Something Rhymes with Purple - Cool Britannia

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

The 90s was a crazy decade, brimming with pop culture moments that defined Britain. Susie and Gyles discuss words that gained popularity in the post Cold War era, from Cool Britannia, to the Spice Girls, Dianamania to the World Wide Web...  We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Solacious: Soothing or comforting. Soodle : To linger or dawdle. Splatherdab: A gossip. Gyles' poem this week was 'This Boy' by Leigh Lawson, who wrote it upon the birth of his first grandson, Solomon.  He gives me joy, this boy,  Unspeakable, inexpressible.  This boy gives me joy. Inexplicable, unexplainable. This boy brings me joy. Let bells ring, choirs sing,  Chimes chime, poets rhyme,  Trumpets trump, drums drum,  Feet stamp, guitars strum. Higher than the moon, Oh, hotter than the sun, Deeper than the sea,  Is the joy this boy brings to me. A 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

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Visit rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience and the purple people often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is Susie Dent and me having a weekly excursion into the wonderful world of words. I say me, if we haven't met before, let me introduce myself. I'm called Giles Brandreth. And Susie, you're called Susie Dent. Have you always been known as Susie or were you once called

Susan or Susanna? Yeah, I've never really liked my name, I have to say. I've come under various permutations in my life. But Giles, before we go on to that, I didn't pick you up on your use of me instead of I there. And that's quite important, isn't it? Because we are quite the hippie chickie on this podcast. Well, we're quite relaxed about it. Yes. Sometimes I think it's good to say I,

but also sometimes it feels a bit awkward. It does. It does. You know. And that's why people say myself, but also sometimes it feels a bit awkward. It does. It does. You know. And that's why people say myself, don't they? My wife and myself, which is… Yes, it feels rather than my wife and I. It's unstandard.

Anyway, we are quite relaxed. You still haven't answered the question. When did you settle down to Susie? When you were christened or baptized, if you were, on your birth certificate, what is the name you've been given? or baptized, if you were, on your birth certificate, what is the name you've been given? So I have been Susan, and then I was Sue for quite a long time, and then Susie really early on, actually, I have to say. And I much prefer Susanna. So I've kind of played around with lots of different names, and I suspect you haven't done the same.

No. How much do you play around with Susanna. Would you rather we called you Susanna? I much prefer Susanna. And I just think you can be whoever you want to be, really, can't you? You can be. And from now on in, Susie Dent, you're Susanna to me. Okay. All right. I've always accepted being called Giles because I was told as a boy, it was a family name. And indeed, there have been many Giles's forebears of mine. The spelling of my name is Giles with a Y, which some people regard as pretentious nonsense, and it could be viewed as that. But as you have often told me, spelling, orthography, was not settled for many years. No, it's all over the place.

So it can be spelled with a Y or a Y. I'm not fussy. I think the reason mine is spelled with a Y or a Y. I'm not fussy. I think the reason mine is spelt with a Y is partly because it was a family tradition and also because my father was at Oxford University back in the 1920s, a hundred years ago, when there was a well-known student at Oxford called Giles Isham, G-Y-L-E-S Isham, who was very well-known at the university because he did all the sort of big things. He was president of the union. He was a star of the dramatic society. I think he edited

the magazine and he became a bit of a film star. He appeared in a film with Greta Garbo. He played Hamlet, I think at the Old Vic. And my father knew of him. And I think he thought it was rather a glamorous name. So that's why I'm Giles with a Y. I know my mum particularly loved Andy Williams. And he sang a song which is little known, I think probably for good reason, which is Where's the Playground, Susie? I've no idea what it was about, but I think that might have influenced the choice of my name as well. Andy Williams, what a great person. But we're actually, in some ways, Andy Williams is reasonably relevant to our topic today because he was such an enduring talent. And actually, if you were to ask lots of people in their 30s and 40s, you know, 10 years

ago or so before he sadly died, they would know Andy Williams. They would recognise the name and probably know an Andy Williams song or two. But I think of Andy Williams as a figure from the 60s or 70s. I think he was, but he kept going. I see him as a sort of smooth, croony singer. A crooner. Wearing not quite cardigans, but sort of... Yeah, knitwear.

Knitwear. Yes, like you. And very charming. But I can't sing the way he could sing. Well, we're going to do post-Cold War, 90s words, aren't we? But before we get into the episode, I do want to remind people about our wonderful subscription podcast, because each week, Susanna and I, we mosey on into the Purple Plus Club and continue our etymological fun.

And right now, we're going through witty and wise literary heroes who brightened up the world with their talent and their charm and their way with language. So becoming a subscriber means you get all these main episodes, the ones you're listening to now, absolutely ad-free, if you want that. And it's only £2.99 a month, which is, I suppose, well, if you put it this way, I went shopping today. I can tell you it's the price of a standard pack of loo roll.

There you go. So we can't wait to see you over there. Not in the toilet or the lavatory, but wherever you choose to listen to the podcast, you can listen to it. And no bump with us. Ah, very good. I'm sure we've explored the origin of loo, haven't we? us ah very good i'm sure we've explored the origin of loo haven't we of loo and we have i think and bump short for bum fodder aka loo roll once called arse wisp which is my favorite term for it go into the go into the archives and explore there are 200 and well more than 50 episodes now but we're going to we're going to continue our journey today through the 1990s. Tell us, introduce us, remind us. It's not that long ago. It's 30, 40 years ago.

No, I know. Well, it was all about optimism, wasn't it? It was all about potential, opportunity, belief in humanity, and yet the sort of awareness really of the dangers to it as well. And I think the kind of victory of capitalism was commented on by Professor Francis Fukuyama, who even proclaimed the end of history for this time. But we had so many different influences coming to bear on the 1990s. And then at the end of them, of course, we had the Millennium Bug, do you remember that? Which we will, I'm sure, come to. What are your memories of the 90s? Well, it just, to me, seems like the day before yesterday. So all these things that you're talking about there, your possibilities, uncertainties, none of this makes much sense

to me. I was just chugging along. The 1990s was an interesting era for me because I became a member of Parliament, the British Parliament in 1992. So I was an MP through the 1990s. I was a member of John Major's government. I remember the big events of the 1990s included, of course, the death in a car crash of Diana, Princess of Wales. That was a sort of big moment. Where were you at that time? It's one of those moments, isn't it? It was one of those moments. Well, it happened in the early morning and I came down just to turn on the television and there was the news being broken. It's interesting. Does the language of that time tell you about the era? I mean, let's explore some of the words that became popular or came

into the currency in the 1990s and see if historians 100 years from now, 200 years from now, could look back and explore the language and it would teach them something about the era. Can you give me some examples? Yes, gosh, where to start, really? But it was interesting just to start with the political side of things. And you were saying you were a serving MP during the 1990s. Britain kind of reinvented itself, didn't it, into cool Britannia. You know, we had Britpop as well. So we had very much the idea that we were kind of leading in terms of entertainment, in terms of culture. I mean, not at all, I think, the prevailing mood now. We had Islington person taking over from Essex man and Essex woman. So

even the kind of short codes for demographics were changing as well. So instead of the new man, we have the new lad. We had laddish behavior. We had Viagra. We had girl power. Although girl power, I think, probably towards the end of the 1980 sense that Cool Britannia certainly became a phrase. I mean, remember that in the early 1990s. Did it get into the dictionary at all as a phrase? When did it do that? Cool Britannia. Actually, I don't know. I will have a look now in the OED, but I'm not sure if it's got an entry all to itself. Because what I was going to say about it is I think the 1960s,

what happened then, that the psychedelic era, the Beatles, Carnaby Street, London as the pop centre of the world, that all felt real to me at the time. I don't, I'm half thinking that Cool Britannia

was almost a public relations construct adopted by political parties of all persuasions to make themselves feel cutting edge and modern. Because I would argue that today the arts in this country are really riding high. Theater, cinema, film are making books. Really, this country, 19th largest country in the world,

6th, 7th largest GDP, punches above its weight and has done probably since Shakespeare was a boy. Don't ask me why. It's probably partly to do with the language. English has become the world language. So I'm not sure that Cool Britannia was a unique and real thing. The phrase was, but I'm not sure that actually it was deep-rooted in the way that when we were talking about the 60s it was. I'm sure you're right that it was absolutely a construct and that it was very useful politically. I'm looking at it in the OED now. It's first recorded in the title of a song by the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. And they also, if you remember, are famous in my book for having, I think it was a song called The Donut in Granny's Greenhouse, which was then used in a sketch with Michael Palin, who you have interviewed recently on your other podcast,

when you desert me here. It was a sketch where they used it as a euphemism for the toilet. We're back to toilets again. But anyway, first recorded in 1967. And then in the late 1990s, as you say, because of the international success, interested in contemporary British art. I think the phrase was a construct, but I think there's no doubt that there was this real cultural push and a cultural movement. And I'm sure that is the case still now, but how Britain is perceived in the eyes of others, I don't know. I don't know if we would still be seen as cool Britannia. But I'm really disputing this because you're saying you're asserting these wonderful things

that happened in the 90s. Yeah, you don't think they did. I mean, I think there were good things that happened in the 90s yeah i don't think there was i mean i think there were good things happening in the 90s yeah but i don't think there were things happening in the 90s that made the 90s special in the way that the 2020s aren't okay okay well i wasn't there for some of it because i was in the states so maybe i missed that but then i started work at OUP and indeed on Countdown in the 1990s. So it's quite a significant decade for me. That's a very significant decade. What I do remember as being new, certainly for me, was the world of computers.

Does the World Wide Web come into being in the 1990s? Is that one of that? Because if that really was a change in the world, I would accept that that was new. Am I right? Yeah. I mean, that was absolutely huge. So 1990 itself, a visually based system, it's defined as for accessing information by means of the internet.

So web, it was shortened to web later on in 1994. But yeah, the first worldwide web, the first mention of that is from 1990. And Tim Berners-Lee and I don't know his first name, actually. Was it Robert Kalyu created a proposal for a hypertext project, as they called it. So yes, lots of, as you say, incredibly important technological advances there. And I know you don't see it as sort of that seismic. That one certainly was. That really was seismic. Spam. Is that a word from the 1990s? Spam. Well, of course, spam has been around for a very long time. Oh, as a food?

As a food, yes. But in 1994, it began to be used as a verb to flood the internet with, you know, as we know, lots of of inane stuff and it may be linked and we've talked about this probably to the monty python sketch back to them in which do you remember spam is on every single item of the restaurant menu so uh yeah and they created a show called spam a lot didn't they oh spam a lot was Yeah, that was really good, actually. So spam came about. We have Applet as well for a small computer application program. That was 1990. So there were definitely things happening there. We also had Blairism, of course. We talked about Thatcherism in this series before. So that's the political, those are the political and economic policies of Tony Blair, who became prime minister

in 1997. But that was actually recorded in 1993. And then you had the Blairistas for his followers or proponents in 1995. But that was a bit of a lampooning term. I remember meeting Tony Blair around this time. And for those who don't know, Tony Blair was the British Prime Minister for 10 years from 1997, and came in on a great wave of hope and optimism. And he had managed to pull the Labour Party back from the leftward-leaning years that had preceded him into a middle ground, and he called it new labor. And I do remember I had this meeting. We were just him and me in a room alone.

We must have been recording something, and we were just waiting in this room. And he came over to me quite earnestly and took me by the hand and said, Giles, the middle way, it's real, and it's for you. It's quite a sort of unnerving moment. Oh, how bizarre. Yeah. But he was passionate about it. He also actually taught me something quite interesting, Tony Blair. This may have been on that occasion or a later occasion when I interviewed him.

I said, what does it take to succeed as prime minister for 10 years to survive? And he opened his wallet, and he showed me inside his wallet a piece of paper. And on this piece of paper were the words, stay standing up. And I said, what's this about? He said, well, when I became prime minister, I was given a briefing by security. And the special branch people said to me, prime minister, you know, we are here to protect you. At all times, all we require of you, if you're in a public place on a platform, is to stay standing up. We can then see you. And if an emergency arises, we can just rush in, pick you up and carry you off. Whatever you do, don't fall down. Don't drop to the ground. And he said, and I took that. He said, obviously, they did that for my

safety. But he said, that's a very good rule in politics. If you can stay standing up, you tend to survive because most storms only last a day or two. If you can stand there in the whirlwind and keep standing upright as the thing, it'll blow over you. So stay standing up. Good rule for life. Yeah, that is. That's really interesting. That's what I learned from Blairism. So given that you have met every single person of any note in the world, as far as I can tell, have you met anybody from blur oasis radiohead well blur is the oh maybe no i'm thinking i'm confusing blur with blue because that was the end of the

1990s there was a boy band called the blue it was yeah um who were the people in blur i'm not very good on popular culture it must be said okay all right but oasis i think so they were famous the oasis boys weren't they and i think i have met them there were two of them there are two of them can you remember liam liam gallagher and no and no well i know i met liam it's quite confusing i've met anton deck but i can't tell which is which so i just say hello. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, the reason I ask you is because of Britpop, of course. So Britpop came about 1995, independent British groups. And it was also a kind of generic term for British pop music. You see, I think that is real.

Yeah. Britpop was real in a way that Cool Britannia wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm absolutely with you. Britpop, I can absolutely. And that also thenannia wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm absolutely with you. A Britpop icon, absolutely. And that also then gave us the advent of the girl bands, of which the most famous, of course, is... Spice Girls.

The Spice Girls. Yes. How many of the Spice Girls have you met? I've met all of the Spice Girls. There you go. And indeed, you mention the moonlighting I do with Rosebud. Geri Halliwell, now Geri Horner, was my guest on that recently. I love Jerry.

In fact, I met them all. I was a little bit alarmed by Posh Spice. She's a little bit frightening because she doesn't smile a lot, but I think it's part of her construct. But you must have met the Spice Girls over the years. I have shared a hot tub with Emma Bunton in a TV episode of Lee Mack's brilliant comedy, Not Going Out, where, yes, I had to sit in a hot tub. Not as glamorous as you might think, because it was in a sort of spa in Wimbledon. And I just remember the one thing I really hadn't realised when you were filming

a drama or comedy or whatever for TV is just how many takes there are. So I literally had two or three lines and I thought I'll be in and out within an hour. Well, I was in and out, but in and out of the hot tub for over the duration of about three hours. I had to have a hairdryer drying my swimsuit every time and then go back in because I have to take it from different angles. It's absolutely exhausting. I don't know how these actors do it. Anyway, it was fun, and she was lovely. That's why the film stars are paid so much

to put up with this sort of thing. How interesting. I must dig that episode out. The idea of a hot tub is repellent to me. Yes. Sitting in fluid with strangers. Ooh, dear. When did the word hot tub,

is that a 1990s tale of phrase? Thought it would. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? Let's have a look. I knowacuzzi is a proprietary um name hot tub 1973 oh well there we are yes they've been around for a while that's what i feared about them they've been around for a while i'm sure they're germs in them i think they do replace the water occasionally now do you remember uh speaking of horrible things do you remember the verb bobbit oh the person who had their um penis removed by secateurs lorina bobbit yeah mr bobbit who lost his um penis

yes who lost his penis she amputated it in revenge um so she cut it off with a kitchen knife. Sorry about this. I do remember it. Yes. But yeah, I mean, pretty horrible. We're not encouraging that. Do not try this at home. But also what he was supposed to have done is not very nice. All a bit grim. But the reason I mention it is that actually Bobbitt, which was a sort of pun on to Bobb it, i.e. cut it short, just as you might Bobb some hair, went into the dictionary in 1993. Well, look, I think we have to take a break so we can all lie down and not picture that, but I do remember it. What a way to become immortal.

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I'm with Susanna Dent. And we've been talking about words from the 90s. Have you got any more that you want to share with me before we go on to the wonderful letters we've had from people all over the world? Yes, I do. Well, you talked about the very sad death of Princess Diana. Diana Mania actually had been coined in 1996, so just a year, actually, before she died. Is this rather like where gate was added to everything after Watergate, any scandal? Because I remember Betelmania. I'm sure there was Elvismania. Oh, yeah. It's just a word that we attach. Yeah, it can be attached to anything as a suffix, absolutely.

We also had DVD. Oh, is that a sexually transmitted disease? No, it's a digital video disc from 1994 is when it's first mentioned. Oh, do you know, of course, the reason I thought it was VD does stand for venereal disease, doesn't it? It does. We don't use it anymore. No, people used to talk about, oh, they've got VD. And I suppose when you said DVD, I thought, oh, goodness, is that delightful VD? Or is that a disastrous VD? No, it's a DVD if you have a DVD player, which nobody has anymore. But just very quickly, I always thought it rather sad that Venus, goddess of love, got venereal disease, whereas Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, got aphrodisiac, which is arguably the much nicer term. I always felt that was a little bit sad. So we have that. We get talks about ecological footprints, so a growing consciousness of the

climate change. We have ethnic cleansing from 1991. So that's pretty horrible. That was due to the conflict within the area that we used to know as Yugoslavia. And as I say, we have those demographics at the beginning of the 90s, Essex girl and Essex man, both in pretty derogatory. And then at the end, we had Islington man, Islington very much associated with Tony Blair. And Aspiration, was that the idea of Islington man? Or he lived in Islington? Both. I think they were, so it wasn't entirely lovely. I think it was... What is the dictionary definition of Islington Man? Is it in there?

Middle class, socially aware person with left-wing views. Ah, that's interesting. Yeah. Very good. Well, when does the phrase champagne socialist come in? Is that a phrase that is in the dictionary? Oh, yes. Now, that probably was in Blair's time, was it not? But it's not in my list of 90s neologisms. Have you got the dictionary there? Could you look it up? I do. Champagne socialist. Didn't we have the prawn cocktail offensive as well in politics at some point. Yes, I feel that might have been a bit earlier. Well, the idea was that politicians would descend on people and over a prawn cocktail at the start of the meal,

they would hope to bring them on board, influence them. Yes. Champagne Socialist may surprise you. First reference that the OED has is from 1906. Ah, very interesting. So it says the Champagne Socialist wants everybody to be equal upon the higher plane that suits him, utterly ignoring the fact that there are not enough champagne, if not upset, and at the same time being socialists, you know, wanting it both ways. Yeah, absolutely. Very good.

And just to finish, just two things to finish off. One is, obviously, we've been talking about Diana and Tony Blair famously after her death calling her the people's princess. People's became a bit of a label really for somebody who kind of was seen to belong to the whole of the population. And it rippled through various other things as well. But the people's princess is quite a big one from that. And I did start off with the millennium bug. Do you remember the fear that everything would then stop working on the eve of the millennium? Oh, airplanes would fall out of the sky.

Yeah. It was all like that. The world would come to an end. And I think we got the whole thing wrong, didn't we? Didn't we celebrate the new millennium a year early? Oh, I don't know if that's why, but we certainly didn't get the catastrophe that people anticipated. Because the new millennium, I mean, shouldn't it, in a sense, be the things begin with the year one. When you're born, you end up, well, I suppose you're not when you're born, aren't you? Then you're one the year later. So maybe we do get it right.

I can't work out whether it ends, whether the year 2000 was the last year of the 20th century or the first year of the 21st century. I think we have had a few purple people telling us to avoid mathematics and science and to stick to language from previous experience. So, I'm with you. I think we should stick to words. I find that kind of thing almost impossible to fathom. Well, if you're a purple person who wants to get in touch, you can do so very simply. You just drop us an email, and it's purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. Purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. So funny, I use a phrase like, drop us an email. This is language that my parents would simply not have understood what we were talking about.

And in fact, when people do get in touch, we now have voice notes. I mean, what's a voice note when it's at home? I mean, it's just a recorded message, isn't it? Do you ever leave voice notes? Because those are the thing now. So if you use various messaging services, including WhatsApp and stuff, a lot of people and certainly kids these days will just press the record button. And I think it's really nice.

They'll just record a voice note rather than just tap away. Can I say, I'm doing this all the time and often by mistake no the other day i sent you a voice note do you remember that oh my goodness i was in the kitchen saying to people i'm just just going down to the basement to do my um yes exactly then i said to my wife see you see you for drinks in the bedroom six o'clock and and i said this to you and you thought what's going on here no i could tell it was a muffled pocket call don't worry as there was a muffled pocket call well it was but it just potentially but dialing b-u-d-d dialing anyway exactly when did voice note become a thing the phrase voice note uh i don't even know whether I'm going to find it in the dictionary.

Let's have a look. Oh, it is. It doesn't tell us when, though, so let me look at the OED again. No, it's not in yet. A voice vote, but not voice note. So, as you know, the Oxford English Dictionary is a little bit slower to include words because once a word goes in, it never ever goes out. So, they study words for longer. Carefully. Quite right, too. Yeah. word goes in it never ever goes out so they study words for longer carefully quite right too yeah because the future you know they'll be looking back all these words to tell us what the era was

like anyway we've had a voice note haven't we should listen to the first one shats hi suzy and giles i've just been listening to another podcast and the speaker said undated i misheard him initially and thought he said inundated. To my knowledge, inundated means overrun by things. So how is this related to undated, meaning to not date things? Thank you. Love listening to you both. Your knowledge, Susie, and Giles' amazing stories brighten my day.

Vicky, your Braintree. What a nice message. Thank you very much indeed. What's the answer to our question about undated? I know. I love questions like this because it makes me pause and think, you know, I never ever thought about that. You can undate something and then you can inundate something.

And, you know, you might think, well, is there a connection? There isn't, Vicky. I don't know if you were actually hoping for one, which I would understand, but they are entirely different. And it all really depends how you divide the word. So inundate, I'll start from that. That's from the late 16th century. And it's from a Latin word meaning flooded.

So for the Romans, inundare meant to flow into. And actually, if you take it back a step further, under, U-N-D-A or under, meant a wave. So when we talk about undulating, things are moving a bit like waves. Undated is simply using un, the negative prefix for dated. So there's no under, there is a whole word, there's no U-N-D-A, there's no wave in there at all. So they are entirely distinct, but I had never, ever even challenged a connection there or thought about it. So thank you for that. Thank you very much indeed, Vicky. Now, here's another one.

And this is a voice note. You'll recognise from the accent that this comes from Red Banks, South Australia. G'day, Suzy and Giles. I recently discovered your podcast and have been working through the episodes. I've been dazzled by them. I submitted a paper to an American journal, which was accepted for publication, provided I replaced the word resourcing with an accepted term. The OED gives resourcing as dating to 1917,

but its meaning would be lost on readers, apparently. It made me wonder about word differences, which led me to ponder their origins. Are many Americanisms, much loathed by Australian parents in the 1970s, archaic English words that fell out of use in the UK and in Australia? I suspect American English took its own course. Australian English kept pace with British English. A recent episode dealt with terms of endearment. How did the word bastard become an acceptable expression of mateship?

Yours in words, Andrew Kidd, Red Banks, which is in South Australia. I love that. Do you know what? That's how I'm going to sign off in future. Yours in words. I think that's quite beautiful. It's brilliant, isn't it? It is quite beautiful. Well, let me start with the question as to how many archaic English words are

in North American English versus Australian. I think it would almost be impossible to quantify. There are certain myths that persist. For example, there is a story that you hear quite often that in the Appalachian Mountains, there is a people who speak only in Shakespearean English, for example. And there's no evidence for that, as far as I am aware. But undoubtedly, when the early settlers from Britain went to North America, and as we've talked about before, Giles, it wasn't always happy encounters with the indigenous peoples there. So we have to not always see it as voyages of happiness and discovery. There was a lot of hardship amongst the settlers, but also amongst the indigenous

peoples as well. But undoubtedly, English then was in a real period of flux. Dialect abounded, spelling was all over the place, as we've already mentioned. And so a lot of those changing, evolving words and the sort of vibrancy of the language of the time went over there as well. So it's very likely that there are words in North American English that look back to that time, and we've kind of lost them. Because the other thing to remember is that there was concerted effort on both sides of the Atlantic to establish a national identity through language. So for the Americans, rejecting the king's English was tantamount to rejecting the king. And for the Britons, think of Samuel Johnson, who really loathed, well, he seemed to loathe Americans as well as Americanisms.

He wanted to preserve a kind of pure language at the beginning. So there was a real effort to stamp out commonalities, etc. However, I think I would say, because I'm banging on a bit, that there are probably more Britishisms in Australian English and certainly more dialect words. Andrew's right about this. Again, sort of brought over and many of the dialect words that were once flourishing in Britain have now been entirely lost from our shores here, but flourish in Australia. And they've even got their own variety of Cockney rhyming slang as well, which is amazing. But it deserves a much longer answer, Andrew, than I can give at this point, but it is a fascinating subject. And I will just tell you about bastard and how it has been reclaimed to be a sort of term of affection.

Originally, really interesting etymologically, because bastard probably comes from a word bastum in medieval Latin, which meant a horse's saddle, a pack saddle. someone who was conceived by the loose living mule driver, as was the implication, who used a pack saddle for a pillow, slept with someone in the place that he was stopping over and then was off the next morning to the next town. So the ensuing resulting child would then be considered illegitimate. So it's got a sort of strange story behind it, but like many words that have been used as insults against people, and bastard really was an insult, as we know from Shakespeare's time and King Lear, etc. It has been reclaimed by the people against whom it's been used. And as you say, now used very affectionately. And actually, our biggest taboo of all, the C word is used very affectionately in Ireland sometimes as well. Really? I've never heard that before. Yeah, a lot of these have quite strange trajectories. Used of a person? Yeah, it's considered more...

Well, it depends how you use it, of course. It still has a lot of power, but you can call someone that. And I think that actually calling someone a dick in Ireland is worse than calling... I mean, this is my inference, is worse than calling someone the C word. Well, we need people from Ireland to let us know, please get in touch. Which is worse, the C word or being a dick or you just being a plain old bastard? Purple people at somethingrhymes.com is where you send your comments. And if you want to hear three interesting words that you haven't heard before, explained by Susie Dent, or indeed even Susanna Dent, this is where you stay because it's time for your trio, Susanna. why this one that I'm about to tell you died away. It's not salacious. So we talk about salacious

gossip, which is sort of, you know, kind of dirty and sordid in some way, but salacious, which means soothing or comforting. Salacious. S-O-L-A-C-I-O-S. S-O-L. And it's got a beautiful sound to it, but as I say, sadly, too close in sound to the other one. So I think that's why it's gone. They're all beginning with S today. My next one is to soodle, which I love. Soodling is part of the big lexicon that belongs to sauntering, just wandering aimlessly, dawdling, pootling, tootling. To soodle is to linger or dawdle, essentially, but it's a lovely old dialect word. And speaking about salacious gossip, one word for gossip or idle chit-chat, I think this is from Northumberland, this one, is

splatherdab, which I just think sounds brilliant. So stop giving me all this splatherdab. Those are three great words. Well done. They're all from the English dialect dictionary, which is, I have to say, a fascinating read. Do you have a poem for us today? I have a poem for you today. This coming Sunday on the 17th of March, I'm going to find myself at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. Oh, lovely. Of course, if you're listening to this after this Sunday, I won't be there. I'm just there this Sunday because we're raising money for this beautiful theatre in Kingston. Yeah. for this beautiful theatre in Kingston.

Yeah. And I'm doing a show with my friend, the model Twiggy, model, actress, a person who features in the dictionary herself from way back in the 1960s. And through being a friend of Twiggy, I have met her husband, who's a very distinguished actor called Lee Lawson. Lee Lawson. Do you know Lee? I was in love with Lee Lawson after Tessa the Derby Wills.

Well, there you are. And he's still incredibly handsome, and he's still a great actor. But he's more than that, as I discovered. He's a poet. And I've read a lot of his poems. And he's given me an anthology of his new poems, not yet published, but it will be. And he's allowing me to dip into it and share a few poems with you. And I've opened it at random today, and I've come across a poem simply called This Boy. And Lee said to me, you know, it's a mystery what triggers the birth of a poem. But he said, obviously, often it's extreme emotion. And this poem that he's written here, This Boy, was born shortly after his first grandson, Solomon, was born. I think

you'll enjoy the poem. It's simply called This Boy by Lee Lawson. He gives me joy, this boy. Unspeakable, inexpressible, this boy gives me joy. Inexplicable, unexplainable, this boy brings me joy. Let bells ring, choirs sing, chimes chime, poets rhyme. Trumpets trump, drums drum, feet stamp, guitars strum. Higher than the moon, oh, hotter than the sun, deeper than the sea is the joy this boy brings to me. Oh, that's lovely. Isn't that a lovely poem? Yeah.

To write on the birth of your grandchild. It's fantastic. Anyway, that's by Lee Lawson. Good. And the grandchild will always, always have that as well. Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? Lovely. Well, we hope you found it enjoyable as well, as much as we do.

So please keep following us. You can find us on social media as well, at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook, or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And as we mentioned at the top of the show, please do consider the Purple Plus Club if you fancy listening ad-free. And you will also find exclusive bonus episodes on words and language. Something Rhymes With Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Naya Deo, with additional production from Charlie Murrell, Jennifer Mistry, Mathias Torres Soleil,

Ollie Wilson, and... he's back. He's back. For one week only. Aren't we lucky? Yes. No sign of his dog, though. He's a beautiful dog, the Scully. Yeah. No soodle-hee.