Something Rhymes with Purple - Corpsicle

Episode Date: August 27, 2019

Don't pass on, this week we’re facing up to the grim vocabulary of death. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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view of it, I have to say, because we're going to talk about death today, aren't we, Giles? We are going to talk about death, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm going to talk about... Death or the podcast? Well, in a way, both, to be honest with you. When you get to my age, you become resigned to death, and I think you probably think about death more often. I've had a new approach to death since recently a friend of mine who is a Freudian analyst said to me, I saw you tweeting that your favorite occupation is arranging your bookshelves.

And it's one of my favorite things. I love putting my books in order. Alphabetical order? Well, themes and then alphabetical within the themes. So, for example, all the biographies is by surname of subject. Yes. But then in other areas, history, it'll be by years, you know, it'll be through history. So it depends.

If it's faith, I do it by different faiths in alphabetical order of faith. So Christian would become before Jewish, would become before Muslim. So it's organized in that sort of a way. Do you have to know your books inside out? I love doing that. I have thousands and thousands of books. I don't necessarily read them. In fact, there's not much time for reading by the time I've sorted them out.

So I love to sort them out. And I have them very straight on the shelf, and they come right to the edge. And I enjoy doing that. And my Freudian friend said, ah, you're thinking more and more about death, I see. I said, what do you mean? He said, ah, people do this. They organize their books because they think that's how they can control their life it's an it's a mark of trying to put order but like a pregnant woman nesting isn't it sort of getting ready oh is that what instinctively yes we nest well we do we sort of just clean our house get it sort of you know ship shape well people the new arrival people like me who are on their way closer probably to death than you barring accidents like me uh we are organizing our bookshelves to make them neat and tidy.

And, of course, my friend said to me, there's nothing you can do about death. It is inevitable. So just hang a bit loose. You needn't spend all this time organizing your bookshelves to that extent. As Shakespeare says in Hamlet, all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity. It is beautiful. So we've got to accept it. But we find it difficult to accept, don't we?

What is the language of death? you're talking about because um go back to at the middle ages and the relative normality of deathment that there was no need for the euphemism that we employ today and in fact they were pretty obsessed with death because in the middle ages everybody everybody always dies but then they died much younger i mean the the people died in their 20s and 30s and many people they might have 10 children but half of them or more would die. Very, very sad. And there would be not just graphic portrayals of dying, but also manuals that were designed to educate you on how to die in a graceful and proper manner. And the thing you're going to quote to me, what period does it come from?

This is, again, going back to the Middle Ages. La danse macabre was the dance of the dead. back to the middle ages la danse macabre was the dance of the dead and aller à la danse macabre in french was to to do the dance of the dead it was it was a euphemism sort of euphemism for uh for dying um and you have to remember that nursery rhymes at this time we've talked about this a little bit when we talked about euphemisms but they were full of allusions to dying you remember the death and burial of poor jack robin who caught blood? I said to fly with my little dish, I caught his blood and ring a ring of roses, etc. So death then was fairly natural and described in a very matter of fact way. It's only now when it's less immediate, I suppose, in our daily lifestyle. It's still there. Didn't it begin in the Victorian age, this using euphemisms for death? What you're saying,

in the olden times, death was part of life, very much part of life. Because you died young, your children, many of them, will have died. You had to accept it. And you're saying as the years have gone by, our lives have become longer, death is more unusual. We are nervous about confronting it. Which is strange when you think about it, because, you know, video games, TV programs, films, you name it, you know, have really violent imagery all to do with death. So in that way, we're exposed to it all the time. Except it doesn't seem real, because, you know, they bounce back.

They're just cartoon figures. I mean, they're there. I see my grandchildren firing guns at the TV screen from little consoles and people fall off cliffs and boom, but they bounce back up again. And maybe they assume that, boom, they're going to bounce back up. Yeah. It's quite a difficult thing, isn't it, for kids to grapple with that, actually,

especially when they think about their parents dying. I find there's a sort of twin thing with kids. And I don't know about you, but I used to fantasise about being an orphan, not because I hated my parents, but because there were so many stories about orphans. But because they hated you. Oh, probably. That so many stories about orphans. Because they hated you. Probably.

That's a joke. They probably did. They loved you. But so many stories and sort of popular imagination to do with being an orphan. It was somehow very romantic. And I was such a romantic fantasist as a child. Well, those Victorian writers like Hans Anderson and earlier the Brothers Grimm. Yeah, they were pretty brutal. They are. There are some grim stories there. There are mean we've sanitized them completely haven't we what is

the one little red riding hood doesn't she go isn't she going to be eaten up she's eaten isn't she by the wolf and then in modern more modern tales she's rescued and reunited with her mom oh no she's that's right she's eaten and then somebody splits the belly of the wolf. And out she comes again, so reborn. Totally alive, despite having been masticated. But interestingly, if you go back, we mustn't get too deep here, but if you go to the origins, you know, the source of the Christian faith, it is all about rebirth. You know, you're going to be born again. You may die on this world, but there will be a future world in which all will come well. So now let's just talk about how we talk about death today. One of the things that does irritate me is people using the word pass.

So-and-so has passed. I heard it on the news the other day. If they've not passed, they have died. If they'd passed, they could pop in. They're just passing. Oh, yes, do pop in. I can't say, no, it's a funeral. They've not passed. They've died. If they'd passed, they could pop in. Yeah. They're just passing. Oh, it's to pop in. I can't say, no, it's a funeral. They've not passed. They've gone. Yeah. Let's face it. But I suppose the thing with euphemisms is they're trying to be kind. But passing is not a phrase I like.

No, I agree. It's just it's not real, is it? It's that again, it's that one step removed linguistic distancing that we have. removed linguistic distancing that we have. Well, should we just talk about some of the euphemisms for what might happen before we get to the cremation stage? Oh, yes, popping your clogs. Popping clogs, counting the daisies, popping clogs. Nobody quite knows where that comes from, except your clogs probably fall off when you're horizontal. Do your feet explode?

And clogs were once very, very common factory wear. So clogs were much more a part of daily life when this idiom was invented. Yeah, everyone wore clogs. Everyone wore clogs, particularly in fashion. But popping your clogs, could it be that, I mean, is this an urban myth that you explode in things? It's not an urban myth that after, that you can, I know this because one of my murder mysteries, I did some research and went to a morgue and you can go to a morgue where there are dead bodies that suddenly sit up. mysteries, I did some research and went to a morgue and you can go to a morgue where there are dead bodies

that suddenly sit up, arms move because before or as rigor mortis is setting in, still muscles can twitch and so I've actually seen a bit of that happening so popping your clogs could be something to do with... Well, possibly. I don't know. Possibly. We talk

about... Biting the dust. Biting the dust, kissing the ground, snuffing it, being written out of the script. And of course, there's that wonderful Monty Python sketch, the dead parrot sketch, which is absolutely fantastic. So, you know, and yet the act of murder has got much more sort of direct, vivid imagery attached to it. Putting daylight through somebody, knocking them off, erasing them, liquidating them, wasting, whacking them, wiping them out.

Murder, of course, was once applied in ancient law to secret murder. That was the unlawful killing. Open murder of somebody to wrong or right was absolutely fine, but murder was secret murder that was outside the confines of the law. What is the origin of the word murder?

Murder is Germanic, mordor. Meaning death? Meaning death. So to murder someone is to bring death to them? Absolutely. Actually, it's mord in German. I'm getting mixed up with Tolkien. It's mord, but yes, it's linked to that.

It's all got its Germanic origins. Snuffed it. I like snuffed it snuffed it snuffed in the candle of life it's like a candle the candle of life is snuffed out

shuffled off this mortal coil shuffled off this mortal coil that's Shakespearean isn't it yeah so that's I would just say some of these phrases in fact are not euphemisms

they're poetic in a way they're elegant ways of phrasing it I suppose that's true but they're still slightly deodorising, aren't they? They are. I went for my book, Modern Tribes, where I talked about the jargons of different communities.

I went to visit some undertakers who were wonderfully funny and full of really black humor. And they talked about, I mean, I don't think they'd ever actually encountered one of these, but somebody who wanted to be cryogenically frozen so that they may be revived in later life. Once dead, they were known as corpsicles, which is brilliant. Because they're like icicles. But they do, you see, even they use euphemisms as well. So they talk about their furniture for the coffins. Would you like to come and see the furniture? Which is quite strange.

And the corpses are known as customers. Death-related language, though. Deadlines. Got to meet the deadline. Deadline? That's quite grim, isn't it? Where does that come from? I think it's time for a break, and then I'll come back and tell you about the original deadline.

It's quite morbid. Oh. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

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And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Giles, welcome back. We're both eating bananas. We are. We're having a banana because we're celebrating life as we talk about death. I'm hoping to live forever. Are you? I'm wanting to be the first of the great immortals. Wouldn't that be lovely? Well, it would be interesting. Maybe, I don't know, as the line is, to die must be an awfully big adventure, comes from Peter Pan. It's interesting. Peter Pan, written in 1904, great classic, right from the beginning, children's play. It confronted the idea of death. And it was a play written for families, for children. But now, we, I think, rightly protect children from the idea of, you don't want to alarm and frighten children before they're ready for it. When you reach my age, you need to think about these things.

You need to make sure you've got a will that you're planning for the future. So it's simple for your children. They're living forever. I think that's why we're slightly obsessed with vampires in modern culture, because they are pretty much immortal, aren't they? Yes. As long as they get enough blood. Did you tell me the origin of deadlines? Oh, no.

So deadline, as I say, quite a morbid beginning because the original deadline was a line drawn in the sand around a military prison. And any prisoner who went beyond that line was liable to be shot. Gosh. I remembered a couple of more things that I picked up from funeral director's jargon. You've probably heard of ash cash, which is any priest or person conducting a religious service, a funeral service, will get a little bit more if the person is cremated. And there are cremains, the cremains of the day. Forgive me. Ash cash.

You get more if someone is cremated than if they're bedded. I think so, yeah. Really? I think so. Ash cash? Yeah. Ash cash.. You get more if someone is cremated than if they're bedded. I think so, yeah. I think you do. I think so. Ashcash? Yeah. Ashcash. Well, doctors definitely do. I know doctors, in return for filling in forms,

sanctioning the release for cremation, they definitely get ashcash. And I think priesthood too. Anybody listening in a religious capacity will be able to let me know. I think, yes, do let us know if you are somebody who collects ashcash. I think it's more likely to be a doctor signing a certificate saying this person is dead and they therefore can be cremated. Because once they're cremated, all the evidence is gone. You know, there were one of the disadvantages of leaving the European Union, if we are, we don't know quite where we are now, but if we are, is that we will no longer be bound by the European Coffin Regulation of 2002, which requires air holes in every coffin.

Oh, and we haven't even begun to talk about Saved by the Bell. Nothing to do with people being buried with bells. Apparently it did happen sometimes, but Saved by the Bell is more a boxing idiom. And the graveyard shift does not come from graveyard diggers sitting by the grave in case that bell was rung either. So lots of stories, apocryphal stories relating to death.

But the good news is that if you die and you're buried... Dead ringer. That's another one. Sorry, carry on. Dead ringer, nothing to do with those graveyards either, those graves. It's everything to do with a racehorse

that was a dead spitting image of another that was put into a race and often did... It was a dark horse, often did much, much better than the horse that people thought it was. It was a dead ringer. No, I've got it clearly. It looked exactly like.

Yes. Yeah, very good. If you are buried in a European Union approved coffin, there will be air holes. Okay. And that means that you don't need to panic. People apparently panic about being buried alive. Yes. Well, can you imagine?

To reassure them, there are these tiny air vents in every European Union-approved coffin so that you can go on breathing comfortably, feeling reassured until the very moment when the casket hits the furnace. Where to go? Where to go? Where to go to the questions from our listeners or queries. Okay, that's a nice one.

Well, we have a long, lovely email from Brandon Islaib. Probably just find pronouncing that incorrectly, Brandon. But you are listening from Seattle, where you work as one of the city's two legislation editors. Goodness. It's interesting. And it's just quite interesting. He's just asking whether there's a tipping point at which a word or idea has gained enough acceptance to start cementing it in writing and particularly in law. I don't know if there is a specific tipping point.

I don't know if there is a specific tipping point. Some people will say it's when a word enters the dictionary, if it's used enough, because obviously dictionaries chart usage rather than what's correct and what's incorrect. But I think it has to be a point where a lot of people will understand it. And if you're in law, then obviously it's people who are operating within that capacity. But the reason I love his email as well is because he says the best word in the Seattle Municipal Code is Woonerf. Now I had to look this up. Woonerf, spelled W-O-O-N-E-R-F. And it's a Dutch word for a living street. But in Seattle, it means traffic calming measures. I think it's speed bumps. But in the living streets, they have shared space traffic calming, low speeds, limits, etc. They were called sleeping policemen for a while weren't they those were yes that was a sinister thing to

call them woo nerfs or sleeping policemen it's good or traffic calming measures and the good news is apparently those traffic calming measures are terrible for your car and well for you know that don't you yes for the suspension and also for the atmosphere because you let out more as you bump over them so that's the end of sleeping policemen they're dead have you got any there no okay no i'm ready i have all the all the questions well one of them asks i think we must have talked about orphaned negatives in the past does this ring a bell orphaned negatives being um underwhelms gormlesses unkempt, etc.

And we have a question from Leon Daniels. I'm also on the trail of opposites. I hope you can discuss whether there really are opposites of words like inertia. Even Sir Humphrey, and yes, Minister, was forced to define inert as not ert. Well, actually, there was a verb to ert in the olden days. It comes from, I just remember the other day I said that to egg somebody on comes from the viking egg yan meaning to incite or urge well to earth meant pretty much the same thing to urge on or encourage um so you could earth in the olden days and to be in earth i suppose is to be without you know that sort of capacity but in fact the art there is is all to do with art um art being

the sort of art of movement and a sort of process or method so inertia sadly does not then produce ursha much as i'd love it to i've had an amusing email from julie in dover in kent it's a notice she saw in an office the notice read would the person who took the step ladder yesterday, please bring it back or further steps will be taken. Very good. I like that too. Craig Roberts. Now, Craig is such a loyal fan of Countdown. He had the best dog in the world, a guide dog called Bruce, who is my soulmate in the Countdown studio because he comes with Craig

and I always give Bruce biscuits. I'm not sure he's supposed to give guide dog biscuits, but anyway, I always give some to Brucey because he's just a beautiful, beautiful golden labrador. Anyway, Craig has written in to say, Hi Susie and Giles. My question for Susie is, how do certain medical conditions originate

in terms of their names? As I have a visual impairment, I wondered about the origins of glaucoma. Ah, and is it glaucoma or glaucoma? Oh, that's an interesting one. I'd say glaucoma, but I suppose it depends on where the word comes from. Well, it comes from the Latin and ultimately Greek, so it's got a classical heritage. I would say glaucoma myself.

Good. If you'd say it, that's what I'll say. And it goes back to glaucus, which is an old adjective meaning bluish green or grey. And in botanical terms, it means covered with bloom. It's sort of covered slightly with almost like a film in front of your eyes. Describes it rather well. Yeah. So it's obviously increased tension of what they call the globe of the eye. It was formerly used to denote cataracts.

So the cataract bit makes sense. So thank you, Craig, for writing in, and I look forward to seeing you in the Countdown studio very soon. Good. I'm going to give you one little game that somebody has said to me, do you know this game? I do know this game. I didn't invent it. It's been going for years. But this is somebody who's written in called Alan,

who, it's the I'll be with you game. Do you know this game? No. I'll be with you in two shakes, said the Freemason. You know, they're famous for their funny handshakes. I'll be with you in an instant, said the marketing man. Do I get that one? Yeah.

I'm sure I do. I'll be with you in two sex, said the hermaphrodite. You get it? That's very good. I'll be with you in a trice, said the third man. I'll be with you in half a tick, said the vivisectionist. Oh, that's subtle. Half a tick. Oh, my goodness. I'll be with you in half a mo. Give you a clue. Half a mo, in half a moe give you a clue half a moe spelt m-h-o i'll be with you in half a moe said the electrician i'll be with you in next to no time n-e-c-k-s next to no time said the executioner i'll be with you in a twinkling i said you know that two sex thing reminds me of Rachel and I on Countdown decided we were going out to the Christmas party. And so we invited people on Twitter to come up with good names for Countdown clock tales.

And the best one, the one that won was 30 sex on the beach. Oh, I like it. I love that one. Very good. It's time, I think, for your trio. It is. Susie's trio. These are three words that you think are intriguing

and that we might like to know more about and we can use to enhance our vocabularies. That's what we're keen on. So my three words. Do you ever talk about your chums? I do often. Yeah, slightly dated term I was going to say, but maybe not. It's a very dated term. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the work of Charles Hamilton. Charles Hamilton was the most prolific writer of the 20th century, a lifetime output of many millions of words. If he's remembered at all, he is remembered as the creator of Billy Bunter, the fat owl of the remove, a pupil at Greyfriars School. This man, Charles Hamilton, under the name of Frank Richards,

he had about 40 different pen names. He wrote for the comics, The Gem and The Magnet from the 1900s right up to the 1930s. And then subsequently, he wrote novels mainly about Billy Bunter and Bessie Bunter, Billy Bunter's sister. And he went on doing that till he died in about 1960. Anyway, chums, that was very much his sort of word. At school, Billy Bunter had chums. OK, well, I don't know whether this was true of you both, but actually chum goes back to chambermate. So it was somebody with whom you shared, first of all, your bedroom or your digs

or, you know, a sort of mate in uni, that kind of thing. That's absolutely right. Billy Bunter and his chums, they were at boarding school. They were all in together. So it's your chambermate, yourum chum very good okay so um have you ever been described as zany i have before that's a word i do know dates back to crazy people it dates back to shakespeare and his zany's as is in twelfth night i know there's a line about zany's yes they were comic performers who would accompany a clown or an acrobat

who would imitate their master's acts, I suppose, in a ludicrously awkward way. These would be called Mary Andrews. Oh, Mary Andrew. Or Jack Puddings sometimes. And they were kind of professional jesters or buffoons. And they take their name from the Latin Gianni, which itself was a shortening of Giovanni. And in Italian comedy, basically, this was the stock character role of Gianni, who was like a buffoon on stage. This links up with the famous Commedia dell'arte.

The Italian theatre that had these stock figures, Harlequin, Columbine, Pantalone. Yes. The ridiculous old man, the zany. Yes. Pantalone. Yes. The Ridiculous Old Man. The Zany.

Yes. And they, that in fact, eventually gave us our pantomime from these characters. Brought over, I think, the Commedia dell'Arte to this country with the restoration of King Charles. Oh, interesting. And they came over from France and Italy. But zany as a word goes back far further than that. So a zany, if you are zany, it means you're slightly kooky. Yes, and it's an adjective, isn't it, nowadays? He's zany, meaning you're a bit kooky.

But a zany was a comic character. A comic buffoon on the stage. Like a Mary Andrews. I think we've lost the buffoonery. Like a Jack, I love Jack. Jack Pudding's great. I love Jack. I think Samuel Pepys talks about Mary Andrews and Jack Pudding's.

And my third one, have you ever swung your way from branch to branch by your arms sadly not i've never been a bit of a swinger in any shape or form okay well if anybody does they are i mean how often are you going to need this word i just like it you are brachiating b-r-a-c-h-i-A-T-E is the infinitive. That's the verb. Because brachia is a branch, isn't it? Exactly. Because in your body, you have... And botanically, it's branches.

Absolutely right. And in your body, your blood vessels, they're referred to as different brachial bits and bobs. Absolutely right. And you mentioned your friend's hinge and bracket the other day. The brackets that we use in punctuation are the little arms at the end of the bit that you're inserting. Oh. Yeah, in brackets. Oh, I love it. Now that, curiously, this is why it's worth listening to the end of these podcasts, because sometimes the best bit comes at the end. The

bracket, as in closed brackets, open brackets, is to do with branches. It's to do with arms and branches. Arms. Yeah, same idea. Limbs. Limbs at the end of... So your three words this week are chums, as in cheerful chums, zany, as in we like to be a bit zany, and... Brachiate. Brachiate.

Using your arms, brachiate means? Yes, it means to swing, well, really, to swing from the branches. To swing from the branches is to brachiate. Is to brachiate. It's to brachiate. But in botanical terms, as you say, it just means having arms, having branches and pairs running out at right angles with each other so they look like a pair of arms.

We have to swing out of the arms of our... Well, speak for yourself. No, no. We have to swing out of the arms of our listeners for another week. We'll be back next Tuesday with something rhymes with purple. God willing, if death doesn't intervene. But if it does, would you carry on, please, without me?

Likewise. Yeah, we will. In fact, I'll dedicate. Empty chair. Empty chair. We'll dedicate the programme to you. I'll tell you all the things I meant to say to you, but never quite got round to. Yeah. I'll say a few words at your funeral. Will you say a few words at mine? Happily. Well, well sadly obviously

yes, in fact you can introduce three in fact you can have three good words to bring along to the funeral make them laugh because you're my chum be a bit zany and you can embrace me ok, we're swinging away now we brachiaters, something rhymes with purple is there something else production

produced by Paul Smith with additional production from Lawrence Bassett, Steve Hackerman, and Gully. One day we'll discover what those three people do.