Something Rhymes with Purple - Edelweiss

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Come into the garden Purple People as we take a look at the interesting histories behind the names of the plants blooming in the beds.  Find out why basil is royal, why you use more rock celery that you might think, and which common herb is the ‘dew of the sea’.  Also in this week’s bouquet are dragons, Spartan lovers and gladiators, plus we find out why the pansy is the thinking person’s flower.  We also get through lots of your brilliant emails and we want you to get in touch with your own names for Billy Bakers or Chuggy Pigs…  [e-mail] A Somethin' Else production. Susie’s trio: Upbigged - built up Hookem-snivy - fakery or deceit Percunctorily - lazily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Giles, this is episode 62. I've only just noticed that. Who's counting? Well, clearly you are. Well done, you. I'm only just. It's passed in a flash, hasn't it? It really has. Well done.

How are you doing? How's it all going? How's your week been? How's your novel going? I mean, newcomers, we talk about words and language every week on Something Rhymes with Purple. And I've written quite a few novels, some sort of romantic novels, and more successfully, a series of murder mysteries set in Victorian England and featuring the real Oscar Wilde and his real life friend, Arthur Conan Doyle

as my detectives. And everything that happens in the novels genuinely happened to the individuals involved. It's like a serial biography of Oscar Wilde, but I've added the element of murder mystery and they're great fun. And I was thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful if Susie Dent used the lingering days of lockdown to write or start to write a novel? How have you got on? Well, have you been gardening recently? She says. Oh, this is just a quick change of subject. So the short answer is nothing has happened on my novel because I don't think I'll ever have the courage to write one. I'll work on you. I'll work on you. We'll come on to that. Have I been doing any gardening? That first line,

that first line. Yes, gardening. I have probably instead of writing my novel, I have been trying to turn my hand to gardening. I'm not particularly green fingered. So I have been enjoying myself. I've got a manual lawnmower. I grew up with, we had a lot of kind of rough fields near us where I was growing up. And my dad would let me take his very suburban lawnmower, which was one of those ride-along tractors. He would let me take them on these fields. And I had a field day. That's where I learned to drive. But now I've got a kind of push-along manual one. And I've been enjoying myself doing that. This is what lockdown has done to me, Giles. I visited years ago in Texas at a modern garden. This was in the 1960s and it was truly modern. People said this will never catch on, but it has. The lawns were actually carpets. You didn't mow them. Oh, like the astroturf thing. You hoovered them. It was the beginnings of astroturf. Now people have them in their gardens,

but better than that, around the astroturf, the carpet of the beautifully green, never was anything but bright green because that was the colour of the beautifully green, never was anything but bright green because that was the colour of the carpet. There were flower beds and in the flower beds were electronic flowers that opened and closed in reaction to sunlight. And when you went close to them, they let off an aroma. There was something in them that broke a beam and went and you could suddenly smell. This is all going to be controlled by Alexa, isn't it? Alexa, open the flowers. Yeah, exactly. Alexa, I don't like the smell of that rose. Give me a nasturtium. Amazing, isn't it? Oh, wow. Yeah, maybe the garden of the future. I think not.

When I was on this, this is drawing my gap here, and I discovered that garden. I went to Washington, D.C., and I became a friend of a girl who was the daughter of the dean of Washington Cathedral. And they had a herb garden at the cathedral. I love that. And I didn't know what it was. She said to me, do you fancy going down to the herb garden? And I thought, oh my God, is this some kind of euphemism?

Are we moving this to the next stage? Are we going to get the herb garden? What's the herb garden? You know, I wasn't sure what it meant because I'd heard there were funny euphemisms. Anyway, I thought she's introducing me to her herb garden. Anyway, she took me around the back of the cathedral to the Dean's herb garden, but the Americans called it an herb garden and that's when i used to call it herb as well by the way oh we did you mean in england yes we used to drop our h's all the time until it became associated with the lower class so we started to put them back in do you grow your own herbs i have a few growing wild i haven't actually planted them i have had herb gardens in previous incarnations in previous gardens i. I always try, you know, the supermarket basil.

I always try and keep those going and always fail. Basil is a really tricky one. And actually, we're going to talk about all sorts of names today. We're going to talk about herb names and plant names. That is our theme today because so many people have been either spring cleaning or gardening a lot during lockdown. So I won't say come into the garden, Maud, which would be a phrase that still people know comes from a poem by Tennyson and people of my grandparents' generation, it was almost the most familiar phrase in the language, come into the garden maud. People just used it as a kind of cliche. We're going to go,

we're going to come into the garden Susie, come into the herb garden Susie. What are the plants you're going to lay out for us? Well well I just mentioned basil because I love the stories behind some of these names and quite often they're really ancient this is one of them so basil goes back to the Greek basilicon meaning royal possibly because it was used in some royal kind of bath salts or bath lotion or even medicine but that means of course because of the royal element it's linked to a basilica um as well so that's that's linked to a basil so you've got that when you've got parsley that goes back to a latin petrosalinum which actually means rock celery believe it or not that is how they they viewed it in those days and rosemary

is a beautiful one i don't know what your favorite herb is i think basil when i was asked once for my favorite aromas in the whole world but fresh basil was one of them as well as freshly mown grass in fact but rosemary is it's just got a lovely story it had nothing to do with rose and nothing to do with mary we just simply shifted it so that it kind of sounded a bit like those words, or in fact became those words, Rosemary. But it actually goes back to a Latin word again, Rosmarinus, which was due of the sea because it likes to grow on the coast. It's quite pretty.

Gosh, that's lovely. Time, do you like a bit of time? Oh, time to spare. Tell me, what is the origin of that greek again um and it goes back to a verb in greek meaning to burn sacrifice because possibly that's what was used in um incense or indeed in certain kind of rituals that actually goes back to a really ancient route um referring to vapor and smoke oh and I mentioned Basil and the dragon. Tarragon also has got a dragon connected to it because it was a dracon, so it's connected to the dragon. And that goes

back to a really, really ancient root, again, meaning to see because at all costs, you have to avoid the dragon's gaze. Wonderful. It's linked to dragons because of its serpent-shaped, I think it's, is it called the rhizome, that part of the plant? But there was also a belief that the pterogon could ward off snakes and dragons and heal snake bites. Because herbs, of course, were used massively for medicinal remedies in the olden days. Still are by a lot of herbalists, obviously. Well, we've talked about before my great, great grandfather, Dr. Benjamin Brandreth, who made herbal medicines. And his pills, they were all full. Did he use herbs in his pills?

They were entirely, they were called little vegetable pills. And not only his, but there were many other little vegetable pills in the 19th century that were hugely popular. Do you have any other herbs to give you, me, before I go down a trip down memory lane? Oh, go down memory lane, because we've got so many flowers to do as well, haven't we? Well, let me go down memory lane oh go down memory lane because we've got so many flowers to do as well well let me go down memory lane for our older listeners and take them back to the herbs do you

remember a tv series called the herbs you probably don't no before you were born no no i do remember the herbs no no parsley the lion that's right is that right that is correct and well i don't know how you would remember because it was on television think, at the beginning of the 1970s. And the reason I know about it is this. My father was in the army during the Second World War and he was serving with a man called Clutterbuck, Major Clutterbuck. Great name. After the war, Major Clutterbuck went into advertising and then he went into what was called stop frame puppetry. They would create children's television programs where they made little models of figures and took a photograph and then moved the figure slightly, took another photograph and gradually built up moving figures.

That's how Paddington Bear was first seen on television. Stop frame puppetry. And that was Graham Clutterbuck's firm called Filmfare. And with Michael Bond, the man who created Paddington, he created The Herbs. So in 1970, they had a television series called The Herbs with Parsley the Lion, which you do remember, and all these other characters.

And the Filmfare offices were near where we used to live when I was a child in Baker Street. And so I would go round as a little boy and see them making the herbs. So whenever people mention herbs to me, I can only think of the TV series because I'm not really- I wonder if there's anything on YouTube.

I'm going to look it up because- Oh, there's lots of them on YouTube. I definitely have memories of herb garden. Yeah, okay. I think they probably went on playing them for years. Do you remember Hector's House? Do you remember that? I do.

I used to love Hector's House. But I saw a little snippet of it the other day. And obviously my memories of it are really distant, but it looked nothing like I remembered. There's that horrible moment where you think, should I, shouldn't I? Should I watch a film that meant so much to me or read the books that actually changed my life

and risk the disappointment? Well, I'm afraid with Hector's House, that's what happened. Oh, it's disappointing. Well, then maybe don't go back to the herbs because I have got fond memories of them. Are you a bit of a cook, Susie? Do you use basil, parsley, rosemary and thyme? Yes, I do, particularly when following Nigel Slater. I love Nigel Slater as a cook and he is so into his herbs. I think he grows his own herbs. He's always tweeting pictures of his beautiful garden. So when I'm following a recipe, then I do. Otherwise, I think I tend to get them wrong. I'm massively into ginger

and garlic and all of that stuff. But herbs, I need to know a little bit more about. What is your signature dish? That's a really good question. I don't know if i have a signature dish anymore i'm quite good at veggie curries spicy veggie curries um what are the spices what would you put into that well lots of garlic lots of ginger lots of curcumin lots of turmeric well the same thing sorry turmeric and curcumin cumin mustard seeds chili that kind of thing but i think it could it could do with some fresh herbs. But I think if you're a meat eater, then herbs are everything.

Chicken and tarragon, I remember eating. Again, from Nigel Slater recipe, superb. Couple made in heaven. Funnily enough, pepper really improves my signature dish. Is pepper a herb? No, it's a spice. It's a spice, yeah. What is your signature dish? Oh, you know, my signature dish is baked beans on toast. But during lockdown, I've tried to simplify also i'm trying to lose weight so i'm trying to cut back on the carbs so i've abandoned the toast and so i just have the baked beans

heated in the microwave but i'm thinking that's maybe an excessive use of electricity so i'm just having cold baked beans there is's almost an erotic charge. Can I say it's so delicious? And because I can't stand the washing up, I'm eating out of the tin. No, I don't believe this for a second. I'm eating the baked beans out of the tin. I do not believe it. I'm using a fork or a spoon because I discovered you cut your lip if you try and eat, drink them straight. This is rubbish.

This is rubbish. This is rubbish, purple people. Yeah, I don't believe it. It isn't rubbish. Keep life simple. I'm getting back to basics. I do do drink them straight. This is rubbish. This is rubbish. This is rubbish, purple people. Yeah, I don't believe it works. It isn't rubbish. Keep life simple. I'm getting back to basics. I do do my other dish. I used to be, when I was a fish eater,

I used to love a fish finger sandwich. Oh, yeah. Two slices of bread. Oh, no, butter. Or garlic mayo. You need garlic mayo. How have we got onto this? Because we are trying,

because every novel, this is to help you with your novel if you think it's getting a bit flat put in an eating scene that's what all the great novelists do put in a you know describe the crumpets oozing with butter describe your talagund chicken i've already discovered crumpets actually this lockdown yeah anyway there's not been much crumpet in my can tell you in my life during lockdown. Never mind. Where are we going now? Flowers.

We're going to flowers. Are we not? Get rid of the lingering smell of baked beans. The lingering smell. Should we take a break first? Then we can go down to the flower market. Come into the, come into the break. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.

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It's empty space. So join me every single day alongside great comedians from around the world, including Andy Zaltzman, Nish Kumar, Tiff Stevenson and Will Anderson. Good luck to you. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple, where we're talking about the beauty of flowers and flowers in the language with a brief foray into a baked bean tin that I have now gotten over as the Americans would say I love the use of gotten anyway Giles he's still there come into the garden Maud for

the black cat night has flown come into the garden Maud I am here at the gate alone and the woodbine spices are wafted abroad and the musk of the rose is blown. Hugely popular poem by Alfred Tennyson, the poet laureate. I love it. Do you know D.H. Lawrence when he, sometimes it can be a little bit mawkish, but in Sons and Lovers, where he talks about Miriam in the garden just kind of drinking in the scent of the roses.

Do you remember that at night time? I do. The kind of he sent to the roses. Yeah. I went through a D.H. Lawrence phase. He wrote a poem too, I think, called That Goes a Rose is Not a Cabbage. His poetry is beautiful, actually.

His poetry is beautiful, as are his short stories. I can recommend The Odour of Chrysanthemums, although it's very sad. And others, his plays. But I think he may be one of the authors who, when you revisit him, doesn't give you the buzz we got when we were adolescents reading him

for the first time round. You know, every day on Twitter and Instagram, I do a poem every day wearing a different jumper. Yes, yes. Well, I'm going to dig up my, I've got a collection of poems by D.H. Lawrence. I shall look at them tonight and I shall choose one in the near future and dedicate it to you, Susie Dent. Oh, thank you. A little Laurentian poem. Take me into your garden, Susie. Well, I thought I would start with flowers that are kind of shot with threads from mythology, because there are so many beautiful legends attached to the names of flowers.

So the iris, for example, is a nod to the messenger of the gods personified by a rainbow. But there's the hyacinth as well. Hyacinths are so highly scented, aren't they? Can be a bit cloying sometimes, but quite beautiful when they're fresh. And that also got a really darkly beautiful tale behind it. It goes back to Hyacinth, the handsome Spartan prince who was lover of the god Apollo, son of Zeus. And he was so handsome and he had many unsuccessful suitors, including the god of the south wind, Boreas, and Zephyrus, god of the west wind, who gave his Zephyr, of course, or Zephyr. But his star-crossed relationship with Apollo is the one that kind of really counts. And it had a tragic end because during a game of discus one day, Apollo threw the discus high into the clouds and Hyacinth ran after it, probably hoping to

impress him. And the spurned Zephyr, the god of the wind, blows the discus off course. In other accounts, it's a bit of an unfortunate ricochet, but I think it was Ovid who thought this was a very deliberate action by the god of the wind and anyway the discus kills the young Spartan leaving a grief-stricken Apollo behind and it's said that from Hyacinth's blood Apollo created the flower whose name we still know today and inscribed upon its petals the lamentation, I, I, alas. And you can still see, if you look at the markings on a flower, you can still see, almost make out those words, which is just beautiful. Hyacinth. So the original hyacinth was a bloke. So poor old hyacinth bouquet.

She's named after a bloke. Yes, although it's funny because the Greeks associated the myth not so much with a hyacinth, but with a gladiolus, which it's funny because the Greeks associated the myth not so much with the hyacinth, but with a gladiolus, which also have really distinctive leafy markings. But anyway, it's just a beautiful story of a fallen hero. And it's a much better name than the more prosaic word, another name for the hyacinth. This is what we used to call it, croto. Goodness. Can't really make any poem out of that, can you?

A croto is a hyacinth. And you're telling us that hyacinth, the flower, is named after this young Greek personage, the handsome Spartan prince who had a thing with Apollo. And it all went wrong. This could be why Oscar Wilde, who I'm thinking about this year because this is the 125th anniversary of his imprisonment in 1895. Oscar Wilde, in the letter he wrote in Reading Jail, De Profundis, Out of the Depths, he wrote a letter to his erstwhile boyfriend, Lord Alfred Douglas, and he spoke about the relationship between Hyacinth and Apollo and likened his relationship, relationship between Hyacinth and Apollo and likened his relationship, Oscar Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, to the relationship between Hyacinth and Apollo. And now you're

telling me that this is a doomed relationship that ends in tragedy and blood being spilt. Yeah. Two six freak. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Two six freak. Absolutely. Very good. Okay, on you go. Who's next? Okay, well, I'm going to take you to a german legend this time

obviously mythology inevitably was going to be linked to flowers and flora and fauna because they've had such significance you know forever um but this one i love the forget me not the delicate little blue forget me not is said to have acquired its name from a knight who was picking some of these flowers for his sweetheart. And they were growing by the side of the river. And in trying to reach out for one, he slipped into the river and drowned, apparently calling out to his lover, Forget me not.

Again, the botanical name for the flower is not nearly so romantic, so you can understand why we plumped for this one. It's myosotis, which comes from the Greek for mouse ear. So you've got croto and mouse ear. But forget me not, it's just beautiful, isn't it? Lovely. Did you touch on Narcissus? Because my mind revolving again around Oscar Wilde,

he often referred to people being like a Narcissus, meaning that he loved the flower, but Narcissus was also one of these Greek dudes, wasn't he? Yes, he fell in love with his own reflection. Of course. And hence we get narcissistic. He looks into the pool of water, sees himself and thinks, I fancy that.

Exactly. Oh, there's just, there's so many. Chrysanthemum is linked to a butterfly, Chrysalis, which is lovely because they both go back to the Greek chrysos, meaning gold. So the chrysanthemum is the golden flower, and it was originally applied, in fact, to the marigold. Whereas a chrysalis means a golden sheath because it refers to the gold or metallic sheen of some of the pupae,

which is quite lovely. And pansy, it's from um from pense meaning the french for thoughts and ophelia also says pansies are for thoughts isn't she so yeah they're just they're just just such lovely origins i mean if you want me to give you some to kind of back up the more prosaic end of things you've got cow slip which i was noticing the other day going for one of my walks i love cow slip and i love the smell of it but not everyone does and those who don't will kind of chime with the old English origin of this because it means cow slime or cow dung cowslip because the plant grows especially well in pastures. You've also got what else have we got the clematis that is simply from the Greek

for vine branch but I love its nickname which is old man beard, because it's a woody, twiny thing, isn't it? I like it. Which is good. And the carnation is related to carnival because it's from the Latin for flesh because of its colour. Carnival meaning time to put away flesh, really. My grandson told me the other day that in Denmark, all the Volvos are pink, all painted pink, he said. This is my grandson. He's quite small. He said, yes, that's why it's a pink carnation. Ah, very good. I like that one. Okay. I've got so many flowers I'd like to ask you about. I mean, can I throw a few at you?

You may not know the answers. I don't want to put you on the spot. Why should you know every answer? Absolutely. Go for it. I forgot to mention marigolds because that's named after the Virgin Mary. And it was once used for healing wounds. So, sorry. No, that's good. That's good. Marigold. You've given us chrysanthemum.

Did we do dandelion? I think we've touched on it before. We have, yes. The dandelion known as pisserbed, because it was used as a diuretic and it still is, is dandelion, lion's tooth, because of the shape of its leaves. Edelweiss, Edelweiss. Yes, Edelweiss, noble white. That means, edel in German means noble.

Very good. Yeah, it is the noble white. Of course, some of flowers' names are named after people. I know that the Dahlia should more correctly be called the Dahlia. That's right. It's named after a man called Dahl who maybe brought it back from an expedition or was a horticulturalist, a German or Austrian horticulturalist. Yeah, we talked about that, didn't we? I remember when we did our programme on eponyms and we had the Magnolia as well, which was named after Pierre Magnol, who was a botanist.

I don't think he found it. I think it was named in tribute to him and his scientific work geranium geranium's a nice one i've got about that that goes back to the greek for crane because the seed pod is said to look like the bill of a crane yeah which links it to pedigree you remember we were talking about pedigree which is from french pierre de cru a crane's foot because pedigrees were shown on family trees. And if you look at the structure of a family tree, it looks like each branch of a family is connected by a crane's foot. Gladiolus, that just popped into my head. That's really related to gladiators. That means sword shaped because of the sword-like

spikes of the flowers. Oh, and I tweeted this one the other day. Do you remember the spikes of the flowers oh and i tweeted this one the other day do you remember the story of the jerusalem artichoke no tell me it sounds like beginning of rather a good joke walked into a bar yes what happens well the jerusalem artichoke is a type of sunflower it's a species of sunflower so it's a heliotrope a heliotrope from the greek for turning towards the sun the jerusalem do you remember it It has nothing to do with Jerusalem and everything to do with Girasol, which means, it's the Italian actually, Girasol, it was, turns towards the sun, but we can pronounce it, so we just called it Jerusalem instead.

You told us that marigold comes from the Virgin Mary. Does hydrangea come from the god Hydra, the many-headed creature? Not a god, the Greek, the mythical creature? No, it's actually linked to hydro. So if you think about hydrogen and hydropot, a water drink, it's all about water. Because the seed capsule of the flowers is shaped a bit like a cup or mini water vessel, which is quite beautiful. What is your favourite flower?

I haven't even asked you. I suppose it is the rose i love a rose because of the fragrance yeah and we're lucky enough we have a few roses in our garden i don't understand gardening at all my wife does all the gardening and we do have i love the fragrance of a rose oh well what flowers do i love i love bluebells in a bluebell wood I love tulips actually a collection of tulips standing up looks so handsome but I really like the fragrance what about you when I come over when when lockdown's over and I bring around a tin of baked beans for us to have one of those lovely suppers that we have um I'll heat yours don't worry I'll have mine cold you'll have

yours hot what flower what bunch of flowers should I bring you? Thanks, Charles. I would just like something that's been picked from a garden. I think that those are my absolute favourites. I have to say, I've been getting into tulips recently. So tulip goes back to a word meaning turban because they're kind of turban shapes. But for me, it's strange with flowers.

I love them when they are unfurled and when they're closed tight and when they kind of blossom into these just sort of showy bit I kind of lose interest so for me it's all about the expectation which sounds a bit strange but I love wild trailing plants so the honeysuckle my neighbour at the moment has got a honeysuckle that's crawling all over my fence and it just smells absolutely divine. So you want me to bring you a little collection of wildflowers but i've got to be careful where i collect them from because i don't want to do the wrong thing pick up wildflowers that maybe are protected species that is true i love the hedgerows now i love the wildflowers on the

hedgerows and i can't tell the difference between a weed and a flower i'm sure there is one sometimes the weeds are the most beautiful do you remember there there was a, I'm not sure, we talked about tales of the unexpected before, those Roald Dahl stories that have always got a sting in the tail, literally, because I think one of them involved a scorpion. But in one of them, it haunted me for years and years and years. It was a scientist who invented a machine that actually could detect the sounds of flowers. And he put on these headphones

and listened to them as he cut the flower heads off the plant to collect a bouquet. And all he could hear were these screams. So I think of that often when I actually go around my garden, just sort of thinking, can they feel this? Is that absolutely ludicrous? No. And I think more and more people think that Prince Charles was right all those years ago when he said he talked to the flowers. It's a good thing to do, to talk to your flowers, to encourage them. Everybody benefits from a little bit of encouragement. Didn't scientists say it's all about the carbon dioxide? Well, not carbon dioxide,

but whatever it is you're breathing out, you're actually helping the plants that way. What do we want for the future? Do we want poets or do we want scientists? I think we know the answer to that. But if you've got an observation, you can send it to us either by tweeting us or by emailing us at purple at something else dot com. That's something without the G. Purple at something else dot com. And we've been hearing from purple people, haven't we? Well, the other day, Hannah Stansbury got in touch. Hi, Susie and Giles. First off, I want to say how much I love Something Rounds with Purple. Thank you. I've been a fan of Susie's for years and was so excited to discover the podcast. I've learned so much about

our language and always enjoy listening. And I have been a fan of Susie's for years too, Hannah. Here's my question, says Hannah. What is the origin of the word beforehand? And she spells it as a single word. Is it some sort of industry term, a reference to hands on a clock or something? Why is there no afterhand? Thanks again for a wonderful podcast, lovely listen, blah, blah, blah. Best Hannah Stansbury. Oh, from Seattle in Washington, Seattle, where my favourite TV series, Frasier, comes from. Anyway, what is the answer? Well, the answer is there was an afterhand, but for some reason we got rid of it. So 500 years ago, people were saying beforehand and afterhand, but only one of them survived.

It's a bit like if you remember me talking about fortnight, an abbreviation of 14 nights. And we also had senite, an abbreviation of seven nights, but sen had senite an abbreviation of seven nights but senite disappeared and there's no accounting for taste i don't quite understand why that happens but after hand disappeared beforehand has stayed and the hand bit is really a figurative use of hand to mean side or direction in this case sort of a measure of time if you like and it's all to do with the reference originally to the position of hands on either side of the body it's a good question good thank you for the good question any in front of you at the moment i have giles carey and he looks back to the episode where we spoke very recently in fact about the language of journalism and the

print industry giles wants to know about one that we didn't cover when we talked about stereotypes and cliches and things. He was thinking about the word font and he's wondering Giles if it has anything to do with church architecture. He's in sunny Hampshire who enjoys listening to the podcast whilst on long walks surrounded by nature. Oh that's lovely. The answer is that font is not related to fount so i'll talk about the font that is the printing term which is what jazz is referring to specifically and that goes back to the french fondre which gave us an iron foundry it's all about melted and cast metal so that makes sense because you're looking back at printing types. A fount that is the fount of all knowledge or the sort of natural spring of water or the spring of water that you will find

in a church, that actually goes back simply to the word fountain. And you can spell font of knowledge and fount of knowledge with a U or without because they both go back to fountain. Does that make sense? Makes total sense. David Aykroyd has got an interesting query here and rather relevant to the fact we've been talking all about plants and herbs. While sitting in the garden with a cup of tea, my eyes wandered to my salvia hot lips, which is not the name of a friend

who shouldn't be staying with him during lockdown. It's a plant of some kind. And where the word salvia comes from? I know the plant is part of the mint family, but does the word have anything to do with salvia, as in an ointment, or the herb sage? This is David from Sussex. Yeah, that's a really good question. So yes, it does. Sage is a plant of the salvia family and it's an aromatic culinary herb from that point of view and it came to us from the latin salvia which actually um also gave us the word save and the save was a kind of herb or medicinal preparation of herbs so it is linked to sage, but it's not linked, I don't think, to salve,

because although there was a kind of medicinal preparation, I think salve came to us via a different route. I'm just double checking myself here, as you can tell. Salve came to us from a different route, healing ointment applied to wounds and sores. And that actually goes back to a very old word, meaning something greasy or buttery, because we're talking about the kind of ointment. So no, they're not connected. But you know what, I'm going to look into this because I wouldn't be surprised if there was an ancient connection there. So often, we're talking about family trees, if you go far back enough, you will find that there is some kind of relationship in there we move from Sussex and thank you very much for that David to Diana in Somerset and in Diana's

part of Somerset people call wood lice Billy Bakers do you know where it comes from and is it only in her part of the world Sussex do you know i'm decided when lawrence our producer raised this one with me i decided to actually make a call out to the purple people on this one because when i've done my research on dialect before dialect really collects around certain themes and it's just strange how you will find 100 different terms across the country for a gossip or for a blister or for someone who's bandy-legged going back to kind of gossip in the you know 20s and 30s and wood lice is another one which just encourages so many different local variations when it comes to names so i've heard of chuggy pigs i used to call them chuggy pigs when i was

growing up as well as wood lice. Did you have a particular one? No, we didn't know wood lice in my family. Wood lice did not enter the Brandreth household. Well, they certainly did in mine and they still do, in fact. But I'm going to ask the purple people if they can give me all their different words

for wood lice, because I love them. And then maybe we can just do something on them next time. Purple at somethingelse.com. Susie, we always have a trio of interesting words from you. What is the threesome you've got on offer today? Well, my first one is a Scottish word or Scots word, really.

And it's just not used very much. But I just quite liked it like it because it sounds so Simpsons-esque. I don't know if you're a fan of the Simpsons, Giles, but it's up bigged. It means built up. So a particular area of town might have become very up-bigged. And it reminded me of the motto of the Simpsons, Town of Springfield, a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. I just think it's pithy and it sounds almost German in its kind of construction. So I like that one. Right, my third one is, my second one even, is hook'em snivey. I just love the sound of this.

I mentioned last week that, you know, there's been a lot of talk about fake news in every quarter. And hook'em snivey is an old, old word for fakery or deceit. And it was also criminal slang at one point for a contraption that allowed you to open a door from the outside. Ingenious. He's up to some hook'em snidey. Hook'em snidey. Sounds great, doesn't it? And a third one, please.

We talked about George Orwell last week, didn't we, and how he didn't like long words. So he definitely would not have liked this one. But I just like it because we've all become perhaps a little bit lazy during lockdown when I speak personally I've been trying to work quite hard but also I do have days where I don't achieve very much at all and this one is perguncturly pergunctorily really it's p-e-r-c-u-n-c-t-o-r-i-l-y and it's an obsolete word that comes from the latin for to loiter is based on the model of perfunctorily and percunctorily i can't even say it percunctorily it means simply lazily and for me it goes back with a word that i will expression i've definitely used before which is banger bonking or banging a bonk and that simply means lying lazily on a river bank oh i like that i prefer that one i prefer

banger bonking let's stick with banger bonking. Let's stick with that. And I'm going to stick with a simple quotation of the week, Mark Twain. I want to talk about people like Mark Twain. We talked about George Orwell last week, Eric Blair, was his real name. Mark Twain, I know he had a real name as well. We're going to talk about that coming up soon, the real names of interesting people who we know by other names. My attention span is quite short. So on my bedside I keep a dictionary of quotations because you can always dip into something amusing before you fall asleep. And I came across this wonderful line from Mark Twain last night. The finest clothing made is a person's own skin.

But of course, society demands something more than this. That's our lot. Very nice. That's our lot. Very nice. That's our lot for this week. It is our lot. Keep in touch, please. If you like us, recommend us to a friend. Spread the word as much as you can.

And do keep in touch, purple at somethingelse.com. Giles, next time I see you, I'm going to give you an anthology. I forgot to mention that anthology once meant a bouquet of flowers. Something Rounded Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Grace Laker, Gully, and today, by special appearance, Jay.

Oh, Jay.