Something Rhymes with Purple - Dr. Johnson

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

Dictionaries, depression, a doctorate and a 311th birthday to celebrate…can you guess? Oh yes, this week Susie and Gyles are saluting one of their literary heroes: Doctor Samuel Johnson! We will journey from Litchfield to London and whilst liaising with the literary greats of the day (and falling in love) we will discover how Johnson's desire to halt the degradation of the English language gave us his dictionary. A tumultuous tale involving embryos, rants, hiccups and kisses and a trip to the brothel (not by Johnson himself, of course!) and a tale that has put him amongst one of the most important people in the history of recording language. A Somethin’ Else production. If you would like to nominate your word for ‘that’ sound that older people make when they sit down or stand up, or if you have any other questions for Susie and Gyles, you can get in touch at [e-mail] Susie’s Trio: Psittacism - meaningless or mechanical repetition of words and phrases Exfamiliation - exclusion from ones family Scrouging - inconvenience or discomfort someone by standing too close to them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a time in your life when I hope you can escape the world outside. You may be confused by all the messages coming from on high about how we're supposed to cope with the latest outbursts in the pandemic. But don't worry, if you've been following what's going on, you simply haven't been listening properly. And the idea is that it is confusing. But we, I hope, won't be confusing because we're going to talk about words and language. I say we, it's not just me, it's principally my friend Susie Dent. Hello. How are you, Susie? I'm okay, actually. We say hello because

we're not in the same room. We could be in the same room socially distanced but we are 60, 70 miles apart. You are in Oxford. Have you always lived in Oxford? No gosh. Grew up in Surrey then studied here in Oxford then I went to America to study then I lived in Soho for quite a long time. And then I moved back to Oxford. So, best place in the world to live, I have to say. I've lived all my life in London. But today we are going to Litchfield. We're going to Litchfield because having talked about this, I think almost since the podcast began,

we're going to devote today's podcast to the world, the life, the genius, the charm, the irascibility, the nature of Dr. Samuel Johnson. 18th of September, 1709, 13th December, 1784. So in the run-up to his birthday, we're going to have a run-around Dr. Johnson. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, whenever we had this idea, I was asking you if you knew how Dr. Johnson became Dr. Johnson? Oh, yes. And we conjectured that maybe he ran out of money, but did eventually get a doctorate from the university. But I wasn't sure. Did you find out? I did indeed find out. You're quite right. He left Oxford University without a degree because after 13 months, he simply couldn't afford to stay there. But he did eventually receive a degree.

Because the reason he's famous, the reason we're going to talk about him is he created this amazing dictionary. We'll tell you more about that in a moment, in 1755. And when he did that, the University of Oxford awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts. But that didn't make him a doctor. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765, 10 years later, by Trinity College, Dublin. And then another 10 years later, about nine years before he died, the University of Oxford made him a doctor as well. It's worth saying that actually he struggled for money throughout the writing of the dictionary. I mean, he had patrons, but he famously defined lexicographers as harmless drudges, as we said last time.

And he said, I think this is just such a lovely quote. He says, we naturally indulge those ideas that please us. Hope will predominate in every mind till it has been suppressed by frequent disappointments. And he was quite prone to depression, wasn't he? I think he didn't sleep too well and he had moments of real gloom. We know so much about him because he was lucky enough to have his biography written in his lifetime by a fellow, a young man called James Boswell. So Boswell's life of Dr. Johnson became one of the best-selling books of its time, and it's still in print. I've got in front of me one of my favourite dictionaries of literary biography. It's every man's dictionary of

literary biography. And it's from this that I get the dates that I've given you, 1709 to 1784, describes him as lexicographer, which is what you do, you're a lexicographer too. What's the origin of that word, lexicographer? Well, lexis, of course, is vocabulary, so words, essentially, and graph is to write. So it's a writer of words, really. Essentially, we are people who write definitions in dictionaries, but obviously it's more to it than that. So that's why he's most famous. But he was also a critic. He was a poet. He was the son of a bookseller from Litchfield. He received his early education in Litchfield and

then went in 1728 to Pembroke College, Oxford. He had to leave, as we mentioned, without taking his degree. And then for a short time, he worked at a school in Market Bosworth. Now, I say he worked at a school, he was a teacher, but they would have called him an usher. Is that right? Teachers used to be called ushers. Are you familiar with that word? Do you know it? It's a word that Dickens uses for a teacher. Oh, interesting. Oh, come on.

No, I honestly didn't. I have learned something today. I'm going to look this straight up. I had absolutely no idea. I know that the word pedant goes back to the latin for a teacher but here go my fingers i'm going to look up asha asha yeah i thought it was somebody who was in charge of the door yes that was its first meaning any official or servant who admits people to hall chamber a doorkeeper. Go on. Then transferred in figurative context. Then an officer at court, Chamberlain. Male attendant on a lady, one who precedes another. Species of moth. Here we go.

1512, an assistant to a schoolmaster or headteacher, an undermaster. Exactly. Acting under another. I never knew that. And in fact, I did that before I went to university. I went back to one of my schools and I sort of helped out teaching for a master. Exactly. I never knew that. And in fact, I did that before I went to university. I went back to one of my schools and I sort of helped out teaching for a term. So he was a kind of teacher's assistant, but he hated it. He didn't feel he was up for it. He gave that up. And then he went on

to work for a publisher in Birmingham. And then he began writing himself and he published anonymously a translation of a clergyman's Voyage to Abyssinia. And he was still very young and he got married to a lady called Elizabeth Porter, who was a widow, 20 years his senior. But this was the good news. She came with a diary. She brought him £800 a year. But they were very happy, weren't they? It was a love match. He wasn't just the toy boy, though he was the toy boy in the sense that he was young and amusing. Harry she brought him 800 pounds a year they were very happy weren't they it was a love match it

wasn't it wasn't just the toy boy though he was the toy boy in the sense that he was young and amusing um and she was 20 years older and he started a school himself near Litchfield which wasn't very successful in fact at one stage I think he had three pupils one of which though this is the important part was the young David Garrick And David Garrick became the most famous actor of the 18th century. And it's after David Garrick that the Garrick Theatre in London is named, the Garrick Street, the Garrick Club. And he, though a little younger than Johnson, they became friends, and they travelled to London together. And that was in 1737. So he comes to London with Garrick and that's when his life really begins to take off because he contributes to a magazine called The Gentleman's Magazine.

He's writing up parliamentary debates in a very free way, rather as Dickens would do a hundred years later. And he begins to meet some of the great writers of his time, people like Pope and Savage and others. And he begins writing for magazines like The Rambler and The Spectator. And that's how he carried on really, earning his living doing that until the death of his wife in 1752. So they were only married really for 15 years. And he called her his dear Teti. And he was very sad. And in a moment, I'll tell you about some of the other women in his life. But you now tell me about the dictionary. So here he is, a literary man, come to London, knowing everybody in the literary circle, because London was a much smaller place.

How does the idea of a dictionary come to him? And what does he do? He didn't like the way that English was going. And there are many, many resonances, I suppose, with today. You know, a lot of people complain about the state of English, is it going to the dogs and it will never be the same again? And where's the golden age, et cetera, et cetera. And Johnson actually was very much like this as well. Now, by the mid 18th century, so this we're talking about 1745, probably, or a little bit later, the rise of literacy amongst the general public was much higher. And, you know, books and texts and maps and newspapers were widely available for, you know, almost the first time. And so there was an explosion in the printed word. And so there

was a real need for an authoritative dictionary of the English language. Now, Johnson's Dictionary was not the first. It wasn't even amongst the top 10, really, but they were pretty much kind of glossaries. And what Johnson decided to do, he wanted to draw on previous efforts, but he also wanted to create something extremely new. And he got patronage from the Earl of Chesterfield. Eventually.

Eventually. Because the first time, the Earl of Chesterfield wasn't happy to help him, was he, Lord Chesterfield? No, exactly right. You probably know more about his patrons than me, actually. I know he defined patrons in quite a scathing way within his history. Absolutely. Yeah. And he felt that Chesterfield hadn't made good on his promise to be the work's patron, and he was very upset about the whole thing. And it was a very expensive project because what he did, and this is why he probably became impoverished and depressed, is he wanted to take all his sources from classical literature. So in order to preserve English as he thought it should be preserved in a, not a perfect state, but before it really went downhill. He thought, I will look to the greats and I will take all my records of words from them

and define these words accordingly. So it was a vast amount of reading that he had to do in preparing his, you know, his entries. And in his methodology before he started, he set off, as I say, to preserve English. But in the course of writing the dictionary, he realised that he couldn't, that actually English could never be frozen and it would die if it was. So he became much more open-handed really towards English. That said, he hated slang and so many of his definitions will say a low cant word that should not be permitted into the English language. So Johnson's dictionary is quite subjective in many ways. And yet it is a landmark in the history of lexicography because it's huge, it's comprehensive. Well, apart from quite a lot

of slang that got missed out. And it's more or less based on kind of modern principles. out. And it's more or less based on kind of modern principles. So, you know, it was a momentous thing to have written, but it caused him huge grief. And you'll probably know more about the personal repercussions and the personal significance for him. Well, he found it extremely exhausting. Some of the definitions are very amusing. Lexicographer, as you say, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless grudge. Yeah. A patron, commonly a wretch who supports with insolence. That's it. And is paid with flattery. Exactly.

Because Chesterfield offered him money once the dictionary was a success. And he said, you know, when I wanted it, you didn't give it to me. And now you do. I don't need it anymore. Yeah. But his famous definition, because he always was a bit playful and teasing about the Scots, particularly because his friend James Boswell was a Scotsman. His definition for oats, oats, a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the

people. It's brilliant. Do you know what my favourite one is? It's only a tiny entry, but it's to hiccup. And he defines it as to sob with a convulsion of the stomach. I love that. And I also love the one for a tarantula. He calls it an insect whose bite is cured only by music. So he reflects quite a lot of the beliefs at the time. A tarantula was thought to cause tarantism, which was this kind of mad disease in which people were compelled to dance and dance and dance until they fell down and sometimes perished with exhaustion. That gave us the tarantella. So he was reflecting very much the things at the time. And he didn't know everything at all. And he was sometimes quite flippant about what he didn't know.

So to worm is slightly perplexingly described in his dictionary as to deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue, which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad. Oh, it's wonderful. I think he just thought he gave up with that one. The dictionary made him celebrated and honoured. He got these degrees. He also got a pension as a result of it because he had worked very hard. He did have people helping him, but he worked very hard from his house in Goff Square in the city of London near Fleet Street. And had lockdown not happened, we would have been there today.

We would definitely have been there. And I may, when this episode goes out, I may put on Twitter a picture of me in Dr. Johnson's house because I love visiting it. I met you there. I mean, I didn't meet you there for the first time, but you and I talked. We've had a get together there. Yeah, we did. We've been around. We've been around.

That's what I call a date night. Dr. Johnson's house was Suzy Dent. Anyway, a pension of £ pounds was conferred upon him. And really, the rest of his days were to this man, Henry Thrail. Now, Henry Thrail was a wealthy brewer and for years spent much of his time with Boswell. And the kindness shown to Boswell by Mrs. Thrail has been a subject of talk and gossip for hundreds of years. She was described, Mrs. Thrail, by Carlyle, the historian, as a bright papillonaceous. What do you think papillonaceous means? Papillonaceous.

Butterfly-like. Oh, that papillon. Oh, nice. Papillonaceous. P-A-P-I-L-I-O-N-A-C-E-O-U-S. A papillonaceous creature. Can I just throw in something completely unrelated? Well, sort of related, but in a very tangential way.

Did you know that a pavilion is linked to the papillon, the butterfly? Tell me. Because a pavilion, when it's canvas stretched upon an awning, was said to look like a giant butterfly. And that's why Papillon, Steve McQueen, was so named. He had a tattoo of a butterfly on him. Anyway, I digress. Well, Mrs. Thrail had a butterfly-like personality. Let me give you Carlisle's quotation in full. The kindness and attentions of Mrs. Thrail, described by Carlisle as a bright and papillonious

creature whom the elephant loved to play with and wave to and fro upon his trunk. Because he was a bit of a bear. He was a big, burly character. And he really loved her. And he loved her after her husband died. But his last years were darkened because when Mr. Thrail died, Mrs. Thrail married somebody else, an Italian musician called Piozzi, and they became estranged. So he spent his whole life actually being depressed, being high, being low. Maybe he was,

you know, a victim of what we now call bipolar illness. We don't know. Yeah, maybe. He had a morbid fear of death, you know, a victim of what we now call bipolar illness. We don't know. Yeah, maybe. He had a morbid fear of death, you know. I'm not surprised because he had scrofula as a child, didn't he? So he was taken to see Queen Anne, whose touch was thought to cure what was called the king's evil. What was the scrofula? Scrofula is a, yeah, it's a lymphatic disease. And he was left quite disfigured by this.

But, you know, what I love is that thanks to his voracious reading and his delight in reading, when you look through his dictionary, you'll learn that Alexander the Great drank from a cup which could hold 14 pints, that asbestos has an insipid taste, he said, and that crocodiles smell much better when their bowels are removed. And there's another one which I love, which is you can get something very much like malaria by sleeping with a copy of the Iliad under your pillow.

So it's kind of full of really little personal pickups that he found in these books, which I think is wonderful. Shall I give you some more of the definitions that I love? I want some more. More definitions, please. An embryo, he describes as the offspring yet unfinished in the womb. And a rant is high-sounding language unsupported by dignity of thought. And another one that I absolutely love. I talked about a hiccup earlier.

A kiss, he describes as a salute with the lips, which is brilliant. Is Dr. Johnson the most important person in the history of recording language? Oh, good grief. No, I wouldn't say he's the most important, but he's definitely, definitely up there at the top of the list because, you know, everything that he considered, the state of the language, debates over what's right and what's wrong, you know, those all continue. And the principles that he adopted for the dictionary were, you know, groundbreaking in their time and kind of continue

in many ways today, you know, supporting his definitions of words through evidence. Okay, he took his evidence from the greats as opposed to Francis Grose, who, as you know, is one of my heroes of lexicography. Francis Grose alive at the same time as Samuel Johnson, but rather than look to the classical greats, he went to the brothels and the gambling dens and the taverns and actually collected the slang of, you know, the people whose language had kind of pretty much been overlooked. Can we go to join him in the brothels and pubs after the break? Let's do that. is just share with you this little description of Dr. Johnson as a person. Because one of the things I think about him is that he is clearly a very great man. He was regarded as a great man in his day, buried in Westminster Abbey.

There's a monument to him at St. Paul's Cathedral. And here's this description of him. Though of rough and domineering manners, Johnson had the tenderest of hearts, and his house was for years the home of several persons, such as Mrs. Williams and Levitt the surgeon, who had no claim upon him but their helplessness and their friendlessness. As Goldsmith aptly said, he had nothing of the bear but his skin. His outstanding qualities were honesty and courage, and these characterise all his works. One of the greatest and most honorable figures in English letters, he well merited the title jokingly given him by Smollett of the great champ of literature. Boswell's

marvelous life has made Johnson's bodily appearance, dress, and manners more familiar to posterity than those of any other man. The large, unfamiliar, unwieldy form, the face seamed with scrofula, the purblind eyes, the spasmodic movements, the sonorous voice, even the brown suit, metal buttons, black worsted stockings, and bushy wig, the conversation so full of matter, strength, sense, wit, and prejudice, superior in force and sparkle to the sounding, but often wearisome periods of his written style. So I wish I'd known him. I have to make do with you, Susie Dent. You're the next best thing to Dr. Johnson in my life. I am so not Samuel Johnson. And he would shudder at the very thought. But yeah,

what a man. That's a brilliant description. Let's take a break and then I'll join you in the brothel. See you there. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit.

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Xtree! Xtree! Your favorite anime is getting a new season. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. And I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. Every week, you can listen in while we break down the latest pop culture news and dish on what new releases we can't get enough of. We're covering the latest in film, video games, music, manga, and obviously, anime. Get the latest on The Anime Effect. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.

And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Also from Something Else. Katie Piper's Extraordinary People. Join Katie for a series of powerful and inspirational conversations with people who have triumphed over adversity. With guests including Fern Cotton. And what about when you get really lazy journalism?

So like people that draw just one line, they take it out of context. And that's really sad because... It is, it is. And I've also been on the receiving end of it so many times. Sometimes to really tragic levels for me where I've really not felt able to cope with it. Yeah. Zoe Sugg and Nadia Hussain.

I think the thing with women, firstly, is that women sometimes don't always like to see other women succeed. I think that's right. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of that. And I think that's why just it's really hard sometimes because in the last four years, I've changed so much. really hard sometimes because in the last four years I've changed so much.

Listen now in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all good podcast apps. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple, where I was talking about London's brothels, gambling dens, taverns, slums, dockyards. And as a counterpoint to Samuel Johnson, I mentioned Francis Grose and I've mentioned it before haven't I Giles what a guy so he was writing at the same time as Johnson as I say but had very very different methodologies for collecting language you said that Johnson actually feared death I think Gross probably had real contempt for death probably because he came across it much more he had had a naval career and then settled back in London he was gross by nature is what people would say as well as gross by name he was very large he was a lover of wine and food as was Johnson's they loved a loved a good night out. And I would so love to

know whether the two men actually met, because I think they would have had quite a lot in common and at least had a huge argument over whether slang was actually allowable in a dictionary. But Gross wrote a classical dictionary of the vulgar tongue. And he was one of the very first lexicographers to collect slang from all corners of society. Now, criminal slang had been in the very first dictionaries ever made, actually, but not to this extent. And, you know, so many occupations and pastimes, prostitutes, boxers, surveyors, booksellers, cockfighters. I mean, anybody who wasn't considered elevated enough to be within the pages of Johnson's

Dictionary. And some of them are lovely. So I think, didn't we have a sort of farty outing quite recently where I think I told you about the word fizzle, which was to break wind quietly. Well, he calls it, there's lots of emphasis on bodily functions, fizzle, a small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears frequently by old ladies and charged i.e blamed on their lap dogs and he also says a fart catcher i tweet this one quite often because i think it's quite useful fart catcher a valet or footman from his walking behind his master or

mistress but from there it became an extension for anybody who kind of sucks up to their to their master sorry that's really bad choice of phrase but you know what i mean and i mentioned kind of the gallows humor and contempt of death so you know quite often executions are sort of you know high up on the list so an eternity box was a coffin and then he talks about a dismal ditty the psalm sung by the felons at the gallows just before they are turned off so he he had been an antiquarian so he made a living by publishing books so he could read these as well as go out and collect all the stuff from the streets anything to do with sex guaranteed to get in so yes clap he calls a venereal taint he went out this is a quote he went out by haddam and came round by clapham home i.e he went out a wenching and got a clap gosh that's a big euphemism he

went out by haddam and came round by clapham home is this the origin of clap and what is the origin i mean clap for for venereal diseases oh yeah i think it was because it was thought to be divine retribution for immorality so it was a clap of thunder it was like a sort of stroke from the heavens i think that's where that one came from oh yeah and then he's got i mean he did he did have his limits so some of them he was he just refused to define, but he puts them in. So to bagpipe, a lascivious practice too indecent for explanation, he says. Oh, to bagpipe. Oh, I can picture what it might be. Well, I think we all can. But anyway, it's just, you know, he also addressed kind of contemporary issues, really.

He talked about, you know, how tradesmen's tricks needed to be avoided. So he would kind of get people in on the jargon used that might prove to be one way of scamming. So he gave us bamboozle and he gave us cock and bull story and flabbergasted. Well, he didn't coin them, but he recorded them for us. Because bamboozle is one of the words that Dr. Johnson wanted banned, I seem to remember. Well, there you go. Yeah, he would often say, as I said, you know, should not be allowed in the English language. And that very much reflects his initial intention of trying to

preserve English and not let it go to the dogs. So, you know, at some point, I just want to know whether these two ever met and had a good chinwag. I suspect not. There's no record of it whatsoever. But wow, it would have been some dinner, that one. If our listeners wanted to get hold of either of these dictionaries, how do they do that? Where do they get more information? Both of them are online. I know the Classical Dictionaries of the Vulgar Tongue is online. Jack Lynch did a really good book, which basically an abridged Johnson's Dictionary, but with all the best entries in there. So I'd recommend that. But you can get copies of the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Song. It's a bit big for bedtime reading, but honestly, it's a great read. Excellent. Now, speaking of great reads,

we have a great read every week because people get in touch with us at Something Rhymes with Purple. They communicate by emailing us purple at somethingelse.com, something without the G. Who have we heard from this week? Okay had i had a tweet and i'm really sorry i thought i'd liked this tweet so i should just come back to it and credit the name but i really hope that you're listening and can let me know who it is i need to credit with this because it's just a great question is there a word for the noise usually older people make when sitting down or standing up and i know it came from a man who considered himself to be in this category and the answer is I don't have anything apart from the phrase that's made at least two entries into our purple dictionary because I've mentioned it a couple of times is a thorough cough or a

through cough which is to cough and break wind at the same time but I kind of think you know that might happen when sitting down or standing up but should we put this one out to the purple people? I think we definitely should. I think the sound that he's referring to, this anonymous tweet, it's one I do recognise because in happier times, I tour a show and it varies every year. I'm starting again next year in April. So go to my website, you can find out what I am. And I will be able to find out what age you are because I stand in the wings. And as people come in to sit down, I listen. And I can't see them, but I can hear them. And if they sit down, I don't hear anything. I know they're young. If they sit down going, I know that they are of my sort of age.

Oh, well, I can give you something for the breathing out. It is. It's like a sigh. What is it? That's a suspiration. so to suspire is to breathe out with a sigh and it's from i don't know centuries ago and it's just us utterly beautiful and we need to bring it back but suspire that's so it's an elegant suspiring we do it elegant it depends it's very different from a through cough which is a kind of involuntary escape but as well as the size you sit down there there's a kind of, oh, oh. Creaking involved?

There is a kind of creak, a bodily creak. And also then, if the seat isn't as upholstered as you'd hope, there's a kind of ouch within it as well. Oh, I just thought of another verb for flopping down. So if you kind of collapse onto a soft surface, as they say in the OED, that's saucing. So you sauce down onto a sofa at the end of a hard day. So look, this is suss-saucing.

So there's a suss-piration and saucing, and then expiring, because sometimes, you know, you sit down there in the darkness, you die. Have you ever had people die in your audience? Obviously, I've died on stage many a time. I've several times had people, as it shows you the age of my audience several times i've had people die oh yes i'll tell you about that another day

because there's correspondence here that i have to share with you this is an old one but a good one it's from carol edwards in swansea we love swansea my wife was born in Swansea. Dylan Thomas comes from Swansea. I always recommend the Dylan Thomas Museum there. I read in a book of facts that the word posh came from the East India Company as they'd stamp their first class tickets on their ships to show port out starboard home, which is where on the ship the more desirable cabins were. Port out starboard home. So if you were going out to India, you'd be on the port side on the way out, and on the way back you'd be on the starboard. I think that this is a myth that Carol Edwards wants to know,

and you will know. What is the truth? Yeah, I think we've mentioned this one, haven't we? Because there's so many what they call acronyms making sense of slightly odd words. There is no evidence at all of the Port Out Starboard Home instruction, no surviving tickets, ticket stubs, you name it. So we think it is totally apocryphal. And in fact, we think it comes from the slang term from the early 20th century, posh. Now that denoted either a dandy, so somebody who kind of made out that they were quite

you know how should we put it how would you describe a dandy definition fails me um all mouth and no trousers no more no far from it the trousers are important a dandy is an elegantly an elegant and amusing person over the top you'd call um beau brummel a dandy in france they still call oscar wilde yes okay so a dandified person is somebody who is not over elegant yeah over elegant it's not it's definitely not a compliment is it so they're you're kind of unduly concerned with looking stylish so we keep the kink it either comes from a dandy or a low value coin. So you'll see that dandies have never really been seen in the same way because the two are seen as possible etymologies for that. So no evidence at all support the folk etymology and everything to do with a coin of small value or a dandy. So something, maybe it's like snob.

Do you remember we talked about snob and it used to be a cobbler? And the idea is it's people who are always trying to be better than they are, which sounds horrible in a social sense, but always trying to climb the social ladder. So yeah, we think that's where it comes from. So forget posh. That is inaccurate.

It's like the same book probably told you that the origin of tip was an acronym for to ensure promptness. You gave a tip to ensure. Nonsense. Nonsense. That's related to tap and a tap on the shoulder. So either as a sign of thanks or if you're passing on a racing tip, for example,

it might be like tapping someone on the shoulder and passing on a whispered bet. Golf is another one. Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden. That's not true either. It goes back to a Dutch word for a club. So, yeah, they're all usually far more interesting than the truth. Okay, I'm going to give you a quick one, if you've got time, before your three words.

Okay. Munger, this comes from Twitter. Munger, M-O-N-G-E-R. Where does the word munger come from? As in fishmonger, ironmonger, rumormonger, warmonger. Yeah, it goes back to the Latin, mango meaning a dealer, not related to the fruit, but a dealer or trader. And in the 19th century, they had a lot of costamongers. And costa, the costa there goes back to a costard,

which was a type of apple, a ribbed apple. So yes, it simply goes back to Roman times for a trader, the monger there. Very good. Thank you for monger. While you consider what three words are going to give us this week, my quotation of the week, of course, comes from Dr. Johnson. And his famous work was the dictionary. Also, his famous work was Lives of the Poets. He was a great scholar and student of Shakespeare. And these poetic lines come from the prologue that he wrote at the opening of the theatre in Drury Lane. When learning's triumph, o'er the barbarous foes, first reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose. Each change of many-coloured life he drewhausted worlds and then imagined new. Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,

And panting time toiled after him in vain. The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live. Beautiful. That's true of us. True of us as well i love that what three words have you got for us this week makes me suspire okay so the first one is citesism what citesism but it's got a silent it's got a silent p oh the p is sound as a swimming be a sun does it swimming pool yes yep the meaningless or mechanical repetition of words or phrases so it's related in fact to a disease that affects parrots called cytokosis and that

in turn gave us the great football managers or football commentators phrase sick as a parrot so anyway that's cynicism i quite like that one i like that one a lot yeah there is ex-familiation bit of a long-winded word this one but it means exclusion from one's family and of course it could in these times be exclusion that's totally involuntary and you're just not able to see your family for whatever reason or it can mean that you have been expelled from your family which again might also be possible because you know let's face it lockdown brought people together for possibly too long so you can interpret that one if you like and there's another one that this is a time of social

distancing and anyone who ignores that fact might be accused of scrounging. I like that. S-C-R-O-U-G-I-N-G is a little bit like manspreading it's to inconvenience or discomfort a person by standing too close or pressing against them to scrounge ooh

be wary of that everybody definitely good well that's our lot thank you very much for that Susie thank everybody for being for listening

do feel free to keep in touch recommend us if you can we like to grow our purple people. Want to communicate with purple at somethingelse.com. So, Something Rhymes with Purple, it's a Something Else production, and it was produced by Lawrence Bassett, with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Harriet Wells, Grace Laker, and anybody else? Yeah, the invisible Gully. Oh, Gully. Cheerlly cheer up gully the worst is yet to come