enormously successful show and you are demure and delightful in it i think that's where they edit it to be honest because i'm rolling around with laughter quite a lot of the time but yes i'm not i'm only ever funny on that show by mistake i am not a natural comedian and i did feel very nervous that there was an expectation i was going to be funny but you know what i have decided well i decided quite early on that a lot of laughter is predicated on the expectation of laughter. So if you have someone who everyone else says is extremely funny, all they have to do is go, uh, and the audience

will fall about laughing. And that's exactly what happens. You are spot on. We were both friends of a brilliant writer, producer, performer called Ned Sherin. Yes. Famous in the 1950s. He was on the producers of a program called Tonight. Later, he was the producer of That Was The Week That Was. He had an amazing career. But he said to me, Giles, if ever you've got a joke that you're a little bit uncertain about, when you start trying it out, attribute it to somebody else who is known to be funny. So say, as Mark Twain used to say, and then deliver your line, or as Oscar Wilde once said. That's very clever. I might try that because what tends to happen with me is people do not expect me to be funny. And hence, hypothetically speaking, were I to come up with some absolute gem, Hence, hypothetically speaking, were I to come out with some absolute gem, comedic gem, there would be nothing. I have to work very hard to get any kind of snigger from the audience, unless I'm rude to Jimmy, which seems to work quite well. We have the solution at our fingertips because you and I are both friends of Barry Cryer.

And Barry, now 85, scriptwriter and comedian. And he honestly is the man who knows more jokes than anyone else on earth since the passing of the late great Ken Dodd. And he called me with his current favourite, the airline pilot speaking to his passengers. Our cruising altitude today is 35,000 feet. The weather is set fair with just the possibility of light turbulence. So do keep an eye on the seatbelts, pass and sign sign and enjoy the flight in accordance with current government guidelines i'm working from home that's very good and that's a very barry joke i i do like that one but you touched on a really important point before we we go on to

etymologies and and some of your brilliant jokes that that, you know, what constitutes comedy? And there is so much at the moment of a discussion over how far comedy can go, the boundaries of comedy, the boundaries of political correctness, what you can joke about, what you can't, what is offensive, what isn't. You know, there's just been so many incidences of the council culture, as we're now calling it, where people can say something. It may or may not have been intended to be rude. You're right. The other day, Rowan Atkinson, you know, gave a lecture or came out on this subject saying it's just gone too far. We must be free to be funny. And I rather believe that. I mean,

humour is subversive. It's always been subversive. Well, if you think of Shakespeare's Fools and Things, the whole idea was that they were the only ones who could speak the truth, as it were. Well, shall we quickly, shall I give us, rattle through the history of jokes? Yeah, please, because you know far more about this than me. Well, I don't know, but I've done a little bit of homework on it because of my book. You told me the other day what the origin of the word joke was. That's very ancient, isn't it?

It's Latin, yeah. So, jocus, which gave us jocula, of course. So, yeah, it goes back to, I mean, I'm sure jokes precede the Romans, but it was their word for a jest. Well, the oldest joke on record appears to date from the old Babylonian period, around 2300 BC, and it features a young wife breaking wind in front of her husband. So it's a fart joke. It's amazing. This is a fart joke that is more than 2,300 years old. And what's amusing is that the woman comes off rather better, although she's farting, she's farting in contempt of her husband. Anyway,

so that's the oldest joke we know. It's a fart joke. Is it a written joke? Is it a one-liner? Well, it didn't seem to me very funny. I mean, it's basically about a woman who farts in her husband's face. And that seems to raise a laugh. She's putting her husband down and sending him up and farting in his face. And that's, you know, it's putting blokes in their place. But the point is, it's been going on for hundreds of years.

Fart jokes have been with us forever. And they still are. Barry Cryer reminded me that back in the day, you know, before this coronavirus thing, back in the day, you'd cough to cover up a fart. But now with COVID-19, you fart to cover up a cough. That wasn't Barry's joke. I just made it Barry's joke to make it seem funny. Oh, you did a show in there. To make you... Anyway, but you were right. You mentioned Shakespeare and the fools in Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's plays, and in a sense, they are the largest body of work in English language that we have. We know that people like Plautus, Roman writers, wrote great comedies, Aristophanes and all those guys. But in terms of plays in the English language that we could read, Shakespeare's plays are awash with jokes. Lew jokes, toilet humour, some of it still works. Have you ever appeared in Twelfth Night? Most people have appeared in Twelfth Night.

No, I've never appeared in any. Well, I don't know, perhaps Midsummer Night's Dream when I was at school, but no, definitely not Twelfth Night. Anyway, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio, have you heard of the character Malvolio? He is the steward. Malvolio is the steward. And it's one of those names in Shakespeare that also means something. Malvolio, ill-wisher. Malvolio is the steward. And it's one of those names in Shakespeare that also means something. Malvolio, ill-wisher. Malvolio is the steward. He's rather egregious. And anyway, he gets this letter that he thinks has been sent to him by his mistress, Olivia, his mistress in the sense that she employs him. She would like her to be his mistress in the other sense. Anyway, he is musing happily on this letter, looking at the handwriting, trying to decipher it. By my life, this is my lady's hand. These be her very C's, her U's, and her T's. And thus makes she her great P's. But as Frank Carson used to say, it's the way you tell them.

The point is, there is a joke which contains either the word cut, or depending on the way you pronounce an, and, even C-U-N-T is there. And thus makes you have great peas. These are literally really vulgar jokes. They are. Although we have to say, as we talked about this, didn't we, in our swearing episode, that the C word has only really become very, very vulgar a bit more recently than shakespeare i mean it would have been improper but not vulgar i reckon oh good so you'd have got away with it yes i think it would have been improper and and hence sniggeringly sniggeringly funny but not it wouldn't have been um taboo yeah shakespeare uses his favorite joke at least eight times in different plays. Now, are you a great Shakespeare buff?

Do you recognise the joke? Not as much as you. I know there's the knock-knock joke in Shakespeare, isn't there? Yeah. He only uses that once. The joke he uses eight times is basically, one character says, is this your daughter, sir? And the other character replies, so her mother told me. Eight times? In different plays. Different versions of that are used. It's his favourite joke. He keeps coming back to it.

Obviously loved it. How much was that funny? Well, it was once actually made in the House of Commons, the joke. The man who said it was a Member of Parliament and a novelist and a biographer, H. Montgomery Hyde. Oh, well remembered. When he was a member of parliament, he on one occasion said, maternity is a matter of fact. Paternity is a matter of opinion.

I'm not sure. I think as a woman, I'm not sure I completely like those. Well, you don't need to like them. No, but it's the whole implication, isn't it, that females are whores, basically? Oh, no. Don't you reckon? Oh, no. How interesting. It's quite the reverse. So my wife has told me, if she's been kind enough to acknowledge that I might be, but I don't really know. Oh, no, completely the reverse. I don't know. I wouldn't take it that way. It's usually some impotent old man. That reminds me, it's in the same vein, I'm sure Shakespeare didn't use this one,

of kind of introducing your partner as my current wife. Oh, yes, my first, people used to say my first wife. Yes. Presumably comedy and humour and jokes throughout history have reflected, obviously, social mores of the time. So I'm sure there's loads of misogyny, just as there is in, you is in slang through the ages. So it would be quite interesting to study jokes from that point of view.

In fact, you know what? Jimmy Carr has written a history of comedy and jokes. In fact, Jimmy Carr, who we were talking about earlier, has written a history of jokes. It's called The Naked Jape. So yeah, worth looking that one up too. But it is the most fascinating subject. So we've got Shakespeare, then what comes next? Well, we've got Shakespeare. And then while we've got Shakespeare, I must give you my favourite Romeo and Juliet joke. I've got two Romeo and Juliet jokes.

What's the difference between COVID-19 and Romeo and Juliet? Don't know. One's a coronavirus, the other's a Verona crisis. Oh. Looks quite clever on the page the last time yeah let's move on let's move on from shakespeare okay although we must return to the knock knock joke and we will oh we have to yes we will return to the knock knock joke in fact we could do a whole show about puns yes because i love puns and shakespeare was the prince of puns yes but if we're going to move on quickly from Shakespeare to complete our brief history,

the last time British theatre was shut down for any extended period was during Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, when the theatres were compulsorily closed and jokes were officially frowned upon for, wait for it, 16 dark years. Wow. We may think the last six months have been grim and the next six months for theatres are going to be hell as well. But literally, the theatres were compulsorily closed down. And that included, there was the plague years, of course, as well. But on top of that, Oliver Cromwell's Cornwall closed the theatres. But the good news is that when the theatres reopened after those 16 dark years, the country literally burst out laughing. And that's when restoration comedy was born.

People like Congreve, Witchily, Farquhar, all those hilarious plays. The Country Wife, and then we get on to people like Sheridan. These are hilarious plays. And comedy, as it were, ruled the roost. And the nation was rolling in the aisles as never before. Racy Romps, wit and wordplay. So in the 18th century, it was the gentleman playwrights who were conjuring up the jokes. Many of them, you will be shocked to hear, blatantly sexist.

But that was the world, as you say. Comedy reflects the age. And that's why it's fascinating. That's why I think you can't start banning things, crossing out burning books, because otherwise how are you going to get a picture of what the world was like anyway in the 19th century the birth of the music hall brought working class comedians center stage and a new kind of comedy became well known dan leno champion clogged dance for the world biggest star of the victorian age when he played damien pantomime he always came on flustered with the same line oh i feel

just like a cup of tea sloppy wet and hot uh not much of a line but a hundred years later yeah i went to a pantomime with terry scott as the dame and he used exactly that i can imagine alan carr saying exactly that and getting a real laugh these days so yes timeless that one so that's when as it were working class entertainers in the victorian age became hugely popular famous and many of them wealthy victorian age is also when we got in a sense the kind of modern riddle because the christmas cracker was invented in the 1840s yeah tom smith 1847, started his Christmas cracker business. He chose the jokes personally. On grounds of good taste, he's said to have rejected one of my favourite jokes.

What does Queen Victoria do when she burps? She issues a royal pardon. Oh, that's brilliant. It's brilliant. But it was considered les majestés. Okay. Out. Out. Yes. that's brilliant it's brilliant but it was considered les majesté okay out out yes that's where we get christmas cracker jokes but it was the advent of advertising that sort of democratized

the joke because as you mentioned earlier in macbeth shakespeare's porter who's the comic character in macbeth cries knock knock who's there that's the origin of that phrase but it wasn't until the 1930s that the knock knock joke became yes because that's not a joke in shakespeare is it it's just it's just there's a whole host of characters to this but he's funny he repeats the line and it's a comic scene yeah an american roofing company in the 1930s ran a newspaper advertisement that began knock knock who's there rufus rufus whoufus, the most important part of your house. That deserves a groan.

And a groan is good for you. And that's when you were telling me the other day, this is how we got into all this, about the corn seed companies doing mail order, featuring jokes to sell. Remind me of that? Yes. So a corny joke comes from particularly cheesy jokes that appeared in corn catalogues that were sold to farmers right across the US. That's fascinating about the knock-knock and just things that we assume, the formula, the formula that we think of as being incredibly modern. Well, before we get around to types of jokes, I think we should take a break. But to take us into the break, I want to explain that my professional interest began in the 1970s when I started collecting jokes when my children were small. And I was retained to create a series of mini joke books to promote Kellogg's breakfast cereals. And they had to be family-friendly jokes, guaranteed to have snap, crackle, and pop.

And my best effort was inspired by the recent moon landings. So this was my joke, and then we'll have a break so we can recover from it. And then in part two, I won't speak and Susie will. This is the joke. Bear in mind, we've just landed on the moon and it's a corny joke. There's a new restaurant on the moon i announced great food but no atmosphere i'm nick friedman i'm lee alec murray and i'm leah president and this is crunchyroll presents the anime effect we are a new show breaking down the anime news, views, and shows

you care about each and every week. I can't think of a better studio to bring something like this to life. Yeah, I agree. We're covering all the classics. I don't know a lot about Godzilla, which I do,

but I'm trying to pretend that I don't right now. Hold it in. And our current faves. Luffy must have his do. Tune in every week for the latest anime updates and possibly a few debates. I remember, what was that?

Say what you're going to say and I'll circle back. You can listen to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners On Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill, who had limited prospects outside of acting.

The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime. And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts.

Also from Something Else. Katie Piper's Extraordinary People. Join Katie for a series of powerful and inspirational conversations with people who have triumphed over adversity. With guests including Fern Cotton. And what about when you get really lazy journalism? So like people that draw just one line, they take it out of context. And that's really sad because... It is, it is.

And I've also been on the receiving end of it so many times. Sometimes to really tragic levels for me where I've really not felt able to cope with it. Yeah. Zoe Sugg and Nadia Hussain. I think the thing with women, firstly, is that women sometimes don't always like to see other women succeed. I think that's right, yeah. And I think there's a lot of that,

and I think that's why just it's really hard sometimes because in the last four years I've changed so much listen now in apple podcasts spotify and all good podcast apps we're back Susie Dent, Giles Brandreth we're talking jokes on something rhymes with purple this week and I've been collecting jokes over the past 50 years. So I've seen the passing fashions. In the 1960s, the New York comedian Lenny Bruce was at the height of his notoriety. Have you even heard of Lenny Bruce? I've heard of him, but I don't know too much about him. He was a strange man. And sick jokes were what he did. The sick jokes were all the rage. Where does a horse go when it gets sick? The

hospital? Just kidding. It gets shot. Brutal. In the 1970s, there was a massive amount of graffiti jokes. I did lots of graffiti joke books, as did our mutual friend, Nigel Rees. So these were based on genuine graffiti? Well, yes. And then people began inventing graffiti, you know, down with graffiti, down with all Italians. And that sort of message that people thought was amusing. 1980s, curious fascination with people's names. What do you call a bloke with a plank on his head?

Do you know this one? No. Ed Wood. Ed Wood. Is it Ed Wood? Just one of my youngest favourite jokes is, what do you call a one idea? And then it's, you know this one. No idea. No idea. And then what do you, this is just awful.

What do you call a sleeping one idea? Still no idea. And so on, and so on, and so on. That's a joke that isn't in my book. It'll be in the next edition. What do you call a girl with two toilets on her head? Oh, I can't remember this one. Tallulah.

Lulu. Lulu, keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid. That's what I do when I overcome skills. Oh, dear. All right. Now, look, I've said more than enough. We could go on blathering.

I'm going to try not to. Tell us about some, we want to talk about etymology. That's why people tune in. What do you call someone who likes to float in the water? What do you call someone who likes to float in the water? Bob. That's just terrible. Anyway, let's move on.

If you're a gonguzla, you like looking at Bob because he's floating in the water. We know that gonguzlas are people who like looking at water. Spend hours doing that. And we do have, actually, there are still a few mugs left. If people want to get hold of some of our merchandise, we've got mugs, we've got tote bags or some kind of a bag, haven't we? And at the end, we'll give you the address. Look, I'm showing her mine on the Zoom. There's my mug.

It's very nice. And I thought we'd bring it up for this. Actually, genuinely, the tote bag I use all the time. It's got belly timber on one side. Oh, belly timber. mine on the zoom there's my mug it's very nice i'm bringing up for this actually genuinely the tote bag i use all the time it's got belly timber on one side oh belly timber um what's belly timber is what you go out to buy really it's sustenance it's timber for your belly uh now look i mentioned puns and i wanted to devote a program to puns one day where does that word come from the word pun yeah strange we're completely sure. And actually that's the case with quite a lot of terms from comedy. But it's probably a humorous version or alteration of an Italian pun,

which meant a sort of, it's an equivocation. It's something which is neither one thing nor the other. And that's the power of puns, isn't it? It comes from two things. It's the ambiguity. And then you just pack more layers of meaning into it. So you're kind of, yeah, it's all about the sort of the power, if you like. But ultimately, I think it's the Latin punctum, meaning point.

And they're also known as paranomasia, which is way too complicated. So let's stick with puns. Paranomasia. Yeah. Shakespeare is so full of them. We've mentioned Romeo and Juliet earlier. Almost the most famous one is when Mercutio, Romeo's friend, is lying, dying in equips. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.

How are you? It's clever. It's clever. So it's a play on words. A double entendre. I was a friend of both because we were going to do, rest assured, we're coming up soon with an episode on name dropping. And I shall be keeping quiet. I won't be speaking in that one.

You will be. I won't be. You've met all the stars. What's interesting is that I've met a lot of famous people and I dropped their names. I don't think any of those famous people have ever dropped my name. But whenever I meet a famous person who knows Susie, they always talk about you. So they're always dropping your name, Susie. But I did, I was a friend of both Kenneth Williams and a very different person, Frankie Howard, but they were contemporaries.

And both of them in their own way, reveled in the double entendre. And is it double entendre or double entendre? Entendre. So it's, yes, you're right, because entendre would kind of make sense, but it's double, it's to understand double, really. So it's the use of entendre as it's um yes you're right because entendre would kind of make sense but it's a double it's to understand double really so it's the use of entendre as the verb but we call it a double understanding don't we and actually do you know what they don't have it in french they have double entendre as you said or double sens but they don't really call they don't really use double entendre um and that's interesting the case with quite a lot of things that we nick from the french i have to say but but two where do you stand on shaggy dog stories oh dearie me yeah oh dear once upon a time there was a boy called ben who had a long-haired dog called shaggy shaggy

didn't know his name was shaggy shaggy thought his name was down boy ben was so proud that shaggy was so long-haired and that he looked so shaggy that he entered him into the village's Shaggy Dog Contest and Shaggy won. Ben was excited and delighted. Next, he decided to enter Shaggy in the Shaggy Dog Contest in the nearby big town. Shaggy won that too. Thrilled, Ben decided to enter Shaggy in the national Shaggy Dog Contest. Shaggy won that competition as well. Finally, Ben decided to enter Shaggy in the World Shaggy Dog Championships, a major international event handled in New York City, the US of A.

When the judges had inspected all of the competing dogs, one of them looked at Shaggy and said, he's not that shaggy, is he? Wow, is that the 1930s joke that it all originated from? That was what I was told when I was doing my research. But is there some truth? No, it's absolutely right. It's just, although you've made it actually sound quite interesting because I wanted to know what happened. But yes,

it's all a pointless narration of various things. And you're absolutely right. The winning dog is presented to the person who apparently asked for the shaggy's dog in the nation. And then, yes, he declares, I don't think he's so shaggy. End of joke. So it's really a long joke with a pointless end. Yes. And it's the same with an old chestnut, which goes back to a really quite boring piece of a script in a very old comedy where I think it was, I'm trying to think it was 19th century. I think it was a melodrama and it was called The Broken Sword, but it did, it was, I'm trying to think, it was 19th century. I think it was a melodrama and it was called The Broken Sword. But it was actually performed to rave reviews, but the scene does sound very, very boring.

And there's a character who monotonously retells his old exploits to his long-suffering servant who clearly knows them by heart. And he talks about he entered the wood when suddenly from the thick boughs of a cork tree and the servant jumps up and says a chestnut sir a chestnut uh this is the 27th time i've heard you relate this story and you invariably said a chestnut so that's where that one comes from actual stories which are you know let's face it not funny do you know this must be what it's like you and me this is how you put up with me listening to the same old things week

in week out in a very tolerant way no but i quite i think i find that quite comforting i mean apologies to all the purple listeners who hear us say things you know two or three times or if not more but i find that really comforting and i have many times on countdown where i think i must have said this before i've said this so many times it might be a favorite etymology but there's a very distinct sense that everybody will know what you're talking about. Exactly. When the word leotard comes up,

everyone goes, ah, it's leotard again. This is you, Leotard, the trapeze artist. Yes. But actually people forget. If it's not your absolute subject that you're immersed in every day, I think they do forget. So yeah, fingers crossed

they will give us some leniency there. What about the chicken crossing the road? Oh, what about the chicken crossing the road? Oh, what about the chicken crossing the road? Well, that apparently appeared in an edition of the Knickerbocker. Now, that was a New York City monthly magazine that actually had someone called Dietrich Knickerbocker, I think, walking around in these long breeches, and that's where we get the garment thing from.

And it's a joke where the setup gives you an expectation that there's going to be a fantastic punchline at the end of it, but actually it's just, oh, to get to the other side. That's bathos, isn't it, really? Yeah. But then, of course, there have been so many riffs on that one. Yeah. Why did the chicken cross the road?

To show everyone he wasn't chicken. Oh, okay. It's quite neat, isn't it? Why did the turkey cross the road? Chicken's day off. Not bad. To prove he wasn't chicken oh okay it's quite neat isn't it well why did the turkey cross the road chicken stay off not bad well to prove he wasn't chicken either okay um why did the chewing gum cross the road oh tell me stuck to the chicken's foot why did the dinosaur cross the road um i don't know. Because the chicken wasn't around yet. There's another one that a couple of our producers have sent

that I find is actually really funny. I've not seen this one before. A dyslexic man walks into a bra. Oh. Sorry about that. We're not laughing at dyslexic people at all. No, exactly. But it's just a play on words, isn't it?

No offence is intended or meant. And indeed, I was, my mother, interestingly, I think I may have told you this before, in the 1950s, she was a pioneer in working with people, young people who had dyslexia and worked on this. And I remember her telling me how she used my joke books years ago, first time around my joke books, with children and plays on words and to help them understand how words are shaped.

Funnily enough, when I was doing some work with some people who were trying to find cures for dyslexia, I got a lot of emails saying, actually, do we need a cure for dyslexia? Many of the most creative people are dyslexic people i think that's really true you know which is interesting yes a boxer suzy dent a boxer told me a joke and the punchline was a knockout what's the origin of punchline punchline well it just gives it just it's got a dynamic ending i think that's the whole idea is it just gives you a punch at the end. Oh, because it is a knockout.

Yeah. Do you know what an uproariously funny joke is called? I love this. What is an uproariously funny joke called? A buffalo.

A buffalo? A buffalo. I thought that was a kind of cheese, an Italian cheese. Buffalo mozzarella? Funny cheese, buffalo. Is it the same sort of word?

No, it's linked to buffoon. Oh. And I think ultimately it might go back to the commedia dell'arte there's italian characters and also an italian columbine we're for blowing out your cheeks about puffing your cheeks with laughter which is great um what about gag wagon gag wagon gag yes give us that yeah well this is if you look it up in the oed it says they're not completely sure but it's perhaps the notion

of thrusting something down the throat of a credulous person. So testing their powers of swallowing, I guess. So in that case, related to the gagging that you might do if you get something stuck in your throat, or it may be of onomatopoeic origin and be a bit like gaggle. So just sort of unmeaning chatter, which obviously wouldn't go down very well with comedians. But wag is an interesting one because Wag is actually, it's quite dark, but it's an abbreviation of Waghalter. And Waghalter was an old nickname centuries ago for a mischievous child who was so mischievous in fact that they might wag or hang from the gallows, from the halter around

their neck in the gallows. So it was really dark humour. You know, if you carry on like that, you'll be hanged. Oh, that is dark. Before we get on to our listeners' questions, which we are coming to in just a moment, let's just rattle through the Js, because you mentioned the naked jape written by our mutual friend Jimmy Carr. What about japing, joshing, jesting? Where do they all come from? Yes. So we don't quite know where jape comes from, but it's quite old. It might come from an old French word, yappy, meaning to yelp or yap, combined with another French word, gabby, which meant meant to mock which makes more sense the kind of mockery of a jabe joshing now this may have something to do with an actual comedian um which is lovely because

this is one of the things where you would imagine that you know you'd be making it up if you said there was a real josh somewhere but we think there might be and he was called i think he was called just going to double check this josh bartlett and he was very prominent in his time on stage let me just double check this for you so i'm going to the oed now a piece of banter or badinage it says here a josh as a noun josh billings sorry not bartlett but billings he was an american writer i think he was an american humorist okay okay so 19 we're talking mid-19th century? I'd think a little bit later. But anyway, the name does ring a distant bell.

Okay. But amazingly, it seems like this is an eponym, which is quite strange because I wouldn't have believed that if you'd told me that to begin with. No, to Josh is named after Josh Billings. Like a Titchy character is named after a little Titch who was named after the Titch from Clement. Titch from Clement.

We talked about that, didn't we? That's really, really strange. Have we talked about before pulling your leg? Because you're not pulling my leg about Josh. I'm not pulling your leg, I don't think. No, to pull one's leg, I think this probably has got a folk etymology attached to it. And the idea is that people who were condemned to hang,

so we're back to the gallows, would ask their friends to come and pull on their leg in order to expedite their death and not leave them hanging there. But of course, what on earth would the connection be then with humour? So far more likely is the trick of pickpockets, etc, to trip someone up, to pull someone's leg, in other words, to topple them over by putting out some obstacle, including their own leg perhaps, and then pick their pockets. But again, not particularly funny. So it's a slightly strange one, that one.

With the Js, did we cover jest? No, jest. Jest was the... Jest, exactly. Simply goes back to the Latin jester with a G, meaning doings or exploits. So it's linked to gesture and all of that stuff. So yeah, that one's pretty ancient as well. Oh, can I just tell you about lampooning?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, now lampooning is, you know, is the sort of the satire and making mockery of things. That was once a drinking game. And it goes back to the old French, l'ampon, meaning lettuce drink. So it was a bit of a toast, whilst saying very satirical verse or lines from a play, et cetera. And then it moved on to satire. I love a bit of a toast uh whilst saying very satirical uh verse or uh lines from a play

etc and then it moved i love a bit of lampooning i'm looking forward to the return of spitting image later this year oh i can't wait for that yes i love good have you seen a series called the windsors no oh it's hilarious it's it's a comedy it's a funny version of the crown and i think much more lifelike. Hilarious. Well, you were nice. Okay, brilliant. I will definitely look for that. Meanwhile, should I just tell you some of the best jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe? Oh, good. Have you got some?

The ones that have been selected by other people. Yes. Good. This was from the Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel. Is it Olaf Falafel? Come on, that can't be a real name. But maybe Josh Billings doesn't sound like a real name either. But anyway, go on. He says, I keep randomly shouting out broccoli and cauliflower. I think I might have florets.

Oh. That one, that one, last year. That's very neat. You see, it is a kind of pun, isn't it? Yeah. Go on, more. And then 2018, Adam Rowe, working at the job centre has to be a tense job, knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.

Oh, oh, that's very clever. 2017, Ken Cheng. I'm not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change. Oh, these are ingenious. Massey Graham. I hope I'm not, I'm probably mispronouncing that, so apologies. This was in 2016. My dad suggested that I register for a donor card.

He's a man after my own heart. That's very clever. Oh, that is clever. And Nick Helm, I have to mention Nick Helm because he's a friend. He's a lovely man who has very embarrassingly serenaded me on the set of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. I mean, it wasn't a real one. It was for comedy effect.

That's what you think. He says, I needed a password, eight characters long. So I picked Snow White and the Seven dwarves i like that that's very nice yes i like that very much now look if people have got really good original fresh jokes do feel free to send them to us and we all put it fresh i mean did you know that i've invented a new word i think no plagiarism I mean, did you know that I've invented a new word, I think? No. Plagiarism.

That's good. I like that one. So whatever you come up with, it may not be original. As Barry Crower genuinely says, when it comes to jokes, nobody really owns them. Comedians have them on a lease. It's difficult to say who created a joke. So if you've got a joke that you think is a gem, particularly one that's got a connection with words and language, do get in touch with us. Is our address still purple at somethingelse.com? It is. And the purple people are quite incredible. Because do you remember last time we put a shout out to the purple people to ask what you call that kind of pavement dance where each of you, you meet another person, you try to get out of their way, and each of you just kind of go in the same direction the whole time,

and you never actually get past each other, and the result is much embarrassment. We had so many emails, Giles, to give us some suggestions for this. Rebecca Lawrence wrote in with curb twirl or pave sway. Oh, I like that. Yvonne Ewington went for dodgery do. Oh, dodgery do, that's ingengery do that's genius is very good um swidle is chris street's choice that's a mash-up of sidewalk and sidle a swidle kath evans northwell suggested the doozy don't which is oh dozy don't maybe oh dozy don't sorry as in i completely ruined that dozy don'ts and little lambs it ivy

giddily ivy do so you know that phrase i don't know that's As in, maresy don'ts and dozy don'ts and little lambs eat ivy, gizlid ivy do. Do you know that phrase? I don't know. Do you know that song? That's why I completely mucked it up. I don't know what vintage Kath Evans is from North Wales, but she may be of my vintage. If she's from my vintage, she will know that there was a song which goes, mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. And you say it quickly, it ends up as maresy don'ts and dozy don'ts and little lambs eat ivy. And you say it quickly, it ends up as mazy dotes and dozy dotes and little lambs eat ivy.

And I think that's where she may have got the dozy dotes from. Oh, well, okay. Thank you for putting me straight on that one. Brian Leap suggested circumcadence. That's quite clever, actually. Circumcadence. Why is it clever? What's circum means? What does cadence mean? Circum is to go around, isn't it? And cadence, from the Latin, it actually gave us accident and all sorts of things, meaning to fall. So I like that one. And we absolutely couldn't finish without a nod to one of my absolute favourite books, and probably one of yours too, I reckon, which is The Meaning of Liff.

Ah, by our friends Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. John Lloyd. Amazing, amazing book, which is where they find street names to then fill the linguistic gap for things that we really, really need a word for. And Droit Witch in the book is defined as a street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologize, step to the left again, each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary. That is a Droit which defined far better than I could possibly define that pavement dance. So there's your answer, really. We've had so much correspondence, we may have to do one of those catch-up episodes where

we just deal with all the amazing things. Yes, and I'd love to talk more about the meaning of lift because I just absolutely love that. Well, look, let's give ourselves a lift one week. Meanwhile, I need your three words of the week, Susie Dent. Well, this one is based on a novel that absolutely isn't funny. In fact, it's a real tragedy, but it kind of, I remember reading it as a teenager and it was just perfect for me at that time. And it's Madame Bovvary so it's a word

from madame bovary and it's bovarism which is an unreal or romanticized perception of oneself and i think we all have that i definitely had that as a teenager um i've still got it i'm still a bovarist yeah i think i probably do too to to be honest. That's lovely. Go on. Okay. Then we have balatronic, which means characteristic of a buffoon. So, you know, that could apply to quite a few people in the public eye. Balatronic. Yes. And finally, an American one here, an old American dialect one. And it is, I'm not sure how well it will be known to our American listeners, but it kind of links into the corny joke idea. And that's a char bacon or chore bacon, C-H-A-W-B-A-C-O-N. And it's a country dweller. I think possibly quite insulting, you know, to go with the whole sort of bumpkin lexicon, but I don't know. I just think it sounds quite nice, a chore bacon, but apologies if I am

insulting, but I just quite like that one, a chore bacon chore bacon as i say it reminded me of the corny jokes i promised to tell everybody before we went what the address was if they wanted to get hold of one of our amusing gongoozle mugs it's simply you get it from purple at backstreetmerch.com purple at backstreetmerch.com and if you want to get in touch with us uh because you've got a joke to share, or just want to communicate, we're purple at somethingelse.com. And we would love it if people gave reviews. I have to say every week I get a kind of summary sent of all the reviews to our podcast. And so I do, and I'm sure you do too, Giles, we do read them all. And it means a lot. The reason she gets them is they always say

nice things about her and they always say about me, Giles, but you say less. And I haven't said less this week only because I'm excited about the world of jokes. Well, this is your moment. This is my, this is my moment, my wonderful moment. And when we do the name dropping episode, I'll tell you why. Actually, I'm a friend of Leslie Brickus, now 89, who wrote, and this is my moment. Good grief. Honestly, I can't get to, there's nothing in the world that I could mention that you can say, well, actually, I have met this person. It's extraordinary.

Probably not. And I have actually mentioned, because this is my gag, and this is what I'm ending on after your three, this is my, I have met, I did meet, I did know, quite well. I worked with him, I loved him. Ken Dodd, this is one of his favourites. Did you hear about the shrimp that went to the prawns cocktail party? It pulled a muscle.

Oh. Something Rise with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Harriet Wells, Grace Laker, Gully. And actually, we have a new kid on the block today. He's called Jay. If you thought the sound was a bit better than usual, now you know why. That's because you're in your dungeon.