Something Rhymes with Purple - Hysteria

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

This week we’re going hysterical for medical terms. We’ll be turning our lexicographical X-Ray machine on and diagnosing the etymology of everything from asphyxia to syringe. Join us to discover Descartes' link to the X-Ray, what a Hippocratic face looks like, and exactly where an obstetrician should stand. We also ‘toady-up’ to the quack and sing the praises of the sturdy thrush. A Somethin’ Else production. 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. This is a podcast all about words and language, and it's hosted by the beautiful and brilliant Susie Dent, and by me, I'm Giles Brandreth. Hello, did you see me gesticulising wildly then? I wasn't sure what you were doing. You were very loud in my ear,

but my hand gestures are slightly notoriously bad, so our producers had no clue what I was doing. On Countdown, I'm routinely teased for my terrible hand gestures, or my inadvertent ones, like sort of circulating my nipples with my fingers when areola comes up. Oh, Lord. Anyway, I wasn't doing that. It can be unfortunate.

There was a fellow who did a V sign at the traffic policeman because he thought the traffic policeman was giving him a most unfortunate sign with his fingers of a kind of, well, can I say it so early in the podcast, masturbatory nature. And so the driver gave him a one finger or two finger salute back. It turned out that what the policeman was trying to indicate to the driver was put on your seatbelt. Oh. You see with the two fingers going up and down.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Open to misinterpretation. So many things open to misinterpretation. Anyway, gesticulating over. Gesticulation. I've turned youiculation over. We are here. We are in good heart because we're not in your kitchen today, but we're locked in a studio in London, locked away from the general election. This is going to be a general election free zone. I am trying to get away from it. I'm almost prepared to go under

anaesthetic to get away from it. And when I thought that to myself, I thought, oh, is anaesthesia a modern word? What does it mean? Where does it come from? It's not a modern word. It's been with us for quite a long time. And it goes back to the Greek meaning without feeling. So have you heard of paresthesia? Paresthesia? Yes. Sort of. Is that as in paracetamol? Yes, same prefix. The prefix can mean so many different things, to be honest, but it means a kind of altered feeling. So it's a sort of strange sensation.

So even if you have the obdormition of a limb, in other words, if your limb goes to sleep and you get that sort of pins and needles feeling, and that's a kind of parasthesia, I think. Give me the obdormition. We're losing listeners already. It's so complicated so soon. Obdormition. What's obdormition? That's when something falls asleep. Oh, dormy, as in sleeping. Exactly. As in dormouse. Obdormition of the leg, leg going to sleep. Yes. And that is a kind of paresthesia. Paresthesia, an altered state. Yes. Well, I'm not so much in an altered state by the general election as dozing off during it, to be candid with you. I mean, my only excitement is that my daughter is one of the candidates. So I'm focusing on her. Well done her. Yes. We need good people. My view is we need totally new people. I think anybody who stood before shouldn't be allowed to stand this time.

And we should just have people like my daughter. That's very impressive. You've never stood for parliament. No, and I never will. You never will? That's a promise? That's a promise. Oh, you heard it here first. Now, speaking of anaesthesia, can we talk about health and medicine? Yes. I haven't said to you today, how are you? Are you well? I am well, thank you. You haven't had the lurgy that's a lot of people have had, a tummy lurgy and a cold lurgy? I haven't had any of it i'm having my flu jabs this afternoon oh you're not old enough to have flu jabs i know no but you can you can get them for 10 pounds or whatever i think yeah definitely well i'm old enough to get

them free aha should i tell you where influenza comes from oh yes just to interrupt um influenza is from the italian meaning of flowing in because it was thought to be the result of bad vapours. So a bit like malaria, which means bad air, which was thought to be caused again by horrible odours. In fact, I can't remember which king it was, but when influenza and malaria and all sorts of things started to hit the streets of London, probably not malaria, he ordered all the sort of stinking rubbish to be cleared. This was back in the 17th century, 18th century, I think. So it was thought to be caused by bad vapours, not by mosquitoes in terms of malaria. They used to blame certain countries.

I remember as a child having something called Spanish flu. Yeah, there are lots of them. But we always blame other countries. When it comes to syphilis, every nation is blamed the other one, from Neapolitan bone aches to the French disease to the English pox, you name it. Sorry to get on to syphilis so quickly. I'm sorry. Now, that's one of the reasons why if you asked me how I was, I wouldn't tell you. Not that I've got syphilis, but that I don't. On the whole, I think I was

brought up not to, you know, if people say, how are how are you the answer is I'm fine, how are you? and then you say I'm fine and then we move on It's funny, so you stick to the kind of Australian how are you and then just whoever's asked you is walked off. Well also it's a slightly older generation stiff upper lip thing a new worry has come upon me, I don't know if we have any older listeners

who will share this feeling my wife and I have been together now for more than 50 years and I've been together now for more than 50 years. And I've started waking up in the morning thinking, one of us is going to die first. Oh, dear. And isn't that going to be bleak? And if she goes first, I'm in trouble.

But she seems to be healthy. But, of course, I don't know because we're that generation that I say, how are you? She says, I'm fine. She says, how are you? I'm fine. And both of us have got lurgy. Anyway, I shall go and get my flu jab this afternoon.

Do. Come with me. I want to come with you now into the world of medical phrases, medical language. Yes. Well, one thing your lovely wife, I could definitely not accuse her of being, is hysterical ever. And certainly not hysterical about mortality and things. So I thought I'd start with hysterical because it's a very sexist term and it goes back to the Greek hysteros, meaning a womb. And the idea is that whenever a woman, it was only women who became hysterical, whenever they became hysterical, it was due to a disorder of the womb

that would be floating around untethered in the body. That's where we get hysterectomy from as well, the same idea. And of course, something that is hysterically funny, so funny that now either sex can be sort of, you know, slightly gargoyle with hilarity. But they're all connected. So it was, yeah, hysterical and hysterectomy, strangely connected. And another strange couplet, and slightly sinister one, I think, is faint and fain, as in to sort of pretend, F-E-I-G-N. Because quite often it was thought that women were feigning, fainting, in order to gain attention and get the smelling salts out and just sort of, you know, basically have men crowded around her while she swooned.

So the origin of the word hysteria, it's the same as your... Hysteros, your womb, hysterectomy, linked to hysterectomy. It's linked to hysterectomy. Yes, have you ever wondered what the X is in an X-ray? No, it was invented by somebody called Ronion, like in Rontgen. Rontgen, yes, we have Rontgen. Yes, and actually that's one of the official names for an X-ray. It's a Rontgen, I'm having a Rontgen.

And I think there's an umlaut on the O. There is. Or you can spell it R-O-E-N-T-G. Can we apologise to people who are listening in saying, now they're doing cod German accents. They mention somebody Röntgen and they both put, we do not, we do not stereotype people by their accents. We apologise for that.

No, no, that is, honestly, it is a Röntgen. And because I am a Germanist, so that is, it is a Röntgen. I promise I wasn't, I wasn't taking the mickey. German, as I've said so often, it's the mostöntgen, and because I am a Germanist, so it is a Röntgen. I promise, I wasn't taking the mickey. German, as I've said so often, is the most beautiful language in the world, apart from English. Well, actually, the X goes all the way back to René Descartes, who was the French philosopher and mathematician from the 17th century. And one of the things he contributed to the world of numbers, one of many things, was the representation of an unknown within an equation using X, Y and Z.

And when the aforesaid Wilhelm Röntgen discovered what we now call X-rays, he called them X-strahlen. Strahlen is German for to shine. And X-scores stood for the unknown nature of the radiation that Roentgen had discovered, because they didn't know what it was. And even though now we do know what it was,

and please don't ask me, we still use that X for the unknown quantity. Wow, the X is the unknown quantity. The X factor, yeah. And that's the same with the X factor. Does that come from X-ray? Is that the same idea? It's exactly the same thing.

The X factor. It's that je ne sais quoi. It's that unknown factor. The je ne sais quoi. The je ne sais quoi. Given things that beginning with H, like hysteria, the Hippocratic Oath is fundamental to doctors. Yes, I don't know too much about Hippocrates, but Hippocrates was Greek, wasn't he? And he was the one that introduced this fundamental oath, as you say, which is wonderful, that basically you will only ever use medicine to do good. Also, there's a Hippocratic face, designating an appearance of the face often seen in a person close to death after severe illness. Oh, good grief. Typically characterized

by pinched features with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and a bluish pallor. Oh, the Hippocratic face. But you can tell, you know, when people are very close to death, the nose becomes more pointy as well as those other features. Yes, I'm now taking a keen interest in this, can I tell you. I look in the mirror every morning and I don't want to see a Hippocratic face. What is it again? Blue features? Pinched features. Pinched features. Hollow cheeks. Hollow cheeks.

Sunken eyes. Sunken eyes. But you don't have any of those. I don't have any of those. Shall we go on to childbirth? Because that's one of the most glorious aspects of medicine. Yes. Let us move. Let's swing from the end to the beginning, from death to childbirth.

Tell me more. Well, have you ever wondered what a midwife, why midwife? Maybe not. Did you have good midwives? I had amazing ones. We had good midwives. And we started having children so long ago that they arrived on bicycles. It was like before they had an episode of Meet the Midwife.

We were meeting the midwife. Not the children, not the babies. The babies came brought by a stalk. You can explain that to me in a moment. Oh, yes. I had brilliant ones. But the mid is Germanic again, because we are essentially a Germanic tongue, aren't we, as I often say. And the mid is related to German mit, meaning with.

And the wife was a woman. So it was the woman who was with you at the birth. And the obstetrician, I love this one. This is from the Latin for one who stands opposite. So it's almost as if they're catching the baby. Oh, well, they often are, aren't they? It's great, isn't it? Well, of course, one does want to feel that they're properly qualified.

They've taken the Hippocratic Oath. They're not some sort of quack. Oh, actually, where does quack come from? Yeah, quack's a lovely one. Quack goes back to the Dutch quacksalver. And that basically meant a cellar of wares. So salver, I mean, we might talk about salves these days from the Latin for healthy. So things that will sort of soothe, ointments will kind of soothe your skin or whatever

malady you have. And these quacks would babble away. They'd sort of set up a platform at medieval markets and actually even before then, even before the Middle Ages, they would step up on the platform, hence Mountie Bank,

a bank being a platform. So they would step up on there. They would often employ assistants to sell those salves, the quack salvers. And these assistants would often pretend to do ridiculous things, including swallowing live frogs or toads, believed in those days to be highly poisonous. The quack would then duly give this assistant one of his magic potions and the toad eater would be cured. And so, of course, then all the people watching would think, I need some of this. I need some of this wonderful potion. And those same assistants,

because they were toad eaters and because they were fawning on their master and obeying his every command, were toading up to him. That's where that comes from. Wow. Yeah. These are phrases that have been around for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. And they also, their sort of patter was also notorious. And we think that charlatan goes back to an Italian dialect word,

giallare, which means to babble. They prattle the way to sell their potions. Incidentally, the frog in the throat probably doesn't go back to that swallowing of live toads, but some people believe that it was another really odd remedy whereby people who had thrush in the mouth, so thrush candida, but it was certainly believed, we have evidence of this, that the secretions made by frogs were actually used as a remedy against thrush. And some people believe, I think it's unlikely, that a frog in your throat goes slightly back to that idea of putting them in children's mouths to ease their affliction. But it's more likely to be a bit croaky.

Can I ask you something else? Yes, and I've got to get on to asphyxia. Oh, Lord. Just quickly, thrush, as I've got to get on to asphyxia. Oh lord, just quickly, thrush, as in the medical condition. That's a really good question. And thrush the bird. Yes. And candida, just unpack those for me for a moment. So candida is the Latin for white and I think during our political episode we talked about the fact that candidates are actually linked to candida because the candidates would dress in pristine white togas in order to demonstrate their purity and integrity. And thrush, strangely, I've just had to look this up in the OED because I actually didn't know whether they were linked to the two things. It's very interesting because it brings us right back to frogs because thrush is a sibling of frosk, which is Norwegian for a frog.

So there you go. So, yes, I'm not quite sure why I'm going to look into this because I think it might be long. It was a very long entry for me. Well, while you look into it, why don't we take a break? OK, but I do need to get back to asphyxia. Oh, yes. OK, we'll take a quick break and then it'll be time for asphyxia. 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.

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Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. And I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. Every week, you can listen in while we break down the latest pop culture news and dish on what new releases we can't get enough of. We're covering the latest in film, video games, music, manga, and obviously, anime. Get the latest on The Anime Effect. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Thrush. And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. actually, weirdly, gave us the adjective sturdy because the Latin scientific name for the thrush is turdus, T-U-R-D-U-S.

Thrushes in Roman vineyards who, once they'd fed on fallen grapes, which were sort of highly fermented and so quite intoxicating, they would totter around and they were said to be sturdy in English. And so that adjective sturdy originally meant just all over the shop, like a tipsy thrush. And it was only much, much later over the centuries that it came from all over the place to somebody who was perhaps a little clumsy.

And then because you were clumsy, you might be a bit thick set. And then that eventually transformed into being sort of you know strong robust strong and robust yeah yes well built exactly so can you believe that might go back to um pissed thrushes that's extraordinary yeah very odd but enough of that i've got more more asphyxia asphyxia why am i so desperate to get to asphyxiation um well i have to thank dr roin Francis, who's a cardiologist. He's on Twitter.

Do check him out because he does the most wonderful YouTube videos about medicine. And in this one, he was talking about etymology, the etymology of the body. And I just loved it. But asphyxia, in asphyxia, ah means without, the same ah as in anesthesia. And asphyxia means to throb or beat like a heart. And the suffocation came later. But as Dr. Francis said, soon enough to those unable to answer the riddle of the sphinx.

Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed, then two-footed, then three-footed? And those who couldn't answer the question were strangled. Oh, I remember a different version. There are probably a lot. I've got it. Can I tell you what I think the answer is? Yes.

Four-footed is when you're a baby crawling on all fours. Yes. Two-footed is when you're standing up. Very good. Three-footed is when you get a stick. Absolutely. That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

But the Sphinx gave us the sphincter, which is the muscle that constricts like a band. It's all linked. Perhaps not going into the sphincter, but of course you have a pyloric sphincter as well. So it's not just where most of us think about. But pylorus was the Greek for the gatekeeper. So the pylorus is the gateway to the duodenum part of the intestine. But it's all linked in. So asphyxia is to be without a heartbeat, really, because possibly you have been strangled by the sphinx. I know. The other thing that Dr. Francis taught me about was diabetes. This is from the Greek diabanine, which means to pass through. And it's so cool because diabetes obviously causes people to wee a lot and so a lot of urine passes through the body but there are two types

diabetes mellitus which involves the word for honey that melts if you're mellifluous you're sort of honey voiced if you like and that's because it causes high sugar in the blood in the urine and doctors in the past I had no idea about this, used to diagnose this diabetes mellitus by tasting the sweet urine of those suffering from it. Goodness. Have a sip of your tea. People have been quite keen on drinking urine.

Was it Gandhi who drank his own urine? I think it was. I think it was. Before international conferences, everyone else had orange juice and his was a little bit paler. And also the actor or actress who was in Ryan's Daughter. I can't remember her name, but she used to... Oh, Sarah Miles.

Sarah Miles. But there's another much rarer kind of diabetes, just to finish this one off, which is called diabetes insipidus. And that means passing through without taste. It goes back to that. Can you imagine being a doctor and diagnosing through taste? Gosh. Yeah.

One last thing, which is Syrinx. So I'm talking a lot about Greek mythology because it actually informs so many of our words. Syrinx was a goddess who was known for her chastity, but she was relentlessly pursued by Pan. Pan, the mischievous god, who I remember gave us panic because he used to hide in the woods and make all sorts of noises and terrify passersby. She was fleeing his advances and she was a nymph really rather than a goddess. And she transformed herself into hollow water reeds that made this beautiful hollow sound when Pan's breath blew across them, the pan pipes. And Pan cut the reeds to make pan pipes. But syrinx was now a hollow tube and it's that that gave us the syringe.

Wow. Isn't that beautiful? That's very beautiful. Yeah. Well, speaking of things beautiful, it gets us to where we have listeners' questions. Oh, yes. And I have a listener request that I'm going to fulfil now because it has a medical connotation, I suppose. I'm a friend of Lucy Siegel.

Lucy is one of my fellow reporters on The One Show, which is brilliant. And she said to me the other day, in your lovely poetry collection of poems to learn by heart, Dancing by the Light of the Moon, she said, I've come across a poem that I think is wonderful, Giles. Learn by Heart, Dancing by the Light of the Moon. She said, I've come across a poem that I think is wonderful, Giles. And you, Giles, in your capacity as my perimenopausal advisor, I didn't know what any of the words meant. She said, you can perhaps spread the word about this lovely poem.

So I'm going to read you this poem and see what you make of it, Susie. It's called Hot and Cold. It's by Roald Dahl. And this is requested by Lucy Siegel. And I know we've passed International Menopause Day. We're a little bit late. But Lucy says, better late than never. A woman, who my mother knows, came in and took off all her clothes. Said I, not being very old, by golly gosh, you must be cold. No, no, she cried.

Indeed, I'm not. I'm feeling devilishly hot. Anyway, who has written to you this week? I've had a lovely email from, he's a countdown viewer actually, John Lever at the Vale of Glamorgan, who asked whether there's a connection between the word cataract, meaning a waterfall, and the same word meaning an eye condition while we're talking about medicine.

And the answer is yes, because for the Romans, cataracta could mean a floodgate or a portcullis. So, you know, a heavy barrier that's lowered down in front of a gateway. And it's those two Latin meanings that explain the different uses, because the first was a waterfall that tumbles headlong over a precipice. And the second is the clouding of the lens as though a portcullis is descended in front of the eye. So the person's vision is completely obstructed as though there's now this gate over the lens, which I think is quite beautiful. Beautiful and intriguing. Okay, I have something from Anne Verrilli. I hope that's how you pronounce her name. Another

great name. What is the derivation of the word hustings? Oh. Do you know this one? No, and I said we were going to be election free. Oh, sorry. No, I think we can legitimately answer that because it's an inquiry that's come in from a listener. Well, we have the Vikings to thank for this one because for the Vikings, the hus thing was a household assembly held by a leader.

So the hus was a house, as in huswief, which also gave us hussey. Housewife went one way and hussey went another, but hussey was originally a housewife, which is quite interesting. Anyway, and the thing or ting was an assembly or parliament and hustings was applied to the highest court of the city of London when it first came into English,

presided over by the recorder of London. And then over time, it kind of transferred to a temporary platform on which parliamentary candidates were nominated. And then the sense of electoral proceedings that we have today. But I love the fact that that ting, this assembly of the most important people of a community has actually, all the way down the centuries has lost its power and lost its power. It's ebbed away. And now that ding is a thing. Any old thing.

But, you know, it's strange because the, I don't know how to pronounce this, but the National Parliament of Iceland is called the Altingi or something similar. It is. Alting, I think. It is. It's the oldest parliament in the world.

It is, absolutely. Founded in 930. I went to Reykjavik once. Did you? It's the oldest parliament in the world. It is, absolutely. Founded in 930. I went to Reykjavik once. Did you? Isn't it beautiful? To visit it, yes. I was there at Christmas. How do you pronounce it? Do you know? Alting. I should know this. It's Alting.

Alting. And I felt very, very guilty because I stayed at Christmas and I had reindeer steak on Christmas Day. Can you imagine eating a reindeer? Now, it's time, please, Susie, for your trio of words. Interesting words. Okay. My first is something that I do a lot of. It is a word from one of the earliest dictionaries that we have, actually, from Nathan Bailey, his Universal Etymological Dictionary from 1773.

And the verb is to fisk. F-I-S-K? Yes. It means to run about hastily and heedlessly. Oh, fisking. We all do that. We're just fisking all the time, not fisk. F-I-S-K? Yes, it means to run about hastily and heedlessly. Oh, fisking. We'll do that, we're just fisking all the time, not getting anywhere. Yeah, I know the feeling. Do you pick at your food when you're a bit off colour, possibly?

Oh, yes, toy with it, push it around. I do because I am a veggie and sometimes I haven't told people. I do a lot of that poking the chicken around the plate to try and make it look smaller. Well, you're pingling. Oh, pingling. Yes, to pingle. It's to pick at your food. I like that.

Sometimes also applied to cats who need your lap with their claws. Ah, they're pingling. Yeah, but... But it's really picking at your food. It's strange. Picking at your food. Like it. Pingling.

And I end with one just because it makes me laugh. Do you know Bridget Jones's diary? Did you see the films and read the books? I saw all the films. I loved all the films. I loved all the films. I didn't see the last one, I didn't. I saw the last one. She's brilliant.

She is. And I've seen Renee Zellweger in Judy, about Judy Garland. The woman is beyond genius. Is she? And is going to get an Oscar for that. But that's by the by. Oh, amazing. Bridget Jones's Diary.

I read the first book as well. Yeah, me too. Big knickers, do you remember? Of course. Her big knickers. Well, the word in Hertfordshire and various counties in England for at least once upon a time for those big knickers

were apple catchers. I love that. Apple catchers. Well, look, it's time to pull our knickers up and get on our way because that's all. But every Tuesday we have a new one, which is quite exciting. And you can go back and listen to all the original ones because there are maybe 30 or more piled up

wherever you collect your podcasts. You want to get in touch with us, you can tweet us. You can email us at purple at something else dot com. And it's been rather nice, hasn't it? Oh, do please, if you've liked it, don't, you know, give us a nice review. Recommend us to a friend. Please do. That would be lovely.

And Something Right with Purple is a Something Else production. It's produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production from Paul Smith, Steve Ackerman and Gully, who apparently we must photograph. Somebody's clamouring for a photograph of Gully. We would if we could tie him down, but he's a prize fisker. His beard's got a bit longer. I think we can grab it and keep him down. Bingle with it. you