Something Rhymes with Purple - Flappers

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Join Susie and Gyles as they unravel the origins and evolution of the captivating language that defined the 1920s and 1930s, from the slang of flappers to the colloquial expressions born out of economic turmoil. Discover the hidden stories behind the words that shaped an era, as we delve deep into the fascinating etymology of this transformative period in language history. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Fysigunkus - someone with no curiosity. Turophile - a cheese lover. Dygomy - a second marriage. Gyles' poem this week was 'Unfortunate Coincidence' by Dorothy Parker By the time you swear you’re his,      Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is      Infinite, undying— Lady, make a note of this:      One of you is lying. A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. Download Bumble and, it's true. You are. And Christmas is coming. And I've been thinking what I'm going to get you for Christmas. What would you like for Christmas, Susie Dent? Goodness, what would I like for Christmas? That is such a good question. And I don't know if I can give you an absolute answer to that. I think, do you know what? I'm very predictable, Giles. If anybody in my circle has a sort of cute little dictionary, an old dictionary, an old dialect glossary, a good thriller, or just a lovely book, it's always going to be that, I think. So if I see a book-shaped thing in my Christmas stocking, it is always my favourite. I know some people think it's like a pair of socks,

but for me, it's the nicest present. How about you? Well, often it is a pair of socks, but I've said that so often to my children and grandchildren. But now at Christmas, I've got three children and seven grandchildren. I get 10 packages full of socks. So I've got enough socks. No socks, please. I've had enough. I love a book like you. There's a chocolate called a Bendix Bitter Mint. I love that. Oh, yes. I love chocolate Olivers. They're biscuits covered in chocolate. I love a book like you. There's a chocolate called a Bendix Bitter Mint. I love that. Oh, yes. I love chocolate Olivers. They're biscuits covered in chocolate. I love those. Ooh, okay.

But a book is best. I love a book. So I'm hoping you're going to give me one of your books. Well, I've already got, and I love it, your children's book. I think it's an enchantment. And I've actually, I'm going to be re-gifting it. You kindly gave it to me. I'm re-gifting it for one of my grandchildren. I think it's lovely. Well, please, I'm definitely not going to give you one of my books as a present. Why not?

Because that would be ridiculously immodest. I will give you something to surprise you. Okay. Give me something. That means I can't give you one of my books. I wonder if it would interest you, my book about the late Queen Elizabeth VII. I have got it. And I gave one to my dad and one to my mom, which you very kindly signed, if you remember.

So, yes. Oh, well, that's interesting. Because I don't know. I mean, it's an interesting subject, you know, somebody like the Queen, who is clearly a remarkable person. But I wasn't sure that you would want to read a book about her. But actually, it's a book about the 20th century, too, about the years in which she lived. Exactly. Do you like reading? Do you like reading biographies? Do you know what? I don't do it often enough. And actually, I don't read often enough at the moment because I'm writing so much myself and reading so much during the day. I tend to give my eyes a bit of a rest, which is sad.

But when I'm on holiday, that all changes. I'm reading an extraordinary biography at the moment by a friend of mine called Roger Lewis. It's a biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the actors. Yes. Both actually British in origin. Well, one very Welsh, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor, who was, I think, British-born,

but became American. And it's an amazing book. It's a thousand words, a thousand pages long. It's extraordinary. He's almost reinvented biography in this book. You've got to commit to it. It's got a brilliant title. Did you just say the title? Erotic Vagrancy is the title. It's wonderful. It's just such a superb title. Well, I think it's a difficult title. I think it's a very commercial title. I'm not sure many people go into the shop and say, I'm looking for erotic vagrancy. Well, they may, but then they might get arrested. I think people will go in and say, I'm looking for that new book that's about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. the film Cleopatra in Rome in the 1960s. The Vatican newspaper sort of slammed them and saying that they were like, called it, their arrival in Rome was an example of erotic vagrancy. They were like vagrants who turned up in Rome with all their erotic ideas. People didn't totally approve, but they were completely fascinating people. Well, that's the 1960s.

Yes, which we will come to. Which we will come to because what we're doing, what we started doing last time and will go on doing is we're exploring new words that came into currency during the 20th century, decade by decade. And last week, we touched on the first two decades of the 20th century, the noughties, if that's what you call them, and the teens of the 20th century. It feels the wrong sort of word, particularly the teens for that grim decade that included the horror of the Great War, the war to end old wars, if only it had been the 1914-18 war. We've now reached the Roaring Twenties. When were they called the Roaring Twenties? And why are they called the Roaring Twenties, I wonder?

I wonder if they were called the Roaring Twenties because this was a time after the war. And if you remember in our last podcast, I was talking about that kind of relief, exuberance, the sort of collective exhalation of breath that happens after a really, really difficult time. So I wonder if this is when society was picking itself up and feeling determined to have fun. Oh, look, I found a quotation here. This is, let me get it right, from the Saturday Review, and this is 1930. The giants of the Roaring Twenties ought to be able to achieve glory of some sort in half as many years. That's interesting, isn't it? 1930. So anyway, the Roaring Twenties. So there we are in the Roaring Twenties i think of the roaring 20s i well what do

you think of i think of the charleston i think of flappers i think of flappers bright young things yes you know why were they called flappers who were they uh so the flappers were this was this was a term that was actually coined in the 1920s for pleasure seekers so it was all about rebellion it was all about flouting the strictures and the conventions of the time. Some saw the flappers as being, you know, the sort of age old discrimination towards younger people who are living it up. You know, they were seen as being indecorous, uncouth, flighty, unserious, etc. uncouth, flighty, unserious, et cetera.

And what was flapping? What was, were they flapping about like birds? Or were there frogs flapping? Why were they called flappers? I think it was, well, some people say that it's linked to a dialect term, flap, meaning a flighty young woman. So yes, flapping wings, flitting about, hopping from one thing to another. But also, apparently, there is a tiny hint of your hair not being pushed up and pinned decorously. And so your hair is kind of flapping around, either in

a ponytail, a pigtail, or just hanging loose. So it may well come from that, but I don't think we've nailed it completely yet. And the flappers were all female? Yes. Yes. Whereas the bright young things, the 1920s, could be male or female. Okay. Tell me about the bright young things. Well, I think this is, isn't that a phrase that comes from that period? No, it absolutely is. But it's interesting, isn't it? I'm going to look up in the OED as to when it was actually cemented in the language. Because as you say, Flapper was actually, although it was coined in the 1920s, I think the roaring 20s itself was an epithet that was applied a little bit later on. And I think Bright Young Thing, I wonder if that's a bit of looking back.

My research gives us Flapper as coming as early as 1921. Yeah, 21. Okay, so bright young thing. This is going to surprise us. It says, I have to say, the OED has had a bit of a makeover. Some people hate it, but people don't like change. But it logs you out all the time. So that is quite annoying.

So, right, let me look it up here. Right. Oh, gosh. Okay. So a fashionable social group within the younger generation of London high society in the 20s and 30s noted for exuberant and outrageous behaviour. was the term first given to this social group, bright young things soon became just as common, used depreciatively by those who disapprove of the bright young people and their behaviour, hence variations such as bright young idiots. But the first reference we have of it is from the Daily Mail on the 22nd of May, 1924. Great. Well, this is a period that I associate with Noel Coward, when he was writing

the first of his famous plays, and he was a huge, talking about interesting biographies to read, I do recommend Oliver Soden's biography of Noel Coward, who was clearly a genius actor, playwright, composer, lyricist, director, producer, and a remarkable man. And he sort of came to flower in the 1920s with the first of his famous plays. So I said he appeared with him and also with dances. The Charleston, the Black Bottom. I think there was a dance called the Camel Walk. Yes.

I mean, I don't know what was involved in the Black Bottom. People still dance the Charleston. But what about what was involved in the Black Bottom. People still dance the Charleston, but what about the Black Bottom? The Black Bottom. Just as a popular American dance of the 1920s. No, I do know that the Hebe Jebes was a dance originally in the 1920s. And I do remember a description in the Oxford English Dictionary that said it was full of haunch movements. So I don't know if the Black bottom was full of buttock movements, possibly. Maybe. And the camel walk, I assume, says what it is on the tin. You walked around like a camel. Yeah. I mean, I think people still do that one, don't they?

And the shimmy? Oh, the shimmy. Because people still talk about shimmying, don't they? I mean, does the phrase to shimmy across the floor, to shimmy into the room, does that come from the dance? Or is the dance called a shimmy because of the word shimmy? Yes, I think the dance came first, I think, because it's a sort of ragtime dance, isn't it? And the whole body shakes and sways. It's brilliant watching the shimmy.

I mean, all of these are so effusive, aren't they? And then it was the shake or sway of the body more generally the charleston is the only one they do on strictly come dancing oh is it okay i'm sure i know you don't well they may show me but it's not one of the set dances okay oh i see what you mean right but the charleston they do seem to do as a regular set dance i've i don't follow it every year but i'm following it again this year because strictly come dancing would you do it, Giles? Now, I have been asked a number of times. I'm sure you have.

Which is nice. And I'm almost tempted because people always seem to lose weight and it obviously gets them fit. Yeah. But I have no sense of rhythm at all. I have no musical feel. Okay. Whatsoever. And the people who do well usually do have that.

Yes. And the older people who do well usually do have that. And the older people who do well, particularly. And I would find it a bit humiliating to go out on week one. But my wife says to me, do it, because you then have lost the weight. And she said, also, I think they pay you for half the series come what may, whether you're out on week one or not. So you can collect the money, collect the fee, only be there on week one and you've lost a few pounds. Oh, funny. Well, I'll come support you if you do it. So, Flapper is 1921, whereas we think the Roaring Twenties is 1930.

Give us some more from the heart of the 1920s. Well, you have a crisp. It sounds a bit silly, but the crisps that we love eating today, they came about at the end of the decade. They became really popular in the 1930s. I think our British Purple listeners will remember the Smith's crisper brand, which you can still get. Sold in paper packets and that little blue bag of salt inside. Oh, I love those. We call a crisper crisp, but I think Americans call it something quite different.

They call it a chip? Potato chips. Potato chips. Potato chips, yes. And in fact, to be fair, initially our crisps were called in full potato crisps. And it was really by after 1950s that they became just crisps. But yeah, I mean, it's just a nice thing. It kind of fits all that, you know, idea of going to cocktail bars,

drinking gimlets and sidecars, going to the flicks. Oh, a sidecar is a kind of cocktail. It is. I mean, cocktail is a much earlier word, isn't it? Yes, cocktail, one of the most puzzling words when it comes to etymology. So many theories, you know, about the cocktail. But yeah, cocktail was really from the mid-18th century when it comes to etymology, so many theories, you know, about the cocktail. But yeah, the cocktail was really from the mid 18th century when it meant, but not the drink. This is when it meant

an animal with a docked tail, particularly. And then a cocktail horse was one that was not a thoroughbred, I think is the idea. And then the idea possibly of a cocktail grew from that, from the idea of an adulterated spirit, so something that wasn't pedigree. But I think the best guess is that they used to have cock feathers in them, just as we have paper umbrellas these days. But that was an early 19th century that we got the, yeah. And the sidecar, the cocktail that is the sidecar? Yes, I don't know why it's called a sidecar. And I have absolutely no idea when that came in because I'm not sure I've ever had a sidecar. Let me have a look.

Brandy and lemon juice with orange liqueur. Do you want me to just find out when that was? Well, I think we should since we're exploring the 1920s. It has a 1920s feel to me. Do you think? Yeah, I think it might do. Well, you know, I can picture a motorbike with a sidecar on the side. Yes, I've always wanted to be in one of those.

1922. And it says, fill the shaker half full of broken ice. This is in a book instructing people how to make cocktails in the 20s. And add one sixth of a gill of French lemon juice, one sixth of a gill of Cointreau, one sixth of a gill of cognac brandy. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. This cocktail, it says, is very popular in France. It was first introduced in London by McGarry, the celebrated bartender of Buck's Club, which gave us the Buck's Fizz, famously. Very good. But I'm interested, it was popular in Paris and France, and yet it's called the sidecar. Do you think they call it le sidecar?

Maybe they call it, I don't know, maybe they called it something entirely different. Je veux un sidecar. Now, I'm amazed that crisp is as early as the 1920s. I'm even more amazed that the word hijack dates from that period. Yes. Because it feels like a much later word than that. Yes.

1923, it says on my research notes here, hijack. Yes. How does that come about? So this was not to do with hijacking a vehicle or an aircraft, as you would guess. That's from the 1960s. It was a prohibition era slang term, and it was all about taking or thieving contraband that was in transit or robbing a bootlegger, so-called, because these riders literally did smuggle illicit bottles of whiskey, etc., down their boots. So a hijacker was somebody who stole those goods off people who were carrying alcohol. And it possibly is from highway and then jacker.

And a jacker was used to mean somebody who holds someone else up or holds them to ransom. That is intriguing. When you say 1960s hijackers, we now think of it. Yeah. Are they too related in any way? No. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because first of all, people were holding up, people carrying alcohol, then they were holding up planes. Yeah.

I'm with you. Totally with you. Now, it is interesting, this, the word extramarital coming from the 1920s, because this is the period where people were beginning to talk about reform to the divorce laws, because it was very difficult to get a divorce prior to, well, a hundred years ago, it was a tough thing to get divorced. And indeed, even when I was a child growing up, it wasn't easy to get a divorce. And indeed, people referred to the D word. I mean, it was something, you know, people felt awkward talking about. Now, it's part and parcel of life. Extramarital means outside marriage, I assume. Absolutely. Yes. But I suspect, in fact, if we've read Shakespeare, indeed, if we've read Chaucer, we know that extramarital dalliances have been going on for hundreds and no doubt thousands of years. Of course. I mean, Chaucer's talking about cuckolds all the time, isn't he? Well, yes. First reference here is from a book called Marriage and Morals.

Now, when did Bertrand Russell live? Oh, when he was born in the 19th century. I'd say he was sort of, I'll look him up, I'd say 1880s onwards. Okay, I think he may have written this book because the OED credits B. Russell. So I'm assuming that might be him, do you think? It would be. I'm a great fan of Bertrand Russell, who was born in 1872 and died in 1970. I can't say I met him, but I was born in 1872 and died in 1970. Yeah, he did write this. I can't say I met him, but I was once in the same room as him. So, I mean, he lived, as you can see, to the age of 98.

He became famous in my time as a campaigner against nuclear weapons. He was a philosopher. He inherited the title Earl Russell. He won the order, achieved the order of merit. And I do remember somebody saying he had poor breath, one of his mistresses reporting that he had poor breath, which perhaps is not how he wants best to be remembered. But I love him in the world of language. And I often quote his line. He was the person who said about the importance of words and language. He said, no matter how eloquently a dog may bark,

he cannot tell you that his parents were poor. Oh, yes, you always quote that one. It's one of my favorite lines. So I'm fascinated by Bertrand Russell. So explain to us, I think he was into extramarital relations. So maybe that's why. Oh, was he?

Okay, well. I think he was, there was a bit of that going on. He gives us the first record in a book called Marriage and Morals from 1929. And the quote given here in the OED is, We, however, wish to appeal to reason and we must therefore employ dull, neutral phrases such as extramarital sexual relations. So there you go. Yeah.

I don't know if he invented it, but certainly he's our first record. So before we get to the 1930s, Charles, should we take a bit of a break? Oh, yes. I'm going to see if I can find a sidecar somewhere in the house. 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. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express.

Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect.

It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple where Giles Brandreth and I are having a whale of a time, aren't we Giles, going through the various decades of the 20th century and looking at the words that were either invented then or that were greatly popularized during their time and how much they are footprints of existing contemporary preoccupations, events, etc. And

the 1920s were a wonderful example, weren't they, Giles, of a kind of overall sense of relief after the war. But I think in the 1930s, some of the prevailing gloom of the 1910s might return. Yes. And though life could be gloomy, for the philosopher, mathematician Bertrand Russell, who was a very witty and wise person in many ways, he kept his spirits up by having quite a few interesting relationships. We were gossiping about this earlier. I just wanted to fill you in because I did some homework during the break. And he was married three times. Wow. Yeah, exactly. He first married someone called Alice Whittle Smith in 1894. That marriage was dissolved in 1921 with no issue because we were discussing also divorce. This is why it was a preoccupation with him. His second marriage was to daughter Winifred Black. She was, well, distinguished.

This was dissolved in 1935, though they had two children, one of whom actually I did meet, by the by. His third marriage was to Patricia Helen Spence, and this produced one child as well, Conrad Russell. He's the one I knew. And this also ended in divorce in 1952. Then he married someone called Edith Fincher, who was four times married. And I think there was a bit of action on the side. So let's face it, Bertrand Russell was a goer in every department. Okay.

Let's put that one to bed, so to speak. Yes, let's put that one to bed, so to speak. Let's put that one to bed. And he was clearly rarely out of it. Let's move into the 1930s. Give us some words and language from that decade that intrigues you. Okay. Well, as I say, we've had this sort of febrile exuberance, really, of the 1920s. And then terrible things happen in the 1930s.

And, you know, there was renewed conflagration in Europe, which was threatening the whole world, really. And we have the depression at the beginning. We had the Second World War at its end. It was a pretty horrible time. And we talk about the depression. I mean, we were in the depths of an economic slump weren't we really there was a wall street crash in 1929 industry slowed down incredibly just huge degrees of unemployment it brought us skid row and it brought us hyperinflation and various things so skid row you will probably remember giles was an actual row yeah it was a place in seattle Seattle in the US. And it was essentially a place where loggers would push timber that they had felled down these greased ramps, these skids, down into the river where the current would take it down to the warehouse or the loggery or wherever

that these were kept. And eventually, lots of gambling houses, pubs, and brothels grew up around these areas and they became quite low or down at heel really and impoverished. And so to be on Skid Row was to be either living a very dissolute, immoral life or to be really down on your luck. You mentioned the word brothel there in passing, and obviously it's a very old word because it used to be said that what the people who worked in brothels was the oldest profession. That's one of the famous sort of cliched line. Why is a brothel so called? Is it because a broth is brewed there? Oh, no, nothing to do with broth and everything to do with an old English word meaning to decay or to deteriorate.

And so actually, it's quite interesting how words for promiscuous people sort of swap gender over the years. So I think I've said to you that the first harlot actually was a man. I think the first strumpet was a woman, but the first brothel was actually a worthless man or a male prostitute. brothel was actually a worthless man or a male prostitute. And then it flipped gender to a female prostitute. And then it became the brothel house or the house where people pay to have sex, essentially. Gosh. Yeah. Well, you're talking about the horrors of the 1930s, the difficult times. Of course, we think of, and indeed, I was recently reading a book that brought all this home to me so vividly about the 1930s and the rise of Nazi Germany. And I see from the list of words from the 1930s, Aryan given as one of them. And this idea of the Aryan race dated from 1932.

And did the rise of Nazi Germany give rise to language that has got, well, the word Nazi, I suppose, is a word that began in the 1930s or earlier. So Nazi is from 1930, and that is simply a member of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party, essentially. But it was formed, the Nazi party was actually formed after the First World War. And it was under Adolf Hitler, of course, that it started to advocate authoritarian nationalist government and develop its racist ideology based on, as you say, the superiority of Aryan Germans. And Aryan actually originally simply meant belonging to a family of languages that were the Indo-European, or, you know, to a family of languages that were the Indo-European, or, you know, I often talk on the podcast about Proto-Indo-European, this hypothetical reconstructed language from which others are said

to have derived, you know, lots and lots of them. So it had a very specific meaning from that point of view. Then it was of the people who spoke that language. And, youhistoric group of peoples have sometimes been regarded as this kind of single race who spoke this Aryan language. And then all Indo-European peoples and languages descended from them. And it was in then Nazi and neo-Nazi ideology that it began to describe people who were crucially non-Jewish, who were white, Northern European descent, usually blonde hair, blue eyes. And, you know, it was just grasped and embraced among German anti-Semitic propagandists, essentially. So it was all about this doctrine of Germanic or Nordic purity, really. But the first mention is in 1923 with that in mind.

Well, you say what a grim decade it was, and it clearly was. I mean, commander in the horrors of all that. Are there any jolly words? Are there any words that we want to celebrate from that era, the 1930s? Yeah. Well, cool. I mean, you know, the adjective of approval that used to belong to all generations. And I always used to say, whenever I was talking about slang and teenage slang particularly, I'd always say, well, you know, parents and older people can't hope to keep up with it and you can't use it without looking stupid. And I used to say the one exception to this rule, Giles, was cool, because a grandfather could say cool, a 10-year-old can say cool, and a 20-year-old or a 13-year-old

can say cool, and it will be cool. No one will mind. But actually, when I have started to say cool now, I get a lot of raised eyebrows, particularly from my teenager. So I think it might be losing that, sadly. It's actually first recorded in the late 19th century in British public schools. So it was British public school slang, but it was in the 1930s and 40s that it really came into its own, particularly in Black English in the interwar years. And then it was really picked up in the jazz age of the 1940s. But yeah, cool really had its heyday in these decades. What about grass? I imagine grass in this context meaning drugs of some sort.

Is that a 1930s word? Oh, actually, no. More in the sense of grassing up on someone or grassing someone, police informing on them to the police. And this is rhyming slang. So grass is short for grasshopper, which in turn is short for shopper, somebody who shops somebody else or betrays them. And grasshopper, shopper, and then copper, policeman, it's all part of the same trio.

How brilliant. So to grass on someone, it's a grasshopper who's a shopper to the copper. To the copper. The grasshopper shoppers to the copper and he gives you grass. Oh, that's marvellous. So the grass as in weed is much later, is it? That's 1960s maybe or 50s. Well, I wonder.

I mean, obviously, again, say heyday, sorry, without any pun intended. But I think, let me see, it might be older than that and it may have, let me just check. Cannabis, 1938. that and it may have let me just check cannabis 1938 a preparation of the dried leaves flowering tops and stem of the plant in a form for smoking and it was recorded as us slang along with muggles muta reefers weed grass and tea for marijuana well that's interesting that's what tops and tails the 1930s so yeah grass as in grasshopper and grass as in weed yeah at the beginning in the end of the decade well i love it i love the things that we learn on this it's full of full of intrigue and interest i think we better calm down by having some correspondence people have been

writing to us uh they definitely have and um sorry i interrupted you is there something more you wanted to say about the 1930s no not at all And yeah, this is going to take us a while, but I hope the purple people stay with us and they're finding it as interesting as we are. We're loving this. Yeah, I am too. Well, I'm loving it anyway. And we love the purple people

and they get in touch with us each week. Who has been in touch this week? Okay, well, the first message that we get is from Rhoda. And I don't know if you have it, Giles, but you might want to read this one because she says hello to you. Hi, Susie and Giles. I wonder if you can help, please. My friend Becky and I were discussing a situation I found myself in at work. I'd taken on an additional piece of work against my better

judgment, which turned out not to be quite as it was sold to me. Becky said I'd been stitched up like a kipper. It's a phrase I've always been aware of but wasn't sure if it was in common use, which it clearly is. So where does the phrase come from and why is it a kipper that's been stitched up? Loving the programme, I've been listening from the start so keep up the great podcasting. And Giles, my husband said hello to you when you were at the Hexagon in Reading. His name is Bennett. Thank you, Rhoda. I remember. Oh, is this your daughter-in-law? No, it isn't. It was an extraordinary coincidence. I think they were sitting on the left-hand side of

the theatre, if you're standing on the stage. And I said, what's your name? And he said his name was Bennett. And I found that hard to believe because my son is called Bennett, B-E-1-N-E-T. A lot of people call Bennett as in the surname, but this is Bennett as in Benedict, meaning blessed. It's an old name. And so there's a Bennett Brandreth and there's a Bennett married to Rhoda.

Well, it's nice. But anyway, the question is supposed to be about being stitched up like a kipper. Has the phrase been around for long? Well, first of all, I'm going to explain to our non-British listeners what a kipper is, because not everyone will know necessarily. So they were once a very traditional part of the British breakfast. And I'm guessing you quite like kippers. I did as well. I love kippers. Really like kippers. My mum would often like kippers i i did as well i love really like kippers my mum would often like

kippers and white bread and butter and that was the perfect breakfast so essentially they're herrings that have been lightly salted well first of all they've been gutted and then split obviously but lightly salted and then cured by smoking and anybody describing themselves as being kippered is suggesting that they have been sort of almost gutted and skinned and cooked in other words they've had the full the full works they've been thoroughly taken advantage of is the idea there and you will find that then extended and stitched up like a kipper so you will find done up like a kipper in the very famous BBC TV comedy show called Only Fools and Horses, which gave us so much joy linguistically. John Sullivan, the writer, gave us lovely jubbly or just gave us loads of brilliant phrases, which he picked up,

not all of them by any means were created by the show, but they were picked up and popularized. So the done up version, like it's done up like a kipper came first. And then it was probably combined with the phrase I've been stitched up as in someone's, well, we've been talking about being grasped up, you know, somebody's informed on me or I've been falsely incriminated. Someone's planted evidence. I've been stitched up right royally. So put those two together and you have kippered, stitched up, and then you have stitched up like a kipper. Nothing to do with actually applying needle and thread to a kipper, but just a combination of those two phrases and none of them are positive. Neither of them is positive. That's brilliant. And now you've made me want to have a kipper. They used to be everywhere.

You'd be able to get kippers on the train, you know. Did you? Yes, even on the train just going from Oxford to London, there was breakfast usually served with proper waiters and linen and silver and, you know, toast, freshly toasted. You're always tweeting pictures of your breakfast wherever you are. I'm surprised there's not been a kipper on there. Yes, well, I would except I do know that kippers do, the pong from a kipper does spread across the,

and the sort of dining room I'm dining in, you go and help yourself to breakfast. Okay. And I tell you what I do do. I do send out pictures of my scrambled eggs with the baked beans abutting the eggs, because I know it annoys people, because there are people who are very squeamish about that. They say you should have your baked beans separate from the... I love it when they sort of merge. So I do do that for perverse reasons. Okay, there's another one here.

You can read this one. Oh, it's from somebody in Ohio. It's so wonderful. We're a global community, we purple people. Ian from Ohio has written. What's he got to say? What's he got to ask, Susie? Hello, Susie and Giles. Curious about the origins of shoot. There's a bamboo shoot,

shoot a gun, and shoot as in ask a question. Lots of love. Keep up the great podcast. Best, Ian from Ohio. Ian, they are all connected. Quite often I will say, no, these are two separate words that come from very different roots but these all go back to a word that emerged in middle english meaning to hasten from place to place or to move swiftly and a swift movement is really the key here because it can mean to discharge a missile quickly to thrust yourself forward or to thrust your question forward, as in shoot. Or a bamboo shoot is something that is irrumpent from the stem. It kind of thrusts out, etc.

So it's all about darting forth, going swiftly, going suddenly or from place to place. And they are all linked and it just shows how versatile English is, that it can wrap itself around so many different meanings. That's very good. You do know so much. Look, if people have got questions, do get in touch with us, particularly because we've got our 250th anniversary coming up. The 250th episode of Something Rides With Purple. And we're devoting it to you, the purple people. And whatever you want to say to us on this special anniversary? Share your thoughts, send in your questions,

your queries, your anecdotes, and we will be celebrating you when we reach our quarter millennium. And there must be a word for it, and Susie's going to discover what that word is in the fullness of time. You just write to us at our email address, which nowadays is simply purplepeople, as one word, purple people at somethingrhymes.com. Susie, have you got three intriguing words that you'd like to share with us this week? Yes, I can actually tell you that there is semi-quincentennial or sestacentennial.

So I did look those up since the last podcast. Say those again. I like this semi-quincentennial. It's a bit of a modern version. So semi times quin, which is five, times cent, which is 100, times centennial. So that gives you 250 years. Very good. I get it.

Very good. Yeah. Okay. So my trio today, some of my favorite words, actually. The first one is from the Scots Dictionary, which, as you know, I love delving into. And it's such a strange looking word word and it almost defies its meaning. So it's physiguncus, which is F-Y-S-I-G-U-N-K-U-S, F-Y-S-I-G-U-N-K-U-S, physiguncus. And it means someone with no curiosity.

Oh, goodness. So the idea is that you have this ridiculous looking word, but a physiguncus would never want to know more about it, goodness. I adore cheese. I virtually live on cheese, which probably is not good for my cholesterol. Oh, dear. Well, anyway, that's what you are from the Greek for cheese. And this is quite fitting, my third word, actually, because we've been talking about Bertrand Russell. A digamy is a second marriage, and it's one usually after the first partner has died. So it's not like bigamy, which is sort of illegal coexisting partners. But there's digamy, which is a second marriage, and it's followed by trigamy and quadrigamy. And didn't you say Bertrand Russell was a quadrigamist? He was a quadrigamist. Very good.

Very good. I love that. Three fabulous words. Oh, thank you. And what do you have for us today, Poetry Wars? A couple of fabulous poems, because I was thinking, who was a writer who was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, wittily and wisely? And I thought, Dorothy Parker, of course. And I dipped into my anthology, Dancing by the time you swear you're his, shivering and sighing, and he vows his passion is infinite undying,

lady, make a note of this, one of you is lying. Rather a cynical poem, but there's another one that's even more cynical, really. It's called Social Note by Dorothy Parker. And maybe Dorothy Parker had met Bertrand Russell. Who knows? Anyway, this is how the poem goes. Lady, lady, should you meet one whose ways are all discreet, one who murmurs that his wife is the lodestar of his life,

one who keeps assuring you that he never, never was untrue, never loved another one, lady, lady, better run. She was amazing. I mean, she was so known for her kind of little aphorisms, wasn't she? Or her scathing remarks. And we were in one of our bonus episodes in the Purple Plus Club. We were talking about Katherine Hepburn, weren't we?

And her appearance in Little Women. And this is very famous. You'll know it, but Dorothy Parker, I love it, said she obviously didn't like Catherine Hepburn. And she said, Catherine Hepburn delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions from A to B. Which is just brilliant. Brilliant line. Oh, people actually who don't know about the bonus episodes, this is a sort of little extra club that we have where for a modest subscription, you get ad-free episodes and little extra bits and pieces.

So do discuss. Extra bits and pieces. I would just say in case, I know there are some people that feel like, well, you know, we're missing out. They're not main, main episodes. So they're not the big episodes. They're sort of little offshoots.

So you're not missing the meat, but these are just sort of little condiments to go with them should you like to hear us chat a little bit more exactly well that's it isn't it for this episode something rhymes with purple is a sony music entertainment production and it was produced by nayadeo with additional production from naomi oiku hannah newton chris skinnerner, Poppy Thompson. She is the best. And... Oh, Matthias. I mean, he is our new hero. He is our new hero.

Don't know. Forget about... What was his name? I can't even remember. I can't even remember. Get out of the room, Gully. We're not interested.