Something Rhymes with Purple - Cacafuego

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Today we’re shaking a leg. We’ve already talked about the language of the body from the head to the chest. Now we’re going down below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And I'm Giles Brandreth, I'm here with my friend Susie Dent. And we were talking the other day about the body. Yes. Words to do with the body and we managed to get as it were from head to shoulders and a little bit down the chest but we didn't really get any further and I think we should explore the body. I don't know if we can get right down to our toes but let's go down to our, at least to our gut. What is there to say about the origins of words to do with the gut? Oh, my goodness. That gut feeling. I've got a gut feeling. That's where we should start.

What's the origin of the phrase gut feeling? Well, I mean, it's quite interesting because language is obviously following society, I guess, in that today modern medicine is hugely focused on the importance of the gut and our intestinal health. And it's said that medicine in the future is going to be customised according to the bacteria that we have in our guts and what needs to be replenished. Fecal transplant, sorry to bring this in so early, the new hot cure for many, many conditions. I'm so... Just looking aghast. I'm, no, I'm totally out of touch.

Do you know about fecal transplants? I don't i'm not totally i don't know about this this obsession with the gut is our second brain essentially and this was clearly recognized in ancient times because the notion of the gut is the seat of our emotions rather than the heart goes all the way um back to um as i say ancient times. And you can find it in medieval medicine as well. So the gut feeling is the seat of emotions. Technically. You have a gut feeling, it's following your instincts entirely. And gut itself goes back to a really ancient word meaning to pour.

So it's the idea of the fluids that are kind of circulating around your body. And you're now telling me that this ancient belief, which our language reveals, having that gut feeling, has some scientific basis and that now people are believing that get the gut right and everything's right. Is that true? Absolutely.

But expressions referencing the gut, I mean, you'll find them, you know, some sort of all over English, to have a person's guts for garters, to hate a person's guts for garters to hate a person's guts to sweat your guts out guts are kind of energy and verve and staying power and also we think of them as being long stringy things don't we so it's arse ropes remember you remember my fantastic phrase from centuries ago when they told it as it was and bollocks were bollocks they were your testicles um arse ropes were your intestines. Love that.

I can never get enough of that. And that's why you have guts for garters, because these arse ropes literally serve as... Yeah, they're stringy. They could be braces. Okay. Well, yes, or garters. So that's guts.

I didn't realise it was the gut that was the source of everything. Obviously, it was once upon a time. Then it became the gut that was the source of everything. There was a... Obviously, it was once upon a time. Then it became the heart. Well, the heart is today considered to be the seat of emotion, isn't it? And heart, famously, the symbol to heart went into the Oxford English Dictionary, but actually not the symbol itself, but the idea of hearting something,

which has slipped into English, meaning I like or I favour it, or it's all about emotion. Hearting, this is another of these verbalising of a noun. which is slipped into English meaning I like or I favourite or it's all about emotion. Hearting, this is another of these verbalising of a noun. The verbing of a noun, which has to be said has been done since way before Shakespeare. Remember Shakespeare? Grace me no grace, not uncle me no uncle. He did it all the time. So nothing new there. But again, it's quite similar to the guts and the intestines, actually. If you go back centuries, you will find that the heart was considered the seat of intelligence and intellectual ability as well. So when we learn something by heart, we it, because if you're recording something,

you are keeping it within your heart as something that you could then draw on in your thoughts. So the heart was more significant than the brain? It was in those days, yes. And, you know, you would find one's heart's eye as well as your mind's eye. And when did it become a romantic association with the heartthrob, my heart's desire? Yeah, I think heartthrob was first mentioned in the dictionaries about the sort of early 20th century as a heartthrob of a hat, which is quite interesting.

So it was a hat that made your pulse race rather than some kind of, you know, romantic engagement. And as we learned the other day, do you remember you fascinated me by talking about fascinators and their origin being exactly phallic? So that literally if you saw a hat that made your heart throb, it's making you pulse with excitement. So the point is the heart also gives you excitement. That isn't, in fact, heart throb, that wasn't about romance. It was about excitement. Absolutely. So it was a sort of seat of emotion there.

And hearts and flowers, the notion of it being romantic. Because if you stop to think about it, the heart is a bloody thing inside you. It's a sort of seat of emotion there. And hearts and flowers, the notion of it being romantic. Because if you stop to think about it, the heart is a bloody thing inside you. Yeah. It's a pump. That's the idea. It's just throbbing with excitement, so to speak. Hearts and flowers?

Where is that? I don't know. What is hearts and flowers? I've not heard that before. Oh, it's a well-known expression. Is it? Oh, yes. Well, how do you use it?

Oh, it was a wonderfully romantic letter she sent me. All hearts and flowers. Have you heard this, Lawrence? No. No, it was a wonderfully romantic letter she sent me. All hearts and flowers. Have you heard this, Lawrence? No. No, it's well known. Look it up. Look up the phrase hearts and flowers.

All right, yeah, hearts and flowers. Goes back to 1893. That's how old Giles is. Overly or cloyingly sentimental or romantic, originally. And then it went on to romantically pleasing circumstances. So 1893, then 1911. And yeah, there's still mentions of it in 2006. So there you go. Well, what's interesting, and this is the difference between us, I think I speak a kind of late Victorian Edwardian English. And the reason I do that is because my

father was born in 1910. So he was brought up by Victorians and Edwardians. And I know I sound like him and I picked up a lot of my vocabulary from him. So I think I'm, when people think, I think my English is basically a hundred years out of date. But that's brilliant. My French is exactly the same because at uni I was studying the likes of Beaumarchais and Balzac and things. And I never actually lived in France enough to pick up the vernacular so I would make people roll over laughing with some of the some of the phrases that I came up with um but what about phrases in English that actually involve a body part um what about chancing your arm there's a lovely story attached to that one tell me I tell you we think it goes back to military men who would refer it would basically be the stripes on the arm of your uniform. And if you were chancing your stripes, you were risking demotion.

But the lovely story lies in a really famous incident during a feud between two really prominent Irish families. So they were the Ormonds and the Kildares. And you're going back to 1492 for this one. And at one point, the Earl of Ormond apparently took refuge in the chapter house of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. And after a while, the Earl of Ormond apparently took refuge in the chapter house of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin and after a while the Earl of Kildare who wanted to make peace because he was fed up with this feud and he wanted to prove that there was no villainy intended at all he really wanted

genuine reconciliation so it said that he cut a hole in the cathedral door or in the chapter house's door and thrust his arm through thus literally risking his arm which of course could have been cut off but his hand was apparently grasped by Butler and they shook hands and it all ended very happily I have no idea whether this has gave us a chance in your arm it seems unlikely looking at the dates in the OED but I love that story I find your example of the officer or the sergeant with the stripes and he does something and he's reduced a rank a stripe is pulled off a bit more persuasive i find it a bit more persuasive definitely definitely i it's just that you know english has so so many wonderful myths and stories attached

to it and that it's sometimes nice there's another one with pulling your leg which some people goes back to the slightly grisly practice of friends of people condemned to death would stand by the gallows and in order to expedite death would pull on their legs to make the noose go tighter but actually just to be the part of people again to pull someone's leg we think originated in criminal underground slang um where it was to trip someone up so a pickpocket would pull someone's leg by tripping them up and then stealing their purse. Can you hear the wind down my chimney? I like the wind. It's down your chimney.

It was good for Halloween. I'm not sure it's good for me. She says it's down her chimney. It is not a thorough cough. No, absolutely. We remember what that is. In case you've forgotten, or you weren't here, and we have all the episodes that are still available.

Yes. The other day, we heard what a thorough cough was, which is where you break wind at both ends. It's a naughty word. Hips. We've had arms, we've had legs, in between come the hips. Yeah, you're going to ask me about hipsters now, aren't you? I am. What's the origin of being hip? Do you know what? I wish we knew. We don't think it's got anything to do with wearing trousers around your hips. And we know that it originated during the jazz age in America. You know, I think Charlie Parker,

it was a female jazz singer, was a hep cat. And then anyone who was kind of smooth and stylish was also a hep cat or a hipster. So hip and hep. So it comes from being hep as opposed to hip. Well, yes, but we don't know where hep comes from either. I assumed it was sort of waving your hips around and made you look...

Don't think so. No. It says origin disputed, frustratingly in the OED, which means they're still looking for it. But yeah, hep and hept both emerge around the same time. So it's difficult to know whether hep or hip came first, but we just don't know where it comes from. The knee bone meets the thigh bone.

The thigh bone meets the hip bone. Is this the do the hokey-cokey? Oh. No, it's an old song. Okay. What about legs? Shake it all about. Yeah, shake-cokey? Oh. No, it's an old song. Okay. What about legs? Shake it all about. Yeah, shake a leg.

Okay, well, this is quite an interesting one. We think that, I hadn't even thought about this until today, but we think that the shout, shake a leg, was given to sailors who might have their girlfriends or wives staying overnight. And the bosun or whoever was in charge of getting people um up and about on a sub or on a ship would come and shout shake a leg and it said and it sounds pretty implausible but i love it anyway uh that there's any kind of hairy male leg that kind of came out of the bed

was fine and they had to get up but any sort of smooth and soft one was allowed to stay in bed oh you could shake a leg and if it's a lady's leg you can stay in your bedclothes yeah you're all right what about the bee's knees the bee's knees just one of many fanciful expressions that came about in the uh 1920s 1930s kind of you know sort of swinging era where um they just loved to mess around with words so there are other ones which i think i've mentioned in one of my trios before, which is to absquatulate, which is to leave in a hurry. They loved inventing new silly words.

But the bees' knees, nothing to do with the lovely insects. It just sounded good for the acme of excellence. And there were loads of other riffs on that, like the cat, well, we know the cat's whiskers, but there was also the elephant's adenoids, the kipper's knickers, and of course the dog cat's whiskers, but there was also the elephant's adenoids, the kipper's knickers, and of course the dog's bollocks, but later on. We moved down from the knees to the ankles and the feet.

The feet, cold feet. Everyone, do we have cold feet about something? Yes, I'd like to know. Well, we think it may go back to the story of a gambler who was on a losing streak and didn't want to lose face, another body part. And so left the table instead of saying, I don't want to play anymore because I'm losing. He complained of cold feet.

And that was why he had to go, because he didn't have the courage to stay on and see the game through. And I need. It's nice, isn't it? I mean, as always with these things, they may just be missed. It's been sort of distributed and propagated for centuries, but I love it anyway. Putting your foot in it? Put your foot in it. There was a really old, I think it was medieval saying,

which is the bishop has put his foot in it. If you'd burnt your food, it was said that the bishop had put his foot in it. And nobody has a clue where that expression came from at all, which it's just totally bemusing. The bishop had put his foot in it. And what about putting a foot in your mouth? Foot in it, well, that's podiocide, isn't it?

Do you remember that was one of my trios from last time? Podiocide is the act of putting a foot in your mouth. And how old is that as an expression? To put one's foot in one's mouth, to say something tactless or embarrassing, 1879. And to put one's foot in generally is to get into any difficulties or trouble to make a mistake or blunder so it doesn't have to be in your mouth hand over fist yes this was nautical as well so if you imagine climbing up a rope your hands are gradually climbing up one hand over the other one hand

over the other as you're going up it um so it's with rapid and continual advances oh so we were moving forward hand over fist indicates that we're making good progress exactly oh and um even uh linguists and lexicographers can get things badly wrong for ages i used to think to make a fist of something was to make a right hash of it and i remember richard whiteley on countdown using it once to a contestant he said said, well, you made a fist of that. And I thought, how rude. It's very unlike Richard. But actually, it means the exact opposite. As in make a good fist. It means a good fist.

It's close. In that expression, it's closely related to the idea of hand, as in to give somebody a hand. And to make a fist of it was to get to grips with it and do a good job. Before we leave our legs for a little break. We haven't done the rule of thumb. I have to do the rule of thumb as well. Yes. Well, give me a rule of thumb. Okay, rule of thumb. Again, the story associated with this one is said to derive from an old English law that allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as it was no thicker than his thumb. And a judge called Sir Francis Buller is reported to have made this ruling.

And we do know there was a cartoon attacking him and caricaturing him as Judge Thumb. And it shows a man beating a fleeing woman and Buller himself carrying two bundles of sticks. And the caption reads, thumb sticks for family correction warranted lawful but actually although buller was pretty harsh and apparently pretty arrogant there's no evidence that he ever made that ruling and it's much more likely that it's an approximation you know rule of thumb was it's just it's just kind of rough rough guess yes and also it's like an inch or something isn't it exactly exactly what about legs akimbo legs akimbo um yes this this one always sounds japanese don't you think but actually it goes back to an old norse um expression to be

akimbo is with your hand on your hips and your elbows turned outwards so your arms akimbo are if you're doing that legs akimbo is where everything is flung out haphazardly and um it does go back to the old norse um in kenabu which meant bent in a curve like a horseshoe legs a gimbo legs a kimbo knees a gimbo yes what about oh uh toe rag that's one i get asked about a lot what's a toe rag toe rag it's a horrid expression he's a toe it's not very nice and it also shows how vagrants and the homeless etc have been viewed in the past and indeed probably still are uh it's the idea of a tramp that has got no shoes and covers his feet with cloth and was seen as a kind of contemptible human being.

So very unfair, that one. It's a term of abuse. Yeah. He's a terrible toe rag. Horrible, isn't it? With sad origins. Well, we'll cheer you up after the break. Cool.

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We're back. And I love being with Susie because so often she hits my funny bone. But do you know what the origin of funny bone is? I'm pretty sure it's just a pun on the humorous, which is the term, and it's a homophone, isn't it? It's not spelled the same way. So it's H-U-M-E-R-U-S, and it's a pun on that. Do you think so? Yes. That's so obvious. I know, but sometimes English is.

Really? Yeah. Hit my funny bone? And that's because that's the part of the arm when it is? Yeah. Oh, well, I suppose so. There's some questions from listeners, one about your guts.

If you want to get in touch, by the way, you can tweet us or email us at purple at something else dot com. That's purple at something else dot com. And Chris Robinson wants to know, anticipating our conversation about guts, are vile and bile the same word? Vile and bile? No, vile is connected to evil and bile is connected to bilious and atribilious being something which is really awful. I suspect, Chris, that that is Old English.

Certainly, as we've said, it's linked to the whole sort of idea of medieval humours. It's the fluid secreted by the liver. So, yes, it came into English via French, but ultimately it goes back to the whole sort of idea of medieval humours. It's the fluid secreted by the liver. So yes, it came into English via French, but ultimately it goes back to the Latin bilis. Good. Well, the answer to this question, are vile and bile the same word?

No. No. Next question. When angry, why do we vent our spleen? Well, the same idea, really. The same idea as various organs of the body believed to be the seat of various emotions. And the spleen, again, I suspect had all sorts of imbalance of bodily fluids.

That's the idea. So it would make you very irascible and very angry if you had a collection of bile around there. The venting is due to the stomach, isn't it? The same word, ventre, to vent. to do with the stomach isn't it the same word vent to vent yes that's the ventris so i think ventricles of the heart are also linked to the stomach because of the shape of the ventricles do you do a lot of venting um i'm told that i'm told that people do i'm told that you should let people vent and sometimes people want to just get it out and just listen instead of trying to solve the problem or answer or interrupt, you should just let them vent. And that means simply letting it all spew out.

Yes. Do I do it very often? No. But as we've mentioned in another episode, I do find lalokesia, that's the use of swearing to relieve stress, quite useful on my own. Oh, when I was at Oxford University many years ago, I went to have tutorials on the French Revolution with a very famous academic called Richard Cobb. And I arrived at his rooms for my first, he was at Balliol College, and I arrived outside his rooms. And inside the room, I could hear this man shouting and swearing, saying, you ignorant fool, you stupid bastard.

You're lower than vermin. You are ghastly. You know nothing. And terrible expletives amongst all this. And I stood outside the room and I thought, oh, how do I do I go in anyway? The clock in the quadrangle struck three. I knew I had to knock. And so this terrible swearing was going on inside. So eventually I knocked and the voice said, come in. I went into the room and there was the great Professor Cobb standing alone. I looked around and he'd been venting.

He dropped a piece of paper. He'd lost something. He couldn't find what it was. That's really interesting. And I was terrified. So that's an example of what you call it, the word, swearing? Lalochesia. Lalochesia.

He was letting off steam. He was venting, getting rid of it by using these expletives. I don't. I'm British of a certain generation. I keep it all inside and I don't necessarily think it's harmful. I believe in the stiff upper lip. Do you? But your spleen may not be thanking you for it.

The spleen, as I've just ascertained, it goes back a very, very long way, the idea that it's the seat of melancholy. So we are back to black bile. Ah, the spleen is the seat of melancholy. So if you vent your spleen, you're letting things... Siphon off your black bile, hopefully,

and let it filter out. Chris Robinson has one third question. Is the liver so-called because it is our live uh it's the source of life it is germanic in origin so you know when um i don't know we're both vegetarians so we won't be um eating this but labor vorst in german labor is your liver so liver um came to us i'm just double checking this yeah it came to us via the Frisians, but it goes all the way back to German and labour and ultimately possibly to an ancient Greek word meaning oily, fatty, greasy. Lovely. That's what labour worst is. A lovely message here from Alice Swetnam.

Hello, I love, love, love, something rhymes rhymes with purple and listen religiously every week. I found it is the best enjoyed in the bath after a long day. Just thought I'd chime in on the question marks over horse teeth in this week's podcast. Oh, yeah. I'm an equine vet with a particular interest in dentistry. And I can confirm we still use horses teeth to estimate their ages yeah although it's actually the incisors that are most helpful not the canines oh that's really interesting this was in to do with the expression uh long in the tooth wasn't it if you're long in the tooth you're old and it does

go back to looking a horse in the mouth uh and ascertaining its age so that's really interesting when you do it check out the incisors, not the canines. Also, says Alice, in reference to an earlier podcast, I was delighted to hear of a Mr. Sweat in the Bed. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. And his surname was Sweatnum. Love it. Yeah, exactly. That's probably sweating in the hamlet, I would imagine. Yeah. Well, I hate to think

what kind of sweaty monsters I'm descended from in order to bear the name sweat-num. Far too close to Mr Sweaty Man for my liking. Keep up the good work. Your podcasts provide me with so much relaxation and happiness. Oh, that's so nice. Isn't it nice? Is this Alice, did you say? Alice. I'm going to dedicate one of my trio of words to Alice. I think she'll like it. Well done. As a teaser, one more message from Emma McIntosh. This is simply a teaser. I was listening to your podcast today, as usual, while blowing glass. Ooh.

See the quality of people we have listening. And you mentioned the word schmuck as a vulgar term for penis. Yeah. In German, schmuck is jewellery. Yes, schmuck. And jewels or crown jewels is another term for a man's tackle. That's great. I love that. That's very eschewed. And Emma adds, I wish the two were connected, but suspect that they can't be. That's really, really interesting.

I know that the origins sadly are quite different, but I've never thought about that schmuck before. And it's such a horrible, I mean, I'm always sticking up for German and it's such a beautiful language. But jewellery, schmuck, that's just not good, is it? What is good is that every week on this programme, we give you a trio of words, unusual words or interesting words, words that Susie likes and wants to share with the wider public. What are your trio this week? This one, forgive me if you've done this before, but Alice's email just reminded me of this. She's in the bath relaxing listening

to us at the end of a long day she might be sipping something nice in which case she's having a nipenthe which is n-e-p-e-n-t-h-e nipenthe and it's a drink or potion that's thought to bring forgetfulness of all your worries is that great yes, I know what I've done before is I've done Recipicence, which is the return to a better frame of mind. So that is helped by a Nepenthe, which I like to think Alice is sipping in the bath. Good. Yep. Word number two? Word number two is something I discovered actually very recently. It was coined in modern times, so not long ago by a philosopher called Glenn Albrecht and it's solastalgia which is s-o-l-a-s-t-a-l-g-i-a now algia is pain so if you've got neuralgia you've got pain in your nerves if you've got nostalgia you have a sort of sickness for home if you like so it's a home

sickness nostalgia that's how it translates you know literally and analgesia is something that gets rid of that algeos that pain so solastalgia is actually the emotional and physical stress caused by environmental change and the solace bit goes back to solarium meaning comfort so it's a lovely term and just think, you know, given what's happening with our climate and given how it's so much on the agenda at the moment, we needed a word clearly for the stress caused by the planet changing around us. So it's a kind of homesickness for the home you haven't left,

but that's changing in a way that we don't like. So solastalgia. Gosh, it's quite a deep word there. It is, sorry. Have we got time for a third? Well, we have got time. It's a bit below the belt this one literally go back to guts but i love it it's a caca fuego oh caca we know about this from my french childhood caca is poo yeah it this a caca fuego literally means fire shitter sorry about that but it it's named after a 16th century galleon that was captured by Sir Francis Drake.

It had a wonderful treasury of gold on board. But apparently it had very impressive artillery and armoury, but yet it was captured. And so Cacafuego, the nickname for the ship, slipped into English to mean a blustering braggart. So somebody who's a spitfire, but is all mouth and no trousers. Cacafuego. Isn't that great? That's great. Spitting. But if you want to spit praise our way, we like that. So do give us a nice review.

Recommend us to a friend. If you've got a question you'd like us to answer or you'd just like to get in touch, you can email us at purple at something else dot com. We have people helping us make this and it's produced by paul smith with additional production from lawrence facet steve ackerman and gully gully what a cacafuego whatever happened to him