Something Rhymes with Purple - Grog-blossom
Episode Date: November 19, 2019Today we’re practicing the toilet arts and taking a trip through the language of beauty. We cover up our mouse-marks and grog-blossoms with lashings of ham-fat, bicker over our bikinis, and debate w...hether being buxom is an upstairs or a downstairs issue. Gyles also reveals his 'Tommy Two-ways side' and Susie wraps everything up in a nutshell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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
losses and real talk
with special guests from the Athletes
Village and around the world
you'll never have a fear of missing
any Olympic action from Paris.
Listen to Olympic FOMO
wherever you get your podcasts.
Make your nights unforgettable
with American Express.
Unmissable show coming up?
Good news. We've got access
to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it.
Meeting with friends before
the show?
We can book your reservation.
And when you get to the main event,
skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.
Let's go seize the night.
That's the powerful backing of American Express.
Visit amex.ca slash yamex.
Benefits vary by card.
Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple with me,
Susie Dent, sitting opposite my co-host.
Giles Brandreth.
And I've done a very naughty thing that really irritates me.
When people phone up and I'm eating something and I go on eating it,
I can't bear the noise of people eating on the phone.
And I'm eating on the microphone.
Because just before we began our recording, Susie, very sweetly, shared her nuts with me.
Her nuts and raisins gave me a little
handful and they are delicious, so tasty. And the trouble with nuts is then they get all over your
teeth. How lovely. How beautiful, in fact, which is quite relevant because not only are we here
to talk about words as we always do on Something Writes with Purple, but we are actually going to
talk about beauty today because I have so many bugbears when it comes to the language of beauty
that I just have to get them off my chest.
Why do you have bugbears about the language of beauty?
Well, where to start? Well, several years ago, I wrote an article that followed
a shopping trip, basically, with my youngest to go and buy some makeup. And I had no idea
about this. I'm sort of quite spoiled in Countdown land, Countdown being the programme that I work on,
because we have make-up, as with any TV programme,
you have a whole crew of lovely, wonderful make-up artists
who bring their own make-up.
So I don't generally go out and buy make-up.
So this was a bit of a first for me.
And I was really shocked, Giles, I have to say.
Have you ever been out buying make-up?
Yes.
When I played Lady Bracknell in
The Importance of Being Earnest I wanted appropriate ham fat mature woman makeup oh okay so I went out
the whole powder thing so lots of powder and sort of mascara for the eyelashes the reason I mentioned
ham fat is because that's what actors used to spread on their faces for makeup and that's where
ham actor comes from because it was usually the people who couldn't afford the real deal.
So these were the ham actors who probably weren't the best.
And they put on ham fat.
Yes, they were the ham fattest.
That was what they were called originally.
I didn't know that.
But the reason I, you know, I'm not a prude.
I'm so far from being a prude.
We've done a whole swearing episode where I will happily.
You're far from being a prude.
Exactly.
You're often quite rude. I am quite rude. But it was just so highly sexualised,
that this stuff that we were looking at. So for a start, you will find... Is this specifically
aimed at young girls? Yeah, quite a lot of it is aimed at young girls. That's the first thing I
should say. So there are particular brands, which I won't necessarily mention name and shame here, but there are particular brands that do, you know, aim specifically at teenage girls.
And I've got the article here that I wrote on the subject because I was so interested in sense.
So there's one brand, for example, that when it comes to blusher will talk about orgasm.
That's the kind of standard blush.
Or there's also super orgasm.
Deep Throat is another one good so you have to
ask for um deep throat f-bomb bang stray dog perfect threesome which is an eye palette with
three little colors in it advertising slogans like get some give some there was one called
gash the color of a lipstick snog glow job Glowjob, you name it. It was in fact really
hard to find something that wasn't that sexualised. And, you know, these are kids often sort of 13,
14, going to find their eyeshadows and their blushes or whatever. And this is what they are
being groomed with, really. Is this common? Have you just found an obscure brand? No, honestly, this is really common, because when I then went back to the Countdown studio,
the favourite blusher of mine, I didn't realise it was being used upon me, was Super Orgasm.
Super Orgasm?
Yeah.
On your face?
Yeah, because it will give you the flush as though you've just had an amazing orgasm. But
when I was, I mean, this is the classic, when I was growing up, but, you know, it would be soft
This was a classic when I was growing up.
But, you know, it would be soft damson or dusky rose or whatever, which was fair enough.
But no, now it is all about the effect of this makeup.
In other words, it's all about attracting someone, you know, with whatever you're wearing.
It's not about feeling good in yourself. When did makeup start to get words attached to it?
I mean, I imagine makeup has been around for thousands of years.
Yes.
Partly to enhance appearance, but also to disguise maybe disease.
In the old days, people had skin that was pockmarked because of illnesses,
and they would cover it up with makeup.
And what is the origin of makeup?
And what are the words?
How old are the oldest words associated with it?
Well, some are really old.
And actually, makeup and morality have been linked
since the days of the ancient Greeks for a really, really long time.
And that's when the cosmetic kind of palette began to emerge.
So centuries ago, a rouged mouth or eyes with lots of coal on them, K-O-H-L, come back to that one because that's quite interesting.
That could be really dangerous.
That could be really dangerous.
So, you know, in biblical times, Jezebel infamously painted her face and tired her head.
In other words, she kind of groomed her hair before meeting her death.
And that whole makeup idea was the symbol of the stigma of evil and whorishness.
You were a whore, essentially, if you wore that level of makeup. The phrase is a painted Jezebel.
And the painting is part of it. It's how you illustrate
the sort of person you are. Yeah. And obviously, that's not the case throughout history,
because there was amazing sort of elaborate, beautiful makeup from, you know, the ancient
Egyptians onwards. And I mentioned coal, that's really interesting, because that's got the same
root as alcohol, believe it or not, because it was a distillation achieved through alchemy.
coal, believe it or not, because it was a distillation achieved through alchemy. Al-coal,
that K-O-H-L, which was how the word was originally spelled, was the coal, the coal with which you distilled alcohol, but also what was left you could paint your eyes with.
What's the origin of the word cosmetic?
Cosmetic first came into English as an adjective, meaning having power to adorn,
embellish or beautify in the 17th century.
So ultimately it goes back to the Greek meaning to arrange or adorn.
Mascara.
Our producer has just said, where does mascara come from?
That's another good question.
It goes back to, well, you'll like this, Charles.
It goes back probably to the Italian or the Spanish maschera, meaning a mask.
Ah.
Which is essentially,
isn't it,
what cosmetics
are designed to do.
And sometimes that mask
will give you
supreme confidence
and sometimes it wouldn't.
And as I say,
this makeup has been
with us for ages.
I mean,
the unadulterated face
right up until
the 20th century
was a real whiteness.
So there's been
quite a lot of racism embedded within,
I talked about makeup and morality,
but embedded within the whole world of makeup too,
because they used to sell bleaching lotions
like Fairplex ointment, which would top the beauty charts.
But forgive me, what is so curious
is that white people want to have darker skins
and some people with darker skins want to have paler skins.
Well, I tell you what, historically,
white meant time spent indoors
by those who could afford
to do so.
But the outdoor workers
would inevitably brown
and harden under the sun.
And that was, you know,
it goes,
it's the same with
to have blue blood.
Blue blood refers to
the sort of blue veins
that were visible
through intensely white skin
of the aristocrats
originally in Spain,
as opposed to the Moors,
who, you know, had darker skin. So it's quite a lot of discrimination involved here.
Some years ago, I did interesting work on who gets to be happy, how and why,
with the great Dr. Anthony Clare. And he was telling me, I asked him, you know,
do beautiful people tend to be happier than not so beautiful people? He said, no, quite the reverse.
This is because human beings react badly to extremes of any kind.
And so you come across somebody who is incredibly beautiful,
you back away from them.
People warm to people who are in the middle range.
If you're very, very beautiful, if you're very, very, very ugly,
people may find those two extremes quite difficult to cope with.
And as he said, Marilyn Monroe, very beautiful, but not very happy.
So if you're listening to this and you don't feel you're as beautiful as you would like to be,
good luck.
Well done, you.
You may actually be better off.
But it also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Well, of course.
Of course it is.
I wonder what that phrase comes from.
It's probably a poet of some kind.
Oh, it sounds like the Bible to me.
Oh, do you think so?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
You ask me so many questions. I'm so glad I have the Oxford English Dictionary.
Yeah, and then you can give me beauty is only skin deep.
It doesn't mention the Bible, in fact. It does mention a Greek saying,
for in the eyes of love, that which is not beautiful often seems beautiful.
Oh, I rather like that. Isn't that good?
Yeah. But 1630, it came into English,
Beauty's in the Eye of the Beholder.
I was mentioning Marilyn Monroe,
regarded by many as a blonde bombshell.
Where does bombshell come from?
Oh my, what a bombshell.
Bombshell works similar to blockbuster, isn't it?
Because a blockbuster was originally a bomb
that could take down several blocks.
So it was an American term.
And of course, then we've got the bikini effect.
The Bikini Atoll, that was a big bomb, wasn't it, in the Bikini Atoll region?
It made such an impact that when the sort of very flimsy bikini wear came out,
they thought, this is explosive, so let's play the bikini.
Are you sure?
I thought it was because the Bikini Atoll looked like a bikini.
No, no, no.
That's an urban myth, is it?
It's all to do with the explosive effect, yeah.
Can I turn to potions and poisons from a century ago?
I thought you never would.
Because we're looking at 150 years ago now, there was such a thing as the toilet arts.
The toilet arts were those that prettified and beautified.
Yes, people now think of the toilet as the lavatory.
Yes, there's a lovely quote in the OED
which talks about wearing a toilet on your head
because originally a toilet was quite an elaborate headdress.
And then eventually the place where you would go and take your headdress off.
Because people did their toilette,
that is to do your makeup, your cosmetics, to beautify yourself.
My toilette, I'm doing my toilette.
We always talk about powdering our noses, don't we?
It's all euphemism. Whenever the leaves come into it, it's all euphemism. So the toilet, what'm doing my toilet. We talk about powdering our noses, don't we? It's all euphemism.
Whenever the leaves come into it, it's all euphemism.
So the toilet, what is the original toilet?
The toilet art, it was more about the perceived health and beauty problems in those days.
Because today, of course, it's all about wrinkles, isn't it?
And on the packaging today, you will say, visibly improves the skin,
which always makes me think, it doesn't really.
It just looks as if
it does but in those days what you really wanted to get rid of were blemishes like they were called
mouse marks mouse marks on your skin offensive perspiration of the feet i guess we still have
that extreme redness of the nose which incidentally is called a grog blossom if you've been drinking
too much yes um and and hand whitening again it's all back to
to that sort of you know the fairness but they really loved to concoct all their remedies at
home and i think as a return to this now with um things that you can you can make at home that are
more natural sort of cucumber under the eyes and wonderful kind of face mask made of oatmeal and
that sort of thing i haven't tried them yet, but I think I must.
But in those days, you know, the early 1900s, you could make your dentifrice,
which was toothpaste or toothpaste powder, with cuttlefish bone and honey.
You could use quicklime to take your hair off.
Depilation, it was called.
In those days, you could use quicklime.
depilation it was called uh in those days you could use quick lime you could use the head fat of sperm whales horrible for um for all sorts of things especially in face creams um and mercury
derivatives now mercury was everywhere and we've talked before about mad as a hatter
and the hatters used to use mercury and so those who made felt hats were exposed to this mercury, made them go a bit
doolally and so mad as a hatter, literally. And they'd used arsenic and all sorts of things in
their sort of products. So in some ways, despite the fact that we now call them deep throat,
we have moved on in the right direction because they are becoming increasingly natural, I think.
And animal testing, hopefully, also is going out the window.
Good. On that positive note, should we take a break?
Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.
Hey.
No, too basic.
Hi there.
Still no.
What about hello, handsome?
Who knew you could give yourself the ick?
That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations.
You can now make the first move or not.
With opening moves, you simply choose a question
to be automatically sent to your matches.
Then sit back and let your matches start the chat.
Download Bumble and try it for yourself.
Shrink the Books is back for a brand new season.
This is the podcast where we put our favorite
fictional TV characters into therapy. Join me, Ben Bailey-Smith, and our brand new season. This is the podcast where we put our favourite fictional TV characters into therapy.
Join me,
Ben Bailey-Smith
and our brand new
psychotherapist
Nimone Metaxas.
Hi Ben.
Yes, this season
we're going to be putting
the likes of Tommy
from Peaky Blinders,
Cersei from Game of Thrones
on the couch
to learn why their behaviour
creates so much drama.
So make sure
you press the follow button
to get new episodes
as soon as they land
on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Amazon Music
or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Shrink the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.
Years ago, Susie, I was lucky enough to know a British blonde bombshell in the lovely shape of Diana Dawes.
Have you heard of Diana Dawes?
We have told the Diana Flux story, haven't we?
We've told that story many a time and oft.
I love Diana Dawes.
I got to know her. I got to know her.
I got to interview her for television.
I then began to meet her quite regularly when she, in the 1980s, came on to TVAM to talk about how she was going to lose weight.
And we followed her diet over the summer on TVAM.
And each week she did lose a little bit of weight doing the special diet and the exercises on the program.
she did lose a little bit of weight doing the special diet and the exercises on the program.
What we didn't realize until after it was all over was that week one, when she came in to be weighed,
she'd hidden about her person in her underwear and elsewhere heavy stones.
I mean, literally sort of tins of food to make herself.
And gradually, as the weeks went by, she just removed a few more of these cans of food.
So she did indeed become lighter.
This was because she was a little bit buxom.
She was delightful.
Indeed, I thought part of her attractiveness was her slightly... It's the curvaceousness.
I long to be curvy.
What is the origin of the word buxom?
Well, that's a lovely one because it's one of those ones that's flipped gender, really,
because to be buxom originally was of a man to be compliant and obedient and an all round good egg, particularly when it came to your employment.
And it goes back to a German word, wiegsam, meaning bendable, essentially.
So you were compliant.
You would just follow the rules and be fairly versatile and fairly flexible.
And again, it's another word that has had a really strange journey really sorry to use that
word again does that not bother you when people say i've been on a journey anyway but words do
go on journeys and they do have secret lives and um so to to be obedient and compliant then went on
to i guess the sort of idea of a rosy-cheeked milkmaid who was just happy-go-lucky and blithe,
etc., and would do her job without complaint. And then because those red-cheeked, rouged,
possibly, milkmaids, or maybe with their sort of, you know, their natural blush and flush,
because they were often quite well endowed, it sort of was then transformed to that part
of the anatomy, which is pretty much where it stays.
Oh, you think of a buxom person as somebody who's bosomy?
Definitely. Do you not?
Oh, I thought buxom meant overall a little bit on the plump side.
OK.
Oh, but buxom is bosomy. I think bosomy is part of it.
Maybe that's a male-female thing. Let me ask the producers.
What do you think is buxom, guys?
Cleavage.
We've had our producer thinks buxom is cleavage.
Yeah.
Oh, I don't know. I know.
No, well, maybe there's an upper cleavage and a lower cleavage
because now people have huge bottoms as well.
Yeah, butt bras and all that stuff.
Yeah.
So I...
Butt bras.
Is that what they're called?
They wear butt bras.
I'm not over butt bra.
I don't wear one personally.
I don't think you have any need to, if I may say so.
Thank you.
You are slim.
You're charmingly boyish in the...
I'm a bit gamine.
See, I really would love to be curvy.
No, I think gamine is good. I think
it's the gamine look in you
that goes to my Tommy Two-Way
side. What?
My Tommy Two-Way side. You know the
phrase. What is that?
I was introduced to this race by Barbara
Windsor, who is bubbly
and buxom Barbara Windsor, who's a lovely, lovely
person. And she and I, we've known each other for many years because she was a friend of Kenneth Williams, Oh, my goodness. You do. It's so true. Anyway, Barbara Windsor introduced me to the phrase Tommy Two Ways.
And it means somebody who is both ways inclined when it comes to being attractive.
Oh, yes.
She said there was a touch of the Tommy Two Ways about you.
We've got to do something on your sexuality.
Maybe we should have a whole podcast dedicated to it.
Yeah, that would be good.
Anyway, that's buxom for us.
What we would like to say to people listening, whether you are buxom,
whether that means you're bosomy or means you're overall plump, whether you are wanting to wear a butt bra or do people pad out their butt bras?
Yeah.
My view is just accept what you what nature has given you and hope for the best.
That's my view.
Hope for the best.
I've had lots of letters from listeners.
Yes.
We had no letters.
Actually, the truth is we had no letters at all. We've had emails. No, we've had lots of letters from listeners. Yes. We had no letters. Actually, the truth is we've had no letters at all.
We've had emails and tweets.
And if you want to communicate with us on email, it's purple at somethingelse.com.
I've had quite a few tweets to me at GilesB1, including someone called Harry, who said,
I started a game and didn't finish it.
This was the game where I tried to come up with a word to get me to sleep in the evening. I do this,
I go through the alphabet, trying to come up with, you know, simple things like countries.
And I this time, I was doing first names that also have a word. Oh, yeah. I mean, and, and he said, you didn't get beyond C, right? And C is you remember, I did Abigail, a word. Oh, yeah. And he said you didn't get beyond C.
Right.
And C, you remember I did Abigail, a lady's maid.
And we did Albert, which you don't need to go into again.
We did Basil, where there was a herb.
And then we got down to Candida.
Yes.
Which is a girl's name as well.
And I have got a bit further than that.
Clement.
Clement.
As in nice weather.
Clementine.
Yes.
A type of orange. Then I got down to the Ds, which was fine. I allowed myself Dick. Because it's a detective, isn't it? A Dickie. A heart. A Dickie heart. And also a Dickie bow. It's the kind that you wore on your Dickie front. Dolly. Yeah. You know, a dolly as in a trolley used for film and television cameras.
Don to put on.
But the point is, I then got stuck.
Do you know where Don comes from?
No.
Do on.
And Doff is do off.
Oh.
Do on your hat, do on your hat.
Doff your hat, do off your hat.
That's brilliant.
It's great, isn't it?
And I got no further than that.
So I haven't come up with one for E.
Okay. If you have come up with one for E, let us know at purple at something else dot com.
I have got a question as well.
He's called Frank Bukok.
How does he spell that?
Sorry, Frank.
B-O-O-C-O-C-K.
Oh, wonderful.
It's brilliant, isn't it?
What's your name, Frank?
What's your full name?
Frank Bukok.
Oh, wonderful.
Let's hope he's a proctologist or something. Anyway.
What's a proctologist?
Actually, I think that's the backside rather than the front.
Thank you.
So Frank wants to know where the saying in a nutshell originated. This has got such a literal
origin. So, you know, sometimes you think, oh, it must be a metaphor. And in a nutshell is as
useful a metaphor as any but actually um it goes
back to the belief some two millennia ago that a copy of homer's entire epic poem the iliad
was written on a piece of parchment so small it could be enclosed within the shell of a walnut
oh that has to be a greek urban myth well Well, it was reported by Pliny the Elder, the historian.
Yeah, so he first recorded it.
Yeah, I mean, it's so long, it's highly unlikely.
But we do know that some stories genuinely were encased within a shell.
It was a bit of a thing.
And Hamlet, of course, it was Shakespeare who really kind of propelled the expression into the language.
Because he said, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space
were it not that I have bad dreams.
That's a great line.
Yeah, Hamlet.
And so, of course, then, you know, we talk about in a few concise words.
That's where it came from.
Well, I've had an inquiry from Chloe Benson,
and she asks, what is the meaning and history behind the word a person uses
for their sitting room, living room, front lounge, drawing room?
Are the differences class-related?
Well, I think probably they are in some ways.
They're certainly, originally, they actually say what they mean.
Your sitting room was the room where you sat.
Your living room was the room where you mostly lived.
The drawing room was the withdrawing room originally.
Where after dinner you withdrew from the dining room.
Particularly the men.
No, the men stayed in the dining room.
Oh, did they?
The men stayed in there.
As recently as my lifetime, I used to go to dinner parties in London.
I remember one hosted by, you know, you like me name dropping, my friend Derek Nimmo.
Oh, yes.
Lovely comic actor.
He would have lovely dinner parties.
And after dinner, the ladies would withdraw to the drawing room and the men would all sit around the table.
And smoke cigars.
They'd smoke cigars and tell slightly salacious stories.
That's what used to go on.
And the women, sometimes they would go first, I think, to the part of their noses upstairs in the hostess's bathroom.
Then they might sit for a moment or two on the edge of the hostess's bed.
Then they came down to the withdrawing room where the gentleman, after about 20 minutes, the host would say, shall we join the ladies?
And then they'd go out and they would join the ladies.
That was the origin of the drawing room.
That was the withdrawing room.
Yes.
And I assume, as the years have gone by, that they are class-related in the sense that…
Yeah, there's the whole you, non-you thing, isn't there?
We haven't mentioned lounge.
So lounge is seen as the non-you thing, isn't it?
And that's what you lounge about.
That's what you lounge about, essentially.
Yeah, but that's from French.
So, you know, who's to say that's any worse than the withdrawing room?
But you also, in your house, sometimes we record in the kitchen yeah and then sometimes we come into what
i would call this gallery i don't have one of those you have a front room i do have a front
room but you call it a living room no i call it the front room i call it sitting room i think
because people often do have a front room don't they i mean yes i remember my grandparents who
lived in accrington in lancashire They had a front room that nobody ever went into.
It was immaculate.
I think it was kept immaculate in case the vicar called.
He never called.
But they actually lived, as it were, in their sitting room.
So they had a front room, which was the grand room with sort of an aspergistra.
My front room's got a fireplace and everything.
That's where that would be the absolute opposite of something not ever used.
No, your front room is lovely.
But their front room was a...
People used to keep this kind of posh room for special guests.
And then there was a cozier room or a snug even.
A den.
A den.
Snug, the snuggery.
I've got into trouble once on Countdown if I talk to this.
Maybe I tweeted actually that the growlery is mentioned in Dickens
as somewhere where you can retire to
to have a good growl.
And then Rachel told me about
the alternative urban dictionary meaning of growler,
and I've never used it again.
Oh, dear, what is it?
Well, never mind.
You can look it up.
Oh, really?
So, where are we going now?
Oh, Lord, I'm looking at this.
Oh, it's the parlour.
I've just read this.
I've looked it up.
We're certainly not going to the growlery.
Oh, my goodness.
How could you suggest such a thing?
The parlour.
Parlour is where you go to speak.
Oh, we've mentioned this before because it's linked to parliament,
where people talk a lot.
So, come into the parlour.
Mm, parlare.
Come into...
We're going to have a chat.
That's where you do the talking.
So, what would you suggest people call their living room, lounge, sitting room,
drawing room? Any of those. It's not important. And then you get onto sofas and cities and things.
I mean, you know, do we really care? Do we really care? No, but it's intriguing. So the differences
are class related. There was a snob element introduced in the 1950s when Nancy Medford and
other people came up with this new non-new.
Yes, toilet loo, all that stuff.
And lounge was considered vulgar.
Drawing room was considered correct.
Middle class people would have sitting rooms or living rooms, I think.
Yes, OK.
That, when it was class orientated, drawing room for the upper echelons,
living rooms for the middle echelons and lounges for the ne'er-do-wells.
I always find it very interesting that people then
have actually moved away from the French
that was once considered very aristocratic
and dainty
and back to the old English
so we talk about pudding
some people would say pudding is correct
and much better than dessert which of course is French
and likewise serviette
is French and napkin is seen as being the you
or the sort of upper class, middle class, correct choice, isn't it? It's all ludicrous.
It is all ludicrous. David Coney has been in touch, getting something for free. When did
that come to be accepted in our language? As I do not think, says David, it is grammatically correct.
Because either something's free or it's not free.
But you're applying it as an adverb.
So that's where the confusion comes in.
So in terms of where it came into English, it was 1940s American English, for free.
But if you wanted to turn it into an adverb, you would say, well, he was given it freely.
But actually, that's got a whole lot of other associations connected to it.
If he was given it freely, he was given it willingly, it doesn't necessarily mean without charge.
So for free, I think is probably more precise. And I wouldn't say it's a tautology.
Good. And it's been with us since the 1940s.
1940s.
It's got...
At least, yes.
Do you know that's got the Susie Dent kite mark, the tick of approval. That's all people need. So
now you know, David Coney, you can't...
Sorry, David. You can't complain about people using for free because it's legitimate use of the language. That's what we're all about. And there's no charge for this. This is your bonus. You now get three fantastic words from Susie Dent. And these are words that are in the language. You may be familiar with them or not, but Susie can tell you what they are. What have you got for us this week? Okay, well, my first one is if you're feeling a little bit queasy, perhaps a bit crappulous,
which is a word I've mentioned before, meaning just a little bit hungover, if you've had a few
too many bevies the night before, to be womblecropped, which is spelled W-A-M-B-L-E,
and then C-R-O-P-T, womblecropped. Is it one word or is it a...
All one word, all one word, Wambulcropped. Is it one word or is it a... Or one word.
Wambulcropped.
Means to be feeling decidedly queasy.
Oh.
And to Wambul of your stomach is to have a sort of...
Well, it's described actually as a noun in the OED as a rolling or uneasiness of the stomach.
A Wambul.
A Wambul.
A Wambuling stomach.
So that's the first...
Wambuling free.
I love that program um okay if you i you are quite a sort of brisk
energetic walker but you know you know when you sort of see parents pulling their children on
behind them who are so reluctant bless them and they are tramposing to trampose um t-r-a-M-P-O-S-E, is to walk reluctantly or to trudge.
You might trampouse to work on a Monday morning.
The third word is, do you make your own bed?
Yes.
Okay.
Well, you know when you shake your duvet and you get these little light particles of dust that you can see in the sunlight?
Those were known rather beautifully a few centuries ago as beggar's velvet.
Ooh.
Beggar's velvet.
Floating in the air.
Floating in the air. It can be just a fluff.
Particularly beautiful if the sun is coming into the bedroom when you shake the duvet and the dust raises. I love it.
It can also be the fluff below your bed. So underneath your bed that you never quite get out with the hoover.
But I like it to sort of be those little shives of dust.
Tell us what the word is again.
Beggar's velvet.
I love it.
There are other words which I might include in my trio another time,
but for the fluff that you get in your pocket
and the fluff that you get in your navel.
Let's not go there right now.
Well, it's time for us to get a-wambling free.
I'm going to trampooze you back to the underground station.
I don't know where we'll be next time we meet.
Well, trampooze, that for linguists,
you just use trampooze in a transitive way.
In other words, you're going to trampooze me.
I'm not sure what that's going to entail.
Well, it means that we're both going to be dawdling
on our way to the underground because we're so exhausted.
We will.
And where we're going to be next week, we just don't know.
Christmas is coming.
We may have some surprises in store for you.
We may be at Susie's home or at my home,
or we may even be in the something else studio.
Do you know where I'd love to go one day?
It's to a police station,
because I would love to hear all the police jargon
and get it sort of firsthand.
Should we do that?
It's a fair cop.
Okay.
We can arrange it.
Let's do it.
So please don't forget to give us a nice review
or recommend us to a friend.
I apologise for using so in that way,
because I know it gets on a lot of people's nerves, but please give us a nice review or recommend us to a friend. I apologise for using so in that way because I know it gets on a lot of people's nerves.
But please give us a nice review anyway.
And if you have a question you'd like us to answer or just want to get in touch, say anything,
you can email us at purple at something else dot com without the G.
There is a story behind that which we'll tell you about one day that we were told by one of the owners of Something Else Productions.
But yes, somethingelse.com.
Something rhymes with Burble.
It's a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production
from Paul Smith, Steve Ackerman and Gully.
Do you think he's a bit womblecropped?