Something Rhymes with Purple - Icarus

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

Chocks away! Roll out! Hello! It’s another Tuesday and we’re pushing the envelope (well, not really, but we love alliteration) and presenting you, our Purple People, with another episode!  The last year and a half has been almost entirely devoid of holidays. Have you missed the miniatures? Have you longed for a drink as you fly over the drink? Have you ever had a Delsey dinner with a crumb cruncher?  Well even if you’re not up in the air, we at Something Rhymes With Purple will get you half way there this week, as we take off, cruise and land in the world of Aeroplanes!  Susie tells us how her love of turbulence turned a corner when a trolly dolly took a tumble (though don’t you call them that!) and explains how Roger and Romeo are related. Gyles adds the concorde to his fabulous list of names to drop and tells us all about Carol Vorderman in the cockpit!  Elsewhere Mayday has nothing to do with Summer, crop dusting has nothing to do with the harvest and mangoes may well be the favourite fruit of Mile High club members.  We love getting your Purple Post so if you have a question for Gyles and Susie then fire it over to [e-mail] and Bob’s your uncle.  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple TRIO  Umbriferous - casting or making shade  Solander - protective box made in the form of a book  Ortanique - cross between and orange and a tangerine  A Somethin’ Else production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. This episode is brought to you by

LEGO Fortnite. LEGO Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of LEGO Play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families,

a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Something else. PSRB E10+. 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. Up, up and away.

Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. And, well, we really are having a flying start. We're taking to the air in more ways than one because we are going to go skywards. We're going to unpack the language as it's used at 35,000 feet. We're going to talk the language as it's used at 35,000 feet. We're going to talk all about, well, the language that goes with flying through the sky, like Superman or like Richard Branson or like Mr. Bezos going out to the edge of space. Are you somebody who likes flying, Susie Dent?

I used to fly a lot. So, as you know, I studied in America, Giles. So whenever I could and whenever I could afford it, I would come back and I loved it. I loved flying. I loved the JFK to Heathrow route. I loved a bit of turbulence. In fact, I really longed for turbulence because it would, you know, just give me a bit of excitement along the way because it was quite a tedious amount of time otherwise. And then I was on a United Airlines flight going to New York for work actually. So it was quite a long time after I was studying. And for some inexplicable reason, we started to plummet. And I mean, really plummet. So the flight attendants were told to take their seats immediately, immediately.

They left their coffee trolleys, resulting in absolute chaos because the brakes stopped working. We were plummeting so fast. Everything went everywhere. I had a woman behind me praying. And I honestly, genuinely thought that that was absolutely it. And I was in New York for about four days afterwards and my legs did not stop shaking. And ever since then, I have to say, when it comes to jet flying, I'm not a fan. I went up in a tiny aircraft quite recently, which didn't go very high and I absolutely loved it. But when it comes to flying high, I'm afraid my spirits are low. Did you discover the cause of this terrible event? No, the pilot never came on, never explained nothing. You're joking. We had absolutely nothing. I think it was to avoid an electric storm. I think that's what we were doing. But I mean, honestly, it was so

dramatic. After the event, he or she should at least have said, so sorry about that. This is what hugs. Yeah, and it really was terrifying. It didn't help because I went with a colleague who was absolutely terrified of flying. So I was sitting next to them. And I think obviously that kind of percolated through me as well. So, yeah, really sad. And so it's not the happiest time of my life when I go flying. Apart from, as I say, I went up on a little Piper jet and absolutely loved it. But I could see the ground.

I think that makes quite a lot of difference. How about you? I have so many terrifying stories. As a child, I used to enjoy going on airplanes, mainly to Europe. And then as a teenager, I began going to the United States of America and I did enjoy it,

though the turbulence I found a bit uncomfortable. But as the years have gone by, I've got more and more terrified. I think it began when I was flying once about 40 years ago from somewhere in Italy to somewhere in the south of France. Nice. And got onto a small airplane. And I was sitting next in the front seat, right at the front of this small airplane. It only seemed to take about 16 passengers because it was a little hop from Italy to France. And there was just one stewardess who was looking after us. And we took off and she

was seated at the back. And I was seated next to this lady who I later discovered was a lawyer. Anyway, we began to take off. And as we took off, there was a bit of sort of turbulence as we moved into the sky. And she could see that I was nervous and so i i reached out and i began to hold this lady's hand and we were both equally nervous we began squeezing our each other's hands quite quite hard but it got worse because we began sniffing and we could smell smoke and then we were sitting right at the front and as the plane was still accelerating still going up and lurching as it went up from underneath the door to where the captain and the pilots were smoke began to emerge um billowing no and then the door of the you know the bit to

the pilot yeah banged open through the turbulence. And the woman and I were now in each other's arms, squawking and squealing. And we saw through into the captain's cabin, into the pilot's cabin. And there the pilot was sitting with his co-pilot, both of them smoking small cheroots. No. Yeah. And they were completely relaxed. Totally. They were just, this was, of course, 30, 40 years ago when when smoking was allowed, I think, in airplanes. But we didn't actually expect the pilots to be smoking. But these relaxed Italian pilots were having their little, you know, their black Sobranis or their little cheroots. They were as contented as could be. So I do find it terrifying. You were aerophobic. Yeah. I'm a bit of an aerophobic, though it must be said, it's better for me when I'm at the front. I'm the same.

The closer you are to the front, the happier I am. And if I'm allowed to sit with the pilot, I'm reasonably good. Do you remember a plane called Concorde? Yes. I was lucky enough to fly in Concorde, spelt originally Concorde without an E, but I think the French insisted on having the E put on the end. Ah, Concorde. So it became a French word. It was an Anglo-French project, Concorde without an E, but I think the French insisted on having the E put on the end. So it became a French word. It was an Anglo-French project, Concorde. I flew to New York once on Concorde and they kindly let me sit with the captain. And I said, I'm not going to be doing

this very often since I'm here in the cockpit. Do you think I might land us in New York? So he said, why don't you? Why not? And he allowed me to land Concorde in New York. Wow. So I've landed Concorde. Well, I say he allowed me. He gave me the illusion that I was landing Concorde. I mean, we were sitting side by side, but he let me hold the joystick. We're going to explain what that means in a moment.

Anyway, it was almost the last time that Concorde flew when I landed in New York, because about 10 days later, Concorde fell out of the sky somewhere. But that is history. Now let's talk about language. Tell me about the cockpit, first of all, and then the joystick. Where do they come from? Okay, well, the cockpit, as you would guess, was a place for holding cockfights. So its connotations from the beginning were bloodshed, injury, cruelty. And this probably accounts for it being applied in the early 18th century to the area in the aft lower deck of a man of war where wounded soldiers were treated during battle.

So that's where they were taken and had medical treatment. And it then came to be used for the well from which you steer a sailing yacht. And because of the idea of a very small compartment in a small enclosed space, it was then in the 20th century applied to the compartment or the area that houses the controls of an aircraft or indeed of a racing car as well. It's that idea of a small enclosed space, but it looks back to, as I say, real bloodshed and battle. And the joystick? The joystick.

So keep your mind out of the gutter here. Do you have any idea what it might have first been applied to? A joystick. You told me to keep my mind out of the gutter. It becomes quite challenging. No idea at all. Okay.

It was a cigarette or a cigar or an opium pipe. No. Yeah, especially if you were smoking marijuana. That was in slang in the early 20th century. That was a joystick. And then around the same time, actually, it was applied to the control column of an aircraft. I mean, presumably, again, it was sort of slang, aeronautical slang, I guess, for something that was a stick. It gave you joy if you were a pilot.

And so it was applied to a lever that was used to control the that was a stick. It gave you joy if you were a pilot. And so it was applied to a lever that was used to control the motion of a vehicle. So the first mention of that is in 1913. And then in 1950s, it was used for any lever-like device that could be moved in any direction. It has, when I said keep your mind out of the gutter, it could also mean the penis in 1916. And in fact, it's occasionally still used for that as a kind of joke. As far back as 1916. Let's put this language of air travel in context. Obviously, human beings have been fascinated by the idea of flying from the days of Greek

legends when there were characters like Daedalus and Icarus. He was the one who flew too close to the sun, is that right? Yes. And his wings burnt off and he fell to ground, is that the story? Yes, he was the son of Daedalus, I think, and he escaped from Crete using wings that were made by his father. But yes, his wings melted because they were made of wax. And of course, we know that the Japanese and the Chinese pioneers of fireworks

were constantly sending things up into the air, as well as fireworks, kites. And I think they attempted to attach humans to the kites way back in the sort of 7th century. But actually getting people up in the air successfully, I think of it as something that happened in France towards the end of the 18th century, hot air balloons. I'm trying to remember the name of the great man. The Montgolfier brothers, weren't they? Yeah. So there was hot air in balloons, and we can see why they were called balloons and they were hot air. And though the French were pioneers of hot air ballooning, curiously, I think the basket in which you stood or sat was called a gondola,

which I of course think of as an Italian word. Yes. And also the envelope. So the part that looks like a balloon is called the envelope and the basket is the gondola. And some pilots apparently affectionately refer to the gondola as the bag. We need to go back to pushing the envelope. Remind me to talk about that because that's got aeronautical beginnings. remind me to talk about that because that's got aeronautical beginnings. Okay. Now, the first proper aeroplane flight, as we think of it, is made in December 1903, the plane called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and this is the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright.

Did they call their aircraft an aeroplane, a plane, a flying vehicle? Where does aeroplane come from? Where does this very word come from? So it's funny, isn't it? Because we would say aeroplane. Today we will say airplane, which began as the kind of North American term, I think. But aeroplane, I mean, you can guess that. You've got the arrow of aerodynamics. Yes. And that first came about in 1866 for not the plane itself, but the principal lifting surface of an aircraft, especially a wing. So that was in 1866. And then from 1868, not long after, it was an aircraft which relies on aerodynamic lift for flight. There's also airship, aircraft, aeroplane. As I say, the equivalent term in North America is airplane.

The airships fell out of the air, didn't they? They were sort of R101 and all of that at the beginning of the late 1920s, early 1930s. They never really took off. During the First World War, you saw them floating above London. Yeah, those were pretty threatening, ominous sights, weren't they? Weren't they sort of to be feared, the airships? Airships. But that didn't catch on. But aeroplanes have lasted. And basically, in 125 years from next to nothing, there are now, I think, something like in a good year, if you regard it as a good year,

100,000 or so commercial flights every day around the world. Of course, during the pandemic, that was more than halved. Okay. Give us some of the language. We've done joystick, we've done the cockpit. What about when the aeroplane leaves, you say, chocks away? What's the origin of that? So a chock, it was simply something that is put in front of the wheels of an aircraft. It's a block or a wedge that's placed against the wheel to keep it stationary. So chocks away is like we are removing the blocks or the wedges and you are free to go. So it's like a chock of wood, a piece of wood is a chock. So chocks away. And when there's a bit of a disaster, like your aeroplane apparently falling out of the sky for

no good reason, people, I think in an emergency, one thinks of May Day, May Day, May Day. That's an emergency call of some kind. It is, yeah. So you would think that, well, a lot of people think that May Day comes from May and then day and something to do with the month of May. Nothing to do with that. In fact, it is our anglicisation of May Day from French because French was the international language spoken at the time. And it means help me, help help me, come to our aid, MEDE. So it's M apostrophe A-I-D-E-Z. What is the origin of using MEDE? Well, it's said to have originated at Croydon Airport in the early 1920s, and that was England's only international airport at the time. And according to one story, a senior radio officer

who was called Frederick Stanley Mockford, he was asked to devise a really simple word that would indicate that a plane was in trouble and in urgent need of assistance. And SOS, which is the time-honoured Morse equivalent, that couldn't be used because it was too, it's SOS, it was thought to be too difficult to distinguish over the airwaves. Yeah, too sibilant, as it were, difficult to distinguish over the airwaves. Yeah, too sibilant. Too sibilant, exactly. The crackle of the airwaves.

Exactly. So he came up with Mayday from the French, Venez, Mayday, come and help me. Largely because so much of Croydon's traffic was, basically the journeys went to and from Le Bourget airport in Paris at the time. And then in the 20s, the phrase was ratified at the International Radio Telegraph Convention of Washington, and it became the official radio distress call that we still use today. And if there's a less serious incident, they also decided that it should be called a pan pan. And that also comes from French pan, meaning if you are a trompe-un, you have a breakdown. So that applies to cars as well, en pan. In the early days, then, was the international communication

French? Because now I imagine it's English, isn't it, that they all speak? They used a lot of French. And I think, as I say, in Croydon, it was for pragmatic reasons, because a lot of their flights went to and from Paris. But yes, it was a lot. I mean, we talked, as we said, in our Purple Plus podcast about the influence of French. But yes, it was definitely thought to be intelligible to a lot of people, although we anglicised Mayday very quickly. And do you know about the names like Alpha, Bravo and all of that? Is that to do with aeroplanes as well? Yes. So the NATO alphabet, I'm not sure when that came into being in aircraft terms, but it was in all the military, wasn't it? It was the

established phonetic alphabet. And when you say Roger, you are referring to R for received. So the NATO alphabet was in the 1950s, and then it was turned into the kind of universal alphabet for the military, as I say, and also I think amateur radio stuff as well. So that's how that came about. Give us some of the aeronautical phrases that have come into everyday life, like, for example, flying below the radar. I'm flying below the radar. Flying below the radar. Well, yes, I will always talk about that. Well, obviously that goes back to air traffic control, of which my dad was one at Gibraltar in the RAF. There are so many idioms that have come across from flying. Gone for a

Burton is one that you might not know about, although we've mentioned it once or twice before on the podcast. And for those who are not British English speakers, if you've gone for a Burton, if something has gone for a Burton, it's gone for good. It's gone, it's done and dusted. And actually, this probably goes back to dark military humour and the RAF slang of World War II, where it meant to be killed if you had gone for a Burton. And the English town of Burton-upon-Trent was known for its brewing industry. And so Burton came to be type of ale. And when an aviator crashed into the sea, which was informally known as the drink, the idea was that the person was absent because they'd gone for a pint of beer. So it was,

in a way, it was a kind of kind of way of saying that they'd been killed. They'd gone into the drink and gone for a Burton. Gosh, gone into the drink, gone for a Burton. Yeah. Burton on Trent, gone for a Burton's ale, as it were. What about flying by the seat of your pants? Yes. So that's first recorded in the 1930s from early aircraft. So if you think about early aircraft, very basic, little instrumentation and a pilot sitting in the cockpit could literally feel the change, vibration, the engine note, the movement of the aircraft as they were sort of sitting down, it would kind of reverberate through them and they could

interpret this to help control the plane. So that's where you get the idea of flying by the seat of one's pants, in other words, by instinct only, and it's often a close shave. Passing with flying colours, I seem to remember from an earlier episode, is something to do with the navy, the colours that are flying on your flag. Exactly. Nothing to do with actually flying in the air. What about on a wing and a prayer? On a wing and a prayer. So this one, actually, we use that if you say you're flying on a wing and a prayer, it's used of a risky course of action, really, that has a very slim chance of success. And that goes back to a popular wartime song called Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer. Though there's one motor gone, we can still carry on coming in on a wing and a prayer. we can still carry on coming in on a wing and a prayer. And the idea, as I say, is just that you have very little left. You have very little chance left, but you're praying that you will

sort of land safely. So that's where that one comes from. Quite sad, really. Quite a lot of these are quite sad. Leading edge. We talk about leading edge. That was first found in the nautical world where it referred to the kind of forward edge, I guess, of a ship's propeller blade. But it crossed over into aeronautics where it was the foremost edge of an aerofoil, especially again, a wing or a propeller blade. And we talk about leading edge now, but like cutting edge, don't we? The sort of vanguard of technological developments, but that was definitely popularized by aeronautical slang. Likewise, a rollout. We have a rollout of a lot of, if you're in the business world, you will roll out a particular plan. That was actually originally the first showing of a new

aircraft or spacecraft to the public because this gleaming new aircraft or spacecraft would be rolled or wheeled out to the flight line with a lot of ceremony. That's where that one comes from. Any others pushing the envelope? Tell us about pushing the envelope. I can't see a connection between pushing the envelope and aeronautics at all, but there may be one with ballooning. Explain it all to me. If you push the envelope, I mean, it's very much part of management speak, isn't it? It means to extend the boundaries of what's possible. So it's, much part of management speak, isn't it? It means to kind of extend the boundaries of what's possible. So it's, you think outside the box, to use another cliche, and you push the boundaries and achieve something quite special. And if you look in the OED, it will tell

you that from the 1940s and in pilots' parlance, an envelope or the flight envelope was the set of limiting combinations of speed and altitude, range of a particular aircraft or a particular engine. And so if you're pushing that flight envelope, you are probably a test pilot and you're testing the limits of an aircraft's controls. That's where that one comes from. Am I right that the black box, whenever there's an aeronautical accident, they're always looking for the black box, which is the flight recorder telling you what happened. In fact, it's never

black. It's usually orange. It's orange. So that it can be seen or found quite easily. Yes, I think black because it was associated with death. I think that is the idea. So again, the sort of dark connotations there. But I do want to reassure people, it's a very safe way to travel, even though I'm always nervous myself and we shouldn't be talking about black boxes. Remember, I've told you there are 100,000

commercial flights a day in the good times. Forgive me, I've lived in my house now for 35 years. I'm on the flight path to Heathrow. I have hundreds of planes flying over every day. None of them's ever fallen on top of my house, have they? So we don't need to get too nervous about it. We should be celebrating. In fact, joining the Mile High Club.

I've heard of that. When does that phrase originate? I think we know what it means. It means having sex up in the air, doesn't it? It does. I'm going to see if it's in the dictionary, because this is typically not something I looked up before well don't get in a flat spin um yes 1972 it says humorous originally us an imaginary association of people who have had sex while

traveling in an aircraft there you go oh it's imaginary is it i thought there were really people doing it i don't know actually how on earth could they be doing it particularly in the early days those seats were so uncomfortable with i mean you know i think it's all about you're in the loo aren't you usually or in the cockpit pilots in the cockpit or passengers in the loop pilots in the cockpit having sex no i'm terrified of flying i mean i've actually seen them smoking i didn't know they were having sex in the cockpit when my children were small, you could take them to the front of the plane and they could visit the pilot. Now they don't do that because of the security.

It all is much, much more secure. Yes, it is. That's a good reason. I didn't realize they were actually standing up. It seems like a good time to have a break. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars,

like Ed O'Neill, who had limited prospects outside of acting. The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime. And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, who do you want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over.

You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. 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 4pm late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. This is Something Rhymes with Purple, where we haven't joined the Mile High Club, but at 35,000 feet, we're talking the language ofes. And do, over recent weeks, we've talked about the tribal language of a variety of people, from people working in circuses and carnivals now to today,

to people working in the aircraft industry. Do they have their own language, flight crews? Yes, they absolutely do. I am full of admiration for the air crew, I have to say. It's interesting because, I mean, obviously, I hoped to be a representative sample, talked to a lovely pilot from British Airways. So, you know, I wouldn't say that these are universal codes, but they were very interesting nonetheless. One thing that surprised me was that a little bit like hack, which is a term freely used by

journalists of themselves, so is trolley dolly actually used by air stewards of themselves, whatever their gender. You rarely hear stewardess and hostess almost never, but they will call themselves trolley dollies, which is interesting. But they have the most fantastic just nicknames for each other and just lovely little kind of nods to their life. So for example, Delsey. Delsey, particularly in the US, I think is a popular brand of cabin luggage. So if you are Delsey dining, you're taking your own food in your suitcase. So when you get to your destination, you don't have to fork out.

A coach roach is a flight attendant who prefers working in the main cabin rather than the first class bit. Sometimes they will call each other flying mattresses, tarts with carts or sky hostesses. Never use these if you're a passenger, only used amongst themselves. So it's self-deprecating humour, essentially. Absolutely, absolutely.

They're sending themselves up. But they always seem to be quite happy people. There's a kind of community amongst these guys. Absolutely. And they do have a good laugh particularly at us so the packs are the passengers collectively we are the packs pax children are known as the crumb crunches quite often the crowd of people who rush to the gate eager to board as soon as the announcement comes a gate lice oh god a spinner i was told was an undesirable or annoying passenger

who boards late and then looks around helplessly or spins trying to locate their seat. Mango is a hot male passenger. Oh, how wonderful. Oh, there's a mango in E7. Yeah, or B.O.B., best on board. Klingon is a family member of a cabin or flight crew. An um is an unaccompanied minor. And I should just say, going back to something that the flight attendants talk about, I loved this one. This

is crop dusting. And that is when they say, when an attendant suffering from wind walks up and down the aisle to distribute it amongst the passengers. I had no idea if that's true. Crop dusting. I love it. So you could look up at them and say, if you smell an unfortunate pong, oh, I see you're crop dusting today, are you? How tremendous. Yeah. And then they have their necessary accoutrements. So they have the gas bag, which is the rubbish bag, which is actually borrowed from the Navy, that one. The plonky kit is the small bag of essentials that they take with them on their flights. So, you know, perfume, toothbrush, toothpaste, that kind of thing. They have crew juice, which is a welcome drink at the end of a flight, particularly a long haul one.

Bottle to throttle. That's the hours when you're not allowed to drink before your next flight. So, you know, obviously they're not, any crew member is not allowed to take alcohol. It's usually 12 hours, I think, from bottle to throttle. And oh my goodness, they have, when they're doing their jobs, when they start their trolley service, they have something called starburst, which is when they start the trolley service in the middle of the cabin and then they work out towards the galleys. And then when they meet each other in the middle, after doing safety checks, they will often say, we've met, which I love. Crotch watch, that's the walkthrough in the cabin when they're doing their seatbelt check and so on and so on. Deadhead is a crew member traveling as a passenger to their

eventual place of work. And the pilots have their own as well. Maybe we should just talk, we should do pilots separately one day because they have their own codes too. So it's fascinating, the tribal jargon. And I love it because it is so humorous and, you know, it lightens up the day. It's the banter. Well, we're going to have to have another episode. We have to take the air again and talk about pilots. And we can then, when we do, we must talk about our old friend from our early Countdown days, Carol Vorderman, who became, after leaving Countdown, a very successful pilot herself and flies all over the place. And I can tell you about one of my friends from the 1970s, a woman called Sheila Scott, who was a pioneer of, I think she was the first woman

to circumnavigate the world in an airplane on her own. She flew right around the world. And many of these flights, she didn't stop. I mean, she flew for hours, 24 hours, 48. I mean, she was literally, she fell asleep at the wheel. That was the, put it in cruise control and fell asleep. And I saw in the papers only the other day that there's a young woman, I think a late teenager, who is aiming to break all these records and become the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe solo, which is extraordinary. So the pilots are remarkable people, fearless. I'm sticking to my tricycle. Well, we've already answered, I think, in a way, the first of the letters that we've received this week, which is about Roger over and out. Oh, yes.

And whenever I hear the word Roger, I love, I don't, what is the origin of Roger meaning to Roger? Oh, you mean to have sex? No, what is the origin of that? It's just because we tend to use men's names and and particularly men's names, in all sorts of different ways. So it could have been Colin or Trevor. It could have been. Or Basil. It could have been, yes.

But it's Roger. Why is it Roger, though? Poor old Roger. Roger was used as the name of a male animal or a male person of a particular class, of a manservant. Old Roger was a nickname for the devil. And also it was used as a slang term. I mean, when is it? I mean, every slang term seems to mean the penis, but this one did in the 17th century.

So there you go. So this is a letter from Molly from Australia. She's in touch. I've heard the saying Roger over and out used at the end of a conversation, typically in radio communication. Is it a mistaken quotation? So over and out is obviously you need to indicate that you have finished your message. So Roger means received. You're acknowledging a radio message or an instruction received and understood. 1946 is the first citation that we have for that one. But we used to do that a lot. So when technology was in its infancy or various technologies, we used to indicate that something was finished. So I love the fact, for example, that at the end of a phone call,

instead of having what in the meaning of LIF, that brilliant book where they use British place names as a word for linguistic gaps in our language, they have Harpenden, which they call the coder, the endless code at the end of a phone call. We go, bye, bye, love you, speak to you soon, bye, which goes on forever with certain people. They called it Harpenden. But actually, at the end of phone calls, when the telephone was first invented, people used to say, that is all, and put the phone down, which I love.

So that's kind of over and out, the equivalent in a phone call. I think that's very useful because at the end of Zoom calls, I usually say end meeting. Because I'm looking for the sign that says end meeting. The meeting has ended. Yes, that's quite good. Coddy Womple, dear Susie and Giles, writes Oisin, O-I-S-I-N, which I think is an Irish Yeah, I think it's probably pronounced differently, isn't it? Oisin?

Well. I'm not sure. Oisin. Anyway, we're pronouncing the name wrong, but it is Oisin or Oisin. Anyway, thank you, whoever you are, for getting in touch. Thanks, as always, for your wonderful outpourings. They always brighten my day. It's the right thing to say.

In one of your recent episodes, Jazz was talking about the importance of walking purposefully. Yes. I was reminded of a word I was introduced to recently by a friend, Coddy Womble, which they defined as a verb meaning to walk purposefully towards an as yet unknown destination. I love it. Any thoughts where it comes from? I love it too.

Do you know, I have, Ashin, I've looked up this word many a time because it's one of those wonderful words that you think, yes, this is just gorgeous. And it seems, as far as I can tell, to have taken off on the internet and spread from there. I can't find it in any dialect dictionaries at all. So it seems to have been, this is my guess, a deliberate confection by somebody because it's, A, it sounds wonderful, got the sort of thudding sense of treading purposely about it. And it does fill a gap in our language. But I think it was a deliberate coinage, nothing wrong with that at all, that's not yet recognised in the dictionary, but that is recognised by lots of people on the web. And I agree with you, it's absolutely lovely.

But I can't tell you, as lexicographers actually rarely can, I can't tell you who's the first person to use it. But you can tell us what your trio of interesting words are this week, Susie. What have you got for us? I can, yes. So this comes from me digging around in various old dictionaries that I have on my shelf and finding words that I find quite lovely. So in Britain, we've had some very hot weather recently. And you'll remember, Giles, that an umbrella was originally used not for sun, but for, sorry, not for rain, but for sun because umbra in Latin was shade. And umbriferous, I think is a lovely adjective, rarely used. You'll find it in the OED, umbriferous, and it means shady. So you will find an umbriferous spot in your garden if you were

lucky. I like that. A solander. Again, I love this one. It just sounds very beautiful. It's got a slightly unexpected definition. Solander, so that's S-O-L-A-N-D-E-R. And it's a protective box made in the form of a book. So if you've seen them, we've got one here. It actually looks like a book. It's quite often a tin and it holds items that you want to put in it. And originally botanical specimens. So if you were going out, you might put a map in there and some little things that you pick up along a walk. So that is a solander, something that you take with you.

A little treasure, like a little box of treasures, a solander. But it has to look like a book. Yes, it looks in the form of a book. That is your solander. Lovely. A solander. And the third one I chose, again, these are all for their sound, really, which I think are quite pleasing. An Ortanique. Do you know what an Ortanique is?

Ortanique. It's obviously French from the way you're pronouncing it. Ortanique. How do we spell it? O-R-T-A-N-I-Q-U-E. Oh, Ortanique. Ortanique. What does Ortan mean? Or Orta, and the nick is on the end, like picnic. I have no idea. You probably wouldn't guess this one. It's a cross between an orange and a tangerine. I've never tasted one. And I also chose this one because on Countdown, the word and numbers show

that I work on, we often get the word tangelo from our random letter selection. And a tangelo get the word tangelo from our random letter selection. And a tangelo famously is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit. And I've never tried one, but there are a lot of Countdown viewers who have. So if a purple person has tried an autanique, please let us know because they sound absolutely delicious. So those are my three. Good. And it's purple at somethingelse.com if you want to communicate with us. Purple at somethingelse.com with something spelt without a G. I gave you a long poem last week. I promised you a short one this week. It's a poem about the pleasures of friendship. Yeah, yet another poem about friendship. This one's by Stevie Smith, just four lines, and it's really just a special moment in time

recalled in four lines of poetry. The pleasures of friendship are exquisite. How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit. I go to my friend, we walk on the grass, and the hours and moments like minutes pass. That's it. Perfect, perfect choice. Well, thank you as always. Giles mentioned the email address, and Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett, Harriet Wells with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale and the man himself today. Yes. Do you know what I've done? I've taken some clippings from his beard and I'm going to put them in my solander. Ah, excellent idea. That's what I got. That's a good idea. It's going to be my little, it's going to be like a time capsule.

And so in years to come, if people dig up my solander, because I'm going to bury it in the garden, they'll find these little scrubs of gullies' beard. And from the DNA in the beard, they can grow gullies for future generations. Gully clones. I love that idea. Thank you, Giles. That's all. Oh, Roger, over and out.