Something Rhymes with Purple - Gymnasium

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

We’re always impressed with how Gyles manages to hot foot around the country with such speed, what is his fitness regime? So, it is back to the gymnasium this week, fully clothed this time, to discuss the many different forms of exercise from the equipment to the ever-expanding number of classes. Eavesdrop on us and hear how Susie demonstrates her burpee. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail]  We currently have 20% off at the SRwP official merchandise store, just head to: https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club via Apple Subscription, simply follow this link and enjoy a free 7 day trial: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823  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:  Kackle stomached – to have your stomach turned easily  Linnard: to be a slow eater, the last to finish a meal  Norman: to be tyrannical  Gyles' poem this week are: You Still Don’t Understand by Jane Mcculloch  I tried to tell you in a letter, Now I’ll tell you in a verse. When good no one was better, When bad no one was worse.  Dedicatory Ode by Hilaire Belloc  (Verse 10)  From quiet homes and first beginning, to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.  A Somethin’ Else & 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. 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 and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple, because something does rhyme with purple, and this is, after all, a podcast all about words and language, in which I, Susie Dent, and Giles Branderith discuss all manner of things wordy and, well, just basically whatever comes into our head, but hopefully in a soothing, entertaining, what can we say, Giles? Authoritative way? Perhaps not always authoritative. There are some subjects that we don't really know our way around.

It's always authoritative when you speak, because you do know your stuff. I just invent it as I go along and hope to get away with it. I don't always know my onions, as they say. We have to explore where that comes from one day. Please. There was a man called Onions, wasn't there? There was, C.T. Onions. Who was a famous lexicographer around the beginning of the 20th century. Grammarian, yeah.

We're going to talk about fitness today, aren't we? Actually keeping ourselves in trim. Yes. Now, you do. Yeah, well. Well, you do, because all the way through lockdown, I remember the joy of sitting down to my computer when, you know, I hadn't really been able to talk to that many people. Obviously, I had my wonderful daughters at home. But, you know, we were cut off, weren't we?

We were out of touch, quite literally, with the world. And so the joy of seeing you on my computer and then you would talk wistfully about the lovely walks that you would do every single morning during lockdown. I must be honest with you. I have a nostalgia for lockdown. I have a nostalgia for the early days of Covid. I know this is terrible because there were people listening. No, it's not. I think a lot of people do. Well, I'm glad. But if you had somebody, you know, who suffered from Covid or your business went up the spout because of it, we are not unsympathetic. But the truth is, those early days when there were fewer airplanes in the sky, when somehow we felt encouraged to go out on our own for a walk. And my wife and I, we walked at least an hour every day. We felt we were allowed to do so.

It was just wonderful. And I then came back and sat at my desk. I managed to write a whole book without being interrupted in doing so. It was just very, very good. But of course, it was a walk. Now, I'm never sure whether I'm doing enough. I know we've basically got to keep moving. And that's essentially the rule.

To get through the next 10 years, as my doctor says to me, to get through the next 10 years, keep moving through this 10 years. Just keep moving. We are still walking, and I am trying to improve my posture while I'm walking. So I'm trying to lean back slightly, or feel that I'm leaning back as I walk, and move my arms. So I look a bit odd as I walk, but I should be doing perhaps more. Well you have been doing some of your podcasts standing up I know as well which is also very good but that is what we're going to talk about today. We are going to talk about fitness and you know a lot of the words associated with the gym and exercise of all you know of all varieties whether or not it is as

aerobic as running or whether it is a gentle walk or whether it's just simply getting up and tramposing to the kettle. Do you belong to a gym? You. No. Since you don't. I don't. Have you ever done? Only for a very brief time.

And it was funny. I sort of the gym guilt was such that it actually worked against me rather than for me. I was just it felt like a bit of a millstone around my neck and felt like a duty. Whereas in fact, I much prefer just going for a walk or I cycled, if you remember, all the way through lockdown and I absolutely loved that. I need to get back to that. And I have really fallen out of the habit of just getting on my bike. And as you say, during lockdown, there was time, you know, just I would go wherever my bike literally took me. I would just think, oh, I don't know what's down there. Even though I've lived in this city for, you know, almost two decades, over two decades

now, actually, you know, there were rows and I just thought, I have no idea where this will take me. So I'll just go and find out. And I loved that because I had time on my hands and I don't really now. But the language of fitness and language of exercise is ancient in some cases. And there are some lovely, curious, surprising histories. Can we start with the word gym? I ought to explain to people who aren't regular listeners that the city that Susie refers to is the city of Oxford. That's where she's based. I'm based in the city of London.

We are in the United Kingdom. But the word gym comes from, is a shortened version of gymnasium. And I assume that that, is that a Greek in origin? And why do I picture the early people in gyms being totally naked while they were doing their gymnastics? Have I imagined all this? Do you remember what the purple favourite word gymnologise means? Do you remember? We talked about this a while ago and we had some lovely responses from it no remember it means to have an argument in the nude um it's so specific i absolutely love it so did somebody did a purple person invent this word no they didn't they didn't it's actually in the oxford english dictionary um but it's just so perfect and and nudity is as you say behind the word gym. So a gymnasium was a place

or a building for instruction in athletic exercise really and we would talk about a gymnastic school that was its first meaning in the 16th century in English and in ancient Greece it was also for instruction in all sorts of other areas too, but particularly athletic games. And it does go back to the Greek for nudity because as we have often mentioned, Giles, Greek athletes particularly were so buff that they wanted to show off their wonderful biceps and their wonderful muscles. So actually exercising in the nude was one way of sort of, you know, establishing your prowess, I suppose. And it wasn't looked down upon at all. And we're talking exclusively men at this point. But that was the meaning of gymnasium. But because of the

idea of sort of other instruction as beyond athletics, a gymnasium also meant a high school or a college or academy. So that was in the 17th century. And you will still find that use in Germany and other places, particularly in Europe, where a gymnasium, as it is in Germany, is a school of the highest grade. So it's designed to prepare students for universities. Well, let's go into the gym now. I didn't often when I was a boy. In fact, I tried to avoid the gym.

I didn't really enjoy it. But I can remember all the kit there was. We had an old fashioned gym at school with things you could climb up on the walls and things you jumped over. Take us through some of those bits of equipment that you'd find in a gym. What were the, I think I jumped over a horse. I suppose it was called a gymnastic horse. A horse or a suppose it was called a why was it called a pommel horse well if you imagine the pommel horse it's got this sort of rounded edge to it isn't it it's like a sort of protuberance on on the horse um and it actually goes back to the french pom meaning an apple and the latin pomum which was a fruit or an apple so it's all to do with its shape well people who people who keep fit. And again, when I was a child, there used to be advertisements that appeared in comics. And I remember one, you know, saying, are you a five stone weakling?

You could look like, and then the picture of this huge, magnificent specimen. And they were using things like dumbbells. So what are dumbbells and why are they so called? dumbbells. So what are dumbbells and why are they so called? Well, it is to do with church bells, if you like, because it was noticed, and we're going back a few centuries here, that most bell ringers inevitably have quite good muscular development because, you know, if you think about the sort of weight or the musculature that is building up in their chest and their shoulders and their arms, thanks to that repeated exercise of pulling the heavy ropes or the heavy bells attached to ropes. And so somebody thought, oh, this is an idea. So apparently someone figured out a scheme for a device which would imitate that

bell ringing action, but of course he didn't want the noise. So the clappers would be taken out of the bells and this device could be set up in the corner of a room. And it's said that the essayist, an essayist called Joseph Addison, had one in his room. So these weren't the dumbbells that you're imagining now. Imagine a rope attached to weights that was suspended over a pulley from the ceiling. And then there was a wooden bar that was knotted at the ends, so you would sort of keep your hands firm, and that was attached to the other end of the rope. And so they would just pull the rope down. You can still find a similar machine, actually, in the gym, and pull the rope just as a bell ringer would, and they would adjust the weight according to, you know, how much

they could manage and how toned you wanted to be but because no actual bell was involved it was called a dumb bell and then people realized that they could get much the same kind of exercise even if they got through get rid of the pulley and simply just have a sort of literally a bell shaped item that was made of metal and so you could sort of lift those up So you've got the bar and then you've got those two round bits at the end. You threw in there the name of Joseph Addison, as though, you know, the essayist. Yes, I don't know much about Joseph Addison. Do you? I do. And maybe we should do a whole episode about Joseph Addison, or maybe in the Purple Club, we could sort of do a deep dive into his life, only because my mother was an Addison, and always felt that she must be related because

her father was called Lance Addison. And the great Joseph Addison, 1672 to 1719 poet, essayist, statesman, was the son of a Lance Addison as well, who had been the Dean of Litchfield. was the son of Alance Addison as well, who had been the Dean of Litchfield. And when I was being brought up, the old-fashioned school, or rather old-fashioned English teacher that I had, traditional English teacher, he gave us Addison's essays as examples of really good English writing. So I love hearing the name of Addison, and we don't hear it often enough. But anyway. Well, you certainly wouldn't pair him with the dumbbell, would you? we don't hear it often enough. But anyway.

You certainly wouldn't pair him with the dumbbell, would you? You wouldn't pair him with the dumbbell. No. But he, as it were, used the word dumbbell in one of his essays. I don't know if he actually used it, but see, he certainly got the idea that you could emulate this sort of bell ringing action by this sort of pulley and had one in the room. So I'm not sure if he actually gave us the dumbbell. Yeah dumbbell yeah well i'm going to claim him as a kinsman i mean there are things called kettle bells and that's like a kettle drum is it i mean is that why it's called a kettle bell no it's a sort of in some ways it looks a little bit like a a kettle um so have you ever used a kettlebell i like the kettlebell so you can swing these big weights with a handle between your legs and then

sort of up in front of you it's a very good exercise it's quite satisfying um have you ever done that i've spent a lifetime avoiding all these things um okay let's get onto the treadmill oh yes that's the punishment you deserve exactly when you go to the gym i did once join a gym i went once cost me a whole year's worth i my wife made me sign up. And you never went? Well, I did go the first time when I got this instruction from the person who was telling me how he was going to shake me up. And he gave me the instruction while we were on the treadmill. I mean, he was standing by the treadmill and I was sort of walking on this. Now, treadmill, tell, I mean, treadmill also is what people had in prisons. I mean,

but people ate me on treadmill. Tell me about it. Yeah, well, you can trace the treadmill, these prototypes for as far back as ancient Rome. And then you would find them used to carry heavy stones and masonry. And then they were used particularly in the milling industry, hence the treadmill. But in the 19th century,

and you mentioned this idea of prison and prisons and punishment, there was an English engineer called Sir William Cubitt, who thought that this was actually a perfect antidote to what he saw as the sort of slovenliness and idleness of prisoners. And this was particularly to jail in Beresford Edmonds in England. And he thought that this might, quote, reform offenders by teaching them the habits of industry. So these punitive treadmills basically were on a horizontal axis, a bit like an Escher painting. You know, those paintings where you're constantly going upstairs, but you never get anywhere. So they're sort of almost walking up an endless staircase. And it was an axis that required the user to go upwards continually.

And some say that some models were wide enough for quite a few prisoners to walk side by side. And we're talking just six or more hours a day. Completely pointless, nothing at the end of it. So they weren't actually milling, you know, crops or cereal or anything. This was just a Victorian ideal of atonement some did have um mills installed so they were grinding corn so at least you know there was there was some product at the end of it but it was a really back-breaking demoralizing thing and of course if you imagine prison rations and the food which are meager at the best of times

you know these were sort of taking up huge amounts of calories. So I think actually the medical repercussions were also quite significant. And they were eventually, thankfully, abolished. And the treadmills that we now pound in the gym of the design that we know today, which I have to say, I quite spectacularly fall off whenever, unless I'm holding on, I literally go flying. But their forerunners were designed by doctors and these were not punitive. These were used to diagnose heart and lung disease and were invented in the 1950s in America. I have seen a traditional treadmill from a prison. When I was researching the various books I wrote about Oscar Wilde,

my murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde and his real life friend, Arthur Conan Doyle, as my detectives, I wrote one of them about his time, Oscar Wilde's time at Reading Jail in the 1890s. extraordinary, including the treadmill, as you say, totally pointless. You were just on it for hours each day. But there was also picking oakum where they would sit and there was no benefit from this. It didn't produce any product. And of course, they were out digging holes. I mean, literally backbreaking, breaking up rocks for no good purpose at all. It's like chain gangs, isn't it? It's just, yeah, hideous. Hideous, hideous. But anyway, at least as I say, that we sort of now use for health purposes, whether for exercise or whether to diagnose heart conditions. So a happier ending at least. Although if like me, you do fall off them, not so happy. Susie, I didn't just avoid the equipment equipment I was terrified climbing up the rope did you ever

climb up the rope oh my goodness um yes I have climbed up a rope before and uh it's quite fun actually but I am I do have to have vague knots in the rope so I can't do it where I just lock my feet you know how acrobats do and they just sort of shimmy up I can't do that but I did used to quite enjoy that bit I've got no head for heights i hate it just going i mean i just even getting off the ground we must have touched on rope because of doing things to do with i don't know the sea when we've done i mean is there an interesting uh etymology for the word rope a rope i was going to take you through some of the moves and then i was going to take you i was going to take you on to zumba which um is my idea of hell.

So, yeah, so rope is nothing really particularly interesting. It's just an old English word. And some people think it's got the same Germanic base as reap, which was to kind of cut grain. So just as you might sort of cut hemp into rope. But nothing particularly interesting there. But very interesting thing when it comes to, well, I think it's interesting, squat, the squat. Now, if you're in a gym and you squat, it is very painful and that you feel it the next day. So squatting seems like such a simple exercise, doesn't it? But actually, in the gym sense, you have to have a very straight back,

bend your legs. And I wish this was a visual thing so that we could actually do it together and I could show you. But anyway. I wish you could show me. Basically, it's a bit like squatting down to, well, to do anything really. And it comes from a French word, escortir, meaning to flatten. So you are kind of flattening and squashing yourself when you squat down. And equally, if someone is quite squat, they're sort of, they look a little bit squashed, don't they? But have you sort of ever wondered about squatting in a building? Like,

have you ever had squatters anywhere near you? Oh, I was going to ask me, have I ever been squatting? Have you? I avoided squatting as when doing gym. I'm not proud of any of this I'm now regretting it and I'm ashamed and my personal trainer Tamsin who does listen she's now become a purple person well I'm not as regular with her as I ought to be but I do recognize her when she comes to the door and she's she's brilliant and she will tell me all this. She will get me to do some of these things. She just tells me what to do, but she doesn't use these words.

But we must have done squatting in our time. I thought maybe we were asking if I had ever. I know squatting means occupying a building that isn't yours. Yes. Has that got anything to do with squatting as in the physical exercise of going down on your haunches? Yeah, it sort of does. Because the idea is of sort of when you squat, you're sort of cowering almost. So if an animal is squatting, quite often

it might be cowering in fear. And from there came the sense of hiding or retreating. And so you imagine that squatters, because they're doing this illegally, might well be sort of doing this surreptitiously, well they are, and sort of hiding away and, you know, retreating in some way. So I think that's the link there. And then we also mean squat, use squat to mean nothing, don't we? Like it's a very British phrase, but diddly squat, that means diddly squat. Means diddly nothing. It means absolutely nothing. Diddly squat. And what's the origin of that?

Well, it's quite rude, actually. It's quite scatological because doodle was once slang for shit, essentially. And of course, when we squat down as well, one of the senses, one of the reasons why people squat and dogs squat, etc. is to have a poo, shall we say. Defecate. Defecate is the technical term. Defecate. Oh, you say defecate. I say defecate.

Let's call the whole thing off. Really, how interesting that there's a difference. Yeah, so diddly squat is essentially another word you know if i was to say to you you've got diddly squat it's the same as saying you've got shit you've got you know you've not got shit kind of thing uh so yeah sorry about that but ultimately it's kind of seating yourself on your hams or your haunches isn't it and uh and crouching so that's where that comes from can i throw in something extra for you yes just out of out of interest, because I've mentioned Tamsin. She was quite shocked, and her husband too, when I mentioned how the school that I went

to that was founded in the 1890s called Bidale's, how in the early years their master would lead all the pupils up into a field. It was almost neo-pagan. In fact, it was a Christian socialist vibe, but it was a time when there was neo-paganism going on. And people would, anyway, they all went up into the field and they would squat down to do their morning defecation. No. All together. And she was sort of shocked that that happened. So am I.

Well, it is interesting. And they were much more in touch with nature. And I'm reading a fascinating book at the moment about a group of sisters called the Olivier sisters, who were around at this period, the 1890s and the Edwardian and before and after the Second World War. It's a riveting book, more of which maybe another time. But they're describing this same school and how they would all go on, they would go on camps, these young people all together of, you know, boys, girls, and there was nude bathing, nude walking, and it was quite natural and they were much more at home with nature. I think maybe we've become a bit squeamish about these things. I don't know. I'm kind of, yeah, it's not, I don't think I'm feeling squeamish. I'm just

thinking about the hygiene. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in the news about, you know, the horrible releasing of sewage into the seas, etc. I think this was in an organised way. They went up to a field that needed fertilising. That was human manure. Oh, it was human manure. Totally. Oh, absolutely. And I'm sure they were using dock leaves as a loo paper. It was a very respectable group of people. Well, moving on from squatting, in whatever sense, I see you as more of a, less of a burpee person. And burpees, again, are infernal. They're just hideous. Have you ever done a burpee? You mean belching? No. Okay. I'm going to show you a burpee. I'm going to take my headphones off. I'm going to show you a burpee because I can only manage one. You can describe it as I'm doing it, okay?

Okay, she's taken her headphones off. I'm watching her on Zoom, everybody. She's taken her headphones off. She's in her front room in Oxford. And, oh! Oh, and she sort of jumped. I don't know if you could see the full extent of that, could you? I could.

Basically, her arms went forward onto the floor while her legs went bouncing back. Yeah, and then you spring up and you have to do this stupid arm thing at the end. I could. Basically, her arms went forward onto the floor while her legs went bouncing back. Yeah. And then you spring up and you have to do this stupid arm thing at the end. And it's called, why is it called a burpee? Well, it's called burpees. I'm glad you asked. Because there was a general, he was called, a doctor actually, he was called Royal H. Burpee. And he was a US psychologist. And he devised the burpee test to measure agility and muscular coordination.

And the main thing is that was just one burpee. You know, you have to do lots to make them really effective. And if you do, I have had to do 50 burpees in succession. Honestly, it's hell. But I see you more as a Pilates type of person, which is another eponym. Have you ever done Pilates? So you're telling me that General Burpee was a real person. When you're doing burpees, it's named after him. That is beyond belief. It's just savour that for a moment. And just before we get on to Pilates, and I saw the movie Pilates of the Caribbean,

I know all about Pilates, we'll come to that. You didn't give me, I was really hoping to see you give me a lunge, because I have heard of a lunge. Oh, lunges are awful. Okay, I'll give you a lunge. I hate lunges, but usually the most effective lunges are when you do them with a weight. So I'll try and carry it. She's taking the headphones off again, listeners. And in fact, maybe we could do a kind of keep fit podcast to get me into shape. Oh, she's holding books in her hands. Oh, and she's one leg is going forward and then the other leg is going forward. And I think this is to stretch muscles in her hands. Oh, and one leg is going forward, and then the other leg is going forward.

And I think this is to stretch muscles in the legs. And can I say her posture? I've never felt more like Basil Forti in all my life. Beautiful posture, lovely ramrod back, and the legs were going forward. And my personal trainer says this is to do stretching. And she says, are you feeling the stretch? And I say, I can feel pain. She said, well, that's the stretch. I don't honestly. Yes, it's a hamstring. It's very good for your hamstrings. So Pilates, however, is much more

about the breathing, which I'm not very good at. But Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in the 1880s. And he was quite ill as a child. He really suffered with various afflictions, including rickets and asthma, and even rheumatic fever. And so he was determined to improve his physical strength, dedicated his life to it, but also improving the physical strength of others. And he was actually interned during World War I, during the First World War. And so he really concentrated then on devising a series of movements that could be done in no equipment and in small spaces. And of course, that's where Pilates came in.

And apparently a lot of his moves were inspired by the movements of cats. So I don't know if he only had cats for company during his detention, but who knows. Is he then the origin of, because that's one of the things I do do with Tamsin you do this cat thing of of the cat back going up and then the cat you know going down yeah the whatever they're called maybe is that a pilates i'm not sure what those are called i think it probably is a pilates but there are lots of them i found the breathing very difficult so i'm afraid that's why i gave up but also i think i just need to be more i've got a very bendy back but there are such you need a lot of flexibility in all your joints for pilates and I unfortunately came in

on an advanced class and that put me off the breathing is for me impossible because she's constantly saying you know breathe in on as you move you know it's completely I mean why are we breathing in at that point I breathe out I get totally confused. I am not body aware. Shall we take a quick break and then you can tell us all about Lawrence Zumba, who I think invented the Zumba. Oh, I didn't know he was called Lawrence. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just

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every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're in the gymnasium today, but we're both fully clothed, though Susie has been demonstrating to me from Oxford some of her moves. I've seen her lunge, I've seen her squat, and she's talked about her Pilates class and how she went to the advanced one, which has really begun in the beginner's class. And both Pilates and, well, extraordinarily, the burpee were named after people, their originators. Was the Zumba, is Zumba, I've heard of Zumba classes. Is there somebody called Zumba? Oh, I knew this was it. I think you knew you were pulling my leg with this one.

No, there wasn't. It's a made up word word and apparently it's a twist on the rumba the classical cuban dance and apparently zumba was created in the 1990s by a dancer and choreographer called beto perez uh it's it's capital z in the dictionary so like pilates you can't have it on the on countdown the show that you and i love the game show because it's a proper noun you wouldn't be allowed to unscrabble either i suspect so. So it's a trademark. Possibly one of the most humiliating moments of my life, Giles, was when I did a, do you remember when I did a 100k bike ride for charity with one of my co-presenters, Rachel Riley, and we trained quite hard for it it was called Ride the Night it was through the night Windsor to Buckingham Palace and back and before we started there was a sort of you know

lots of warm-up exercises and unfortunately Rachel and I were called up onto the stage and we're talking probably about a thousand women gathered because it was a female event gathered to warm up and to get our sort of you know all our juices flowing and unfortunately Rachel and I were called up just at the moment when the person introducing the whole event decided to do some Zumba a Zumba class essentially so we were standing behind her and she said well Rachel and Susie can long tour. I have never done Zumba before. I will never do it again. I couldn't keep up. It was a disaster.

So I ended up with a thousand women just laughing at me, essentially, because I was so bad. So that Zumba. This is why I couldn't go to a class, because the humiliation of being with these sort of tight fit people. The young ones, maybe you can cope with it because they're young. But if I came out across other older people like me who are much fitter, I'd resent it. I think what you need is, someone showed me a video on social media this week of a new kind of exercise

whereby you are suspended from an elasticated rope. And you know how you get baby bouncers, which you hang from a door? Well, you have the same sort of seat that you get into bouncers which you hang from a door well you have the same sort of seat that you get into and essentially you you dance around and you're sort of floating a bit like a tally tubby uh and you do your moves that way and it looks a lot of fun i think that does sound very much up my street i don't know what it's called i'll find out if i can get one of those installed here i will demonstrate that for you next time around. Take me to the world of yoga.

Is this to do with yogis, yogi bear, yogurt? What gives us yoga? No, Sanskrit gave us yoga and Hindu as well. So it comes though from a Sanskrit word meaning union. And the yoga that we know more or less is based on something called Hatha yoga, H-A-T-H-A, which is one aspect of a really ancient Hindu tradition of religious observance and meditation. And the highest form is, I think it's Raja yoga. The aim of that is spiritual purification and

self-understanding. So a lot of meditation going on there. And the union is the union with the divine because you lose yourself in this. You're transported, literally. You are beside yourself and communing with the divine. That is the ultimate aim of yoga. And are there interesting names for yoga positions? Because I've seen occasional books illustrating yoga positions and things like The Lotus seems to ring a bell. I mean, yes, I don't do yoga. It's one of my aims in life to do yoga. But I think the one that most people know, a downward dog, or as the current presenter of Countdown, Colin Murray puts it, downward duck. He literally thought it was a downward duck.

There's the cobra pose. A lot of them to do with animals and the sort of, you know, the kind of positions that they might naturally strike. What is the downward dog? The downward dog is when you are bent over and, oh my goodness, are you touching your ankles? Purple downward doggers, excuse me for putting it that way, will know exactly what what a downward

dog is so they can enlighten us maybe they can send us photos do make them respectable photographs put your kit on even if you're in the gymnasium before you send these photographs which suddenly takes me back to actually uh that room at the back of the gymnasium at school where there was the rough mattresses, that's where I first discovered the Kama Sutra. And I think in the edition of the Kama Sutra that whoever it was had it at school, there were things like rather light yoga positions that were drawn in the book. Did you ever look at the Kama Sutra? No, I can't say I did, but remember I went to a convent. So I've just looked up the downward dog though. I can describe that as opposed to a Kama Sutra position.

So this is one in which the body assumes an inverted V shape and your hands are not on your ankles, they're on the floor and your buttocks are pointing upwards. So that is the downward dog. Aerobics. People talked about going to an aerobics class. Oh, yes. What's that about?

Well, aerobics is typically sort of low intensity, but kind of long duration. At least that's how it originated. And it increases the body's oxygen. And so it's aimed very much at improving cardiovascular fitness. But it can be quite vigorous. I think most of us associate aerobics with disco music, don't we? And massively got into it in the sort of 90s. But aerobic itself is made up of aero, meaning air, and then bios, meaning life. So it's all to do with that sort of oxygenisation,

if you like. And then if you undertake anaerobic exercise, which is really high intensity, that is where you are kind of almost deprived of oxygen. And, you know, your body has to find energy from other sources and particularly from fat. None of this sounds much like fun to me. When I see the word aerobics, I divide it into two parts. The second part is BICS. I love a BICY. And the first part is aero. And when I was a little boy, I loved an aero bar. And this was was a chocolate bar I don't know if they have it in other countries but anyway we had it in the UK I still have it now do they still have it now still get an aero oh yes mint aero the mint aero that was my favourite with little bubbles

inside but I've taken to avoiding childhood sweets because they end up being disappointing they're not as good as we remember them first time around oh we ought to do one on sweets they brought back opal fruits let's do one on sweets. They've brought back opal fruits. Let's do one on sweets because we can then be, we can be quite international because we can bring in some of the weird names from across the globe. Speaking about things from across the world, not just words, but also people, Jaz, because as we always say,

we have so many purple listeners across the globe and it really sort of tickles us when we do hear from correspondents from far afield. So thank you. Please do keep your emails coming. And speaking of emails, we have one from Kerry, who is in Canada. Hi, Susie and Giles. Kerry here. I'm a new purple person having just discovered the show, and I can't wait to get caught up on the back catalog. What immediately springs to mind as an unknown, to me, etymology is the word dibs. Something you exclaim when you wish to claim something, especially when you want to be the first one to do so. As in, I call dibs on the good chair, or dibs on the last piece of pizza.

I'm in Canada, so I'm not sure you would have heard this word. Would you exclaim something in this case? Thanks. And I love being purple. Oh, and we love you. Isn't that marvelous? Yes. And I love the way that Kerry pronounces his name.

It's K-A-A-R-I, which is beautiful. It is. And it's a beautiful question, too. I'm familiar with dibs. Me too. I'll call dibs on that. What is the origin of it? Do we know? Yeah, well, we think this was a call that was uttered during a children's game that involved pebbles that were known as dib stones. And that dib might come from, well, it's just a part of quite a large family in English, which includes dap and dabble and dip. And all

of those at some point were kind of sound representations of a light striking movement. So I suspect during this game, maybe the pebbles, a bit like marbles, would kind of strike each other, really. So now if you kind of call dibs, it's like you were tapping it and saying, that's mine. So it is that idea of tapping or touching and therefore claiming. And ultimately the dib stones used in that children's game. I think we also say over here, we say bagsy, don't we? Which is simply a mangling of eye bags, bag's eye. In other words, I bag that. I want that in my bag. And I was a Cub Scout and we used to say dib, dib, dib, which was a shortened version of, well, it was an acronym or the initials of do your best.

Dib, dib, dib, dob, dob, dob, we used to say. As in do your best. Is that what? And dob, dob, dob is do our best. Dib, dib, dib, dob, dob, dob. But I don't think that's related to this dibs. Doesn't sound like it, no. Oh, I love that.

Okay. I was never in the Scouts, all the guides. So please, as I say, do keep sending your emails in because we absolutely love them. Yes. If you want to be in touch, do be in touch. It's very simple to contact us. Purple at something else dot com. Susie, you always give us three special words every week.

What trio of words have you got for us today? Well, the first one is, we were talking earlier about squats, etc. And possibly being a little bit squeamish, cackle-stomached. This is an old dialect, particularly from Worcestershire in Britain. Cackle-stomached means having an easily disgusted stomach. So it's one that turns very, very easily. So it's another word for being squeam easily disgusted stomach so it's one that turns very very easily so it's another word for being squeamish but i think it's just more expressive um and speaking of food you know i've talked to you before about pingling uh which has lots of different meanings either a cat sort of kneading your lap or um being very picky with food well staying with food there is also a linard l-iI-N-N-A-R-D,

and that's dialect for being the last to finish a meal. So if you're a right linard at the table, it means you're a very slow eater, which of course is a very good thing to be, but you will be beaten by those who are a little bit greedier. So you're the linard. And finally, I only mentioned this, we'll never use it, but it made me laugh again in another old dialect dictionary I've been delving into those this week the last name on earth that I would associate with tyranny is Norman so Norman in Britain is it's a fairly old-fashioned name and it's often because we had comedians like Norman Wisdom for those old enough to remember Norman Wisdom it was very sort of slapstick, hapless comedy.

Norman is normally associated with somebody who is just a little bit maladroit and clumsy. I love the way you say people old enough to remember Norman Wisdom. I knew Norman Wisdom. People old enough to have shaken the hand of Norman Wisdom. Yes, indeed. So it's just got one entry in this dialect

dictionary where Norman is an adjective for tyrannical, and it just made me smile. But I think it's all to do with the Norman conquerors who, of course, came from, they were the North men, Norman with North men, the ones who came from the North and conquered all. So, it just made me smile. To be Norman is to be tyrannical. Lovely. Three lovely words. And I've got two little poems today. I've got two little poems because one of them is a poem that I've, I think, shared with you before, but I'm sharing with you again for a reason. The one I don't think I've shared with you before is by my friend Jane McCulloch. It's from a collection called The Breaking Wave. And a lot of her poems are about the travails of love from a woman's perspective. And this very short four-line poem is simply

called You Still Don't Understand. I tried to tell you in a letter. Now I'll say it in a verse. letter. Now I'll say it in a verse. When good, no one was better. When bad, no one was worse. That's brilliant. That's a great poem, isn't it? Summing up a relationship that's been and gone. And speaking of relationships that come and go, Susie, you and I, I think next week, will be saying goodbye to our friend Lawrence, who has been our producer on hundreds of these very special podcasts. Pretty much all of them from the start. And he is made up of what it is. We've done 170 or 80 or any way.

He's been there right. But he seems to want to, I don't know, do other things with other people. I don't know how that could possibly be. But there we go. No, he has had a very thoroughly deserved promotion and is going to go on to be an executive producer somewhere else. So good luck to Lawrence and boy, will we miss you. And so my poem for him is my favourite poem by Hilaire Belloc. And it's again, just four lines and it goes like this. And I have shared it before, but I couldn't think of a better one to share with Lawrence than this. From quiet homes and first beginning out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning,

but laughter and the love of friends. So this is thanking Lawrence for the laughter and the friendship. Yes, thank you. And genuinely, anyone who is a Purple person and who does enjoy the podcast, they really have Lawrence to thank because he's more than our sort of third wheel. He's the hub, isn't he? And so we all miss him greatly. So good luck to Lawrence and thank you to all of you for continuing to stay with us 170 odd podcasts in do keep listening and also do join the purple plus club if it appeals we would love to have you to listen to more witterings twice a week you will you will get those if you loved the show please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and do recommend us to friends and family and we are now on social media you can find us on at something rhymeshymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes with

on Instagram. And you know, Susie, people run up to us in the street and say, I'm a purple person. And I think we should do it like they used to have advertisements for promotions for newspapers in the 1950s on the seaside. You'd go up and you would say, you are Lobby Ludd and I claim my five pounds. I think people who come up and say, I'm a Purple person, we should have one of those sweets called a Purple Heart that we can give to them. Oh, that's a lovely idea. It's a thought anyway. Something Rhymes with Purple is a something else than Sony Music Entertainment production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells, yay, with additional production from Chris Skinner,

Jen Mystery, Jay Beale and... Is he still with us? Yes, he's doing the downward dog somewhere while Laurence is doing the upward dog and Gully is just, I don't know, he's just gotten somewhere in the corner. What she's doing is diddly squat.