Something Rhymes with Purple - Erumpent

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Love is in the air(waves) as Susie and Gyles get to the heart of the many different types of love in their special Valentine’s day episode on Something Rhymes with Purple.  Susie and Gyles will explore what the cabbage has to do with reviving romance in Italy (hint: ‘cavoli riscaldiati’), how feeling a touch lusty in the spring has its own word, as well as a call out to the Purple People for a word that  describes the love you have for your pet.  We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail] We currently have 20% off at the SRwP official merchandise store, just head to: https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Macrosmatic: Having a very good sense of smell. Skirl: The sound a bagpipe produces. Conjubilate: To celebrate together. Gyles' poem this week was 'The Old Lover' by 'Jane McCulloch' and 'Valentine' by 'Wendy Cope' 'The Old Lover' by 'Jane McCulloch'  Was I? Did I? Seriously? Was it so? Were we? Like that? Really? No! 'Valentine' by 'Wendy Cope' “My heart has made its mind up And I’m afraid it’s you. Whatever you’ve got lined up, My heart has made its mind up And if you can’t be signed up This year, next year will do. My heart has made its mind up And I’m afraid it’s you.” A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is the podcast about words and their meanings and their stories, with a few other stories thrown in by my wonderful co-host, Giles Brandes, who I'm looking at on my Zoom screen. Giles, we have a rather special theme today. We do. Roses are red.

Violets are blue. This amusing jumper is just for you. Oh, let me have a look. Well, you can't actually have a look. It looks like you're wearing an anorak from where I'm sitting. I do apologise. And the reason I'm wearing an anorak... You are wearing a coat, aren't you? I am wearing a coat. Under underneath the coat is indeed another coat and

underneath that is a jumper with a big red heart on it the problem is suzy our boiler went i know that was ages ago to talk about romance yes it went and then the boiler men came and they've been excellent but every time they leave and it all seems to be working, suddenly there's a terrible juddering in the house. Oh. Smoke and banging about. And we then have to phone them and then they come back and they explain that there's gas in the gussets or there's water in the system. And it's the old pipes banging together and they somehow echo through the house. We have to turn the whole system off again.

Oh, no. But how appropriate for Valentine's Day. My wife and I, we've been together for 55 years. We're actually being forced even closer together after all this time because of the cold. We are hugging not just for love, but for life. But for life. You have just reminded me of a word that I think we mentioned when we talked about different emotions that people feel. But I'll say it again because it's just so apt. The German Vorführer effect, which is demonstration effect. And that is when things go wrong, the mechanic turns up and the moment you want to show them that things have gone wrong,

your system works perfectly. This also applies to a PowerPoint presentation that has worked perfectly at home. And then when you get to the conference, everything falls apart. This is the most brilliant word. Say it again, would you? Yes, for-fear effect. Demonstration effect.

For-fear effect. Yes. Very good. It's also like you go to the doctors with a hacking cough and the moment you walk in, it just miraculously disappears and you can't demonstrate it. So I think that's what you're experiencing. Even worse for me, I go to the doctor and I forget why I've come. And he says, you look fine. And I said, well, I feel fine. And, you know, and I made the appointment and oh, dearie me. So I waste their time. It's terrible.

The first thing I want to say about this subject is love, that kind of romantic love, is not for everyone. Do you know, here we get to Valentine's Day and some people aren't interested in the idea. Do you know the history of Valentine's Day? I mean, what is the history? Well, actually, before we get on the history of Valentine's Day, what is the history of love? Where does this word love come from? Yes, love is one of the, suitably, is's one of the oldest words that we have. And today, it encompasses all kinds of love, doesn't it? It's funny because it's broadened to encompass

parental love, so the love a parent may have for their child, brotherly or sisterly love, the love of your guests, the love of your friends, the love of your partner, unrequited love. I mean, it's just become such a broad umbrella and yet it hasn't become at all diluted. I think it's still one of the most powerful words we have. But as we'll discover, it wasn't always that way. We did used to differentiate between different kinds of love. But there are famously now no real synonyms for it. Oh, interesting. And the word itself, L-O-V-E, what is the root of that? It goes back to an ancient, ancient word that then percolated through into lots of different

languages. So in German, we have Liebe, which is based on the same root. Not the same for the French. They have Amour, which of course came from Latin, Amour Massamat. But for us, we went the Germanic root and we inherited it from as i say from that ancient ancient stem and it's fascinating because it's also linked to leave as in military leave or a leave of absence etc and furlough as well the whole idea is sort of having permission to love and i think we did discuss this actually in one of our earlier podcasts, the various strands that are interwoven here to do with the sort of ancient history and freedom and the freedom to love as opposed to slavery, etc. So there's such a story packed within it.

Well, I wanted to unpack all that, those love-related words in a moment. But first, unless you already know, can I tell you a bit about St. Valentine? Please do. San Veritino, as they call him in Italian, or Valentinus, as they say it in Latin, third century Roman saint. February the 14th, today, on the day this is going out first to the world, is the day in which he is commemorated in Western Christianity, though I think in the Eastern Orthodox Church, their Valentine's Day is not until July. Anyway, from the Middle Ages, that's a long time now, a thousand years, this Saint's Day has been associated, I think, originally with the idea of courtly love.

He's also, I think, the patron saint of a lot of other things, including epilepsy and beekeepers. The original St. Valentine was a priest, possibly a bishop in the Roman Empire, and he ministered to persecuted Christians, which is how he came to be a saint, because he was martyred. And his body buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia on February the 14th, which is why today is the Feast of St. Valentine's. Yeah, I think he, Gaudius, actually executed two men, both named Valentine, on February the 14th, but in different years. And it's maybe tied into the Roman feast of Lupercalia. Do you know about that? No, tell me. Maybe a sort of successor to that. So, this was a fairly extraordinary festival that took place in roman times from february the 13th to the 15th and animals would be sacrificed and then men would supposedly either whip women with the hides of the animals they had just slain or run around naked and be whipped themselves very very strange but the whole thing was supposed to be sort of charged

erotically. And it's possible that that idea of love, albeit a very strange manifestation of love, then filtered through. Or it's possible that Lupercalia was seen as some sort of pagan ritual. And so later on in centuries, you know, going forward, maybe even by the fifth century, the idea was that we would dismiss these pagan rituals and then substitute courtly love instead, which was much more genteel. So do you want to take me into those other love-related words and other words for love, if you can find some, apart from amour? Apart from amour.

Well, I'm going to look back to Old English, first of all, and then I'll take you even further back. So I mentioned that we had distinctions between different kinds of love, even in English, and they were quite lovely, really. So my pronunciation is not going to be great, because one of my absolute pledges to myself this year is to master Anglo-Saxon pronunciation. But anyway, I'll give it a go.

Bern-Luffe was a mother's love for her child. Sib-Luffe, which you can probably guess, was kin love. So that's for your relatives. Freund-Luffe was friend love, the platonic kind. And there was also kind of an emotional distinction. So Sor-Luffe was a sorrow love, that one that brings heartbreak. And that might come from Ufer-Luffe, which was excessive love. Ufer-Luffe, that one that brings heartbreak. And that might come from ophalufa, which was excessive love. Ophalufa, I like that. Ophalufa. Ophalufa. So as I say, today we rely on that

single word for all of them, which is extraordinary. But these Anglo-Saxon Old English terms were in turn based on six different states of love that the ancient Greeks demarcated, essentially. And again, they are lovely. And they distinguish between natural instinctive affection, so the one that you share with your family, hopefully. Again, the love that you have for friends, which was called philia. Eros, which you'll know was... What was the first one, the one for your family? That was storge, so S-T-O-R-G-E. And this is ancient Greek, is it?

Yes. So storge is the word for your love of your kin or your love of your children, the bernlifa that you spoke of. Yes. Very good. Then philia is the love that you have for your friends. And we know philo, P-H-I-L-O, is the prefix for all kinds of love. And you know that Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love, etc.

I thought Philadelphia was the love of cheese, soft cream cheese. No. Dawn French aside, no. Brotherly love. Eros, sexual and erotic desire. No surprise there. Agape. Now, this was the sort of antithesis, if you like, of Eros.

So this was divine love love seen much later as a christian value so christian love but it's the unconditional kind that is not sexually charged then you have xenia so x-e-n-i-a which is hospitality this is the love you have for your guests and i think it's quite wonderful that we used to have that, isn't it? And then philotia, so A-U-T-I-A at the end of that. And that's the love of the self. So it's amour de soi, if you like. Can I ask you to summarise this? You're telling me that to the ancient Greeks, there were six different states of love encapsulated in these six ideas here.

Yes. Some of these words seem to be names, like Eros is also the name of a character, isn't it, in Greek mythology? Yes, there's a statue of Eros, isn't there? But yeah, all bound up with, so the vocabulary and the myth in ancient Greek times are very much kind of bound up together, sometimes inextricably. But yes, they were very, very clear as to what kind of love they were referring to. I think it's very good. Xenia, I feel also as a name. I feel I've heard it as a girl's name, Xenia, but maybe I'm inventing that.

Well, we talk about being xenophobic, don't we? So that is obviously a fear or an animosity towards foreigners or strangers. But in this sense, it's the love you have for your guests, so people who come from outside, that same idea of sort of being foreign, yet you welcome them and you love them. And we've talked before about the sort of rituals that exist between guest and host, and particularly in some cultures, you know, very, very prescribed ways of behaving, ways of asking for things, etc. So all of that very much framed in that Greek vocabulary. Ah, very good. You're explaining to me that as far as the Greeks were concerned, these six terms actually described the totality of love.

All the possibilities of love can be summed up in storge. Is that how you pronounce it? Yes, or storge. I think it's soft or hard G. And that's for the love of family. Philia is the love of? Your friends. Your friends.

Eros is erotic love, sexual love. Agape is, that's the kind of love of God, love without any element of self in it. Is that right? Exactly. It's altruistic love seen as very much a Christian value. So actually agape was embraced in Christianity as divine love, as opposed to eros, which is love of the flesh. And xenia is love of strangers, love of guests, love of new people.

Yes. And I like this one, philautia. To love oneself, said Oscar Wilde, is the beginning of a lifelong romance. That is what ph filautia means, is it? Yes. And do you remember, I think when we talked about emotions, we distinguished in French between amour de soi, which is this. This is self-esteem, self-confidence, loving oneself, as in the Oscar Wilde sense. And amour propre, which is the love of oneself, which is dependent on other people. So I always translate this into chasing Instagram likes or Twitter likes, etc. So it's seeing yourself very much through the filter of other people and your own valuation of yourself being dependent on those, which, as we know, is the road to hell. But this one is very much, I think, a sort of a lovely kind of self-love in that it's

nourishing. When I was very young, I met a splendid old actor called Robert Morley, who was famous from the 1930s until the 1960s. And he appeared in a lot of international films. But he also was, I think, perhaps the first actor to play Oscar Wilde on the screen a long time ago. And he told me that the Oscar Wilde line is worth living by. He said, you really must learn to love yourself, because then you'll find in life you're often alone. And if you love yourself, then you've always got a good companion. So my advice to you is really enjoy your own company. Love yourself. There's nobody better. Nobody understands you as well as you understand

yourself. So make the most of it. Love yourself. That's nobody better. Nobody understands you as well as you understand yourself. So make the most of it. Love yourself. That was his philosophy. That's a very good message for Valentine's Day, I think. I'm going to introduce you to some other kinds of love that the ancient Greeks hadn't yet discovered. But there's one that perhaps wasn't so relevant in ancient Greek times, but I think we need to find a word for it in modern times. And that's the love of your pet. we need to find a word for in modern times. And that's the love of your pet, because I think that is a really distinct kind of love that is quite altruistic, isn't it? It's not really complicated. It's just a very simple, again, affirmative kind of love. And I think

we need a word for that. It is the best kind of love in many ways. I'll give you a few other love-related words, though. And there's one that you may remember because it's been one of my trio before. Verna lagnia. Yes. I thought this was a delicious kind of pasta, but it turns out not to be. It doesn't sound exactly like that. No.

This is sort of amorous feelings that are brought on by spring. So, you know, lambs, gambling, friskiness outside in nature. This is sort of spring lust, if you like. As in the vernal equinox and all that. Yes. Vernal means spring, does it? Yes, it comes from the Latin for spring. And then the lagnea is the lust bit.

Oh, so vernal lagnea. That's when you feel like a frisky spring lamb, frolicking about, looking for a little bit of action behind the daisies. Well, it's when, you know, everything else is irrumpent. Buds are bursting forth and just, yeah, just life is in the air, really. I suppose it's just all linked. And I'm sure there is quite a profound effect on our natural surroundings, on, you know, our feelings.

Say the word irrumpent again. What is that word? I've got to note it down in my notebook. Irrumpent. It means bursting forth, particularly of buds. I noted down in my notebook. Irumpent. It means bursting forth, particularly of buds. I've started, Susie, this will interest you, a notebook called Favourite Words from My Friend Susie.

Because whenever I do an interview for anything, people say, do you have a favourite word? And I keep falling back on the same two or three. Yes. Which is why everyone is now familiar with the word opericity. I ought to have a notebook on me with different words. Yes. Yes. Which is why everyone is now familiar with the word opericity. Good, good. I ought to have a notebook on me with different words. And my problem is the moment the podcast is over and I've been off and had a glass of water and a biscuit, I'm thinking, what was that word? Erompant.

So I'm writing it down. E-R-U-M-P-A-N-T. And it means... E-N-T. E-N-T. And it's, yeah, erompant. It means, yes, bursting forth. Bursting forth.

So magnolia buds, I always think of as being quite irumpent. Yeah. Because suddenly they burst into flower. When the vernal agnia hits you, you are irumpent. You are irumpent. Now, we all know about coup de foudre, which is love at first sight, but a glorious French metaphor because it means a stroke of lightning. Isn't that interesting? I thought foudre was thunder. Well, it's thunder and lightning, isn't it? Yeah, you're probably, because we've got tonnerre

as well. Ah, tonnerre, you're right. Tonnerre is thunder. And we always have éclair, don't we, as well for lightning. And we have, yeah, it is lightning. It comes from the Latin fulgura or fulgurae, which is to shine bright. But actually, I think you're right. It can be both lightning, but also a thunderbolt. So I'm sure the whole storm, tempest is mixed in there. It's like the flash of lightning. It is like being hit by a thunderbolt, a coup de foudre suddenly. As opposed to, and I'm going to test you on this because we have discussed this before, cavoli riscaldati.

Remember this? This is Italian this time. No, it sounds like an unfortunate skin complaint. The technical term for it. Say it again. Cavoli. Cavoli. Cavoli. So if you're fond of your greens, you might think of a sort of slightly special type of kale relative. Cavoloneiro.

Does that ring any bells? Well, that sounds like black, green and black. Oh, as in chocolates. No. This is reheated cabbage. Do you remember? This is the Italian for a failed attempt to revive a romance. So it's when you're seduced into thinking, oh, all the old problems will have gone away by now, only to find that they are all still there. Oh, it's tragic. This can go so terribly wrong. Don't try to

rekindle. Well, or maybe don't try to reheat cabbage. Okay. So I think it can apply to more than a romance. I think that's quite handy, actually. Yeah, actually it can. Don't reheat old cabbage. And then you talk about infatuations. An infatuation is quite nice because that in Latin broke down into in meaning into and then the fatuous, which of course we still have, albeit of a different spelling, meaning foolish. So it's the sort of soppy, blind stage.

What we've also discussed is called limerence and limerence is that sort of wonderful surge of serotonin that you feel when you fall in love where you are completely blind to anybody's faults limerence oh those were the days what about cupboard love any idea about cupboard love yes that i assume is to do with the cupboard, where the food is, or maybe even the laundry is kept. It's liking somebody. Well, you see, my wife would say, oh, well, the cat, with the cat. I say, she really loves you. She says, oh, no, it's just cupboard love. Meaning she loves her because my wife is the person who feeds the cat. Yes, cupboard love, absolutely. It's because you essentially want something in return and

sort of a lovely kind of it's not quite the antipathies of this but it is it does imply true genuine love and i wish it sounded nicer but you'll find it in the oed long lost redamancy r-e-d-a-m-a-n-c-y and it means quite simply the act of loving back. So this is requiting love. It's nice, isn't it? Very good. Nothing worse than unrequited love. Redemancy is when it's working out okay. It's a two-way, it's two-way traffic.

It's fantastic. It's two-way traffic. On that happy note, should we take our break? Good idea. And I'm going to come back to you with stalks, but this time not carrying babies. Oh, stalks, that kind of stalk. Well new experience that combines the best of LEGO Play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android, and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Wherever you're going, you better believe

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Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. We're back. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're on stage, you know. We're going to be doing some more touring, I understand. We are. There's more appearances in the West End.

Our next show, if you're listening to this first time around, on the 14th of February, 2023, will first time around on the 14th of February 2023, will be on Sunday the 19th of February 2023. But you may be listening to this way after that. We'll have been at the London's Fortune Theatre, which is fantastic. I think maybe almost sold out. But anyway, we are going on tour to different places around the country. And we're doing some shows again in the West End. But I think at the Ambassadors Theatre, one of my favourite theatres, where the mousetrap ran for many years. But if you want tickets and information about these live shows, you go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com, or you can follow us on social media. But somethingrhymeswithpurple.com is where you find direct access to how to come and book for one of these Sunday shows.

They usually are on a Sunday, often a matinee. Do check out somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. They happen in the UK. But if you're listening to us around the world, there have been people who have crossed the Atlantic to come to one of our shows. Well, one man who happened to be in London came to the theatre thinking he was going to see something else. And didn't know why he was there. But still, he enjoyed it.

Where were we? We're talking about love because it's Valentine's Day. And you were going to give me a stalk. Yes. Well, it's the stalk of the bird. Kind of bound up in the same tradition, I suppose, is again, a not particularly nice sounding word, but a lovely one all the same. And it's anti-pelagy. So A-N-T-I, anti, and then P-E-L-A-R-G-Y. It's an odd looking

word on the face of it, but it is the reciprocal love between child and parent, or I suppose originally a child's love for its parents. And pelagios is Greek for stork and it looks back to the bird's reputation in antiquity as one of the most affectionate and fiercely loyal of all creatures and there are these wonderful classical legends that tell us of young storks that bear in flight the weight of their parents when those parents reach old age so the young are carrying the old which I think a lot of carers for their parents will sort of appreciate this metaphor really that you you are bearing their weight after they bore yours for such a long time and there was a law in ancient greece that was known as the pelagonia or pelagione i think pelagonia for the hard g this time and it dictated that children must always

care for their elderly parents so this was almost almost, well, it was prescribed in law as well as being an instinctive and spontaneous kind of love. So it's nice to know that one of these, you know, word for this sort of love exists, even if, as I say, it's not particularly beautiful to say or melodious from the tongue. Gosh, that's lovely. Completely charming.

It is lovely, isn't it? Yeah, quite unexpected. I love that too. A nice one for Valentine's Day, because I like to think that it can embrace all different kinds of love, including the ones that we've talked about today. It doesn't just have to be romantic love,

although, of course, I appreciate that's at its heart. And at its heart is a nice turn of phrase. Have people been in touch with us this week, Susie? Yes, they have. We have a wonderful voice note, I think, from Chris in County Down. Hi, Susie and Giles. I was wondering about the term debunk. How is something bunked in the first place? I've never heard of anyone bunking a fact or statement, but of course, many things have been debunked over the years. As such, I was wondering where the term comes from, and is there a link to a bunk bed?

Thanks, and love the show when out for a run or brisk walk. Fair weather permitting. Keep up the great work. Chris Killalay, County Down. Oh, you can't beat that Irish accent, though. It's absolutely enchanting. Great man. Think of him running along on his brisk walk. And I've heard that he's hugely handsome as well. Now tell us about the term debunk. Where does it come from? be linked to bunker. And the original meaning of a bunker, which I suppose you can just about stretch to a bunker on a golf course, for example, was a seat or a bench or somewhere where you could fall or plop down, etc. So I think the bunk there is related to the bonkette that you might sit down on in a restaurant or indeed a bank, because as we know, the financial banks looks back to the benches of moneylenders who used to carry out their financial transactions there.

Back to bunk though and debunking. This is a different reference. And the reference here is to bunkum, which is the most wonderful word for flapdoodle, humbug and total flimflam in other words pish and twaddle of the political kind and you'll remember this story jars because it's one of my favorites so we owe buncombe really to a rambling and totally inconsequential speech that was delivered in 1820 by a congressman who was representing buncombe county in north Carolina. Buncombe, in this case, spelt B-U-N-C-O-M-E, Buncombe. And apparently this speech was so long-winded that other members gathered around the speaker begging him to finally sit down. But he soldiered on and declared very earnestly that he was doing all of this for Buncombe, for his constituents.

Buncombe changed spelling and it became a byword for political flummery as a result. So when we are debunking something, we are taking away the Buncombe and the nonsense and, you know, exploding the myth, if you like. Well, I wish I'd known that sooner, because I've been thinking I'm going to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe again this August, I've been thinking I'm going to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe again this August. And I've been trying to think of a title for my new show. And bunking could have been part and parcel of it. It would have been great, wouldn't it? It would have been great.

My wife has come up with a title for the show. It's called Giles Brandreth Can't Stop Talking. I don't know where she came up with that idea. But anyway, that's what we're going to call it. Now, so that's lovely. Thank you, Chris. I hope that answers some of your questions. All right. Who is next in touch with us?

Ben Mitchell has written to us to say, all righty, Susie and Giles, just a friendly Northern monkey here. What is the word, asked Ben, for the absence of the letter T? Being a proud Northerner, I'd say letter. Now, how would you say that was a northern accent? Letter instead of letter. I don't know. Letter. I thought it was a terrible West country.

I'm so sorry, Ben. We are letting you down phenomenally here. But he says, my throat would open and close making a silent letter. I have the word gutterslau in my head, but I keep getting redirected to the German town of Gutteslau when I try to search. Well, you're almost there, Ben. I love the fact that you've made a toponym out of this, but what you're looking for is glottal stop. And as the name implies, a glottal stop is made in the glottis, and this is the fold of the vocal cords. And that's part of the throat we close off

when we swallow. And the reason it's called a stop is that you interrupt their airflow when you're speaking. So it's a bit like if you say to me, uh-oh, Giles, you will see that you're making that sort of stop of airflow in the middle. Uh-oh, uh-oh. And they're there all over the place in standard English. So you will find network, we say. We don't say network anymore. We say pitfall rather than a pitfall. Or how would you say pitfall? Pitfall. Pitfall. But that's because I was taught that diction was so important. You know, vowels for volume, consonants for clarity. You've got to get them right. So I think I probably would say pitfall.

Pitfall and network? I would say network, wouldn't I? Okay, I would say network. But I know what you're saying. Yeah. You kind of stop in the middle. So, you will find those in standard English and then what is called non-standard English. But of course, you have to remember that standard English was pretty much prescribed a long time ago by Southerners. It was basically the sort of London or Southeast England standard. You will also find it in place of a T before a vowel sound or between or before a vowel sound. So like letter, letter. And you'll find it

everywhere. If anyone is watching Love Island at the moment, glottal stops abound. Is it correct or not? That's entirely in the ears of the you know the listener essentially we we don't as we so often say Giles in dictionary making we don't prescribe how people pronounce things or how they use things we simply reflect how they are being used but generally you don't find little stops in the pronunciation of standard dictionaries at least yet. But it's a perfectly normal sound that is, as I say, prolific in English and also very much regional, as Ben says. Good. The glottal stop. Very nice. The glottal stop. My trio. Just to say, if anybody struggles with the spelling or can't

remember them like Giles, you can have a little black book, should you wish, but you can also find them in the programme description blurb of each episode. And you'll also find the title and author of Giles's poems as well. This seems particularly apt in sort of COVID times really, and COVID is kicking off again here in Britain. And we all hope that we retain our good sense of smell because obviously the lack of it, the anosmia as it's called, is often an indicator of COVID. So let us all be macrosmatic, macrosmatic, and that is macro and then smatic, S-M-A-T-I-C, and it means having a very good sense of smell, macrosmatic.

Then, Giles, do you know what the, it's not so much the official name, but perhaps the technical name for the sound of a bagpipe. No. It's rather lovely. It's quite a shrill, but very beautiful sound, I think, a bagpipe. Oh, do you? You know the definition of a Scottish gentleman, don't you? No. A Scottish gentleman is someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't. Skirl, S-K-I-R-L. Oh, I did know that. The skirl of bagpipes. I

thought that was a particular flourish, but that is the general sound that bagpipes make, is it? Yeah. And I like the fact that there's a very specific word for it. And I talk about confelicity, don't I, a lot, joy in other people's happiness. Well, if you want to celebrate the success of someone else or your own, you can conjubilate. I quite like this one. To conjubilate is to celebrate together. So those are my three words for you today. Those are beautiful words. And I've got two very short poems for you today by two of my favourite female poets. And they're both poets with a sense of humour. One poem I'm sure I've read to you

before. It's very short, but it's by Jane McCulloch, and it's relevant to St Valentine's Day and to the sort of thing we were talking about earlier, about reheating old love. This poem is simply called The Old Lover. Was I? Did I? Seriously? Was it so? Were we? Like that? Really? No. That's the old lover. It's perfect. Here is a Valentine poem by, well, one of the best writers of a gently humorous and well-observed verse, the great Wendy Cope. And you think about the kind of cards you get on Valentine's Day. Wouldn't it be wonderful to receive a card that contained this verse? My heart has made its mind up, and I'm afraid it's you. Whatever you've got lined up,

my heart has made its mind up. And if you can't be signed up this year, next year will do. My heart has made its mind up up and i'm afraid it's you that's great too yeah wendy cove i love her yeah yeah she was great well look happy valentine's day suzy i haven't sent you flowers i haven't sent you a box of chocolates what would you like to get for a valentine's day gift? Do you know what? I would love a book of poetry. Very good. Well, I will send you a little book of poems, actually. Oh, for the love between friends. A philia gift. That would be a lovely, lovely gift. I will say that. I'm giving it to you. That would be a pleasure to send you a little book of poems.

Thank you, Giles. Well, that's our lot, isn't it, for today? It is our lot. And if you loved the show, as we hope you did, please continue to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And we would love it too if you could recommend us to friends and family. Don't forget, we are on social media. You can find us on at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And if you'd like more purple, there is always the Purple Plus Club where you can listen ad-free and tune in to some exclusive bonus episodes on words, language and indeed poetry. Yeah. And you know, I might mention this, I've taken to listening to our podcast in the evenings because my physiotherapist has me doing exercises before I take my evening shower.

So I am doing my exercises to your dulcet tones, Susie, and I'm liking what you're saying. So that's because I'm wanting to remember more of these words for longer. You know, I feel this is spring and I want to be more a rumpant this spring. So something rhymes with your vocabulary. I want to be a rumpant with my vocabulary. Something Rhymes with... A rampant with your vocabulary. I want to be a rampant with my vocabulary. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Harriet Wells, with additional production from Chris Skinner, Ollie Wilson, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale. Jay Beale's the special one.

And... Well, just trying to think what kind of love we have for this person. Gully, come back. We'll welcome you to the Skull of Bagpipes.