Something Rhymes with Purple - Chiaroscuro

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

July is the 125th anniversary of The Tate Britain, one of the UK’s most established art galleries, so today on the podcast we are going to be dedicating an episode to Art and specifically, painting .  We’ll discover what the connection is between the painter’s canvas and a cannabis plant, why the painter’s palette is linked to the garden shovel and we explore the painting style of egg tempera albeit with a minor foray into Japanese cuisine.   Susie and Gyles dive into their own art collection sharing stories from Coulter to Churchill and Gyles reveals that there have been numerous occasions where he’s sat ‘warts and all’ for his portrait.   Our correspondence section sees the birth of a new word that Susie and Gyles challenge the Purple People to get behind in a bid for a 2023 OED entry (thank you Hannah Coulter) and Susie shares three delightful or even numptious words with us.  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:   Numptious: Cuddly and delightful.  Peradventure: Perhaps.  Sciapodous: Having huge feet.   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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skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Something else. Annex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Hello. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. I almost said something there. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. This is actually the podcast all about words and language presented by me, Susie Dent,

and Giles Brandreth sitting opposite me on my Zoom screen. Hello, Giles. Good to be with you. I'm in such happy form because I've spent some time this week in a variety of art galleries. I love an art gallery. And this month, July, the month we're recording this in, in 2022, it's the 125th anniversary of the Tate Britain, which is one of the UK's most established art galleries. Well, originally called simply the Tate Gallery, named after Tate, as in Tate and Lyle, the mighty sugar

refiners. Anyway, today we're going to devote our podcast to the world of art. And the Tate houses all forms of art. But we're going to focus more on painting today because we can cover other areas maybe in later episodes. And I have in my time visited Tate Britain, which was the original Tate Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, T Tate St Ives. And it all is named after Henry Tate, who donated the original building and lent his own personal collection. And Tate Britain, as we now think of it, but it was then the Tate Gallery, first opens its doors back in 1897 with a small collection of British artwork. And I love British art.

I love international art. I just love art. Do you love, before we get into the words and language of art, do you enjoy art? I do enjoy art. I made a pact with myself when I started to write books. And as you know, a lot of my books have been quite little. But I just thought, whenever I write something, I'm going to treat myself to a painting. And it might be really small, it might be really inexpensive, or it might be something that I have really, really wanted to save up for for a very long time. So for every book that I've written, I've bought a painting

so I can look at the pictures on my wall and think, oh yeah, that's from then. Can I say, it's a fabulous idea. It's a wonderful way of remembering something. I think it's a great idea. People listening might, you know, any moment in your life that you want to remember, and then you've got the painting up there and it triggers the memory instantly. Fantastic. Yeah, just a certain time and, you know,

what you were sort of experiencing at that moment. So the most recent work that I bought was from, now he's this absolutely brilliant painter called Jack Coulter, who's in his 20s. And he has something called synesthesia. And synesthesia is when you experience senses in different ways to other people. So for example, colours might present themselves as sounds, or music, particularly for Jack, presents itself as colours for him. So he paints colours as he listens to music. And they're absolutely wonderful paintings.

So my most recent one came from him. So yeah, I do love art. It's a very personal thing to me. I wouldn't say that I know huge amounts about the history of art, but I love the subject. And I love the take too. And I love St. Ives because another passion of mine is pottery. And I was introduced to the Bernard Leach School

of Pottery you know very famously ages ago and went to St Ives to see all his wonderful collection there so yeah that's quite a special one. Well let's celebrate art let's begin by looking at the word art a-r-t where does that come from short sweet simple? Short sweet simple and if in doubt where would you say that most of our well not most of our words but a lot of our words particularly when it comes to the kind of the well i'm going to go back to the roman world i'm going to get latin exactly and it's ours simply a rs and you had the ours musica which was music and you had you know it separated the various branches of art into different things but that's where it comes from.

And if you remember from one of our recent podcast episodes, Museum goes back to a building that was dedicated to the muses, those who were thought to inspire the goddesses, who were thought to inspire, you know, all those different branches of art. Well, the Tate Gallery is a gallery because what's a gallery? Where does that come from? Yeah, well, that is actually this time Italian, although ultimately, again, as you would expect, that goes back to the Romans. But we got it from galleria, which goes back to Italian. And the idea, I think, is if we still use a gallery, well, in TV and radio, the gallery is where the directors and the producers sit. And quite often they are high up, literally situated on a gallery. So that was one of its earliest meanings. But really, particularly in Italian, it was a covered space for walking in, and it was sort of open at the side, and then had the roof supported by pillars.

So it was a bit like a kind of piazza, if you like. And then it became that long, narrow balcony. And then it became something where, you know know it was somewhere where people would walk around and then obviously look at things around them so it's all to do with gazing in awe really my feet always get terribly tired in the gallery i can walk for miles along the street but going around a gallery within minutes i'm having to sit down it's extraordinary maybe you don't get tired in galleries but that's the loveliest thing is just sitting down right in front of a painting, isn't it? And then just, you know, having the chance to literally stare for ages. You're right about that. Yeah. I was going to be a philistine for a moment and say that for me, the first thing I need about an

art gallery is to know that it's got a good coffee shop because I want to sit down in front of the cupcake and the cup of tea. But you're right. Sitting down in front of a painting is wonderful. I went to see a famous painting called The Blue Boy, which was briefly back in Britain. But you're right, sitting down in front of a painting is wonderful. I went to see a famous painting called The Blue Boy, which was briefly back in Britain. Do you know this painting by Gainsborough of a boy dressed in blue clothes? And it was sold 100 years ago to an American art dealer. And it came back briefly to the National Gallery just for a short while, painting by Thomas Gainsborough. And I went and sat there and I did just sit there looking at this painting, knowing that it was only going to be here for a few weeks. It's gone now. It's now gone back to America. It's at the

Huntington in San Marino, California. So if you're listening to this in California, I think they're going to have it back there soon. Anyway, it was just a fantastic painting. Just looking at it, the colours, beautiful. Yeah. Do you remember the very first exhibition you ever went to? Oh, I don't think I do. No. Do you remember yours? Well, I remember the one that made the most impact. It was when I was a student and went travelling with a friend of mine from university. And we the whole you know euro train bit which was lovely and we went to venice and there they had the biennale the art exhibition and howard hodgkin was our representative that year the representative from britain and that's when i just his colors are

just phenomenal and so vibrant and that was when i think i fell in love with the idea of looking at paintings biennale is an italian word meaning every other year or something like that? Biennial, yes. Biennial as opposed to, if it's twice a year, what is it? Twice a year, I know, that's the thing. It can mean both. Oh really? I hate that word. Yes. Oh how annoying. Biennial can mean both twice a year and every other year. Yeah, it's very annoying. How intriguing. Well, the biennale is an exhibition. Exhibition, that's again Latin in orange, ex meaning out of, hibition.

How does that? The hibere meaning, it's exhibire in Latin, was to hold out as if you're kind of holding something out in display. So that is simply where that came from. Good. We're going to stick, because it's such a big subject, let's just stick to painters and paint. Okay.

Where does paint come from, actually? I'm going to, at some point, find a word that comes from somewhere other than Latin and French, French being the normal root. But no, this one comes from pingere, the Latin, meaning to paint. And then, of course, it went into French as peintre, or peintre, P-E-I-N-T, peintre. That's my French now, peintre, meaning painted, and then came into English from there. So, yeah, same route, I'm afraid. Well, take us through some of the painting techniques that we're familiar with.

Fresco, talking about Italy going to Venice. Well, I suppose there will be frescoes in some of those churches in Venice, won't there? What is a fresco? Yes, frescoes. Well, if you've been to the San Scriveni Chapel in Padua, where they have those beautiful Giotto frescoes, I think that's the first time I saw a fresco that just I found really overwhelming and beautiful. And it simply means cool or fresh. So when you have a picnic, al

fresco, obviously you're outside, as opposed to al desco when you're having a working lunch. But it comes from the italian afresco meaning on the fresh so of course it's fresh plaster that is applied in a fresco that is as simple as it gets if anyone does want to go to padua i highly recommend that chapel it's just so beautiful but yes that is fresco there is also impasto which is the technique of laying on paint really thickly so it stands out from the surface. And I mentioned Jack Coulter. He does that sometimes a lot. I think Van Gogh did that too, didn't he?

It kind of stands out, impasto. So that comes from Italian. Impasto sounds like the lovely lunch I'm going to have after I've been around these churches of yours in Padua. I do love it. I'm thinking, I mean, show churches of yours in Padua. I do love it. I'm thinking, I'm in Shozor, Filistin, I am. I'm suddenly thinking of one of my best meals ever was in Verona. I'd been to the Arena in Verona. I don't remember seeing any particular art there, but I do remember going up the following day and having lunch up on a hillside,

the most fabulous pasta I've ever enjoyed. Really? Oh, gosh, that was happiness. But that's pasta as opposed to impasto. We're going to have a look at some Van Gogh paintings somewhere and then go and have some pasta. Because I think he did almost pioneer the use of impasto in painting. So it was these beautiful textured surfaces. So you can see the paint protruding from the canvas, but also adds kind of movement.

It's really incredible. And these are Italian words because these were Italian Renaissance techniques. And we've inherited the words from going back there, like chiaroscuro. That's another word. I don't know what that means, but I've heard people use it. That means light and dark. So that's the treatment of light and shade in paintings. It's sort of the contrast between light and shadow, which is quite a sort of special effect, if you like.

Have you ever had a portrait painted of you? I've had a number of portraits painted of me. Most recently by a wonderful artist called Anthony Williams. Anthony is spelt without an H, Williams. I'm saying his name carefully because people can look up his work online. He's probably best known for having done a portrait of the Queen that was criticised at the time because it was said that he'd made her fingers look like sausages um but he does his work in something called egg tempura

have you heard of this technique oh yes i have does it smell is what i want to know no of rotten eggs no it doesn't smell at all he mixes the oil i mean he uses instead of oil i think with the paint egg yolk yolk. And it requires, he has to be very fastidious and requires a great deal of time. But he likes to use it because I think it means that he can be more precise, more accurate. Egg tempura. Do you know why it's so called? I mean, is there a dictionary definition of that? Yeah. So I'm just thinking that tempura probably isn't linked to the Japanese tempura, I would imagine, because that's fried in batter, isn't it? We're back to food, from impasto to pasta, from egg tempura to, yes.

So I genuinely don't know, because I think, although that's Japanese, I think that goes back to Portuguese, meaning seasoning. So let's have a look. Look up egg tempura. It's a fascinating technique. Oh, it's it's a it's a fascinating technique and oh it's tempera not tempera ah explain to me what tempera means it's basically a method whereby pigments are mixed in an emulsion with water and other things such as egg yolk and use them for very fine painting apparently mostly on wood panels panels around the 12th century onwards. And it goes back to the Italian to paint in distemper. So that's where the tempera comes

from. And distemper is actually not the distemper that you find if something is in conflict or there's a ballyhoo or sort of upheaval. It comes from the Latin destempere or distemperare, I'm doing it with Italian accent there, to soak. So it's the idea of steeping this paint and steeping the egg yolk with the paint to produce this effect. Very good. So his paintings I do recommend. Another artist whose work I think is wonderful is somebody called Anthony Palliser, P-A-L-L-I-S-E-R. He's a Paris based artist. Look him up again online. He painted a picture of me a few years ago. He is wonderful. John Bratby also painted a picture of me. He was known as belonging to the kitchen sink school of artists in the 1950s. And he was a most unusual character, great fun. And in the 1960s and 70s,

he used to write to anybody whose name he found in Who's Who or in the TV Times saying, I'm a great collector of the original, and I feel you are an original personality. Will you come and be painted by me? And he would invite you to his house, which was called the Cupola and Tower of the Winds in Hastings, where his wife would offer you a bacon sandwich on the side. And he would invite you to his house, which was called the Cupola and Tower of the Winds in Hastings, where his wife would offer you a bacon sandwich on the side. And he, in a couple of hours, would paint in very vivid colours, because he made it clear that your face is full of green and blue and yellow and orange and red, as well as the colours you think are there. He would paint this arresting picture of you, and then he would offer it to you. He didn't have to buy it, and I didn't buy mine,

though I would have liked to have bought the painting he did of Kenneth Williams, which is a wonderful painting. And he did some fantastic paintings of Venice as well. He's not very fashionable now, but he had a big retrospective of the National Portrait Gallery not long before he died. So John Bratby. Do you like Sir Mr. Keith thing or are you a bit like Churchill was towards Graham Sutherland's portrait? Oh yes famously Graham Sutherland's

portrait of Winston Churchill. I think it's lovely. I think it's completely remarkable. Yeah. It echoes his portrait which is still existing of Somerset Maugham the novelist which is a most arresting painting. But Churchill famously didn't like it. No. And said- And it was burned, wasn't it? When it was unveiled, yes,

that it was a most interesting example of modern art. And his wife, Clementine, knew how much he hated it. And I think she ordered its destruction, which really was a criminal act of vandalism. Yeah, did he not like it because he thought it wasn't flattering enough or just because he didn't like the style? Well, I think he didn't like the style,

but I think he thought it made him look like an old man. Oh, I disagree. I think it's incredible. An old man, as he said, straining, as it were, as though he were on the lavatory. He just really hated it. But I think at the time... I think he looks quite pensive.

It's fantastic. And of course, he was an old man. He was a prime minister in his 80s still. And he had strokes and still continued. And I think it was because it was so sensitive to him that he didn't like it. And I admire the techniques of the various paintings that have been done of me. And I've been caricatured as well by different artists like Gerald Scarfe. And indeed I have, but I didn't buy my spitting image puppet.

I did something last year for Sky Arts, Portrait Painter of the Year. And three people painted a picture of me. And the one I chose is the one I liked the most. In fact, I liked it the least, but I felt it was the most effective. Looked like a painting of how I see myself 20 years from now when I'm at death's door. But clearly that was how the artist saw me on the day. So actually having your painting, having your portrait painted,

don't do it unless you're ready for the consequences. That's where we get warts and all, isn't it? Do you remember? Remind me, it's a painting of Oliver Cromwell. Who did you say that to? Oliver Cromwell said to John Leely, his portrait painter, I can't remember his exact words, but essentially he told him to include all warts and all pimples, etc.

And he didn't want any of the sort of what he saw as newfangled flattery. But in fact, you know, we're still doing it now, aren't we? But yeah, so that's where we get warts and all from. Let's take a quick break. And then I want to hear about the words that the artists are using, the easel, the canvas, the palette, you know, the paintbrush. Well, that's an obvious one, but all the others. Let's explore those in a moment. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people

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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. 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 gonna 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 this is something rhymes with purple we're in the world of art we're with painters today This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're in the world of art. We're with painters today.

They paint with a canvas on an easel. Where does the word canvas come from? Well, believe it or not, it is a relative of cannabis because you make canvas out of its fibres. Canvas has had a really strange journey, actually, because, you know, we also politically canvas, don't we? But if you look at canvas as a verb, going back to the 1500s, it meant to toss someone in a canvas sheet as a punishment or as part of a game. So you would literally, you'd have lots of people holding the edges of this canvas, almost like it's hard pulling and tossing people

up into the air, which I imagine was a little bit uncomfortable anyway so then canvas came to mean to beat or to criticize severely that then weakened again to mean discussing an issue then to proposing something for discussion and when you canvas for votes at an election you're kind of seeking opinion but also seeking support so it's had a really really strange journey but the canvas that you know the artists paint upon does go back to the cannabis plant and the idea of you know the fabric that it produces very good well you put your blank canvas onto your easel yes the stand on which you stand it sometimes if you're an artist easel what's the origin of that i like that because it goes back to um the dutch easel and the easel, both of which mean a donkey.

It came into English in the 1630s. But, you know, we talk about a clothed horse. It's a similar idea. It's a kind of load-bearing object, if you like, that becomes a beast of burden. And on his or her hand, the artist might hold a palette on which they mix their paints. Palette, I'm reckoning, is going to be related to plate in some way, is it? Ah, no. Oh.

No, it actually goes back to the Latin pala, meaning a spade. And I think it's because of the shape of the palette originally looked like the end of a spade, if you like. The shovel bit at the end. So that is where we get the artist's palette. It's also where we get the palettes that are unloaded, by the way, in and out of containers and warehouses. But the palette of the mouth simply goes back to the Latin palata, meaning the roof of a mouth. Very good.

My cat's just walked in if you want to hear some meowing. Well, I'd like to hear some meowing. I've got a lovely painting of our cat, Nala. Oh, no, it's not Nala. It's our previous cat, Jack. Jack was painted by the comedian Jack Whitehall when he was a boy. You know, very gifted people often have lots of different gifts. And Jack is very gifted. And we've known him since, in fact, before he was born, because we're friends

of his parents. And Jack, when he was about 15, was doing a lot of painting. And my wife said, would you paint our, we've got a cat called Jack, would you paint it? And so he painted a really fine picture, actually. I love cat paintings. L.S. Lowry, famous artist, painted some wonderful pictures of animals. Did he? Yes, I mean, we think of him doing those stick men. Often if you look in detail at those paintings, often there are dogs and cats walking about the streets as well. And he did some individual paintings of animals too.

Anyway, that's by the by. Do you like a picture to be framed? Most artists do, I think. They somehow, well, a frame actually can do something for a picture. Yeah, no, they definitely can. Do I like frames? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

It depends. I think for modern art, frame sometimes just doesn't look right. And so you just leave it on the canvas. Whereas I am looking at a painting by someone called John Lowry Morrison, who is a Scottish painter who paints in the Scottish islands. Beautiful, quite Van Gogh-like actually. And I've got one just in the study where I'm here now with a kind of gold frame which sets it off beautifully because it's the moon upon the water so I think it can do a lot yes. Scottish painters I am particularly fond of the Scottish colourists I'm wanting to send people off from this podcast to begin googling and think oh yes they mentioned all these people

the Scottish colourists you probably know their work. What are their names? Boileau, I know, is one. Cattle is another. Hunter. Peplow. Peplow, Hunter, Cattle. If you don't know their work, the colour is just...

Ferguson. Ferguson. They are great. Oh, I love it. Whenever I go to the Edinburgh Fringe, which I sometimes do in August, I may be popping up there this August, but I will be perhaps performing there next year. For me, the great treat is going to the art galleries in Edinburgh. They are beautiful.

I'm looking at them now. Yeah. Peplow. Yeah, gorgeous. Peplow, extraordinary. A lot of still lifes, but with colours that are so bright, translucent, fantastic. Yeah. So, very good.

Very beautiful. Just before we go, if you are leaving the Tate Gallery, or indeed any gallery at all, what is the painting going to take with you, Susie? This is it. The National Gallery is burning down, and you are going to take a painting. Which painting?

All the art galleries of the world are burning down. Which painting are you going to take to keep safe? Oh, that is so hard. I'm going to go for Whistler's Mother. Oh, what an interesting choice. I love Whistler. I think Whistler is gorgeous. I love all his nocturne paintings.

But I could stare for hours at his mum in that picture. I think it's wonderful. If you gave me another five minutes, I'd probably come up with a completely different answer. But I do love Whistler. How about you? Well, I'm going to choose, rather quaintly, John Singer Sargent, a painting by Sargent.

Because it echoes a little bit that Whistler world. You took me down that sort of alleyway. But when Bernard Shaw was asked if the National Gallery was burning down, which painting he'd take with him, he said, the one nearest the door. That's the sensible answer. It is a sensible option, yeah, definitely.

If you've got any questions about the world of art, you want to recommend an artist perhaps from your country that you feel deserves to be better known outside your country. I've talked about a lot of British artists, not necessarily very famous ones in the people I've talked about a lot of British artists, not necessarily very famous ones in the people I've talked about. Why not share with us those names and spread the word, spread the art love? Yes, let us know, because I've just looked up how much Peplow, Peplow Beautiful Still Life went for at Sotheby's recently, and I think I've got to write about a million books until I

get there. £315,000. Yeah, and that's, I think, that's a cheap one. Is it? Yeah. Oh. Well, anyway. Well, if in doubt, what I'm doing now is... Treasure what we have. Yes, I'm no longer buying paintings.

I'm painting them. Good for you. I've started painting pictures. Oh, could you do my portrait? Because I've never ever wanted to have one, but I think under your kind your kind brush do you brush what do you what do you use or is it so abstract that I'll look like someone Advidali painting I'll give you a go I'll give it a go painting a portrait of you

that would be quite a challenge I don't mind a Lowry matchstick person. That would be good. I do look like a matchstick, so that's okay. I'll paint you as a Lowry matchstick girl. Yeah, that'd be lovely. Good. Perfect. All right, you're on. Do you know what? We've had some correspondence this week that set me off in all sorts of directions. So I have to say thank you to Paul Hyder and Hannah Coates. But first to Paul, who asked me a question, again, that I had not really considered, but it's a nice one. Hello, Susie and Giles. My name's Paul Hyder. I'm an English teacher in southwest China. So thank you for your podcast, which regularly keeps my vocabulary up to date.

I'd like to ask you about the word honcho, as in the head honcho, the leader of a company or something. It's a strange word and it sounds a little bit oriental to me. I don't know. Maybe you could shed some light on it for me. Thank you very much. Take care. Zaijian. Very good.

That's great, isn't it? And it reminded me because I don't, do we ever have honcho without head? I'm not sure we do. I think it's become one of those sort of fossilised words that appears only in certain expressions. Do you remember we talked about things like high dudgeon or spick and span, that kind of thing. Head honcho seems to be another one. But Paul is absolutely spot on. It is a little bit oriental because it comes from the Japanese hanjo, meaning group leader. And that was brought back to North America originally by servicemen stationed in Japan

during the occupation after the second world war and then yes i came back in the 1940s and then came to britain too it's a nice word honcho i want to see a honcho in a poncho um a poncho is a garment isn't it that what does what does that come from love ponchos poncho i'm garrett it's going to be spanish isn't it and um i'm looking it up now south american spanish and for the same thing but I don't know what the etymology of that is. OK, well, look, let's put our coats on. Ha ha, Hannah Coates has been in touch. Hi, Susie and Giles.

I have a question and a request for you. I was looking for a word that means something that has more impact or is just more than you would expect. I couldn't find a word that means this in the English language so I came up with one, cucumber. So you could have a cucumber date or it could be a cucumber storm. The etymology of cucumber is because for something that's 96% water, a cucumber is a lot harder to snap and actually really hurts if you are hit with one. I would love to know if a word actually exists that means something that has more impact than you would expect.

And if it doesn't, I would love for you to tell the word about Cucumbion. I'm hoping to get it into the OED. Thanks. Well done, Hannah. Well, she's my kind of palindrome. I love it. What a marvellous word, Cucumbian. It's brilliant. And the whole concept is absolutely brilliant. 96% water that hits harder than you would think. And also, there was this famous meme, wasn't there,

of cats being absolutely terrified by a cucumber. If you put one unsuspectingly near their food bowl, they would absolutely jump a mile. It didn't work on mine, who is currently now, she's just gone into a shopping bag and is trying to do... Is looking for the cucumbers. Yes. Looking for cucumbers.

But I love what the letter tells us also about Hannah and her life. A Cucumbian date. Yes, oh yes. Can you imagine? You can hear her thinking, yeah, well, it turned out to offer more than I expected. But the Cucumbian storm too too which was promised and then oh hit you with a great impact it's a lovely word it is a great word is there an existing word do you think i can't better it i spent a little while on the historical thesaurus looking for words that sort of gave you a bigger hit than

you were expecting and there isn't anything as good as Cucumbian. So I think she can have that. And Hannah, now your big mission is to get it used by as many people as possible, not just me and Giles. And it stands a chance because as they say, usage is everything. And it has to be in print, doesn't it? Is that still the case? It always was the case. You had to have a written reference for it. Yes, but that written reference can come from a transcription of an oral conversation or an oral event or whatever. So as long as it has been written down, it doesn't matter where it originated.

Good, well, Cucumbion itself then may turn out to be a word with more clout than we anticipated. Well, exactly. Cucumbion. Have you got a trio of established words that genuinely do exist and have stood the test of time to share with us this week? Yes, I do.

I'm just going to throw an old one into the mix just because I love it and I kind of wish that we were still talking that way. Peradventure is the sort of old way of saying perhaps. So hap used to mean chance or fortune. So if something happened perhaps it was because fate was either smiling on you or not but it happened by chance and was decreed by fate and peradventure has that same idea of you don't know what's coming it's just you know an adventure of of chance and luck etc so i love that one the second one is just quite sweet i can apply this to my cat right at this

moment in time numptious and numumpcious means cuddly and delightful. Numpcious. It's a very nice, cosy word. And your cat can be numpcious. Oh, yes, mine definitely is numpcious. Looking up at me with very big eyes. She's very cute. And then the third one is for anybody who is slightly self-conscious about their feet because they're so big.

It's sciapidus. S-C-I-A-P-O-D-O-U-S, and it means having huge feet, named after the Siapodes, and they were a mythical race of people said to have lived at the southern edge of the ancient Greek and Roman world, and they each had a single leg, and at the end of that leg was a foot of huge, immense size, and they shaded themselves with it from the heat of the sun so if you're a syapodist i can only hope that your foot is so big that you can use it as a sunshade very good well very surreal but but fun well we're in the world of art this week and by happy chance i'm going to read you a little adventure a per adventure exactly i'm going to read you a poem

that is a bit naptious. Was that the word? Numptious. Numptious. Yeah. Because it's, well, parts of it are and parts of it aren't. It's a poem, or I'm going to read part of a poem, by Grace Nichols. Now, do you know Grace Nichols?

She was born and educated in Guyana. She moved to Britain in 1977. And she's written widely for adults and for children. I went to and had a lovely lunch with her last week with my daughter, Afra. I met up with her and her poet partner, John Agard. And she gave me a book, which I'm holding in my hands now,

called Picasso, I Want My Face Back. I was meeting her because she is featuring in the series that I'm doing with my daughter called the Commonwealth Poetry Podcast, where we go to meet people from different countries and find out about the poetry of that country. And I told her about what we were doing, how we're going to talk about art and the Tate Gallery and the anniversary. And she told me that she had been the artist, the poet in residence at the Tate Gallery. And it had inspired this poem, this series of poems. There's a famous painting by Picasso called Weeping Woman. And the painting, you would recognise it.

If I held, you can see it on screen, Susie. There you are. Oh, yes, yes. You recognise that. People can look it up online. It's a painting by Pablo Picasso based on the face of Dora Maar. And Dora Maar was Picasso's muse and mistress for about 10 years. And she suffered a mental breakdown when he left her.

It was a very intense relationship. And Grace Nichols studied the relationship, studied the painting, and wrote a sequence of poems inspired by it. And I'm just going to read you just part of this in the hope of tempting you all to go out and get a copy of Grace Nichols' book, Picasso, I Want My Face Back, published by Bloodaxe. But I am famous. People recognize me, despite my fractures. I'm no Mona Lisa, how I'd like to wipe that smugness from her face that still captivates. Doesn't she know that art, great art, needn't be an oil painting? I am a magnet, not devoid of beauty. I am an icon of twentiethth century grief, a symbol of compositional

possibilities. My tears are tears of happiness, big rolling diamonds. And what's fascinating about this poem, the sequence of poems, is that it's taken a poet to give voice to the artist's muse. And so this is this muse, who is world-famous, Dora Maar, because of being painted so often by Picasso, actually answering back. And sometimes what she has to say is positive, sometimes it's negative. But it's a new way of looking at a remarkable painting

by, indeed, a remarkable painter in Pablo Picasso. I'm going to be saying that to you after you've done my portrait. Giles, can I have my face back? But I can't wait to see what you come up with. I hope we've come up with some goodies for you today. And thank you for listening to us. As always, we really, really appreciate you tuning in

week in, week out. It means everything to us. Please keep following us. Please recommend us to friends. But crucially, please do keep getting in touch because we love reading everything you send in via purple at somethingelse.com. And do, of course, consider joining the Purple Plus Club

for some bonus episodes on words and language. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mistry, Jay Beale, and, per adventure, Gully. Gully. What can we say about Gully?

It's a term from cricket. There's another episode you can hear all about that. Definitely our head honcho if he ever shows up. Yeah, but to see him in a poncho, wow.