Something Rhymes with Purple - Juggins

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

In this week’s episode, Susie and Gyles dish out a generous serving of all things to do with crockery! So gather round the table and feast upon a large helping of etymology, poems, obscure words and origins. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' 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:  Gound: Mucus produced by the eyes during sleep Vilipend: To hold or treat as of little worth or account Shotclog: One who is tolerated only because he pays the shot, or reckoning, for the rest of the company, otherwise a mere clog on them Gyles' poem this week was ‘An Argument’ by Thomas Moore I've oft been told by learned friars, That wishing and the crime are one, And Heaven punishes desires As much as if the deed were done. If wishing damns us, you and I Are damned to all our heart's content; Come, then, at least we may enjoy Some pleasure for our punishment! A 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 podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. No mockery, but crockery is our theme today. Crockery is one of my favourite words. In my view, there's nothing better than having a kitchen full of the loveliest bits of crockery. Do you agree, Susie? Okay, so take me to your kitchen, Giles.

Do you have a cupboard full of perfectly matched accessorised mugs? I know that we've got some something right with purple mugs, or we did, didn't we? Yes, is the answer. I adore crockery. Crockery, of course, refers to dishes, plates, bowls, other utensils used for serving and eating food, also for drinking. And I love a good mug. Have you given me before the definition of the word mug, where that comes from? Oh, gosh, yes. Mug is a lovely one, actually. So, originally, it was a measure of salt, believe it or not. And then it was a vessel or a bowl, which takes us far forward to our modern meaning. But in the 18th century, and you can still see examples of them now, and you might be able to picture this, drinking mugs represented a grotesque human face. So a little bit like a gargoyle. And we think

that's the origin of mug in the sense of a face, which in turn gives us the idea of being mugged because you might be hit in the face. And also you mug as an insult for a gullible person, possibly because they've got a very blank expression on their face. So it you mug as an insult for a gullible person, possibly because they've got a very blank expression on their face. So it's, yeah, it's a word with many, many applications. Well, you will be appalled to hear that I have literally a mug for every day of the year. I'm not appalled. Of the year? Oh my goodness, I thought you were going to say of the week. 365 mugs. When we got to 365, my wife said no more. But I said, no, we must have one more because occasionally every four years, it's a leap year. And Shakespeare's birthday, of course,

I've got a Shakespeare mug, but I've got several Shakespeare mugs. So there's a Hamlet mug as well as a Shakespeare mug. Ibsen, I have Henry Ibsen, his mug, but I also have Mrs. Ibsen, a mug for her. So on her birthday, I have them. The Empress Eugenie, who is married to Napoleon III. I have a mug for her. You name the day, whether it's Jane Austen, Mark Twain. Are you kidding me? So are they chronologically organised in your cupboard so you know exactly where to find it on that day?

No, they're random. I can't believe this. They're actually in four cupboards and two drawers. And my wife, occasionally, I hear her actually standing in the kitchen, dropping one on the floor. But I am not to be defeated. I go out and replace it. And I've got a secret stash of my own mugs. I designed some mugs based on the characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So I've got a Mad Hatter mug, a March Hare mug, a White Rabbit mug. I love those. And during the pandemic, I created mugs

to give to people as friends. I gave them your first jab mug, then two jabs, then had you had your booster, booster mugs. I said, you can have these instead of certificates, you know, just produce the mug. So I love a mug. Sorry, I'm sorry to labour on this, but so do you actually take out the specific mug for that, but do you actually take out the specific mug for that day or do you just take them out randomly? Well, my wife has certain mugs that she likes. Our teddy bear collection lives in somewhere called Newby Hall, which is in Yorkshire near Ripon in the United Kingdom. And we have a lovely Newby Hall mug. The lip on that suits my wife's mouth. She really loves that mug. So she uses it most days. I like

a different mug each day. Some days I want a big, thick, sturdy lip. Other days I want a slimline mug. At the moment, because we've just been to Jamaica, I'm using my Jamaica mug. But actually, I bought it some years ago in Jamaica. When I was in Ireland recently, I bought some mugs there. From Venice, I bought some wonderful mugs that look like Venetian masks that have wonderful sort of beautiful shaped noses. Oh, because I only drink tea now, no longer drink coffee. So I've got to make it an extra interesting experience. So I do it with my life is mug-tastic. That's fantastic. Oh, I didn't tell you where crockery comes from, by the way, which is really, really, really old. And what's quite interesting is that it's called very similar things in lots of different languages. So, you have in the language of the Vikings, you had

crooker, a pot. You have a crooker in Old Saxon. You have a crocker in Old English. Pretty similar in Irish. In Greek, it was a croesus, which is a pitcher. So, it's kind of earthen vessels collectively, but you can see it has very, very ancient roots. I've had a brilliant idea for a Susie Dent mug. You could have on the side of the mug, all the different words for mug in all these different languages. And in the bottom of the mug, when you've finished your tea or your coffee, there's a little picture of you, Susie. Drink deep in the Susie Dent mug. Oh, no, definitely not that.

We did have for a while, didn't we? Some merchandise. Some purple mugs. Yeah, we had purple mugs with some of our favourite words on them. I don't know what happened there. I don't know what's happened. Our production company would be very cross because they're probably still selling them. But anyway, should we move on to some of the other things that you might have in your kitchen? I want to know why a dish is both a beautiful

person and something you eat off. I haven't heard dish used in that sense for ages. You wouldn't call anyone dishy, would you? Well, I wouldn't, but I do remember the other day when we were doing the episode about calligraphy, I forgot to mention, because I love to name drop, that I was a great friend of the wonderful actor and entertainer Kenneth Williams. And he had started out as an expert calligrapher. In fact, he began his working life working for a company that made maps. Oh, wow. He was a cartographer, and he had beautiful handwriting. But he always referred to somebody, in fact, I think he describes me in his diaries as a bit of a dish, which shows you how long ago

we knew one another. We're talking 40 or more years ago. But in those days, you refer to somebody, it could be a boy or a girl, as being a bit of a dish. Now, why that word when a dish is what you, well, you know, you do the washing up with the dishes in the machine. It's very odd, isn't it? I can't quite explain that one. I mean, dish has been used to mean a face for a while because of its circular shape. So I wonder if maybe the extension then was that you had a lovely face possibly, but it's definitely connected to the dish itself. And that one has got quite a nice origin, I think. And that's the Latin or the Roman discus. See, you might not kind of put those two together, but a discus was

round, obviously, and then the old English disc, D-I-S-C, which, you know, we have a compact disc these days as well, was a plate or a bowl. And it's also related to words in Dutch and German, meaning table. So, we have a tisch for a table in German, and that's in turn related to desk. So, we have a Tisch for a table in German, and that's in turn related to desk. So, that's the idea of a receptacle of some kind or a sort of platform for something. But yeah, the early 20th century, you get the sense of a good-looking person. And that's about the time where you get the idea of dishing the dirt, which was from the idea of dishing something up and, you know, it's probably horrible gossip. I've just remembered a lovely line from somebody who was a friend of mine,

an actor called Patrick Cargill. You probably don't remember him a little bit before your time. A very elegant, amusing actor. He did a television series in the UK called Father, Dear Father. Anyway, he was raffish and fun. And having lunch with his agent once, there was a very attractive waiter serving them at their table. And the coffee came, but he

wanted to stir it and found, in fact, that the coffee spoon had been taken away. And he turned to his friend and said, oh, dear me, the dish has run away with the spoon. That's very clever. So, give me other things that one eats off. So, we were talking about the mugs that you have stored a plenty in your cupboard. But of course, the cupboard was originally a table onto which you put your cups. Yeah. So it was a cup board.

And we talked about this in one of our live shows, didn't we? I think, which is that you have board and lodging when you go for bed and breakfast, for example, and the board bit means the food. So that's as simple as that one. What about the cup? The cup that goes and the board bit means the food. So, that's as simple as that one. What about the cup? The cup that goes on the board? So, the cup that goes on the board is from a Latin word that meant tub, believe it or not. But in Old English, it did mean what it meant today. Exactly. Something for drinking from, to be in your cups, was to be drunk. So, it's one of many euphemisms for being drunk when you're

in your cups. So yeah, simple as that one. So many of these look back to Roman and Greek. What about Saucer? Did you ever see a saucer as saucy as mine? Did you ever see a saucer that was even half as fine? That's a song or the beginnings of a song from a wonderful musical called Salad Days, written by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds. And it's about a man who has a flying saucer. I suppose a flying saucer is so-called because it looked like a saucer. A saucer goes under a cup. Is a saucer a word?

So a saucer was originally a sauce boat. So it was a receptacle for sauce. And sauce, if you remember, looks back to the Roman word for salt. Salt being so important and informing so many English words because of its, you know, it was highly prized as a commodity. And yeah, so it was a sauce boat, and then eventually became the receptacle on which you put your cup. But saucy is a kind of, I think, a riff on the idea of being sort of slightly salty, slightly sort of spicy almost. And that also gave us sassy. So lots of links there. Isn't it intriguing how these bits of crockery have these overtones?

We had somebody who was a dishy, and now we've got somebody who is saucy. and now we've got somebody who is saucy. Saucy. So a saucer goes with a cup. I sometimes have soup at lunch, which is not apparently done. Oh, I always have soup for lunch. I have soup for lunch.

Famously, I think it was Lord Curzon when he was the Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The King was going to come to lunch and the bursar, whoever was in charge of the kitchens, sent up the proposed menu and on it, Lord Curzon crossed out the soup and put, gentlemen, do not eat soup at luncheon. Why? No, gentlemen, because he called luncheon, lunch luncheon, which as we know is just pretentious. The origin of the word is lunch. That's your favourite fact, isn't it? It is. But apparently apparently gentlemen don't wear brown

shoes in london except on a sunday i know i find that extraordinary as well it's very strange anyway are you going to ask me about what you drink your soup from yeah a bowl oh a bar i thought you're going to ask me about terrine oh i would don't mind i think you serve it from a terrine but you drink it from a bowl either terr tureen or bowl will suit me. Give me the origins. And then ladle if you can. Oh, okay. So a bowl is simply from the roundness of the shape.

So it actually goes back to a very ancient root meaning to swell or to blow. But there's also in there a hint of the Latin bulla, meaning a bubble. Again, it's a circular in shape. So it's a round vessel of some kind. And that bulla, that bubble in Latin also gave us ebullient when you were sort of bubbly personality. So that's that. Then we have the terrine I will tell you about is from a French word terrine. And we still have terrines if you have a pate. But terrine is an earthen vessel, and earth is the key thing there because the Latin terra means earth, which also gave us

words like Mediterranean, which was the middle of the earth, because ancient geographers thought that the Mediterranean was the sea in the middle of the earth. Ladle. Ladle. That's from an old English word meaning to draw up water specifically, but obviously it's now a long-handled spoon for drawing up other liquids, including soup. Do you eat soup or drink it? I drink it, unless it's very like stew-like. Well, I don't know. I think you drink it if you're having it from a mug,

but maybe you eat it if you're having it with a spoon from a bowl. That's my view. And are you a quiet soup consumer? I hope so. I think it's essential. I can't bear people who... That slurping. Awful. It's that whole ASMR thing that people really like at the moment on things like TikTok. We talked about ASMR. No, what is ASMR? Okay. ASMR, it's a big thing on platforms like TikTok, and it is the sounds that people love. So it's a feeling of wellbeing that is stimulated by sound, but that sound really seriously can be somebody eating a packet of crisps, which to some ears

is just... Horrific. Yes. I mean, we can talk about mesophonic, can't we? And mesophonia is a sort of fear of certain sounds. That for me is awful, but for others, they absolutely love it. And it includes, I'm afraid, also that... I can't bear these includes, I'm afraid, also that problem. I can't bear these things. I know. Sorry about that. But we live in a curious world. There are people who like very odd things.

As I think you know, I've been reading the diaries of this man called Henry Chips Channon. Chips was his nickname. Oh, yes. And he seems to be big on flagellation. He keeps telling us in the diaries, you know, I got so-and-so to beat me up last night or to whip me. And he writes this in his diaries? Yeah i got so and so to beat me up last night or to whip me and he writes this in his diary yeah he writes well exactly which which when he was writing it he knew it would one day be published how bizarre but so people liked i cannot bear the idea of

anybody eating crisps loudly in my presence i cannot bear it although the worst thing is people who phone you up and they've called you they're eating. They've got a mouth full of sandwich and they're trying to talk to you. I mean, honestly. Yes. No, I'm totally with you on that front. Any more words? Any more bits of crockery? Okay. I'll give you a couple more. And anything else that you would like to know from your cupboard? A pan is quite a nice one. Pan is from the Latin patina, which meant plate or a dish, a shallow pan. Pan also, because of its circularity, was applied to the face. So when you're a dead pan, you have a very immovable, unanimated face. And when you are acting or if you're in panto, you put on pancake,

which is powder for your pan, for your face. One last one before we take the break. Jug. I've got some lovely jugs. What's the origin of that word, do you know? Jug is a nice one, actually, just because it's just quite simple. It was a pet form, believe it or not, we think, of Joan, Joanna, and Jenny, and a really strange example of how we apply first names to inanimate objects. Oh, explain that to me. Jane, Joanna and Jenny. Yeah. I mean, I don't quite understand the link. Well, Juggins. I think Juggins was, once upon a time, that was a name for, was it a servant? I'm

going to look this up in the OED. Because a jug is a, the jug I'm referring to as a vessel from which you pour. Absolutely. I mean, maybe it was applied to a female servant who would pour things and hence, I'm not completely sure. I've just looked up Juggins and yeah, it actually means a simpleton in the OED, one who was easily duped. So what is the link between a Juggins

and the word jug for this vessel? I think as a name, maybe Muggins comes from it, but apparently it is, yeah, it just says as a surname, a generic surname, but because it was quite a common surname, it was applied to menial people, menial staff. So I think that probably is the connection there is that so-called menial workers would be using a jug for their household. It's all a bit grim, isn't it? I'm not totally convinced by this, Susie Dent. No, I don't think we completely know. If somebody knows better, and it's hard to believe that anyone could know better than

Susie Dent, but if you do, please get in touch with us. I want to know the origin of the word jug, J-U-G. The thing you pour from is called a jug. Was it because there were servants, one called Juggins, or people called Joe or Jenny or Jack? I don't know. Yes, specifically Joan and Jenny. I think it's a, you know, it comes from there. Anyway, we must take a break, I think, because we have some fantastic correspondents awaiting us.

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that's what you're listening to. We're going to be on stage soon on the 28th of May if you're in the United Kingdom or if you're not, make your way here. We'll be in Cambridge at the Arts Theatre, 2.30, and it's a Sunday afternoon. We're going to be talking about sleep and much more besides. And the lovely thing about these live shows is that you take us where you want us to go, because it's very much driven by you. It's a very interactive experience. So if you want tickets or more information, go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com, or you can follow us obviously on social media. Just keep in touch, and we'd love to see you in Cambridge on the 28th of May. Today, we're in the world of crockery. Anything more to say on that before we get on to our correspondence?

Well, I just must tell you one of my favourite etymologies, which is a really bizarre one, and you would not think it would fit into this theme particularly, and that's lasagna. And lasagna began as a bit of a joke in possibly in Roman times, because it actually looks back to lazinum, an old Latin word for a chamber pot. So it was a pot, but then specifically a chamber pot. And at some point, obviously, someone was not impressed by a Roman chef's food and so decided to compare the contents of the dish that they were being served with the contents of a chamber pot. And it is from there that it came to mean a cooking pot and then applied to what was cooked in it. So, it's had quite a journey. Considerable journey. That is true. You'd rather put me off my lunchtime lasagna,

but never mind thinking it began in a chamber pot i think i'll stick to soup today definitely stick to soup and porcelain is a nice one as well you have to look back to the italian porcelana which literally means a cowry shell the cowry the sort of marine mollusk because there was a resemblance of this sort of translucent ceramic wear between that and the shiny surface of a cowrie shell. Gosh. Well, we might share more of this with our next bonus episode. That could be quite fun.

Okay, yeah, that sounds good. So if people want to join the Purple Plus Club, they can catch that. Who's been in touch with us this week? So we have a voice note here from John in Austin, Texas. Hi, Susie and Giles. How does the word quite come to mean so-so or extremely, depending on the circumstances? One of the lesser known differences between British and American usage is the use of the adverb quite.

I remember my American boss when I first moved to the USA saying my idea was quite good. I thought he was damning with faint praise, but he was being complimentary. Love the show. John in Austin, Texas. Well, I quite like that question. What did I mean by that? In fact, I like it very much. What is the answer? Quite and quite, different sides of the Atlantic. Well, I'm not sure I have an answer as such, except that language moves on. And essentially, American English has kept the earliest meaning of quite, which was completely, fully, entirely, you know, to the utmost degree. And it was quite an intensifying adverb in that sense. In the 14th century, that's when it began to emerge. And we think that it actually goes back to a rare

adjective, quit, which means free or clear or released from any obligation so that you can dedicate yourself entirely to something. So that sense of an entirety came from that. And quit actually was probably pronounced as quite, it was a long I in those days. So for centuries, it was used in that way, but also other ways began to creep in. So it meant really, truly, positively, etc. And then the sense that John is confused by, understandably, came in around the beginning of the 19th century. And that's when people started to use quite as a sort of moderating adverb, meaning somewhat or moderately, relatively. So it means that quite went from this really sort of intensifying adverb to a moderating one. And the two senses are still alive and that's where the ambiguity survives. But it's pretty much

preserved predominantly, I would say, between American and British English. But yeah, it can mean either. And I know it's confusing. Please don't ask me why it changed. It was just, we'd have to ask those living in the 19th century why they began to use it that way. But yeah, just a really good example of how English shifts. It's good to hear from you, John. And it's wonderful to know there are people in Austin, Texas, listening to us. Yeah. Ian has been in touch. He says, which is very nice, thank you for an excellent show, Giles and Susie. I finally caught up with the back catalogue. Yes, there are hundreds, literally,

more than 200 episodes that you can catch up on. Please, though, he says, could you tell me where words such as bluff, dupe, con, and swindle all come from? What sort of person is this, Ian, I wonder? He wants to know about bluff, dupe, con, and swindle. Is he hoping to become a confidence trickster? What do you think is the origin of these words? Are they all connected in some way, Susie? Not etymologically, no. Semantically, obviously, yes, they are in terms of their meaning. But okay, I'll be really quick. So to

bluff goes back to the Dutch bluffen, to brag or to boast. And in the mid-19th century, poker players in the US began to use it. So when players bluffed, they were trying to mislead others in a sort of fairly swaggering way as to how good their hand of cards really was. And the game of poker actually for a while was called bluff. So when we're bluffing these days, we are not so much bragging or boasting, but blindfolding or hoodwinking other people. Dupe is a lovely one. It actually goes back to the French dupe, which means a hoopoe, the hoopoe bird. Now birds have been variously associated with human characteristics, as we know. So cuckoo from its habit of laying its eggs in another bird's nest, gave us the cuckold. And there are many, many examples. But hoopoe, a booby is another one, you know, the booby bird,

which apparently was very easily caught by sailors. And so it came to mean somebody who was a bit of a fool, which is why we have the booby prize. Anyway, French dupes means a hoopoe, the hoopoe bird, which apparently looks stupid, poor bird. And that gave the idea of someone who was easily gulled. There's another one. And swindle, that is from the German schwindler. And that was essentially an extravagant maker of schemes. And ultimately, I think if you go all the way back, it is from schwindeln, which you still use, meaning to be made dizzy, to be giddy. And you are often made giddy by people telling lies to you.

Does that make sense? Susie, you know so much. And I think I almost know the answer to this next question. It comes from Lauren in Cheltenham. And she says, I was looking at the British flag and noted that we often call it the Union Jack, related to the crosses of each nation being brought together. call it the Union Jack, related to the crosses of each nation being brought together. Then I remembered similar uses of the word in jumping jacks and cross jacks, as well as the jack used in that old-fashioned game with a ball. Where does the word jack in the context of crosses

originally come from? From a longtime fan and word enthusiast, Lauren in Cheltenham. Well, you often tell us that jack is used in all sorts of contexts. But explain this crossing element of jack. Yes, interesting. I'm not sure that there is a link with crosses, actually. So I do get that, though, because we were talking the other day, weren't we, Giles, about the jacks that you play with as a game. And the shape of that would also suggest crosses. But I've mentioned very often that actually a jack was a labourer, it's the use of the generic term, for someone who worked again on sort of a manual task, so a lumberjack, a steeplejack and that kind of thing, an unskilled

worker as opposed to a master of a trade. But it was also something that was smaller than normal. And for me, that's what explains the jack in bowls, because that's a smaller bowl that's placed as a mark. And the jack is an Union Jack, because strictly speaking, a Union Jack is a small version of the national flag that was flown on board a ship. So, while you talk to us, because you had your own theory as this, I'm just going to look up to see if there's anything to do with crosses in the OED. I was merely going to point out that I think, and you've answered it just then, that the Union Jack is, when you see a flag fluttering above the building and say it's

the Union Jack, that probably is incorrect. It's the Union Flag that is up there. The Jack is the smaller version that appears on a ship. Is that correct? That's absolutely right. I can't find anything to do with crosses. I wonder if there is a Jack in heraldry, that there might be something there which suggests some kind of, you know, cross. But I think the idea really is that it's a placeholder for so many different things, being a generic name. And poor Jack has had a bit of a, you know, bit of a sort of anonymous ride in English, really, like Tom, Dick and Harry. And we've talked frequently about the uses of names like that.

But it's a great question. But every Jack shall have his Jill. Often it ends happily. Hopefully. If you've got fuller answers to give than Susie offers, you can always get in touch with us and show us that you know best. You just contact us.

It's simply purple at somethingelse.com and something is spelt without a G. As always, we end the podcast with three fantastic but real words from Susie Dent's amazing personal lexicon. What are you offering us this week? Okay, so I am going to offer you a fairly straightforward term that i think is called rather beautifully sleep you know when you wake up and you have little sort of moisture in the corner of your eyes or a bit of gunk if you want to be really

horrible about it and there is actually a very specific word for that which is gowned that is the stuff that collects in the corner of your eye as you sleep. Gound. I like that. Yeah, so it's useful to know. I'm not sure if we've had this one before. Always worth revisiting, though. If you really condemn something and feel so strongly about it that you almost despise it, you vilipend it. I think vilipend has a real sort of oomph to it. So that's V-I-L-I-P-E-N-D, to vilipend. And for my third, I am going to return

to something I have definitely touched on before, I think in all the episodes where we've talked about drinking, but I just love the fact that this word exists. Do you remember, Giles, what a shot clog is? Okay. I'm very glad because hopefully that means the purple people have forgotten it too. Because a shot clog is somebody who joins a group of friends in a pub and is only tolerated because they're buying the next round. Oh, how awful to be a shot clock. It's awful. I know.

I'm sorry. I'm being very uncharitable. I just, you know, I'm sure I've been a shot clock many a time, but I just quite like the idea that some of these words exist. Oh, I think it's a brilliant word. It's just alarming to think that one could in life be one of life's shot clocks. I think maybe you could just be a shot clock for an evening, hopefully, and then the next time you'll be the most welcome.

I hope so. Good, we need positive thinking. I agree. Have you got a poem for us? Well, I have. And as I think I've told you, I recently went back to Ireland, which I love. And it's a country with a literary heritage that for the size of population and the size of the country, I would say probably is unrivaled anywhere else in the world. And I remember last time the poem I read you was by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, very witty man.

So witty that when he was at the theatre in London, I'm trying to remember what it was. Did he own the Theatre Royal Drury Lane? A theatre like that. And it burnt down. He had the lease on it and it burnt down. And he was found in the street outside, sitting opposite the burning fire. They were still on fire. And he was there with a glass of brandy at a table, watching his whole theatre, his whole life really go up in flames. And he was asked, what are you doing there? And he said, may not a man enjoy a glass of wine at his own fireside. Which was nice. Brilliant. I'm thinking of fire, which took me to my next Irish poet I'm going to share with you.

I'm on a sort of Irish kick at the moment. Thomas More. Have you heard of him? 1779, 1852, Dublin-born poet, singer, songwriter, famous for writing the- Not Sir Thomas More. No, no, not, no, no, famous for writing... Okay, not Sir Thomas More. No, no, not, no, no, a different time. No, not that one. Lots of Thomas Mores.

This is a Dublin-born poet. He wrote the lyrics to The Minstrel Boy, Last Rose of Summer. He was a great friend. He's best known for being a friend of Lord Byron, George Byron. Bad, bad, dangerous, no. Byron who died, I think, exactly 200 years ago next April. Anyway, famously, Thomas More burnt Byron's memoirs in order to protect his posthumous reputation. He wrote this witty and yet wise poem. Didn't he? May I just interrupt?

Did he not burn them in the offices of John Murray? Well, I think probably he did. I think he did, yeah. In that street, Albemarlearle street off piccadilly yeah which you can still go to if you know people there they still have the offices i think the bill they don't work from there any longer but there's mum and there's a bust of lady caroline lamb in there um anyway yes that's where it all happened. More about Bowden maybe next year as we get towards this bicentenary of his passing. Anyway, this is a poem by Thomas More.

It's short. I think it's quite clever. It's called An Argument. I've oft been told by learned friars that wishing and the crime are one, and heaven punishes desires as much as if the deed were done. If wishing damns us, you and I are damned to all our heart's content. Come then, at least we may enjoy some pleasure for our punishment. Oh, very clever.

Clever and seductive, I think's thomas more for you they're brilliant these irish people oh it makes me long to go back to ireland well thank you for your company and everybody who is listening to us today we love the fact that you are here with us and please keep following us recommending us to friends if you do like us and you can always find us on social media at something rhymes on twitter and facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And just a reminder about the Purple Plus Club where you can listen ad-free to exclusive bonus episodes on words and language.

Yes, and maybe come and see us live in Cambridge on the 28th of May. And maybe we can do a live episode one day in Ireland. It'd be great to go to Dublin, wouldn't it? Anyway, this time we're coming from London and Oxford in England, but the whole thing has been masterminded by the team from Sony Music Entertainment. They're the people who produce all this. It was produced by Anaya Deo, with additional production from Olivia, we couldn't have done it without her,

and from Chris Skinner, Hannah Newton, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale. And look, it can't be Gully. He doesn't seem to have all that hair. Who is it? It's Ritchie today. And, well, Gully was just a shot clock that we decided to get rid of. Just for today. We love you, Ritchie.