Something Rhymes with Purple - Gregarious

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

This week we’re separating the wheat from the chaff and paying tribute to those hard-working folk who will be working the land over the Christmas season.  So roll up your sleeves and dig in with us as we uncover the origins of a ploughman’s lunch, learn of the debt that the financial world owes the lexicon of agriculture, and we get under the linguistic bonnet of the combine harvester.  A Somethin’ Else production  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to sign up to Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  If you would like to see Gyles and Susie LIVE and in person on our Something Rhymes With Purple UK Tour then please go to https://www.tiltedco.com/somethingrhymeswithpurple for tickets and more information.  Susie’s trio: Gutling – a greedy eater Anythingarian – someone who doesn’t really believe in anything strongly Colworts – old news; tired old cabbage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. I'm Giles Brandreth. I'm speaking to you from London, England. And my colleague and Christmas week companion is my friend, the great lexicographer Susie Dent. Where are you this Christmas, Susie? I'm in Oxford and I'm talking to you in front of my giant fish painting, which has seen a lot of podcasts and a lot of action over the last couple of years.

Action in terms of me working at my desk. And yeah, I'm still here. You're still there. I hope in some ways we're having a better Christmas week than I am. Last night the, I don't know what went wrong, the heating seemed to work but the hot water went off. Oh no. And I had that startling experience of clambering into the shower and ice cold water and I kept fiddling with and then there was still ice cold water and I know a little bit of the shock of it is supposed to be good for you.

Yes, do you remember what it's called? What is it called? The word for the shock of cold water, it's from Scots, and it's a caglaf. Do you remember? A caglaf? Yes, a caglaf. I don't remember. A caglaf.

I was hit by a caglaf. I then emerged and said to my wife, oh, the hot water's off. She said, I left you a note on the kitchen table when you came in. It said the hot water is off. Don't take a left you a note on the kitchen table when you came in. It said the hot water is off. Don't take a shower. Anyway, you can imagine what it's been like. Christmas week, no hot water. But fortunately, a saintly guy has been in.

All credit to Jason and to John for getting the hot water back on. Excellent. You never have any plumbing problems, do you, Susie? Well, as you know, because you're being very mischievous, I am waiting for the drainage people, possibly the most famous drainage company in Britain, who I don't have to mention. But yeah, I'm waiting for them to come because we have blocked drains, which is the first time I've ever had blocked drains in my life. And I do not recommend them. Look, if they solve the problem for you, let's hear it for Dino Rod. If they solve the problems, if they don't turn up, we won't mention it. Okay, that's all right. All right. I have had, I love Christmas because I am what I wear.

And every day through the Christmas season, I wear a different colourful jumper because I think if I get up, it makes me feel more cheery. So I'm wearing a fun Christmas jumper. And I work a bit over Christmas. I like working at Christmas. But what I do is hardly counts as work. And it made me think this week of the people who are doing real work. The fire brigades, the police officers, the nurses, the doctors, the paramedics, all those people actually working yeah shopkeepers working right over christmas it's amazing people in in taxes i mean people do work at christmas but actually people we forget i think who work at christmas are people who work on farms

yes you're right you and i are both city dwellers aren't we and i don't know that my grandchildren realize that the food they eat comes from down on the farm. fools. But unsurprisingly, because the food chain is now so long, and what we end up with is so far away from where it began. So yes, today is our tribute to the farmers up and down the world, well, up and down the land, but also across the world, because we have lots of purple listeners abroad. We are very excited. If you're just new to this podcast, there are about 140 of them you can go back to. Essentially, every week, we meet together, Susie and I, and we talk about words and language. And with Susie's help, we unravel the heritage, the history, the meaning of words. I'm going to start today, if we may, with the word farm, F-A-R-M, a four-letter word that's essential.

Down on the farm, what's the origin of farm? Well, it's interesting, actually, because it was all about money originally. So farm, first of all, came to us from French, as so many English words do, and the old French ferme, F-E-R-M-E. And that in turn comes from a Latin word firma, F-I-R-M-A, which meant a fixed payment. And it gave us, you know, we talk about companies as firms that is why because the noun firm originally meant a fixed annual amount that was payable as rent and very often farmland is subcontracted from another person so a farm came to mean a lease and around the early 16th century it was a land leased for farming so So the idea of growing crops or keeping livestock

that we associate with farming today actually only dates back to the 19th century. Gosh. Farming at its essence, of course, is all about agriculture. And that word must have a much older origin. Agri and culture. Agri meaning? Agri in Latin meaning a field or land. it's as simple as that but yes that would go back to the roman times but do you know i was musing that actually so much of our financial vocabulary is about farming really which shows the importance of agriculture in days gone by because if you take the idea of a fee you will go back to the medieval feudal system in which the nobles held land and the peasants were obliged to work the lord's land and give him a share of the produce. And a fee was the

sort of benefit or reward, if you like, for that produce. So that was the earliest meaning of fee. And if you take a fellow, that's another interesting word that actually goes back to the Latin for cattle, because cattle were thought to be so important that actually they became the synonym for money or even for property. And so a fellow was a partner who laid down money in a joint enterprise or indeed invested jointly in cows. How intriguing. Basically, it's all about the money. We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land. Plough, P-L-O-U-G-H, that's fundamental to agriculture. Ploughing in the money to grow the profits. What's the origin of plough? It is of Germanic

origin. It's a Germanic word. And in German today, you'll have Pflug, P-F-L-U-G, which eventually became our plough. And actually plough in English was spelt P-L-L-O-W, which is still the US spelling. But that is how we spelled it for a very long time until about the 18th century. And then you have the ploughman, of course. Why did we change? Because P-L-O-W is much simpler than P-L-O-U-GOUGH. I think, again, it was part of this drive to create a sort of independent language. And do you remember also that sound and spelling divorced such a long time ago? So presumably we were following the pattern of things like the bough of a tree, etc. But, you know, spelling is notoriously idiosyncratic and

eccentric when it comes to English. And so I can't give you a firm answer to that because there are so many anomalies. And, you know, famously that O-U-G-H spelling is pronounced in so many different ways. I was going to go on to the Ploughman's Lunch because I remember this vividly because when I worked at Oxford University Press, they put out a call to action for people across the world, really, to find the earliest evidence they could of the Ploughman's lunch, because they could only find evidence dating back to 1960. Whereas anecdotally, people say they were eating Ploughman's lunches and referring to them as such for decades before.

And so there was a big, big rush on to see if people could find, well, not a rush, I suppose, but a big initiative to see if people could find earlier evidence in 1837 in a biography of the life of sir walter scott there is a such a pre-echo if you like of the plowman's lunch and it goes the surprised poet swung forth to join them with an extemporized sandwich that looked like a plowman's luncheon in his hand so that suggests that actually ploughman's luncheon in his hand. So that suggests that actually ploughman's lunch or ploughboy's lunch is also recorded was actually around as bread and cheese and pickled onions to go with your pint for quite a long time before the OED's first record. That is completely fascinating. Do you like a ploughman's lunch? I love a ploughman's

lunch. I love pickled onions. I love them. I love onions of all kinds. The ploughman who a ploughman's lunch? I love a ploughman's lunch. I love pickled onions. I love them. I love onions of all kinds. The ploughman, who we plough the seeds and scatter, we're sowing seeds, aren't we? So where does sow come from? S-O-W. Yes, again, a Germanic word, but you'll find lots of siblings in Old Norse,

the languages of Vikings and Old Saxon, etc. But it simply goes back to an ancient word. Well, the old English word, first of all, sawan, meaning to scatter seed upon the ground or to plant it. But the ancient root of it also gave us semen, because we talk about a man's seed, season and seed itself. So it's quite an important family. Oh, semen, as in semen, is from being a man's seed.

The men in semen means man, as in male. Yes, it's the whole idea. And in fact, season is quite interesting as well. There's sort of the idea that a season determines what happens on the land, again, showing the real importance of farming and agriculture. That's why we have the Harvest Festival, to thank God, those that believe in God, for bringing in the harvest. Yeah. I mean, fundamental to the year in the country in the old days. Harvest.

I love the word harvest. I think it might be because of harvest festivals at school. I love autumn, so it's got real resonance for me. Well, the meaning of harvest in Old English was autumn. And since early autumn was the season for cutting gathering in the crops it passed into a sort of different meaning if you like for the process of gathering in crops and the season's yield so it goes back to the german helbst which still means autumn over there but ultimately we think it might go back to another ancient word that gave us the Latin carperae, to pluck, which

also gave us carpet, because you're plucking crops from the ground, and a Greek word meaning fruit. So again, a really illustrious family. But if you remember, we had harvest for autumn, then we had the fall of the leaf, or fall for short, and then we decided to go with the French word la thon and have autumn. But we've had various names for autumn, including the North American fall. So harvest also means, it now means gathering in the harvest, but it used to mean autumn itself. Autumn itself. Yes. This is the harvest season when you do the harvesting. And crop, there was a word that

sounded very like crop in what you were using just then. Crop. C-R-O-P. The crop is what you gather in at harvest time yes what's the origin of that well it goes back to an anglo-saxon word meaning the head or the top of a plant really it was the head and it's got so many different senses crop that i can't begin to go on to all of them but obviously when you are you know gathering your crops your cereals etc you're cutting off the top of a plant and then when you have a riding crop it was the upper part of a whip or a handle of a whip originally and then if you have cropped hair it's a kind of thick short head of hair on top so lots and lots of different meanings for crop but the idea again is as I say

kind of cutting the head off your plants when it comes to farming and agriculture. You mentioned harvest. Of course, that gives us the harvester, the combine harvester. And that's, I suppose, relatively new. The reason it's called a combine harvester is that it combines three individual operations that happen during harvest. The reaping and the threshing and the winnowing as well. So that's why it kind of combines all of those different processes. Well, those are three good words.

Can you unpack those three? To winnow is lovely, actually. It means to kind of pare down and it comes from an old English word meaning to wind. It's to blow a current of air through grain in order to remove the chaff. And then more generally, simply to remove the chaff from grain. And yes, it goes back to an old English word meaning to wind. And it goes back to an ancient root that also gave us vent and ventilate and wind. One of the three words for the combination that's happening.

What were the other two? Reap as well, which is to cut or gather a harvest. Apparently, we don't know its origin. And it's got no matching words in any other languages. So it's something of a mystery. Oh, I love these words that we don't know the origin of. It's marvellous. It means that there's going to be work for us for years to come.

What was the third one? Threshing. So threshing and thrashing are both sides of the same English coin, if you like. And thrash was used for treading out corn by men or by oxen. And threshing was restricted to producing grain. And then thrash went on to mean more kind of generally knocking or beating or striking something. And that thrash in terms of tramping with the feet, you will find in threshold as well, because the thrash goes back to the idea of treading. Yes. And I think when you went over

the threshold into a house it was because they had some sort of like matting just inside the door that you could sort of wipe your feet on and that was why the threshold was there. Yes no one quite knows where the hold bit comes from that is a mystery for etymologists but definitely the threshing is all about treading so you were treading across the boundary between one place and the next you've mentioned the tractor before but tell me in a nutshell about the origin of the word tractor okay so tractor goes back to the latin trahare so t-r-a-h-e-r-e and its past tense was tractus and it was all about pulling something along. And Tractus and also Trajere gave us train, trace, extract, contract, trainers, contract. I mean, so many different words with the idea of pulling or drawing something out. But yes, Tractor is part of that very important family.

Speaking of pulling or drawing something out, irrigate, because you can't grow anything if there isn't water as well as ground. Exactly. It's very simple Latin origin that it goes back to in meaning into and rigare meaning to moisten or wet. Excellent. I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And this is Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. And I'm Leah President, and this is Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect.

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Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're celebrating Christmas week. We're in festive form. I'm wearing one of my Christmas jumpers. Tell me, why is what I'm wearing called a jumper in this country and yet a sweater in America?

Yes, again, another example of the great distinction between the two languages. Well, jumper, when it first appeared in English, which was the mid-19th century, meant a kind of shapeless jacket. So the sort of smock almost that you will find worn by artists, you know, stereotypically. And the sort of dress sense then developed from that. So a jumper for a long time and in fact still in the us means a kind of pinafore dress but over here it took a slightly different route and it moved on to what we would now call a sweater and actually it goes back to

a noun meaning jump which has nothing to do with leaping in the air, but it's a form of the French jupe, which actually now means a skirt, very confusingly in French, but it used to mean a short coat, a jupe. So that's where you get a jumper. So the idea originally was of something you would wear on top. And we have kept that sense in British English. And in America, as you say, in American English,

it is a sweater. And that looks back to the idea that in the late 19th century again it was intended purely to make it wear a sweat so athletes in training wore sweaters and there's a great example from 19th century text that says as for pilling the little ruffian actually weighs over eight stone but we're going to make him run a mile every day with four sweaters and three pairs of flannel trousers really dangerous i would think but they were intended originally to provide such warmth that they would make their wearer sweat i think you're brilliant susie dent you know everything instantly you're fantastic no if you're but thank

you well we're talking about farming today because we're thinking about the people down on the farm who provide all the wonderful food that we enjoy over Christmas. But we're working every day because farming goes on all the time. And I remember not long ago you told us about the bizarre agricultural origin of other words like broadcast, which is what we're doing now on our podcast. And that is to do with casting seeds broadly. I mean, give me the link of that. And then Aftermath was another one that was related to agriculture. Explain why. Exactly. So broadcast was simply widely disseminating your seeds.

You were casting them broadly. And the idea was then extended to the idea of modern media and modern broadcasting because you are widely disseminating information and then of course you know transmission I suppose but yes it was originally scattering seeds by hand and then I'm not sure actually when it began to take on the modern I mean I think you still might talk about broadcasting in agriculture. And I know you certainly talk about aftermath. Aftermath originally meant after mowing. So when a field had been mown.

So yeah, 1921 to disseminate a message news or any audible or visible matter. So that was 1921. That 1921 is the anniversary of the BBC. The foundation of the BBC came around in 1921. That's 1921 is the anniversary of the BBC, the foundation of the BBC came around in 1922. So obviously, that's when the first idea of broadcasting as we know it. Yeah. Aftermath is post. It's after math. The math. Yes. So it was the second crop, if you like, it was the new growth of grass after the first had been mown or harvested. That was the aftermath. And then this is all a long time ago, 17th century,

it began to mean a state of affairs following a significant event. So, again, a sort of second consequence, if you like. Are there other words that we use every day that have an agricultural farming origin that we no longer realise? Yes, lots. And they're all quite strange, really. We have delirious, which actually goes back to a word that literally meant deviate from the furrow. So you are not sticking to your groove, but you're going beyond it. And that's from de, Latin from away, and lira, a ridge between furrows. So if you are delirious, you are being sort of deranged, I I suppose or just sort of going outside yourself a little bit you know to have a sort of almost out-of-body experience. But that's extraordinary. It is isn't

it? So delirium comes from literally the furrowed earth. Yeah. And the region and going swerving away from the furrowed earth you're in a state of delirium. Yeah exactly. That's brilliant. Very strange and then you've also got a hearse, believe it or not, because a hearse obviously always part of a funeral these days, but its origin is actually very agricultural because it goes back to the Latin herpex, H-R-I-R-P-E-X, which came into French as herce, H-E-R-C-E. And a herpex was a kind of large rake, which I will explain. So herpex itself probably goes back to an extinct language of southern Italy, so Oscan, where herpes meant a wolf. And so people were making a comparison between the teeth of a wolf and the teeth of a rake. So that's why it was called this implement, this agricultural implement was called a little wolf.

this implement, this agricultural implement was called a little wolf. And the earliest uses of hearse in medieval English for a triangular frame that had teeth, it was shaped like an ancient harrow. And on those teeth would be placed candles at church services and a canopy would be placed over the coffin of a distinguished person while it was in church. But those teeth of that giant rake actually held the candles and only later did it come to mean the vehicle for conveying the coffin itself what an extraordinary journey to get to the word hearse to start with a kind of farming rake yeah amazing it is can you give me another one one more yes another big family really is well you've got gregarious you've got egregious you've got congregate all of these goes back to the Latin

grex, g-r-e-x, which meant a herd or a flock. So if you are gregarious, you are sort of fond of company, if you like, you're fond of your flock or your herd. Whereas if you go back to egregious, that originally meant distinguished. So, you know, sort of prominent in your field. And obviously it's taken a turn for the worse because if something is egregious, it is pernicious and very negative. But it actually goes back to X standing away from and then Grex standing out from the herd, which explains why it was originally complementary because you stood out. which explains why it was originally complementary, because you stood out. But then, pessimists that we are, as always, it began to mean something negative, egregious, meaning you are sticking out for all the wrong reasons.

And then if you congregate, obviously you're collecting into your herd or your flock. And if you're segregated, you are set apart from your herd. So all of those go back to farming in the early days. And of course, farming in the early days was mainstream. It was what people did because it was about survival, which is why there are so many idioms, I imagine, using the farm from sowing your wild oats to travelling a hard road to hoe. These phrases date back, I imagine, a long time. They're perhaps saying wild oats not so long. I don't know. I mean, we know what it means, don't we? Yes. So either literally it means sort of spreading your seed, I suppose, or sleeping around. But actually, it originally in the 16th century, it was just the sort of youthful excesses

or follies. And it was in reference to the stupidity of sowing wild oats instead of good grain. That's the idea of the wild oats is they're ones that actually won't guarantee a good harvest so 16th century first references to sowing your wild oats it's actually very old very good and what was the other phrase i mentioned oh yes a hard road to travel i mean a tough road to hoe yeah what's the origin of that i think that's north american isn't it um because i'm not that familiar with that one but i think it simply goes back to the tough job that is hoeing if you've not got very machinery so presumably much machinery presumably goes back to the early days of farming when it's hard work it's hot work when you were hoeing the fields instead of using all the modern technology that we now have available yeah it's pretty obvious actually it's rather like separating

the wheat from the chaff meaning sorting things out's rather like separating the wheat from the chaff, meaning sorting things out. But the wheat is the good stuff. The chaff is the bad stuff. Is that an old phrase? Yeah, that is quite old. And it's, yes, it's separating the wanted from the unwanted, isn't it? And again, if we go back to the idea of winnowing and winnowing grain, farmers want to remove all the chaff from the wheat, because in order to eat the wheat, you have to get rid of the chaff and do you remember i was also talking about crap recently and how crap actually originally meant all the discarded bits of wheat that you didn't want so that comes into play as well she bought the farm i know the phrase not quite sure what it means i feel that might be an american

one too bought the farm that's an americanism. So if you buy the farm, you die, essentially. So it's a euphemism for death. Oh, it's a euphemism for dying. I didn't realise that. Yes. It's very similar to how Gone for a Burton originated. If you remember, it's probably a reference to Burton's ale, so beer or ale from Burton on Trent, that became a euphemism for drink.

So the idea is that if a pilot unfortunately crashed into the ocean, then you would go into the drink and say you were gone for a Burton. So it's quite similar to that. But buying the farm, lots of suggestions accounting for exactly what the farm is in this. But one idea is that if a serviceman or woman was killed in action, their family would receive a payout from the insurance. And this would be sufficient to pay off the family mortgage and possibly buy the farm themselves. So if you bought the farm,

your death would then guarantee that your family at least had your property. That's one of the guesses, but there are lots more that you will find if you go searching. Well, that's the world of farming from life to death from Susie Dent, who is completely brilliant. If you've got more queries about agriculture and words to do with farming that we haven't touched on today and would like us to explore, you just need to drop us a line. It's simply purple at something else dot com.

Something is spelt without a G. Purple at something else dot com. People do write in every week from around the world and we love to hear from the purple people. Purple at somethingelse.com. People do write in every week from around the world and we love to hear from the purple people. We love to meet them too. We've done recently some live podcasts that have been very lively and great fun around the UK. We're doing more in the new year at the Cadogan Hall in London

and in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and others may be announced. So look out for those. Who has been writing to us this week, Susie? Well, I have been ticked off, very kindly ticked off by David Tomlinson, who is a regular listener. And I'm very glad that he wrote to correct me on one particular point,

because we learn as much from the purple people as hopefully they learn from us. And he says, dear Susie and Giles, having just listened to your cybernetic episode, I need to correct Susie on one point. The end the episode you were discussing the origins of grand slam and susie said that the term was used to describe a home run in baseball this is not entirely correct a grand slam is when a batter hits a home run with players on all the bases thus scoring four runs so thank you for that david. He is an English teacher

in a university in central China, and he tries to pass on some of the knowledge that he gets from Something Rhymes with Purple to his students. So that's lovely. Thank you for that, David. And please do keep writing in.

And if you feel like we haven't quite given the whole story or you have your own theory or your own facts, we love to hear from you, good or bad. So please do email us. This reminds us that English is now a world language.

I mean, there we've got David actually coming from Lincolnshire, but teaching at a university in central China, where Chinese people speaking English will be adding their extra spin to this old language. Wonderful. Absolutely. And we have another fantastic name here, actually, in terms of being international, Andrea Fermark. Now, I'm not completely sure where,

oh, she's in Pretoria in South Africa. And Andrea says that friend and she were thinking about trying cyanotype. We understand that the photographic craft is named after the blue colour of the finished prints. However, we noticed that one of the chemicals used in the process is potassium ferricyanide. We then wondered if the word cyanide has any relation to the colour and our very first thought was to ask you. She says really sweetly, please never stop broadcasting. Speaking of broadcasting,

so thank you so much for that, Andrea. We really appreciate that letter. And Giles, this was a real discovery for me. This is why I love doing this pod, because my first thought was cyanide and cyan? No way. And you know what? I was completely wrong. Gosh. Cyan is C-Y-A-N. I know the word, meaning it's a colour, isn't it? Yeah, it's a greenish blue colour. Yes. What's the connection? So the greenish blue colour cyan goes back to the Greek of kouanos, terrible pronunciation, meaning dark blue. Okay, so that's that. Cyanide is a colourless, highly poisonous substance that is made by oxidising hydrogen cyanide. And that

goes back to the same word, the Greek kouanos, meaning dark blue mineral. So named because it is a constituent of the colour Prussian blue. So they are absolutely linked. And I had no idea that they even were remote relations, but now I know better. So thank you so much for that, Andrea. Andrea Vermark there, writing from South Africa. Writing from York in England is Jack Hughes, who says, Dear Susie and Giles, I have a wordy query about a vegetable, technically a fruit, that I hate, he says, the green pepper. Bitter and unflinching. A green pepper to me is simply an unripe one.

Having said all this, I came across an interesting point of curiosity the other day when flicking through some of my many recipe books. It would seem that in some parts of America, particularly the Midwest, green peppers are known as mangoes. What on earth is going on there? If you could shed any light on the subject, it would be greatly appreciated so I can go back to loathing this vegetable monstrosity. Okay, what do you think? What's the answer to all that? Okay, so if you look up mango in the Oxford English Dictionary, you will find the very first sense is the one that most of us know, and that is the fruit of the mango tree. So the sweet orange-fleshed droop, it says, which is much eaten as dessert, especially in the tropics, but of course, thanks to aviation, now very much over here too, and delicious. It's also used for the tree

that produces the fruit and also the various other trees that produce similar fruit. Then you've got pickles. You've got lots and lots of different trees and different plants named a mango and indeed different fruits. So there's another one, which is a musk melon. Now, I'd never heard of a musk melon, but musk melon is also known as a mango melon. Have you heard of that? Nope, never. No, I hadn't either. But that is the edible fruit of the melon. Honestly, there's a very specific botanical description here, but safe to say that mango has been applied to lots of different fruits and lots of different plants, including from 1948, recorded in the Dictionary of American Regional English, a green bell pepper. Now, all I

can say is it's probably down to appearance and it was a handy word to have around at the time. I can't really explain why it became a multi-purpose word, given that it has real specificity for us still, But it's definitely recorded. It's a synonym for green pepper in many parts of the USA. Well done. Thank you, Jack, for that inquiry. Jack, of course, is a multipurpose name too. There's a Jack as the person.

There's Jack in also, we could do a whole show about Jack, but we won't. Let's not go there today because we've got to finish in a moment because we're all waiting to see if the drainage man or woman or person turns up to give Susie a reasonable Christmas. But before that, your trio, Susie, three interesting words that you'd like to bring to our attention that we may

not yet be familiar with. Okay, three words from the past that have become lost over time and which I think still have a little bit of use for today. The first one is a gutling. We've got Christmas coming up. So G-U-T-L-I-N-G is simply a greedy eater or a glutton, a gutling. Somebody who thinks only of their stomach. The next one is somebody who is just a bit indifferent to everything, doesn't really believe in anything particularly. This comes from the 18th century.

An anything-arian. Oh, I love that. What a great word. An anything-arian. Oh, that's wonderful. Somebody who's a bit wishy-washy, doesn't really believe in anything, whatever goes. I'm a bit like that. I always agree with the last person I met.

An anything-arian. Oh, I'm going to put that word into my language. And how long has that been around? Since the 18th century. Oh, it's a brilliant word. Excellent. And the third one? The other one is,

it's just saying to someone like, ugh, old news. You can say, oh, coal warts and coal warts. Coal warts, C-O-A-L warts. C-O-L, and maybe it's coal warts actually because when we talk about ragwort, it's W-O-R-T. So maybe cold warts. And it refers to cabbage-like plants. So something which, you know, I suppose is not particularly exciting. But yes, specifically in English, it's meant old news. In other words, you don't need to tell me that. I knew that already. warts this is why diction is so important because i thought initially you said cold warts and i think warts you know when they've gone cold well you know what are you fussing about your warts they're all cold now but actually it's cold warts c-o-l-e as in cold

slaw maybe exactly it's the same thing cold warts so it's it's tired old cabbages no it's no no it's just cold warts around here that's wonderful I think those three could be my favourite three words of the year. Okay. I think they're fantastic, actually. Oh, I'm glad. I've got a poem for you. Good. And I thought I should make it a short poem because Christmas is coming.

And it's one of my favourite Christmas poems. It's actually called Another Christmas Poem. And it's by one of my favourite contemporary poets, Wendy Cope. Oh, she's brilliant. Bloody Christmas here again, let us raise a loving cup. Peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up. That's brilliant. I love Wendy Cope. She's brilliantly on love as well, doesn't she?

She's absolutely fantastic. She's brilliant on love, on life, on Christmas, on men, on everything. We're going to let you go, Susie Dent, but can we say, if you're listening to this before Christmas, and you may be listening to it in the future, because we like people to go back, trawl back, but if you are listening to this over Christmas, we hope wherever you are, whoever you're with, particularly if you happen to be on your own, we are there with you because we love you people, the purple people. We're thinking particularly this week of all the people who are working over Christmas, all the people on the farm and in the hospitals and on the roads and just everybody who is keeping

the world going. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And to you too, Susie. Thank you, Giles. And I wish that to all our fantastic listeners as well. And here's to many, many more episodes with you in the new year. So thank you for following us. And do please recommend us to friends if you have enjoyed us. Or do get in touch because that's the best yet. It's purple at somethingelse.com. If people want to give us a Christmas present, you can follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music

and recommending us to friends is absolutely vital. Vital! Yes, that's our present. We don't want anything else. Something Rides With Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale and, oh,

well, we have to say something kind and Christmassy now. We do. When it comes to Gully, I'm not an anything-arian. I'm an enthusiast. He's as close as we're going to get to Santa Claus. I'm going to tweet a photograph of him and you'll see, when you see his picture, I'll put it on Instagram as well,

you'll think, oh, my goodness, that's what Gully looks like. He does look like a very young Santa. So, Merry Christmas, Gully. Merry Christmas, Gully. Happy Christmas, everyone.