Something Rhymes with Purple - Gargalesis

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

How to master S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. Why is it so difficult in the English language? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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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Starting point is 00:00:36 Well, what about two? Right now, get a small, organic, fair trade coffee and a tasty bacon and egg or breakfast sandwich for only $5 at A&W's in Ontario. Hello, I'm Giles Brandreth and you are? Susie Dent. And look, Susie, today I want us to begin with a bit of a vocal warm-up
Starting point is 00:00:57 because my daughter said to me that she listens to podcasts going to work on the underground. And if the diction isn't clear, she misses things. And obviously, she doesn't want to miss what we're saying. So, you know, to get the mouth ready, I learned this from a great actor called Sir Donald Sinden. Did you ever know who I knew? I do know Donald Sinden. My mum absolutely loved Donald Sinden.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Well, he was a great classical actor, as well as being on television and things like Never the Twain, the two of us. Marvellous man. Very fruity. Yes. Very fruity. And he said to me, Giles,
Starting point is 00:01:30 when it comes to diction, you've got to remember that vowels are what give you volume and consonants are what give you clarity. Vowels for volume, consonants for clarity. And he had this little warm-up exercise. He always did it in the dressing room before going onto the stage.
Starting point is 00:01:43 So we'll do it now. I'll do it once, then you can repeat repeat it and the whole nation can join in please don't ask me to roll my r's because i can't for a linguist this is a big impediment i can tell you but apparently it's genetic whether you can or not well fortunately i can't this doesn't involve any r's really this involves um vowels and consonants oh Oh, good. Right up my street. Right up your street. Here goes. Hip, bath, hip, bath, lavatory, lavatory, be-day, be-day, douche.
Starting point is 00:02:14 You got that? I think so. Hip, bath, hip, bath, lavatory, lavatory, be-day, be-day, douche. And remembering it's vowels for volume, consonants for clarity. All together now. One, two, three. It's vowels for volume, consonants for clarity. All together now.
Starting point is 00:02:24 One, two, three. Hippa, hippa, lavatory, lavatory, bee day, bee day, douche. Got to get the douche going. Douche. Let's just do it once more. Okay. And I want everybody joining in. And if you're on the underground or the bus, don't feel self-conscious.
Starting point is 00:02:41 No, don't. Don't. There may be somebody else listening at the very same moment to this podcast. Maybe whisper douche there if you're looking at someone. Yes, okay. Ready? One, two, three. Hip bath, hip bath, lavatory, lavatory, bidet, bidet, douche. Not everyone knows what a bidet is. No. Or indeed how to spell it. I have a nice etymological fact about a bidet. Oh, tell me the etymological fact about a bidet. It comes from the French for pony because you sit astride it. Oh have a nice etymological fact about a bidet. Oh, tell me the etymological fact about a bidet. It comes from the French for pony, because you sit astride it.
Starting point is 00:03:08 Oh, good grief. Yes. Well, you're rather giving away what it is. It is a piece of bathroom masonry or... Furniture. Furniture. Bathroom furniture. And it became a vogue item in the 1950s.
Starting point is 00:03:19 When I was a very little boy, I remember people talking about bidets. And I wasn't quite sure what it was for. You know, what people use them for. And then I heard a lovely story about a film director called Billy Wilder. Heard of Billy Wilder? I have. Who made Some Like It Hot, that great Marilyn Monroe film. Anyway, made lots of movies in the 1950s. And he was in France making a film in the 1950s. And his wife wanted to have B-Day back in Hollywood. She wanted to have the first B-Day in Hollywood. And so she said to her husband, you got to get a B-Day when you're in Paris, get a ship back. We want to have the first B-Day in LA. All the talk in Europe, all the rage,
Starting point is 00:03:55 I got to have a B-Day. Anyway, Billy Wilder gets a day off, goes all around Paris. He cannot find a B-Day anywhere. There's been a run on the Bets. So there's no bidet to send to his wife. So he sends her a cable, a wire, a telegram explaining this. And he says simply in this telegram, unable find bidet, stop. Suggest headstand in shower, stop. Like it. I like it.
Starting point is 00:04:20 But it's a French word, isn't it? It is. Absolutely. As I say, little pony. Little pony, a bidet, a little pony. And you said astride it. Yeah. Astride it. Yes it's a French word, isn't it? It is. Absolutely. As I say, little pony. Little pony. A bidet. A little pony. And you said astride it.
Starting point is 00:04:27 Yeah. I said astride it. Yes. I haven't tried. No. How do you spell bidet? With a T. B-I-D-E-T.
Starting point is 00:04:36 Yes. Why is it not B-I-D-E, a cute accent? Because it's a diminutive in French, which means it's a little pony, as I say, it's the origin of it. So anything that is like minuet is a little something. Yes, you don't tend to have your e-acutes when that happens. It's a little something. This is taking me way back to my university days. But yes, no e-acutes.
Starting point is 00:04:59 And actually, you'll find in English, and we'll talk about foreign words, won't we, at some point in another podcast. you'll find in English, and we'll talk about foreign words, won't we, at some point in another podcast. But when French words go into the dictionary, they tend to lose their accents over time. Oh, so there are fewer and fewer accents in French as the years go by. Well, not in French itself, but in French words that then get naturalised in English, we tend to drop the accents. Now tell me all about this spelling. This spelling thing is a bit of a nightmare. Who invented it? Who decided how we spell words? Does it matter? Gosh, huge, huge questions there. Okay, I'll start with the first one. Who invented it? The answer, as with the entirety of the English language, is we all did. We have no academy. We have no government. We have nobody saying,
Starting point is 00:05:46 this is how you're going to spell things from now on. We know we have no government. We read the newspapers. However, we do obviously have a standard. And the trouble with English spelling is that we sort of had a standard once printing came about, once William Caxton had his printing press and started to distribute and disseminate lots and lots of different texts. We kind of evolved a standard then. But what happened then was people meddling, basically, people meddling with our language, whereby scholars, for example,
Starting point is 00:06:20 during the Renaissance decided to return English to its classical roots. And so they decided to stick in a whole load of silent letters to show that they knew the Latin origin of some of these words, but the pronunciation didn't change. So, doubt, B, they stuck that in, because the Latin dubitum. Simon, L, et cetera, et cetera. Hold on, now this is fascinating. So, doubt.
Starting point is 00:06:43 You're talking about the Renaissance. What period is this? when is caxton when up until william caxton the inventor of print the printing press yes between the 16th century there people just spoke words to one another it was largely oral yes and then you wrote down a word the way it sounded yes which is why shakespeare there are sort of 16 or 26 versions of his in his own handwriting because that was his own name of his own name because he just wrote down what it sounded like that day. None of them correspond to the one we use today. So up until that time, which is around 1600,
Starting point is 00:07:12 people are really spelling words any way they like. Yes, it was just glorious abandon. It was wonderful. We had dialect words. We had, you know, just completely individualised spelling. And nobody really cared because, as you say, communication was largely oral. If it was written down, as long as it was clear, and in those days, it was largely phonetic. So to go back to doubt, that was spelt D-O-W-T
Starting point is 00:07:37 in Old English. As sounds doubt. Perfect. Doubt, that's the very word. Perfect. But no, one single, probably single scribe, as I say, who was translating quite, you know, in a really positive effort to translate from Latin into vernacular English so people could understand the Bible more, for example. You know, so it was a very extremely good course. But they saw that D-O-W-T and thought, hang on a second, the Latin is dubitum. Which means what? Which means doubt. It's the same word. Same word.
Starting point is 00:08:08 And so our English word doubt comes from the Latin dubitum, and they thought the origin is D-U-B-I-T-U-M. So they thought, I'm going to stick a B in there. And the W became a U, and we're stuck with that silent B. We never ever pronounced it, which is extraordinary. Same, plumber. Why doesn't plumber rhyme with lumber? That goes back to the Romans word plumbum,
Starting point is 00:08:33 meaning a lead pipe. Oh, how wonderful. So it makes absolute sense, etymologically speaking, but we didn't have the B before those scribes came around. So, so many, so much meddling with... So the scribes are the characters who appear in the cartoons.
Starting point is 00:08:48 Or Blackadder. Yes. And they're writing at great length with beautiful manuscripts. Go to the Bodleian Library and you will see the results of their work. I'm not undermining what they did. It was astonishing the amount of effort that they put into it. So, somebody, these scribes tried to impose an order because they thought, we want to share this.
Starting point is 00:09:04 They were driven probably by religious zeal. Many of these people, the educated people were monks and they were writing out and they wanted people to a little bit of that on the chaos as they saw it of, you know, old English. Yes, excuse me, let me stop you for a moment. Chaos. Why is that not K-A-O-S? Because it's from the Greek. I know we were influenced by the French there. Hold on, hold on. Latin, Greek, French.
Starting point is 00:09:40 Oh, so many influences. Tell me about chaos and why the C-H in chaos is hard. Okay. Why chaos is hard. Okay. Why it's hard. I thought you were saying why it's hard. Because in Irish, they say, oh, terrible. In the plays of Sean O'Casey, it's a terrible case of chasis. The world's in a terrible state of chasis.
Starting point is 00:09:55 I apologize for my Irish accent. Chasis is how they sometimes say chaos in Irish. Why do we say chaos? Well, I think it must have been the fault if you want to say fault but i actually love all this complete lovely glorious mess as i say um i think it was under influence of the pesky normans because the french for chaos is chaos or cow and hard k and so we just copied them no ch but pronounced gold yeah so oh i'd have to get a french etymological dictionary as to why they made it a hard a hard c but um you're right i've never thought about why it should be chaos chaos so these pronunciations go back a thousand years
Starting point is 00:10:40 and more where does it all come from this and why do we put up with it well i think it's great that we put up with it well as i say we have's great that we put up with it. Well, as I say, we have no academy, although there are societies... You say we have no academy, as though some people do have academies. Yes, France, Spain, Germany, to some extent. They like to impose some kind of linguistic government. And the academy in these countries, these are po-faced people. No, I don't think they're po-faced. I think they just care for the integrity and purity of their language.
Starting point is 00:11:05 But, you know, resistance is futile, as they say. And we've talked about this, haven't we? How the French Academy is helpless in the face of English imports. But foreign influences are key when it comes to spelling, because part of the reason why we spell things differently is we have hoovered up words from every single tongue that we have encountered in the history of English and English speaking. And so we borrow from native words and quite often we will borrow the spelling, whether that's French, whether it's from Native American languages, whether it's from going right back to Latin and Greek. All of these different influences have come to bear upon our languages,
Starting point is 00:11:48 with Vikings, for example, as well. So the reason is that this will account also for why our plurals are so irregular. You know, why is it moose but not meese, like goose and geese, etc.? The answer is they come from completely different languages. Oh, so it usually is go back to the source of the word. Yes. What is the correct spelling of hiccup? Hiccup. Well, it began as a hiccough.
Starting point is 00:12:10 Hiccough. Oh, it's a hoff. It's a hoff. In which you make a hic sound. Which makes a hic sound. Hiccough. In fact, I have to just add this. This is completely random and of no use to anyone.
Starting point is 00:12:19 But the German for a hiccup is schluckauf, which is a swallow up, which I love. Can I say, it's of great use to a lot of people. Some people on first dates find the conversation difficult to make. And can I say, this is so if you're listening to this and you've been unlucky in love so far, listen
Starting point is 00:12:38 to what Susie is saying and you can play these wonderful lines when there's a sort of terrible silence at the dinner table and you can't think what to say next. You can say, oh, I think I'm getting the hiccups. Did you know that the German word for hiccup is, say it again? Schluck auf. Schluck auf. Yes. Swallow up. Swallow up. Schluck auf. Swallow up. Ja. Drink up. This date is over. Ja. Guten Tag. Oh, dear. OK. We'll tackle stereotypes another time. But hold on. Hiccup then becomes, because I would say nowadays, hiccup would be acceptable as H-I-C-C-U-P.
Starting point is 00:13:10 It is in the dictionary as such. And that we changed that simply because it made sense, rather like the German, in fact, to think that we are hicking upwards. The hick is purely echoic, as they say, onomatopoeic. It just is, isn't it? It's born of its sound. And then it seems like we're doing it upwards. So it makes sense to say hiccup instead of a hiccough. Do you know how to cure the hiccups?
Starting point is 00:13:34 I've tried various things. Have you got a novel remedy? Well, no, but the drinking water out of the wrong side of the cup does work. I find standing on your head works. A little bit more difficult as the years go by, but I'm ready to give it a go. And a shock, a fright. Right. That can really work.
Starting point is 00:13:51 Of course, it can kill you. But you can't do it yourself, that's the thing. You can't tickle yourself. You can't surprise yourself, can you? Can you not tickle yourself? No. Absolutely not. Are you sure?
Starting point is 00:13:59 Positive. Really? Yes. I'm so glad about this. I have a tickling phobia. That's for another time. You really can't tickle yourself? No. What can you decide?
Starting point is 00:14:08 No. Can I say this is why people are tuning in? Because, you know, with this amazing something rhymes with purple, you live and learn. Then, of course, you die and forget it all. But in the interim, you can't tickle yourself. You can't tickle yourself. There are two types of tickling. One is called gargalesis, which is the heavy, sort of rough and tum are two types of tickling. One is called gargalesis,
Starting point is 00:14:25 which is the heavy, sort of rough and tumble tickling kind. And the other is... Gargalesis, forgive me. Gargalesis. Is that one of your trio of words for today? Oh, it could be. Gargalesis.
Starting point is 00:14:34 What is the origin of that? Good point. Gargle? It's going to be Latin or Greek because we tend to give those to medical conditions. Leave that one with me. Okay, we'll come back on gargoylesis. And then the light tickling with a feather kind is called knismesis.
Starting point is 00:14:52 Anyway, I'll just throw that in. Knismesis. Knismesis. So you can ask your date when you've got through that first bit of making the conversation about the hiccups. You can say, do you fancy either a, what were the two of them? Some gargoylesis or some knismesis. I think we'll begin with it. how do you spell the kinimesis? K-N-I-S-M-E-S-I-S.
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Starting point is 00:16:10 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. The reason I think spelling is important, and I know I am old school, is it's all about communication, but we live in a world where people are judgmental. And if you apply for a job, you send an email in applying for the job, and there are spelling mistakes in the application, or you do a CV that contains
Starting point is 00:16:56 spelling mistakes, people think, oh, this person is sloppy. They don't know what standard English is. So people, I think, need help with spelling. And fortunately, there are rules for spelling, but unfortunately, they are not very helpful. I mean, the principal rule that people know is the I before E except after C. It's the most famous of all the spelling rules and the most frustrating because for a start, people get the rule all wrong. It's I before E except after C, except when your foreign neighbour, Keith, receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters.
Starting point is 00:17:35 That's my example of, you know, when the rule doesn't apply. The point is the rule is not I before E except after C. The rule is it's I before E except after C if the vowel rhymes with B. But that doesn't work for Cs. It works a lot. It works for achieve, believe, brief, chief, deceive, fiend, receipt, receive. What doesn't it work for? Cs. What?
Starting point is 00:18:00 Cs. How do you spell? What's the word? To seize the moment. S-E-O-I-C. No, the thing is, the I before E works for about 20% of English words. Oh, I'm thinking of lots more it doesn't work. It doesn't work for species, does it? No.
Starting point is 00:18:15 Or protein. Or plebeian. Oh, Lord. So what do we do? What we do is we learn a bit of etymology. Okay. I would say that. Explain. If you learn some word origins and delve, like word detectives do, into the history of particular words, you can really help yourself out.
Starting point is 00:18:33 So definitely, one of the top commonly misspelled words, definitely. Most people, I say most, a lot of people will spell it definitely, which is understandable. But as you say in a cv slightly worrying uh remember that it comes from the latin this is straight etymology this is kind of etymology this slightly boring kind of etymology means the source the origin yes the word origin so remember that it comes from the latin finire which gave us finish no but it gave us finish so remember that definitely is a is a sibling of finish and you'll get the two I's. Because definite means something that comes to a conclusion.
Starting point is 00:19:10 Ah, finite. So remember that. Definitely. Yes. Now, if you're really, really getting into advanced spelling, and believe me, when I talk to my daughter about what she has to learn at school, at a very tender age, she'll have things like apocryphal. Ooh. Can you spell apocryphal. Can you spell apocryphal for me, Joss? I'm trying to remember what it means. Apocryphal. Apocryphal story is something that's made up.
Starting point is 00:19:34 Oh, it's made up. People believe it to be true, but it isn't. Yeah, that's how we use it today. It's invented. Yes. A-P-O-C-R-Y-P-H-A-L. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Now. Excellent. Now, the key thing there is it's got a Y,
Starting point is 00:19:47 and that's because it's related to crypt. And that's because apocryphal, I know this is a bit of a stretch, but apocryphal originally meant something that was sort of secret, that it was kept private, so people would never actually find out the truth, which is why they made things up about it.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Now, I think it's good to have little tricks. I mean, I remember, for example, that the word achieve, achieve, A-C-H-I-E-V-E, I before E to achieve success. You know, you achieve by remembering the rule I before E. So there are different ways. I mean, but it is difficult, isn't it? It's incredibly difficult. I think the trick is to think, if there's a word that you find particularly difficult, that you know you do, you can never remember whether address is one D or two Ds in the word address. You know, to address an envelope or somebody leaves it an address. You think of a phrase, you know, directly delivered letters arrive safe and sound.
Starting point is 00:20:44 So it becomes a kind of mnemonic, a kind of memory thing. Mm-hmm. Is that useful? Mnemonics are good if you can remember the mnemonics. Because usually the same people make the same mistakes with the same words. So almost it's worth reducing your list of words that you always get wrong, isn't it? Always.
Starting point is 00:20:56 I mean, we all have blind spots. Mine is consensus. Consensus, I just want to spell with a C in the middle. Ah, and it's an S, is it? It's an S. C, con, census. And so how would you, what would your clue be for remembering consensus? Well, I just remember there's got absolutely nothing to do with the census.
Starting point is 00:21:12 Taking a census, which is very negative. Taking a census is a con. Very good. I like that. I like that. So it's C-O-N-C-E-N-S-U-S. Yes. Suss it out.
Starting point is 00:21:22 T-O-N-C-E-N-S-U-S. Yes. Suss it out. Going back to word origins, the word terra, T-E-R-R-A, meaning earth. You'll find in lots of things, you know, terracotta, obviously, baked earth. But Mediterranean, it's sort of, it's C in the middle of the earth and it's got a double R. So just remember the terra, terrain is there as well. It's wonderful because now the school curriculum, certainly in Britain, does include learning about word origins. And I think this is really, really going to help.
Starting point is 00:21:50 And that's going to help people go, what about millennium? Millennium. Well, if you remember that mille meant a thousand in Latin, that's a little bit tricky. Well, I'll tell you my win for that, because when the millennium came around, you know, 20 years ago now, it's a thousand years, isn't it? A millennium. Yes. And incidentally, when did the new millennium begin? Was it in 2001 or was it in 2000? Well, I thought 2000. Yeah, I think it's 2001. I think 2000 is the end of the last millennium. So I think it's later than you think. It's all a matter of perspective. Or it's earlier than you think. Anyway, I think we've got another year to go. It's giving me an extra year of life.
Starting point is 00:22:25 Millennium is a thousand years. My clue is this. It's a big number and therefore calls for the max. Two M's, two I's, two L's, two N's. So it's a double everything. Millennium. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:38 That's good, isn't it? Mississippi. That's hard. That's hard. It's a big river, double the size of most. Double S, double S, double P. Or Mississippi. That's hard. It's a big river, double the size of most double S, double S, double B or Mississippi, Mississippi water. Anyway, I've had I've had fun listing all the words that I find, you know, Parliament. I always found spelling difficult. And then I thought when I was there, because, as you know, I was an MP until the people spoke, the bastards.
Starting point is 00:23:04 And then I thought when I was there, because as you know, I was an MP until the people spoke, the bastards. I was in Parliament. Parliament, home of the big I am. I love that. I am parliament. But again, that's the origin of it, isn't it? Parliament, parleying. It's talking.
Starting point is 00:23:16 It's talking, isn't it? Yes. So parlez-vous. Yeah. It's the parlour. The parlour in the old time for the sort of sitting room in a house. That was the way you did all your talking. Do you have words that you find difficult to spell? On Countdown, quite often, I just have a sudden blind spot.
Starting point is 00:23:32 Do you ever have these where I just think, actually, either looks really odd when you write it down. E-I-T-H-E-R. There's no other way to spell it, but I have this sudden crisis of confidence. Can I say? And I'm supposed to be the arbiter. Whenever I see the word shop fitting, I always see the word shoplifting. Lifting, mm-hmm. And I'm not alone in that.
Starting point is 00:23:50 No. It's quite curious. We began with doubt and there being no B. I have been trying to construct an alphabet of words where there is a silent letter in the word. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So, aesthetic. Mm-hmm. You're not actually pronouncing
Starting point is 00:24:06 the A, are you? Bread. There's no A. Oh, you are actually. Sorry, backtrack. No, you're not. Aesthetic. The A isn't there. Bread. The A isn't there. D, B, debt. You can't hear that, can you? C, indictment. Muscle. Silent C. Indictment, by the way, remember it's related to dictation because it's all about telling people, dictionary, dictator, all of that stuff. Indictment, that's why there's a C there. Handkerchief, is there a D in handkerchief or not? Not the way we pronounce it. Actually, I'll come back to that because I have a whole load of words
Starting point is 00:24:41 that have these sort of secret lives that were an open secret, but we've changed the sound and so we don't recognize that secret anymore i'll tell you in a minute okay it's an interesting one because hanky hanky is h-a-n-k-i-e yes but handkerchief kerchief your hand yeah but you don't pronounce the d so it's a silent d wednesday you don't pronounce the d in wednesday and yet there is one um E, fate. Fate. You don't really pronounce the E in fate, do you? No, you don't tend to when there's a vowel at the end. Fine, give, like, name. I mean, you know, it's a waste of an E. Hapenny. Hapenny. Hapenny. There's
Starting point is 00:25:17 no F in Hapenny, is there? But it's a half penny. That's how you spell it. Oh, these are G, gnat, gnaw, high, phlegm, sign, though, H, daughter, echo, I, business, business. Busyness? Yes. It wasn't about being busy. It really is. Oh, you haven't come to K, my favourite, because we used to pronounce all the Ks. We'll just go to K today. We'll do the rest another day.
Starting point is 00:25:42 My I was business and friend, because it's F-R-E-N-D, but there's an I in there somewhere. K is, the ones I've listed are knee. Knee. Knife. Knife. Knight. Knight.
Starting point is 00:25:56 Not. Not. Cannot. And no. Okay. We used to pronounce the Ks and how I wish that we did. No, so knight is from the German Knecht, meaning a boy, because a knight was a young squire.
Starting point is 00:26:08 Knecht is a boy in German. A turn-in upon a squire. Knecht, yeah. Der Knecht. If you're new to this podcast, I ought to explain that one of Susie's obsessions is the beauty of the German language. You've just got to go along with that. And actually, the way she speaks it, she does make it sound... I think she was there during her adolescent years because when she says these German words, she sort of looks 15 years younger.
Starting point is 00:26:29 So she was about 17. And the way you said boy there, I think there was an echo. Okay, so we used to pronounce the K, Knecht, and then Kneit. Gradually got lost because we simply couldn't get our tongue around it. And actually, so many instances in English of where we couldn't quite get the sound of the word that we borrowed. And so we mangled it completely and have lost all trace of where we began. I will come back to that. But yes, we had cunite, which would, of course, differentiate from nighttime. And it was really, really useful.
Starting point is 00:27:03 We talked about canies. I've hurt my canie. But as I say, we couldn't quite pronounce it. it was really, really useful. We talked about kinees. I've hurt my kinee. But as I say, we couldn't quite pronounce it. It was a foreign sounding word. It was a Germanic word. And so we just sadly lost them over time. And how I wish we had those Ks because I love them. We want the kicking Ks back. We do. Knie's up, Mother Brown. Knie's up, Mother Brown. Now look, I want to hear your trio in a moment, but you promised to come back to Handkerchief and the story there. Yes, I did to hear your trio in a moment, but you promised to come back to handkerchief and a story there. Yes, I did. I was thinking about this, actually, this very morning.
Starting point is 00:27:30 Just think of all the words which, as I say, once wore their hearts on their sleeves. So a secretary was once a secretary because a secretary was a keeper of secrets, which, of course, modern secretaries probably are too. A cupboard was a cup board, board being a table. probably are too. A cupboard was a cup board, board being a table. So it was originally a table or eventually a kind of chest with lots of shelves where you kept your cups. Breakfast, break, fast. It's where you break your overnight fast. One of my favourite etymologies ever is the daisy. The daisy is a mangling of day's eye because it's a flower that opens its petals at dawn to reveal that central yellow disc and then closes them again at night. So it's the eye of the day. Daisy was day's eye. And there's so many where pronunciation, had it been kept and had it remained intact, would absolutely tell you so much about the history of the word and the thinking behind it.
Starting point is 00:28:20 You know, the people who coined it. But we've changed the sound and so we've lost those memories. Well, thanks to something rhymes with purple, maybe there's going to be a revival in all this. And we're going to be saying Daisy properly. And we're going to be having our knees, knocking together, knicely. No, it's not knicely, nicely. That'll tell the difference. What is your trio? If you're regular to this podcast, and if you are, we hope you are, and we hope you review it and spread the word. But one of the features is we have a trio every time from Susie Dent of words that she thinks are interesting, and we then see if we find them interesting too, and they may have an interesting etymology or story behind them.
Starting point is 00:29:00 What have you got for us today? New words. Well, I'll probably start with Borborygmus. I'm not going to. Who? Simply because my stomach did just rumble. So anybody who heard that, apologies. What was the word you said? Borborygmus. That's a good spelling one. That simply, stomach rumbling. Well, that's not one of my first words. My first word is related to the title of our podcast, Something Rhymes with Purple. And that might seem a bit curious because Purple famously has no rhyme
Starting point is 00:29:26 at least that's what people say but there is one if you delve into the most wonderful 19th century work by somebody called joseph wright who's this fantastic man who went collecting local dialect up and down the land and came up the english dialect dictionary it is a treasure trove of local words. Anyway, in there, you will find the word herple, spelled H-I-R-P-L-E. It does rhyme with purple. And to herple is to limp and to walk with difficulty, especially after a very, very long walk. I love it. To herple. Herple rhymes with purple. That's why we are so called. And the point of this whole podcast is it does pay to increase your word power. I mean, you know, language is power.
Starting point is 00:30:11 The better you use the language, the more successful, the happier you will be. Two more from your place. Okay. Well, this one relates to spelling. It's, again, one of those words that has siblings that might possibly help you remember how to spell it. I'm hoping you probably won't need to spell it too often. And that's sarcophagus. Sarcophagus. That being like a tomb. A tomb. I think hoping you probably won't need to spell it too often. And that's sarcophagus. Sarcophagus, that being like a tomb?
Starting point is 00:30:27 A tomb. I think of it as being made of stone, a sarcophagus. Absolutely right. It's got a C in it. And you can remember that by knowing it's related to sarcasm, because a sarcophagus was sort of, as you say, limestone tomb that would gradually decompose the body that was buried within it. It's related to sarcasm because the origin of sarcasm was biting flesh. So the idea is that if somebody makes a sarcastic remark, it's so caustic that it actually burns
Starting point is 00:30:54 your flesh. Biting flesh. How do we spell the rest of sarcophagus? It's S-A-R-C-O-P-H-A-G-U-S. So it's flesh swallowing. And what's the fess? flesh swallowing. And what's the fuggus? What's the fess fuggus? It's related to esophagus. It's a kind of swallowing bit.
Starting point is 00:31:09 Oh, my God. As in esophagus. Exactly. Esophagus. All these things linked together. Oh, my God. This is why when I wanted my appendix out, I thought you would be the person.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Anyway, go on. Okay, third one. The third one is just a useful one. It's something I do every single morning, but particularly at the weekend. It is pandiculating. Pandiculating is a word that simply means stretching and yawning at the same time. Pandiculating? Yes. It doesn't really sound like it. I'm pandiculating now.
Starting point is 00:31:39 Exactly. Because I've had such a relaxing time with you. Good. I love our podcasting together. I really do. Those are three fabulous words. And I love knowing that sarcasm comes from biting flesh. It's quite grim. Because I like making the odd sarcastic remark myself.
Starting point is 00:31:56 I know. Biting flesh. That's it for this time. What are we calling this podcast now? Something Rhymes with Purple. Something Rhymes with Purple. And now we know it does. If you've enjoyed it, please review Purple. Something Rhymes with Purple. And now we know it does. If you've
Starting point is 00:32:06 enjoyed it, please review us. Give us whatever the maximum is. Or just keep quiet. And if you'd like to, tell your friends. It's Giles Bradworth. It's Susie Dent. It's Something Rhymes with Purple. And it's purple. I'm going to limp off into the sunset
Starting point is 00:32:21 with my knees. Oh, good.

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