Something Rhymes with Purple - Cackletub

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Recorded on the hottest day of the year where better to seek some solace than within the cool walls of a cathedral? Take a seat as we take in the nautical origins of the nave, the link between the spire and an arrow, and we learn why you might literally be hanging on the words delivered from the pulpit. Also in the show, we answer some brilliant listener questions and Gyles recounts one of his finest tales about losing his grip in Canterbury Cathedral.  We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail]  We currently have 20% off at the SRwP official merchandise store, just head to: https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple   Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus club via Apple Subscription, simply follow this link and enjoy a free 7 day trial: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Immoment – of no importance at all.  Guttle – to drink thirstily  Kissing-crust – when one crust touches another in the oven  A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.  Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts  To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. My name is Giles Brandreth and I do this weekly podcast with my wonderful friend Susie Dent. Susie, how are you today? I am fine, although we should mention that we're recording this on the absolutely hottest day of the year, aren't we? But my house, thankfully, is quite cool. Not so great in winter, but perfect on a day like today. And I did make the mistake of going out. Well, that wasn't the mistake, I was doing the school run, but I decided it would be cooler to drive for once rather than walk. And I got into a bit of difficulty. I couldn't touch anything in my car. How about you? Are you cool? Well, I don't have any problem with the heat

and I have very good advice to offer people when the weather is incredible, as it has been in the UK recently. I say to people, this is the time to go to church. Because curiously, church buildings, very few of which are air-conditioned, nonetheless are often very, they have tall interiors and they're very airy. And happily, many of the churches within the British Isles are freely open to all and sundry. And certainly, almost all our great cathedrals are open, and they are so cool and so beautiful. So, if you are in search of a cool experience, never mind a spiritual experience, I recommend visiting your nearest cathedral. And in the UK, believe it or not, there's no part of the UK that

is more than 70 miles from the sea. And there's no part of the UK that is much more than 80 miles from a cathedral. Really? So you should be able to find a cathedral not far from you. There are a lot of them and there are a lot of them all over the world. So that made me think, why don't we talk about cathedrals, the language of cathedrals? I have so many stories to share with you of my cathedral experiences. We may pace ourselves before we get to those. But are you happy to talk about cathedrals? Do you often go to a cathedral? I don't, probably not often enough. But if you remember, I think we also discussed very recently in a recent episode of the podcast, what the criteria were for calling a city a city. And I thought that it had to have

a cathedral, but you told me that that was actually a myth. That's certainly a myth. There are plenty of places that have cathedrals like Guildford, which I think is where we were discussing that is a beautiful cathedral or an interesting cathedral. it's not very old, but I find it attractive, that isn't a city. A city is something that is designated by, in this country, Her Majesty the Queen gives you the status of a city. You may well be, for example, like the city of Chester, so-called, but actually it only became officially a city in the 1990s. It actually got city status then. It has had a cathedral for nearly a thousand years, one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the 1990s. It actually got city status then. It has had a cathedral for nearly a thousand years, one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the country. And I know it well

because I'm the Chancellor of the University of Chester and we do our graduation ceremonies there. So for me, one of the treats of the graduation ceremony is not just meeting all the graduates, shaking their hands and saying, well done, but as I'm waiting for them to come up, I'm gazing out over this amazing building that's been there. Parts of it have been there for more than a thousand years. It's fantastic. So I won't be able to resist telling you some of my favorite cathedral stories, but I'm going to try to be good. And since this is supposed to be a podcast all about etymology and words and language, if you take me into the etymology of the word cathedral for a start, what is a cathedral in the dictionary and how long has it been around and why is a cathedral so called?

Okay, so in the dictionary, cathedral is defined as the chair or seat of a bishop in his church, obviously this was written a while ago, hence the Episcopal C, as in S-E-E in the religious sense, or at least in the church sense. And that chair or seat of a bishop is key to the etymology because it goes back to, it came to us via Latin, but ultimately goes back to the Greek for a chair and actually for sort of sitting down. So it was all about the power, I guess, bestowed by God upon the seat of a bishop who would be then governing over their church. So the word cathedra, cathedra, which is the heart of this, what does that mean in Latin? It means a chair, essentially. It's a chair. Yes. When something is described as being ex-cathedra, you know that phrase, what does that mean? That means from the chair.

So it really means sort of with authority. So it means in the manner of one speaking from the seat of office, if you like, so you know what you're talking about. And thus, it's a kind of authoritative and official statement, really, or judgment quite often. So a cathedral is a church that contains the cathedral, the chair of the bishop. So it's the sort of central church of a diocese. And it's usually obviously specific to Christian denominations, the other sort of places of worship of other faiths we may come to in other episodes. And cathedrals as we know them, they've been

appearing in Europe since the fourth century, in Italy, in France, Gaul as it was, Spain, even North Africa. And we have cathedrals in this country going back for more than a thousand years. And I cannot go to a city or town that has a cathedral without visiting it? I just love them. I love them because they're cool. I love them because mostly they've been around for so many years. It's wonderful to be in a building that people have been visiting for so long. It puts things in perspective. And it's interesting that I can do this because I must have told you before about my traumatic experience in 1970 at Canterbury Cathedral. No. I must have told you this story. Well, if you have, I apologise because I forgot about it. Tell me again.

Yes, yes. Well, I'm amazed I haven't. Maybe because it's so traumatic, I don't often tell the tale. 1970, almost my first television assignment, I was sent to Canterbury Cathedral to interview the then Archbishop of Canterbury about Thomas Beckett. You will recall that Thomas Beckett had been an Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered. Murdered in the cathedral. In the cathedral. Indeed, there's a famous play by T.S. Eliot about that very subject called Murder of the Cathedral.

This took place, I think, in 1170. So it's 1970, it's 800 years later, and I'm interviewing the then Archbishop of Canterbury about this experience. There's going to be a wonderful service to mark this anniversary, and playing at the service is going to be the great virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Wow. So there I am waiting, the steps leading down to the crypt. Oh, maybe I should stop here and ask you for the definition of the origin of the word crypt,

C-R-Y-P-T. It's all about things that are hidden, if you like. So a crypt for the Romans was a covered passage or an arcade, but also an underground room that was used for religious rites. It was a bit like a vault, and it always has been, sometimes applied to a grotto as well. But I think ultimately it goes back to a Greek word meaning hidden or concealed, and it's actually linked to apocrypha, that C-R-Y-P bit, because apocrypha were originally sort of hidden stories, if you like, and sort of tales

of things that had not been told before, and that was sometimes just a little bit spurious as well. So it goes back to that idea of sort of being hidden away. So the crypt is this area under, in fact, under the cathedral in this case, where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey and I, are standing at the top of the steps, the stone stairs leading down into the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. We are waiting for the arrival of Yehudi Menuhin. He arrives. He gets out of his limousine. He comes towards us. He's quite a small man, and he has got in his hand, his right hand, he's got a violin case. Of course, it's the great Yehudi Menuhin, virtuoso violinist.

And I'm intrigued because this violin case is attached to his wrist by apparently handcuffs. And I say, what are these handcuffs about? And Mr. Menuhin says, ah, it's because the violin I brought today is one of my Stradivarius violins. Yes, this is now, as soon as you mentioned Stradivarius, this is one of the best stories you have ever told. I didn't remember it began in a cathedral. I apologise. But keep going because it's brilliant. Well, I'll try and do it. People have heard it before. I'll try and do it as concisely as I can.

So he reveals to us in his violin case the Stradivarius. It is the older of the Stradivariuses that he owns. He tells us it is the oldest Stradivarius violin being played in the world. It is perfect tone, made by the father of the Stradivarius family. And I say to him, oh, Mr. Menuhin, I've never seen a Stradivarius before. I've never held one. Might I hold your Stradivarius? And Yehudi Menuhin very generously placed his precious, priceless Stradivarius in my hands. And in a moment of exuberance and overexcitement, I turned to the Archbishop of Canterbury and said, look, I'm holding a Yehudi menu and as I turned, I obviously turned

too quickly and the Stradivarius slipped my grasp and the Archbishop reached out to try and get it and in doing so, tipped the edge of it. And the Stradivarius began spinning through the air. It sort of rolled over and over again and it began to descend the stone steps into the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, bouncing off the stone step. Boing, boing, boing, smash. And it landed, apparently, on the very spot where 800 years before, Thomas Beckett had been murdered, which I felt was quite a coincidence. Oh, good grief. So, is there a word for how you felt at that precise moment in time? There isn't.

I wanted the earth to swallow me up. The truth was, the violin, which can still be seen, people find this story hard to believe, go to the Royal Academy of Music or the Royal College of Music, whichever the one is on the Marylebone Road, he left his instruments to this college, and they're on display on the first floor, the first, the ground floor there. In a case, you'll find this violin.

With sellotape. You'll see, yeah, you'll see the damage done to it. He was due to play this unaccompanied bar. This was all going to be broadcast. And we said, what are you going to do now? And he said, I've got another violin in the boot of my car. I keep a spare one just in case. And I piped up brightly, can I fetch it for you? Oh, no. He said, no, you can't. At least I think that's what he said. So I cannot go into a cathedral without having this sort of traumatic moment relived briefly. Anyway, we ought to explain that actually the shape of a cathedral, like the shape of many a church, but a cathedral particularly, they have the cruciform shape that there was, as it were, of the cross on which Christ was crucified.

That's often known as the axis. What is the origin of the word axis? The axis is related to the axle of a wheel, believe it or not, because it's all about pivoting, if you like. So in religious terms, you would have the axis of the earth and the heavens, but it is the pivot on which anything turns. So the axis of a subject is the point, the sort of fundamental point, if you like. And from there, it came to mean a straight line about which a body rotated. It's lots and lots of different meanings. But it was all about the sort of symmetrical arrangement, if you like, and that's what you will find in a cathedral. So, the axis is generally in a cathedral. It's east to west

with the emphasis, if you're arriving, you're on the west front, which is normally the main entrance. And inside, the emphasis is on the eastern end. So, the congregation is facing the direction of the coming of Christ. That's the idea. It's also the direction of the rising sun. Yes. It's where we get to orient oneself and orientation and things. It's the idea of arranging a thing or a person so that it's facing east, or to build the church with the axis running due east and west with, as you say, the chief altar at the eastern end. But that is why we orientate ourselves. It's all about the orient. Yeah. Of course, it's confusing because not every church or cathedral maintains this

strict east-west axis. And for example, there are churches in Rome, notably the most famous, St Peter's Basilica, actually face the opposite direction. Okay, so that's the sort of the direction, the axis is the direction of the church. But what you walk down when you've come through, usually the main entrance, the west front, is the main body of the building. You walk down the nave. Why is a nave called a nave? So the nave is, as you say, it's the main body. So this is where all the people coming to the cathedral to worship will congregate. And it is related to the Latin navis, a ship, because the cathedral was symbolized really as a ship bearing the people of God. I mean, quite often you will find in religious imagery, you will find

the idea of a boat, won't you, which is navigating stormy waters and you have Christ with you in the boat so that you are never alone. It's that kind of idea that God will guide you through the storms of life. Oh, it's nice. Very good. So you walk down the nave and then you come to the transept, which is the crossing that forms the cross. Why is the transept called a transept which is the crossing that forms the cross why is the transept called a transept well the trans bit means across or through or over to the other side and that's they're in so many different words including transport of course which means to carry you to the other side so that's the prefix and then there's the septum now the septum is um it's used in lots and lots of different fields anatomy anatomy and zoology and things,

but it can also mean a sort of an enclosure, if you like. It is considered to be the sort of the two subdivisions or the arms of the cross part of a cruciform church, if you like. So, it is enclosed or hedged in. That's where the idea comes from, an enclosure. With the transept, often above it, there is a dome. Dome, what does that come from? Yeah, a dome simply goes back to the Latin for the same sort of shape, if you like, the rounded vault. I thought it was something to do with house, like domus. Yeah, so the duomo in Italian is the house of God.

So the Duomo in Italian is the house of God. But it was a house or a home, but also, I suppose, the most heavenly part of a cathedral, which is where God would reside. Very good. In the dome. Or there might be a tower. Many a cathedral has a mighty tower. Why is a tower called a tower?

A tower is, well, have a guess, because I think you might be able to guess where this one comes from. Tower. Tower. I don't know. comes from tower tower i don't know no no i don't know okay well it came to us from french oh i mean but that's that's too obvious it's the same word isn't it it is exactly the same further back we actually don't know so it's meant a lofty building, really, right from Old English, from Anglo-Saxon times. And you'd think then it might come from Germanic, but actually it was the Latin borrowing this one. And there's lots and lots of siblings and lots of different languages, but where it actually comes from, we're not completely sure. What about the spire? Do we know about that?

Yes. Spire is not to do with breathing as in aspire and inspire and expire and things that you might consider. It simply goes back to a very old word, a Germanic word meaning a sprout or a shoot. So it is something that kind of shoots up into the air. And you also have the flesh, of course, F-L-E-C-H-E, which if anyone knows their French means an arrow. So it's the same idea of something sort of shooting up, if you like. But in terms of architecture, it's a very slender spire,

especially one that's over the intersection of the nave and the transept. Well, before we cross the transept and go into the choir, the sanctuary, and find the high altar, I think we need to take a little break. Yes. Just to say, though, Giles, we should remind all the lovely purple people that we are taking the show on stage again from the end of September. Oh, we're doing it in a cathedral. Oh, I'd love to do it in a cathedral. Well, curiously, I've done shows in cathedrals and the acoustics can be a little bit challenging. Okay. I've done shows at Ely Cathedral,

Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, and I think we're better off in a theatre. Are we going to be in a theatre? We are going to be at the Fortune Theatre. So we're sort of having a monthly residency for a while, which is nice. And we're going to kick off on September the 25th. And then for me, happily, there's also one in my hometown of Oxford. That's on the 9th of October. Oh, this is exciting. Because A, I've got lots of stories to tell you about the Oxford Playhouse, because in the 1970s, after my fiasco with ruining Yehudi Menuhin's violin, I moved, as it were, from the cathedral to the theatre. And I ran the Oxford Theatre Festival at the Oxford Playhouse between 1974 and 1976

with some very interesting stars of stage and screen. So I've got lots of names to drop and tell stories to tell. So that's on the 9th of October in Oxford. And the Fortune Theatre, of course, is where there's a marvellous play. The Woman in Black is on there normally, Monday to Saturday. And we're going to be there on Sundays, aren't we? Sunday afternoons. Oh, I said we won't make it too spooky, but maybe we could have a spooky episode. Oh, we should. To frighten you.

Yes, I love being frightened. So for tickets and info, the lovely purple people can go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure?

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Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore.

So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. This is Something Rhymes with Purple and we are touring a cathedral today. We've just crossed the transept and we've come into the choir. That's the bit just beyond the transept. What is the choir in a cathedral today. We've just crossed the transept and we've come into the choir. That's the bit just beyond the transept. What is the choir in a cathedral? Yes. So it's used in slightly different ways when it comes to the cathedral, because you've got the architectural use of the choir, the section, and then you've also got the choristers who sing at the services. And then you've also got the section of the church where choral services take place. All of them go back to the Latin and Greek, in fact chorus, and the chorus in ancient Greek drama was somebody who read the prologue of a play

and the singing sense came from the fact that the people in the play under the leader of the chorus would often sing their sentiments at the intervals. That's where we get our modern sense of the choir that most of us would think of today, people who sing. And the place in the cathedral that is the choir, this is where this chorus took place in the early days? I mean, why is the place called the choir? Yeah, I don't know why that was chosen for where the choristers would sit. I'm not sure. I mean, it's in the chancel, isn't it, which has also got the high altar in it. So perhaps, again, it's a sort of specially reserved place that was considered very holy.

Give us the origin of the word chancel. A chancel has got a lovely etymology, actually, because it comes from the Latin cancelli, C-A-N-C-E-L-L-I, and that meant cross bars. So the cancelli also gave us chancellor, because it goes back to the cancellarius, who was a porter or a secretary, and a court official who was essentially stationed at the grating, the crossbars, that separated the public from the judges. And so the chancel also was kind of situated, I guess, separated from the public. Whether or not it was by a crossbar, I'm not too sure, but that's where it comes from. Because in a cathedral, amongst the officers of the cathedral, I mean, the cathedral is usually run by the dean.

I mean, the bishop is the run by the dean. I mean, the bishop is the person, he has his chair there, but actually the cathedral, the team that run the cathedral will be the dean and chapter. Do you know the origin of dean and of chapter? It's really interesting, all of these sort of, I mean, dean, not so different, because you get deans of universities and things, don't you? But it goes back to the Latin for 10, or at least one set over 10. And originally, a dean was a head or a chief or a commander of a division of 10 people in the military. And then it was applied to a head of 10 monks in a monastery. And then essentially, out of the kind of monastic use came the head of the chapter or body of canons of a cathedral. So that's where it comes from. So the ten bit has become lost really over time, but a little

bit like decimate, which people get very cross about when that's used wrongly. And a chapter is all to do with a head because it's a diminutive. so the little version of caput, C-A-P-U-T, which in Latin was the head, and it was also the capital of a column, a headdress of a woman. And then the chapter of a book, of course, is the kind of heading of the different sections, if you like. So that's where the idea of a division within a cathedral came from as well. You mentioned the canons, the cathedral cathedral cannons. These are not guns that explode. These are people. And they may be spelt differently. Is one with two Ns, one with one N? Yeah. So the cannon that we fire has got two Ns. The cannons that are the clergy men and women who

live with others in a clergy house, that's just spelt with one N. And what's the origin of that? Well, I'm not sure we're completely sure about this, actually. Lots of different relatives in other languages, but we honestly, I don't think particularly know. It's linked to the idea of being canonic on the canon of literature because it's all about the heads, if you like. I mean, the canon of literature is the thing that is considered most authoritative, really. And the canons are those who were considered to be almost sort of those living according to the canons or rules of the church. But quite where it comes from, I don't think we know particularly. And we talk about canon law being, as it were, the law of the church. The law of the church, the canon, absolutely.

Okay, we're getting closer to the high altar. We're in the sanctuary. Sanctuary is lovely because it simply goes back to the Latin for safety, really. It's also applied to heaven quite often in the olden days. I'm interested you say safety because I think of it being holy, exactly, sanctified, sacred. But it's safe, is it? Well, it's both really. The two go together because something holy was offering refuge and safety. And of course, refuge goes back to the Latin fugere, meaning to flee. So a sanctuary is somewhere that would offer a holy, safe space from which people could flee and save themselves,

really. And is sanctus, the word sanctus and the word saint, are they related to? Saint is definitely, yes, that does definitely go back to the idea of, well, in terms of saint, a canonised person, really, also the name of the archangels originally. But yes, the holy sense is definitely predominant there. We've reached the altar, where we will be worshipping at the altar. A-L-T-A-R, what's the origin of that? Yeah, again, if you look in the OED, you will find a very, very, very long etymology. I've always thought that it goes back to altus, meaning high. So, we're talking about sort of high worship, if you like. And certainly, the altar is a raised

structure, isn't it, that's used as the kind of focus of worship. But the OED will also tell you that it probably is linked to adolere, which meant to burn or cremate, which brings us back to the idea, well, not back to the idea, but we've talked in earlier podcasts about how much we both love the smell of incense, talked in an earlier podcast about how much we both love the smell of incense, which is obviously the beautiful mixture of fragrant, aromatic spices and things that are burnt off and within church.

There's so much in this cathedral I want to discuss, but we're running out of time. Let's just take a couple more words. The entrance of the church, there's usually, there's often, the cathedral, there's a huge font. Why is a font so called and is it the same as a printed font no so the printing font goes back to the french fondre meaning to melt because obviously it's the actual process of casting or founding and using molten metal so that's that the font that you will find in church is related to the fountain and ultimately the French for a spring font. You also find fount, don't you? F-O-U-N-T in English, which kind of sort of

trod a parallel path, if you like. So the baptismal font is very much related to fountain and the idea of water and the source of holiness as well as holy water. What about the organ that is making marvellous music for us? Is that the same as the organ in our body? No, it can't be. Well, it is actually, yes, because it all starts with the Greek organon, which meant a tool or an instrument. And of course, our organ, the organs in our body are very much the instruments that keep us alive. And you'll find it in organise as well, where you sort of put your tools together, if you like, or indeed use tools to kind of organise yourself. Well, two of my favourite places in the cathedral, one is standing at the lectern, reading from the good book, the other is up in the pulpit. The lectern comes from Latin for

reading, doesn't it? For reading, absolutely. Lecturee. Yes. And this is, they'll be at the front of the nave, a lectern, the Holy Scripture is read. Many a lectern, I think, is done, I can picture huge golden eagles supporting the book on the outstretched wings. Do you know why it's the eagle is often used as a symbol? No, I don't actually. I'm sure the purple people would.

Maybe is it about elevation and holiness and soaring through the skies? I think it's the symbol of St. John the Evangelist spreading the word. I think. Oh, I love that. I think. And again, maybe it's the idea of outstretched wings that embrace and soaring high in the heavens. Take me up into the pulpit.

I love climbing up into the pulpit, particularly one where there's a little door that you open and you close it and then you stand inside. It's got a roof on it and you speak to the people. I'm happy in a pulpit, but tell me, what is the origin of pulpit? It was once called the cackle tub. Did you know that? So when a preacher would get up and start the sermon, they were said, if rather unkindly, to be talking from the cackle tub. Not particularly nice. But yes, pulpit, actually, I'm not sure you would have enjoyed stepping up into the pulpit always because it could also mean a scaffold. So whether or not it was a scaffold from which to hang people, I'm not completely sure.

But the idea is of a raised, enclosed platform, really, which both a scaffold and a pulpit are. And it actually goes back to a word with exactly the same meaning in Latin, and again, lots and lots of different relatives in other languages. Goodness gracious me. Up in the pulpit we go. Well, we barely scratched the surface with this, haven't we? I mean, there's so much, so many more tales to tell. There are, and I haven't even told you about gargoyles. Oh, well, yes. Well, just give me the gargoyle.

On the exterior of a cathedral, I can see the gargoyle. And often they're actually representative of people associated with the cathedral. What is the origin of a gargoyle? Yes, it actually goes back to the old French gargouille, which also goes gargle, of course, meaning throat, because of the water that often passes through the throat and the mouth of the figure represented often as a caricature um in the gargoyle itself i've not sent you have i my book odd boy out my childhood memoir no you haven't sent it to me but i have one i bought one oh my god oh well yeah i do it says i on genuinely it's on my bedside table so don't be offended i haven't got to it yet but Don't worry. When you get to it quite early on amongst my childhood confessions,

you will read how in the 1950s, the then Pope died and there was going to be a new Pope. And I decided I wanted to be Pope one day. When I grew up, I wanted to be Pope. And my parents explained to me, no, you can't be Pope because you have to be a Roman Catholic to be Pope. And we are Anglicans. So I said, well, what's the equivalent? They said, well, you could be the Archbishop of Canterbury. So I wanted to be the Archbishop of Canterbury when I was a little boy. And I used to conduct, I made my own Canterbury Cathedral at home in my bedroom. I created all this paraphernalia and I dressed myself. I had a kind of eiderdown that I put around me like a cope. Oh, we must talk about another day.

We must talk about the clothes worn by clergy. Yeah. Anyway, and I married. The point of the story is, I think, when I married my sooty to my sweep, I conducted, I mean, I had a book of common prayer, and I did the marriage service. I married sooty to sweep, and I read, this was back in about 1957 or 58, that I probably was conducting the Church of England's first gay wedding. Amazing.

I love that. Ahead of the curve. I love that story. We'll come back, I think, to things canonical. Yes. And do you know what? Universities as well. We ought to do one on universities because there's so much there.

Graduate, bachelor, degree. There's loads. We must every. And look, and never mind my book, Odd Boy Out, do you know the novels of Antony Trollope, great Victorian writer? Yes, The Palaces. I mean, I've read some of them

and I've listened to others. Now, The Palaces are basically political novels about political life in the 19th century. What you need to read are the Barchester novels. The Last Chronicle of Barset is one of the greatest books ever written, but there are half a dozen of them, or maybe more, and they are set in Barsetshire, and it is about life in a cathedral community. And I have to tell you, the Barchester novels by Anthony Trollope are as

gripping as any soap opera ever conceived, and it's all in this world of deans and canons and archdeacons. And, oh, well, we don't have to, I recommend to people across the world who listen to Something Rhymes with Purple, if you haven't discovered the works of Anthony Trollope, this is the treat that lies in store for you. The rest of your lives will be happy. Excellent. I love that. And I loved this. I've learned loads, actually, because I think you know your way around the cathedral a bit better than me, despite the fact I went to a convent. So thank you for talking me through. Well, can we, I want to come to the convent with you. Get thee to a nunnery. We must do that one day. Let's get down there with the nuns and the monks and the abbots. Oh, that's the joy of Something Rhymes with Purple.

It is a bottomless pit. And of course, we have to explore words and language that the purple people want us to explore. We've had so much correspondence this week. Jasper is a word people want to ask about. Andrew Matthewman has been in touch. Hi, Susie and Giles. Having listened to the recent edition on insects

and your explanation of the link between wasps and vesper, I wondered if you were aware that wasps are referred to as jaspers in Sheffield, where I come from, as in the classic song Dandelion and Burdock by John Shuttleworth, which goes, So two questions. Dastur befell poor Ian. A vicious Jasper made him drop his dandelion and burdock. So two questions. Is Jasper a variation of Vesper? And how widespread is the use of Jasper? Does anyone outside of Sheffield know what John Shuttleworth is singing about? Thanks. Love the podcast. Andrew Matthewman.

So etymologically, Vesper, which is named obviously after the wasp, the Italian for wasp, because of the kind of buzzing noise that it makes as it speeds along. And as you know, it's one of my ambitions to buy a Vespa. That is on my bucket list. But Jasper is in the Oxford English Dictionary, actually. So it's quite well known as a largely dialect word within English dialect for a wasp. And there are two suggestions. One is that it's a development of jasper, the mineral, which is yellow and dark and often sort of has bands across, so it looks like a wasp. And the other is that it is actually simply riffing off the male forename

jasper, because it sounds a bit like wasp. And if you look back far enough to the 19th century, you will find that Jasper was actually used for a louse, believe it or not, in the English dialectic from in Lincolnshire. So it's been applied to various insects, but certainly it is fairly well known now that it is a local word for a wasp. And those are the two theories.

Very good. Any more letters? Yes, we've had Robert Russell. Hello. My whole life, my grandfather called me a molly duker because I'm left-handed. I would love to know the etymology of this word. Regards, Robert. Now, we've talked, haven't we, Giles, about how left-handers get such a rough ride,

well, in life and in language as well. They're always associated with inferiority and weakness and i'm afraid that's the case here because molly was once an insulting term that was applied to effeminate men and that goes back centuries and you will find in fact a molly hander in the dictionary meaning you know again a left hander like. Now, the duker bit is a little bit more elusive. And I had to go from the OED to the brilliant Green's Dictionary of Slang, the OED of slang, which I often mention. And there, Jonathan Green says that dukes there are standing for hand,

possibly because it's rhyming slang for Duke of York, fork, and your hands are your forks. So I love that. But he also says there is a chance it comes from a Romany word, duckering or duckering, which means palm reading. So again, in association with the hands. So two possibilities there as well. Great. Well, look, if you've got more queries, send them in, you know, voice notes, emails, keep in touch with us. It's purple at something else dot com. From around the world, we want to get in touch with you. And if you want to get in touch with us and be amused to have some

of our merchandise, we currently have 20 percent off on all our stock on our online store. It's a summer sale. So go to the link in the episode description for this episode or Google contraband shop. That's contra with a K, contraband shop. Something rhymes with purple. We've got t-shirts, mugs, totes available while stocks last. Susie. You always wanted to say while stocks last. While stocks last.

Trio. Is it time for my trio? Three special words for us to try and absorb. Well, I have been browsing recently through Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. Now, we've done a whole episode on that. But you will remember that unlike modern lexicographers

who really never pass judgment on a word, however much they don't like it, they're simply describing language, as we always say. This one made me laugh. I quite like this word, actually. It's imoment, imoment. So I-M-M-O-M-E-N-T,

and it means of no importance at all, trifling. But the reason it caught my eye is that Samuel Johnson then says afterwards, a barbarous word. He hates this word. That's my first one. The second one is for anyone who, on a hot day like today today takes the cap off a bottle of water, glass bottle hopefully, and just literally necks it. It could be something stronger. And it's guttle. G-U-T-T-L-E. Now, it can apply to food, but I usually use it as in sort of necking something greedily and basically getting it down your throat because you are so thirsty and parched to guttle. That's my third one and the the fourth one is sorry the third one of my trio is i just i just

like this one i just think it's quite sweet you know when sometimes if you're making muffins or you're making pies do you ever do this giles and you you have it's some years since i made a muffin it must be said and indeed even more since i made a pie i'm not be said. And indeed, eaten more since I made a pie. I'm not a great cook. Okay. Well, you know how you can get, for example, if you were making muffins or if you're making little apple pies, you have those sort of muffin trays and they're just lots of little holes and you put them in cases and then they line up next to each other. And sometimes the sort of mixture oozes onto the next one. And so you end up with what is essentially the pie form of a monobrow, because they all start to join. And that's called a kissing crust. And a kissing

crust is when one crust touches another in the oven. I just quite like that one. That's actually a lovely word, the kissing crust. And I can picture it totally, even though I've not made muffins, I can picture the kissing crust very easily. Yes, good. How about you? Do you have a poem for us today? I have a poem. In fact, I've only got part of a poem because the poem itself I think is too long.

But I want to encourage people when they're not reading Antony Trollope and they're looking for a poet this week, go to one of our former poet laureates, poet's laureate, forgive me, get that right, the great Sir John Betjeman. I wanted this poem. It's called In Westminster Abbey.

I thought we're talking about cathedrals. We must do a poem set in, well, it's an abbey, but it's like a cathedral. And it's a lovely evocative poem written, I think, during the Second World War. And it's a lady who is in the cathedral. And I think she's just gone in to say, maybe to take part in a short service, or just to get a little breath of cool air before she has another appointment. And you can see the type of person she is. This is a middle-class English lady during the Second World War in Westminster Abbey. Let me take this other glove off, as the Vox Humana swells and the beauteous fields of Eden bask beneath the abbey bells. Here, where England's statesmen lie, listen to a lady's cry. Think of what our nation stands for, books from boots and country lanes, free speech, free passes, class distinction,

democracy and proper drains. Lord, put beneath thy special care. 189 Cadogan Square. Although, dear Lord, I am a sinner, I have done no major crime. Now I'll come to even service, whensoever I have time. So, Lord, reserve for me a crown, and do not let my shares go down. I will labour for thy kingdom, help our lads to win the war, send white feathers to the cowards, join the women's army corps, then wash the steps around thy throne in the eternal safety zone.

Now I feel a little better. What a treat to hear thy word, where the bones of leading statesmen have so often been interred. And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait because I have a luncheon date. How old was that poem? That poem's written during the Second World War. Gosh, it sounds quite modern in a lot of the language, the safety zone and things, and yet obviously steeped in the history of the time, giving white feathers to cowards and that sort of thing. It's wonderfully evocative of the class. Of course, he is sending up this upper middle class lady in the cathedral.

But at the same time, that's what I love about him. He's both sending her up and also you can see the affection he has for her. Great poet, John Betjeman. What a great episode. Thank you. It was, I really enjoyed that. Isn't it fun?

I hope we can meet everybody again this time next week. We've got 170 or more episodes, I really enjoyed that. Isn't it fun? I hope we can meet everybody again this time next week. We've got, this is, you've got 170 or more episodes. So do check in, listen to the backlist sometime. We have some bespoke social media channels as well now. Oh my gosh. So if the Purple people would like to follow us there, they can find us on at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook as well,

or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. Please do recommend us to friends and please get in touch, as always, via purple at somethingelse.com. And please do consider joining the Purple Plus Club for some bonus episodes on words and language. Over to you, Giles. Something Rhymes With Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells

with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mistry, Jay Beale, and oh, the guttling gully.