Something Rhymes with Purple - Gategate

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Dive into the groovy world of etymology as we journey back to the vibrant decades of the 70s and 80s in this week's episode. Join Susie and Gyles and get ready to disco through the evolution of language, exploring the funky slang, radical expressions, and iconic phrases that defined these iconic eras. 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:  Bagasse: A plant residue (as of sugarcane or grapes) left after a product (such as juice) has been extracted. Ale-conner: A beer tester. Misslieness: A feeling of solitude that comes from missing a beloved person or thing. Gyles' poem this week was 'On The Edge' by Jane McCulloch Staring down at the dark abyss, I am balanced on a ledge.  Hovering above that thin line which runs between sanity and madness.  And they call the edge. Some event, some news, some action has propelled me into missile like spin. While all around they have no idea of the torment, the terror, the struggle coming from within.  A telephone rings. The doorbell goes. People are laughing.  Now I sway.  Should I let go? Give up and fall? So much easier to give in. No. Not this time. Not today. 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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Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience, and the Purple People often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Hello. The train now arriving at platforms 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 is coming in sideways. That's a little joke that I thought might entertain the offspring of Rishi, our brilliant engineer who's in charge today, and who made, just before we began our recording, some reverence to the train leaving the station, at which point one of his children appeared at the door and said rather excitedly, can I listen? And I thought, how marvellous. Susie thought so too,

that we have a younger audience is fantastic. We like people of all ages to listen to something rhymes with purple. Don't we, Susie? We do. Although I'm not sure how Richie will feel about being called Rishi, because I think there's only one Rishi around our parts. called Rishi because I think there's only one Rishi around our parts. I think it's these new teeth that I'm trying. Forgive me. I have to say, please can I divulge this? You and I were waiting for our links, weren't we, to be sent to join the podcast. And we have a WhatsApp group with our lovely producer Naya and Rishi.

And you accidentally sent a voice note jars i think you must have just sort of lent on your um yes on your phone i think there's a phrase something like sort of bum dial or uh pocket dialing yes yes um yeah well it may have been that but voice notes are sort of slightly uh tricky anyway i just just randomly had it on whilst I was getting ready for the podcast. And I heard you talking to a woman. And I heard you say, I'm just about to record a podcast with Susie Dent. I will be two hours and then I will meet you in the bedroom. At which point, my blood ran a little bit cold. And then you said, for drinks. And I thought, okay, this could go either way. And then you said, I've got a lot to tell you.

But then I was very glad to hear the dulcet tones of your lovely wife, Michelle. And it was her and whoever this person was, but it was all fine. But I did get worried for a few seconds. You're quite right. I'd come in in a state of some excitement with lots of news to report to my lovely wife, Michelle, with whom I have known for now 55 years. And I thought we would have drinks up in the... Oh, was it just Michelle you were talking to? I was just talking to Michelle. I was just talking to Michelle. And yeah, but from the other side of

the kitchen, holding my computer, holding the microphone, holding everything and my notes and my collection of poems for choosing a poem during the course of the podcast. So this was all happening on my way down to the basement. Exactly. At least I didn't say, see you down in the dungeon, which I might've done. Oh dear me. Well, anyway, I'm relieved that all turned out well and we must let you get up to your drink with michelle but first oh but can i tell you something can i just tell you something else it's relevant to what we're going to talk about uh do you have one of these machines that calls answers to a name like hello siri or hello alexa oh uh i well yes there is one in the house and i did work, actually, with one of them a while ago on trying to teach it some dialect.

And actually, it wasn't accents. I wasn't an accent coach, but I was teaching it some regional vocabulary, which was a lot of fun. Well, we were having a conversation with somebody the other day in the kitchen, not in the bedroom, and there was a third person at this. And this person had worked for one of these companies that works for things like Alexa. And they said, when you ask them a question, they don't know the answer. They are concerned that they don't know the answer, and they will try to work out why they don't know the answer.

So they do listen to you for this. Then we went on talking about this. And then after about 10 minutes of this conversation around the table, Alexa spoke up without being invited to do so, saying, at Alexa, we take your privacy very seriously indeed. Oh, well, normally you would have to. So you didn't mention the name. Well, you see, I think we may have mentioned the name earlier when we were talking about,

I was saying things about Alexa, not realising that maybe in that I'd switched her on. But then when I began talking about, you know, are they listening in? That's when Alexa intervened to say, we take your privacy very seriously. Well, yes, I would hope that is very true. Well, this is very much 21st century. And we're not going to spend this episode in the 21st century, however much we find the 21st century exciting. I'm going to flex, which I think is 21st century speech, for showing off.

I'm linking up. That's me, 21st century speaker, you know, communicating with you. And I'm quite gassed, which is exciting, because we're going to be talking about 20th century language, aren't we? We are. So we are continuing our foray through the language of particular decades. And we've actually nearly reached the end of the 20th century because we're covering the 70s and 80s today, actually nearly reached the end of the 20th century because we're covering the 70s and 80s today, which you and I will know well, and obviously kicking off them with the 1970s. And we talked, didn't we, in our last episode about the swinging 60s and how you did live through those and you remember flower power and you didn't indulge as much as some of your

contemporaries. But in the 70s, we see as so often, it's just such a pendulum really in terms of the way we live. We go from one extreme to the other. The reaction to that kind of decadence and liberality, I suppose, set in. And so, it was very much not the 60s. It's the kind of anti-60s this decade. Yeah. It got good things in the 60s, 70s, I think. Did ABBA first arrive in the 70s? Yes, they did in Eurovision with Waterloo.

And yeah, it did have good things because in some ways this was the first green decade, or at least it was the growing realisation of what we were doing with our planet. And... That's when we baby boomers came of age, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because baby boomers are people born in the baby boom that really took place after the Second World War. And am I right that the word baby boomer was coined in the 1970s? 1970s yes 1974 although baby boom is from the 1940s um so um yeah later abbreviated to boomers and um as you say post-war generation grew up and you know people began to realize that actually there was money in them and politicians realized that there was quite a lot of leverage to be had

in this but just going back to the to the side of things, it still wasn't plain sailing. And actually, you find the word eco-freak. So there was quite a lot of cynicism here. People talked about them as having smiley faces, as though they indeed were the kind of hangovers of the hippies of the 60s. In the eco and eco-freak, what was that standing for, ecology or? Ecology, yeah. How interesting. And what does ecology as a word mean traditionally? Ecology is all about nature, isn't it?

It's all about conservation and it's about the natural world. So it's a branch of biology really and it deals with living organisms and their environment. So, you know, pretty crucial. Ecology first mentioned, I think, towards the end of the 19th century. And eco itself is actually, I think, from the Greek meaning of dwelling. So it is very much rooted in our environment and the place in which we live. Fine. Okay. So exploring ecosystems is the science of ecology. Yes, absolutely. So eco-freak, why is it associated with the environment particularly?

Because you can be exploring ecology across the beast, can't you? Well, I think it is all about environment. It is about the place we live in. And so it does make sense talking about our environment in that way. But energy crisis, I think, is a word that gained a lot of currency. Gas guzzler, another one. Renewable. I mean, we talk so much about renewables these days.

And CFCs made a bit of a ominous debut. Do you remember CFCs? Is that a sexually transmitted disease of some kind? No. A CFC is a chlorofluorocarbon. First recorded actually in 1947, but really came into popularity in the 70s. And these caused damage to the ozone layer. So do you remember when there was a big and correct fuss

about antiperspirants and various sprays that contained CFCs? So they became banned, really. So aerosol propellants, and also, I think, in the plastics industry. And it really wasn't until we became aware of the dangers that we began to throw this term about. Was it in the 1970s that there was an enormous hike in the price of oil? This rings a bell because, you know, I like to say I've met everybody. I do remember meeting somebody called Sheikh Yamani. And I think he was in charge of something called OPEC,

and I think he was in charge of something called OPEC, which was in the Middle East, the Arab countries. It was their sort of, I was going to say their cartel, but their group that organized, agreed the price of oil. And Sheikh Yamani, I met him to interview him about this extraordinary period where the price of oil rocketed in the world. And we talked about these ESPs that you're talking of. What was it?

Not ESPs. CFCs. Yeah. And he told me that he made his own perfume. Oh. Yes. And he produced some perfume, this man. And he invited me to run my fingers through his hair.

And I then had hair in those days. And he then applied some of his fragrance, some of his perfume to my head. So- Yeah, like a pomade. Yes. I mean, did you look a bit like Hercule Poirot? I felt a bit like Hercule Poirot.

Anyway, that's Sheikh Yamani. That is the 1970s. Go on. I'm loving being reminded of this period. Tell me more. So we also, of course, we can't think of the 70s without Thatcherism. So 1979 is when this comes out.

Thatcherite a bit earlier, 1976. So those are Margaret Thatcher's policies as opposed to those of earlier conservative leaders. And usually used with a snarl, I would say. Not always, but in retrospect by lots of people. It's interesting, isn't it, that Thatcherite was, I suppose, applied to people who were devotees of Thatcher while she is in opposition in 1976. This is the end of the Harold Wilson, James Callaghan government that she defeats at the end of the 70s. And as you say, Thatcherism, maybe with a negative tone.

Of course, she was elected and then re-elected and then re-elected again. I'm interested that words come in so early, because you didn't have before that, did you, Wilsonism or Callaghanism or even Heathism? No. But Thatcher was her impact, for good or bad. Maybe you had heathites, I don't know. But such was her impact, for good or bad, that you did have Blairite. So certainly that was... And I think you had Blairism to an extent, didn't you? Yes, you did, actually.

We'll probably come on to that. It's the mark of somebody who makes a mark. And also who stands the test of time. I mean, both Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher were Prime Minister for 10 years and more, which is quite unusual. Yeah. Yeah. How interesting. So that was about, and I tell you what's quite interesting as well, is the emergence of possibly the most popular and enduring suffix of our time to be discussed. But gate, the suffix gate, obviously a riff on the Watergate scandal of 1972. But any actual or alleged scandal can usually acquire the suffix

gate. Remind us, the Watergate was a building, wasn't it? It was a block of apartments, I think, the Watergate apartment block. And it's all to do with the White House and a cover-up of alleged electoral malpractice sanctioned by the then President Richard Nixon. I'm just summarizing this after a long time. Though, of course, as you know, I like to say I've met everybody. I did indeed meet Richard Nixon. Oh, my goodness. What was he like? Yeah. Yes.

I mean, actually, I mean, all the characters we've mentioned so far, Margaret Thatcher, I met her. In fact, maybe I should put up on social media when this episode goes out, pictures of me shaking hands with both Margaret Thatcher and with Richard Nixon. He was a fascinating character, Nixon. Yeah. I mean, he's now painted as a sort of kind of devil figure. And there was the fascinating film, did you ever see it, called Frost Nixon, which was an account of the making by David Frost, television presenter, of interviews with Richard Nixon about the Watergate affair and about his resignation from being the president.

He was a complicated fellow who first became vice president in the early 1950s, and then having been defeated when he stood for presidency against Jack Kennedy, then came back and succeeded as becoming president and then was engulfed in what became known as the Watergate scandal. But you're telling us that the origin of that gate, everything now, any kind of whiff of scandal, they put the word gate on the end. And that originates with Watergate. With Watergate. And some of them, obviously, are completely ridiculous. Remember, I can't remember quite what the context was, but we actually had gate-gate. Oh, yes, the gates of Downing Street. That's it. This was, again, somebody I know called Andrew Mitchell,

who was a member of Parliament. I think he may even have been the chief whip at the time. Is this where Pledg was used? He allegedly, it was not proven, and I think he denied it, got into a bit of a bait because he was going in and out of Downing Street all the time because he actually had a government pass, he had business there, and he felt that the police were being a bit officious with regard to his bicycle letting it through. And he allegedly called the police officers plebs. He absolutely denied that,

denies it to his day. And I read his very engaging autobiography where, again, he said, this isn't the language you'd use. He denied it anyway. That's neither here nor there. But it was all to do with gaining access to Downing Street and going through the gates of Downing Street. So this scandal, as a result of which he resigned, became known as Gategate. Hilarious. It is hilarious. Well, that all began.

It was all set off in the 1970s. And then maybe we should have a bit more lightheartedness. Trekkie was was born a fan of star trek of course which went on to achieve absolute cult status don't forgive me do you mind i promise after this episode there'll be no more name dropping for at least a week but now it's gonna be william shatner or leonard both yes both william shatner Now, it's going to be William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy. Both.

Yes. Both. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy. He was the one with the pointy ears. I loved him. I kept calling him Dr. Spock. And he said, that shows your age. He was Mr. Spock.

Dr. Spock was a pediatrician who wrote a famous book in the 1940s and 1950s, 1960s, several editions of it, about childcare. And people of my vintage, we brought up our children using Dr. Spock. So when I met Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock, I inadvertently called him Dr. Spock. Well, the Trekkie was born in that decade. We have the first pop festival. We have the Popemobile. The first first pop festival forgive me for interrupting well not the first one but the first use of that expression wow yeah so the legendary example of that is woodstock isn't it that was 1969 and probably thanks to that in 1970 people started to talk about pop festivals now you're going to tell me that you were actually at woodstock as well no i wasn't okay i wasn't i've been to woodstock if you mean the place in is it oxford

sure buckinghamshire i've been there where the duke of marlborough has blenheim palace but i but woodstock the festival sadly that i missed out on i think there was a lot of mountain noise it wasn't my kind of thing oh well we also have politically correct um how interesting yeah so pc i think came a little bit later but in 1970 we have the first records of a politically correct i think pc is mid-1980s but again you know i think people still talk about political correctness very very often so that was one that that certainly last uh lasted and we have a supermodel, of course. I say you say, of course. Who was the first Supermodel? I would have thought the first Supermodel would be somebody like Twiggy, who became internationally famous, globally famous,

and was a model, and is super, in the 1960s. But the phrase Supermodel is not until the 1970s. That's interesting. No. And there was, I'm trying to think, there was Margot Hemingway, who was absolutely beautiful. I'm just going to log into the OED, actually. And see if they give examples of who the supermodels were. Yeah, because it was really in the 80s, wasn't it, that we have people like Claudia Schiffer and, well, Yasmin Laban, Cindy Crawford, et cetera. wasn't it that we have people like claudia schiffer and um well yasmin lebon cindy crawford etc okay so you will be happy to know that supermodel the very first record of it is um

has been anti-dated actually to 1967 and it goes like this it was recorded in the new york times twiggy's favorite answer is i don't know which seemed as good an answer as any to such press conference questions as, what's it like being a supermodel? There you go. That is wonderful. My instinct was right. The reason I'm thinking about Twiggy is on the 17th of March, I'm doing a fundraising charity show, Twiggy and I are, at the Rose Theatre in Kingston to to raise money for this it's a wonderful art center wonderful theater yeah uh and we're doing a show there where i'm i'm telling a few of my stories but that won't take too long and then twiggy is coming on and we're talking

about her life because it's an extraordinary and a wonderful musical has been created about her life called close up anyway well you can say that the Oxlade-Cledicmery's first reference of a supermodel is in relationship to her, which is great. You know, she's now a dame. Did you know that? I didn't. Congratulations to Twiggy. Dame Leslie Lawson. That's very good.

Amazing. And her husband, Lee Lawson, is a poet. And in fact, I'm going to not necessarily today, but soon I'm going to read one of his poems. Now, he played Alec d'Urberville in Test of the d'Urbervilles, and he was amazing. Susie Dent, you know so much. I want to hear, if I may, in a moment, let's take a break first, about the lava lamp, because I had one of those. So did I. And also, because I lived in London at the time, the Sloan Ranger I think that was a phenomenon of the 1970s Summer is like a cocktail

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We're back. And I've got, not in this room, but somewhere down here in the basement, a lava lamp that we acquired in the 1970s. What was the lava lamp? And am I right? Is it a word from the 1970s? Yeah, well, actually first coined in 1969, but gained a lot of currency in the 70s. So I think most people will know what a lava lamp is. They are very mesmerising. So this is an ornamental lamp that has a glass chamber, doesn't it, containing this kind of viscous liquid and all these bright, this brightly coloured liquid is kind of suspended and it kind of rises and sinks, doesn't it, and is constantly changing shape. And that is all activated by the heat emitted from the bulb, which is at the bottom of the lava lamp. But they are absolutely brilliant. I did actually try getting one again to sort of relive that nostalgia,

but it wasn't quite the same. No, it's never quite the same. No, but I loved it. And the Sloan Ranger, you're absolutely right, that is 1970s, first recorded around 1975 by the social observer and commentator, if you remember, Peter York. Indeed, he was still around, very much so. He is, in fact, a friend of mine, good man.

Well, it was reformed, essentially, by replacing the loan of Lone Ranger, who was a popular hero of Westerns, wasn't he, with Sloane as a riff on Sloane Square, on the border of Belgravia and Chelsea in London, two extremely expensive areas of the capital. And it was actually introduced by Peter York, but I think it was coined by a sub-editor on Harpers and Queen. But it was thanks to him and an article in October 1975, where he defined it as well. And he brought out the official Sloane Ranger handbook.

find it as well. And he brought out the official Sloan Ranger handbook. And essentially, Sloan Rangers were conventional, upper class, fashionable, and had a very distinct wardrobe, didn't they? They did. I can picture the scarves they put around their heads and where you tied the knot under your chin. And they talked in rather a Sloany way. in fact that we then get things like talking in a sloney way sloney would now be a word because of sloan rangers i imagine i don't think anyone uses that anymore because the reference is completely lost on younger generations but yes frilly blouses um pearls for women it was sort of midi length skirts and flat loafers i think would we say that young d, who later became Princess of Wales, she would have been a young Sloan Ranger?

I think absolutely she was in her early days and then, of course, became an absolute fashion trendsetter. So she moved away from that. But in those very famous photographs where she was pictured in the nursery that she worked at, looking after all those children, she definitely was in a very distinct Sloan Ranger outfit. So the reason that a phrase like Sloan Ranger and a word like Sloany would be in the dictionary is not because they're being used now, but so that people 100 years from now can actually, if they come across it, can look it up and discover the phenomenon that then existed in the 1970s. Is that why it has it? That's what the diction is all about, really.

It is charting language from its very beginnings to now and indeed ever more into the future. And it is so valuable as a historical record from that point of view. Now, the Sloan Rangers were succeeded by another group of people called the Yuppies. Now, they were young, upwardly mobile people. Are they from the 70s or are they from the 80s?

I kind of associate yuppies with the 80s and more New York for me, don't you think? Oh. Well, I would say yuppies and what was the other one? Was it yuppies as well? What were the yuppies? I can't remember what yuppies were. They were puppies as well. I don't know. There were all sorts of things. So yuppie 1982, I think is our earliest looking at this, as you say, young urban professional,

and there were lots of riffs on this. And in one description here, it talks of them basically aspiring to vigorous self-advancement, jogging, and BMWs. Very good. But yes, you're absolutely right. So that was a decade later, which indeed we're going to come to, which we should do now before we run out of time. Yeah, we've got to rattle through this. This is more interesting than we thought. Well, we better do it today because we promised that we would. So give me some more. Okay. Well, we have money. Money defines 90 minutes.

This is the decade of money. Some people would be negative about it, but this is the era of Reaganomics. Am I right? Ronald Reagan has become the president of the United States. Margaret Thatcher is riding high in the United Kingdom. And in the city, the city boys are talking dosh money. It's almost, well, we're almost even allowed to worship money. So that's the idea. So there will be words associated with this. But of course, there was a huge amount of disparity between those who had and those who didn't have. And again, that tourism is very

much kind of remembered in that context, isn't it? But yes, we had all of that going on. And we had, as well as the menagerie of bulls and bears and stags in the stock market, there were other metaphors like a white knight, golden hello, all of those things. Maybe we've done this. We could do a whole thing on the financial slang. Yeah, we probably should. Because you used, or I used the word just now, dosh. But that's an old word, isn't it? Meaning money. That's 50s. Yeah, that's pretty old, that one.

And I think that one, actually, I know you're going to ask me where it came from. It sounds to me like it might be Romany. Let me have a look. Yeah, 1953, origin unknown. Oh, helpful. But it just sounds like it might have an origin amongst the Roma community. But yes, we should do. This was also the age, as well as the cell phone, which began to make its mark.

The Filofax. Remember the Filofax? I had a Filofax. Me too. And I had a cell phone that wasn't a cell. It was as large as a brick. I mean, it literally was as big as a brick and as heavy as a brick. I did not have one.

Those original portable phones. Extraordinary. Yeah, I was, I think, I didn't think I had one until the 1990s, if I remember rightly. Well, of course, you were young. There was a myriad of new dances, styles of music, it was moshing,

there was all these things. Oh, what happened with moshing? Moshing, body popping, moonwalking. Oh, moonwalking? Do you know about moshing? I know, I want to know about, and moonwalking. Oh, moonwalking. Do you know about moshing? I know. I want to know about it. And moonwalking, I do know about. I'm not telling again my Michael Jackson story.

I'm so sorry. Write in if you want me to tell it again, but I'm not going to. I don't know about moshing and the other thing you mentioned. Okay. So to mosh, there's a mosh pit. I don't know if it still exists, but when you go to certain gigs. So it's to dance really frenetically and slightly violently violently so it's to kind of deliberately coincide with other people so you're kind of headbanging really you're kind of slamming into other people

and didn't they lift you up 1983 they lifted you above the mosh pit and sort of handed you about and you fell into the mosh pit this is yes this is right like that ever happened to you no possibly in my dreams nor me but who knows no never happened nor me and also very sadly definitely worth pointing out one of the key facts of the decade was aids and by the late 1980s you know we we all knew the lexicon of as much as we became very familiar with the language of COVID and we started talking like, you know, experts talking about R numbers and various things. So it was with AIDS. Is AIDS an acronym? Abbreviation. Abbreviation, or is it an abbreviation? Exactly, an initialism.

So AIDS itself is from acquired, let me get this right, acquired immunity deficiency syndrome. Thank you. Because it is a retrovirus that affects your immune system. So by the end of the decade, we sadly knew about, well, not just HIV, but AZT or AZT, as it became known, which was a drug that tried to combat it. Obviously, drugs nowadays are absolutely amazing, but not so much then. And it was a very tragic decade, as were the 90s from that point of view.

Safe sex, we started to talk about. Good grief. Safe sex didn't exist before. I mean, the phrase didn't exist before, because I know it did. Because have I ever talked to you about bundling? We've talked about that, haven't we? Yes, I think we have.

Good. Safe sex was around as a phrase from 1968, but it really, really came into its own during the AIDS crisis, for sure. As a public service podcast, we should do a whole episode on safe sex, I think, Susie Dent. You know my joke about the threesome, don't you? Somebody asked me, and they said, have you ever tried the threesome, don't you? Somebody asked me, and they said, have you ever tried a threesome, Charles? Me, they asked me. I said, so I didn't want to be embarrassed. I said, a threesome? Oh, yes, only once. Only the once, I said. But it was great fun, the threesome. It was great fun. Of course, there were two no-shows, but it was great

fun. Yeah, I remember you saying this. I thought that was someone else's joke. Have you appropriated that one? It is. It is. It's at least Bob Monkhouse's. I mean, it's the sort of joke he would have told. He was very funny. It's very true. Well, another thing that came about in the 1980s were designer drugs. They kind of became the fashion of the decade. Prozac particularly became the sort of what they called the happy pill, do you remember? a happy pill to remember so that came about we had we talked about pc or political correctness in the 1970s so pc uh came into being and uh we started talking about ableism oh as opposed to disability i mean you're talking about people being disabled yes being ableist is being you know assuming that we are the norm and that nothing else exists and disregarding those with you know what would be deviations from the norm i suppose is how it would have been viewed then or though obviously not not now and and actually any deviation came to be described in terms of

being challenged you remember that and people started joking in that way as well if you were short you were vertically challenged oh yes i do, yes. I do remember all that. Yeah. But it's almost impossible to do such a packed decade justice, I think. It certainly is. You haven't mentioned the chattering classes. And I wanted to dispute your suggestion to me that this was a phrase introduced in the 1980s. I feel the chattering classes have been around at least since the 1920s. But am I wrong? I will look it up for you. 1871. Thank you.

Members of the educated metropolitan middle class, especially those who utter self-assured expression of liberal opinions about society, culture, and current events. Good, good. But again, I think we have to look at, when you're looking at the distillation of a decade linguistically, you have to look at the words that really came to the fore as well as those that were actually coined in that decade, because sometimes it does take them a while to bed in.

Okay, I accept that. Good. Oh, my goodness. There's one thing that we cannot leave now, and we need to get to the correspondence, but the internet. Oh, my goodness. The internet. Oh, well, I mean, there's a whole language, isn't there, of the internet and the whole, you know, the microchip revolution that was brought about by it. Oh, I think we should devote, if we haven't done one already, a whole show to the internet. Yes. it was applied to a set of linked computer networks that were operated by the US Defense Department. And the global computer network that we know today evolved out of that.

That's wicked. Wicked. Is that wicked meaning good? That means bad. Is that a 1980s turn of phrase? I think it was actually. Yeah, 1984. That's sort of traditional. I shouldn't say traditional because it's anything but, but the very typical flipping of good to bad and vice versa. It's funny. Had you asked me, I would have put it together with bling, which was definitely 1990s and we will get onto that. But no, 1984. Brilliant. Well, look, if people are listening and they have subjects that they'd like us to cover, like we've done the words of the 70s and 80s today, a little bit superficially, I think, when we got to the 80s. But if you'd like us, if there's something you'd like us to

talk about, you can write in and say, yes, do do an episode on safe sex or do explore the language of money more thoroughly. Just get in touch and tell us what you'd like us to be talking about. the language of money more thoroughly. Just get in touch and tell us what you'd like us to be talking about. I promise I will not overdo the name dropping next time, but Susie Dent will be here with all the proper answers, as she is this week. People who've communicated with us have written to us at this address on the internet. It is purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. Purplepeopleatsomethingrhymes.com. Who has been in touch this week, Susie? Well, I don't think we have a voice note from Louise Waterman, but I'm very pleased that she actually introduced me to a word I'd never heard before. Do you want to read it out, Giles? Yes, dear Giles and Susie, I'd like to ask you about a word I've just come

across in a 1953 horsey fiction book for girls. I read and collect girls' fiction in various subjects from the 1920s to the 1960s. The word is disjaskit. Disjaskit. D-I-S-J-A-S-K-I-T. My autocorrect just tried to change that to dishes skirt, and I've never seen it before. It's being used to mean weary, jaded, worn out in the story. Have you ever come across this word, Disjasket, and what are its origins, please? Many thanks and best wishes from Louise Waterman. Well, I'd never heard this. Have you heard it before? Never, never heard this word. No. So, I looked it up and it took me to a wonderful dictionary called Jameson's Dictionary, but it's actually called

the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, which was published in 19, sorry, 1808 by Dr. John Jameson. And it's a bit of a landmark when it comes to the study of the language and indeed historical lexicography in general. And in there, a word that I never expected to find because I just thought this must be some misprint or whatever, but no, I find disjasket. And it means indeed broken down, dilapidated or decayed. And it's used both literally and figuratively. And the first record that they have here, 1816, as they say, the first broken, disjasked-looking road. Now, as for its etymology, not quite so simple, but they think it might just be a corruption of dejected,

because there was a synonym for dejected that existed for a while, which was disjected. And the ject bit in both of those is thrown. So if you were dejected, you are kind of thrown out of yourself, if you like. You are crestfallen, you know, the idea of being sort of falling down. So, Disjasket, a very Scott's rendition of Dejected. Brilliant. Gosh, you know so much, and if you don't know it, you managed to research it for us. It was a fun explore. Now, I think we do have a voice note for our second question. Dear Susie and Giles, my husband, nine-month-old son and I are huge fans of your podcast and are

also hopeful that flattery will help us get our question answered. We were wondering if there is a connection between the words virtual and virtuous. Best, Juliet. Well, before you answer that question, may I say how right they are to let their nine-month-old son listen to the podcast, because there's lots of research that shows if you introduce language, usually it's poetic, rhythmical language, because that's easier to absorb, but language of any kind to young children, it actually helps them learn to speak sooner and better. And even, there's research on this, read and write sooner and better. Isn't that extraordinary? It is, absolutely. And also in the womb, I think. Yeah, definitely.

Not just after birth, but also before, which is just absolutely fascinating. Well, and it's a brilliant question. And it has quite a complicated answer, but I'll try and keep this as brief as I can. So the words virtual and virtuous are indeed part of the same family. And their origin may surprise you, Juliet, because it actually goes back to the Latin vir, V-I-R, meaning a man, because the first to be considered virtuous and strong and of moral rectitude were, of course, men. One of the many, many examples where a word has swapped genders, and I often talk about the first harlots, for example, being men, but so it was with those who were considered to be virtuous. Now, if you take it right back toallus, because the idea is that this definitely belongs

to the male community. And then it was, you know, abstracted as manliness in general, and it is kind of all sorts of human virtues. And to be virtuous eventually over the centuries came to describe chastity. And of course, chastity normally expected, thanks to preconceptions and expectations of the past, to belong to a woman, the prerogative of a woman. So that is how virtuous came to be used primarily of women. But it didn't stop there because virtue also came to mean the power to influence and to have to sort of express your essential entity. So I suppose going back to those early metaphors of the stick, et cetera, maybe it was the idea of the kind of seminal essence of something. So that kind of

explains, I suppose, both virtue and virtuous and their very strange journeys. When you get to virtual, you have to sort of see that the idea is that it is the essential entity, the source of everything, but then with a twist. And it's almost as if we've deconstructed virtual again to mean the opposite of the essential thing. Because if something is virtually right, it's not really quite right, but it's kind of good enough. So it's almost like we've taken it back a step to mean that it's not quite the essence of something, but almost. And when we talk today about virtual reality, we're talking about a representation of reality that is almost and really, really close to being exact, but not quite.

But the short answer is virtue and virtual, strangely and astonishingly, both go back to that Latin meaning man. Can I tell you, Susie Dent, you are remarkable. That was a masterclass in etymology. And, well, the nine-month-old son has to discover that everything comes back to the phallus in the end. More or less. As the founder of the Freudian Society of Paris, expounded in about 1910, he said in French, c'est toujours les génitales. Very true. Not very romantic, but very true. Have you got a trio of words for us, unusual words, with or without a phallic connection? I do.

And without. And this one also has nothing to do with anatomy, although you might think it sounds like it does. It's bagasse. It's not badass, but it's bagasse. Is it French? Bagasse? Is it French? It does sound like it should be French. B-A-G-A-S-S-E. Is it French? Bagasse? Is it French? It does sound like it should be French.

B-A-G-A-S-S-E. Is that how you spell it? Yes. It's all about sugar cane. So I suspect that its origins may be more exotic and possibly Spanish, actually. Let me look it up here. Well, you're right. It's via French bagasse, but ultimately from Spanish, where bagasse, bagasse, described husks

of olives and grapes, et cetera, after pressing. But its meaning is actually the refuse products in sugar making, whether from the cane or from the beet. So that is where it landed. But I just thought it was quite an interesting sounding word and one I'd never heard of before. The second one is, well, basically a job that I think most people would like if they could get it, an ale conner, C-O-N-N-E-R, and that is simply a beer tester, believe it or not. So, are you not really that keen on beer? I was never. Even when I did drink, I wasn't very keen on beer. No. But actually, I could work that one out. Ale is ale, and Connor is to know something, isn't it?

As in, goni, the French. Exactly. Now, I mentioned Dr. Jameson and his wonderful Scots dictionary. And so I just came across this one whilst I was browsing, because once I go into a dictionary, I just have to look around. And it's a lovely one. It's mis-ly-ness, mis-ly-ness. And it's about miss, as in I'm missing you. Ly, as in to lie, L-I-E, and then ness. And it actually just means loneliness,

because you are missing someone. But I just thought it was so evocative, mis-ly-ness. I'm feeling a lot of mis-ly-ness. Oh, it's wistful, mis-ly-ness. Yeah, it is quite wistful. Now you're going to ask me what wist is and I'll tell you the next time. Good, please do. I've got an interesting poem for you today. It's by a friend of mine called Jane McCulloch. I may have read one or two of her poems before. She's writing a memoir now, an autobiography. She's a remarkable person. She's a writer, but she has been a theatre and opera director. and she's a writer, but she has been a theatre and opera director. And I'm thinking of this poem because a lot of people at the moment I think that I meet are feeling quite edgy.

They don't like the way the world is. My own wife, Michelle, has stopped watching the news or listening to it on the radio and indeed has banned newspapers from our house. She doesn't want to see them. And that makes life a bit difficult for me because I pop up on television talking about what's happening in the world. So I have to read the papers secretly. And it is, sometimes life can be difficult. And this is a poem

about being on the edge and the poems called On the Edge. Staring down at the dark abyss, on the edge. Staring down at the dark abyss, I am balanced on a ledge, hovering above that thin line which runs between sanity and madness, and they call the edge. Some event, some news, some action has propelled me into missile-like spin, while all around they have no idea of the torment, the terror, the struggle coming from within. A telephone rings, a doorbell goes, people are laughing. Now I sway. Should I let go, give up and fall? So much easier to give in. No, not this time, not today. Gosh. Quite a poem, isn't it? It is quite well.

And I think a lot of us would recognise that. I think a lot of people. I mean, I recognise it. A lot of people recognise On the Edge. They're written by Jane McCulloch. Lovely. Thank you for that. Well, thank you for our company today.

And apologies that we had such a fleeting visit to two very important decades. And if there's a word that really sums up and defines those decades for you, do let us know. As Giles says, we absolutely love you getting in touch with us. It only leaves us to say that Something Rhymes With Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production. production. It was produced by Naya Dio with additional production from Gemistry, Charlie Murrell, Ollie Wilson and the inimitable and not Rishi, Ritchie. Ritchie and one of his offspring.