Something Rhymes with Purple - Jujube

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

This is one for your sweet tooth (or is it sweet teeth?!) because we are heading to the pick’n’mix store for some sweet talk from Susie and Gyles.   We’ll discover the link between bread and pastilles, what gyles’ favourite word lallygagging and lollipops have in common and what festivity the candy cane has to thank for its distinctive shape.   Susie will hit the sweet spot each time as she gives us the origins of some of our sweetest phrases and Gyles shares the story of perhaps the worlds most iconic sweet store and its pick’n’mix aisle, Woolworths.    We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail]  We currently have 20% off at the SRwP official merchandise store, just head to: https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple   Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club 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:  Eftsoons: Very soon after   Palchrony: Tom Read Wilson’s portmanteau for being in wonderful synchrony with a friend Eleutherophobia: A fear of freedom   Gyles' poem this week was "Purple poem" by 'David Walser   When making a jus in your newly bought blender   A sip is quite hopeless, you must have a snurple   Did you add beetroot? Then the snurple, is purple.   And a snurple that’s purple is fit for a turtle.    A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts  To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello and welcome to an especially sweet episode, we hope, of Something Rhymes With Purple. This is a podcast all about words and language. And today we are indulging our sweet tooths, if you can say that. Our sweet teeth, Giles. Do you have any? Do I have sweet teeth? I don't know how many teeth, but do you have a sweet teeth? No, I haven't.

But it's funny you should say that because people of my parents' generation often didn't have teeth. You know, people used to have false teeth. A lot of people had false teeth. And you'd go to visit old people and you'd find there was a sort of glass on the bedside and rather sinister floating around in the glass were false teeth. And you'd go to visit old people and you'd find there was a glass on the bedside and rather sinister floating around in the glass were false teeth. And when I was a little boy, you could go to the sweet shop and you could get false teeth made of sweets. Did you know that? Oh, good grief. I remember cigarettes. Do you remember those candy cigarettes that you could buy as well? I do. And they were the only cigarettes I've ever smoked. We thought we were very cool, didn't we?

But we had a fantastic store, sadly now languished, called Woolies or Woolworths. And Woolworths had the biggest sweet section in most high streets. And it was a joy for me, Giles, to go to Woolworths whenever I did. It wasn't often enough because we had it.

We did have a local sweet shop, which was brilliant. But do you remember Woolies? Did you used to go and visit their aisles? Woolies was one of the world's most famous stores. And there were Woolworths all over the country and indeed all over the world. But F.W. Woolworth was American and it was global. It was huge. And it failed ultimately because it ceased to be what we always thought it was. When I was a child, you could go in and things were inexpensive there. They were laid out on different counters. You could go to Woolies and you knew what you were going to get. And then as the years went by, it sort of lost its way and we weren't quite sure what it was doing. And eventually, it's extraordinary. It was so huge and then it

disappeared. But I remember those sweet counters vividly. The pick and mix aisle. Oh, fantastic. Yes. Where do we begin with the world of... Actually, could we begin, since we're supposed to be here talking about words and language, that's what Something Rides With Purple is all about. Can we begin with the words sweet?

Which, actually, we're global. I'm calling it a sweet, but I think Americans call it candy, don't they? They do. Explain all that to us. They do, they do. So, well, the earliest records of what we refer to as sweets go back to ancient times. I mean, we're talking ancient Egyptians who would combine fruit and nuts with honey. So not quite the boiled or chewy sweets that we think of today, of course. And the noun was really first applied to a sweet food or drink, or indeed a sweet dish like a pudding or a tart or cooked fruit and that kind of thing. And they were often called sweet meats if they were in lozenge or drop form, if you think of lemon drops. I love that word. It reminds me of somewhere over the rainbow,

where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops. Anyway, they were called sweetmeats. And in 1851, Henry Mayhew, who was a really important chronicler of the slang of the London working classes, essentially, he noted, we should do a whole episode on him because he was an amazing, amazing. Did he write a book called London Life and the London Poor? He did. He did. And he speaks of something called rose acid, which he calls a transparent sweet. So I think he's talking about a boiled sweet then. So we're talking 1850s for some of our earliest records of what we today, and you know, indeed, we're talking about when we get to the pick and mix counter here. Candy is actually from Middle English when it was called sugar candy. But ultimately, it goes back to a Sanskrit word, kanda, meaning a fragment, because these were little drops of sweet things or candied things indeed as well. So Sanskrit and Arabic have had quite a big influence when it comes to language, at least, on our sweet teeth.

I still don't know whether to say our sweet tooth or our sweet teeth. So I'm going to go back to our sweet teeth. I think it should be sweet tooth. You've got a sweet tooth. You've got a sweet tooth, but what about the plural? It's our sweet tooth. It's our sweet tooth. Well, people can write in and argue um but i think it's a sweet

tooth that you've heard you don't say i've got sweet teeth i mean that's meaning oh you've got charming teeth they've been beautifully whitened and straightened oh you've got really sweet teeth no no a sweet tooth means you like sweet things yes should i tell you a little bit about sugar because the history of sugar is quite interesting really it probably originated in New Guinea. But if you follow its migration routes, you can trace it to Southeast Asia and to India. And in 320 something BC, one of Alexander the Great's officers talked about seeing a kind of reed that grew near the River Indus. And he reported it as producing honey, but without bees. And that was indeed sugar. And sugar itself goes back to a Sanskrit word, sakara. And it sort of means grit in a way,

because of its gritty crystals. And when sugarcane was introduced into Persia, the Sanskrit term was then borrowed there as shakar. And they, the Persians, really spread sugar cane cultivation throughout the Arab world. And in Arabic, shaka became shuka. And ultimately, that's where it came. But the Crusaders also sampled sugar while they were in the Middle East. And one of them recorded with amazement how people living in Tripoli would suck onto a kind of cane to get its sweet flavor. And this intense sweetness was obviously something really, really new and it seduced everybody. And that created a demand for a really sweet product,

which Venice really became a leading distributor of. And so on and so on. So it's a little bit like salt. You know, the history of salt is so important to the history of civilisation. And sugar too, albeit slightly more innocently. Which were your favourite sweets? I need to know. I loved a gobstopper.

When I was a little boy, I loved a gobstopper. And one of my first relationships was with a girl called Susan. I don't know how old we were, four, five at the time. But you could get gobstoppers that changed colour. The gobstopper was so-called because it was so big, it stopped your gob. And do you remember, they changed colours. They were different. It was pink and then there was green inside and then there was yellow.

Do you remember that? You sucked them. I do. I absolutely love them. Look, my cat has come to join in as well. We're talking about gobstoppers, Beau. Yeah, I love them. Susan and I,

we would each have a Gobstopper and we would take it and then when the colour, we'd keep checking the colour and then when the colour began to change, we'd swap Gobstoppers. Not totally hygienic.

Not totally hygienic. So the Gobstopper was mine and the Aniseed Ball. I loved Gobstoppers and Aniseed Balls. They changed colour too. What were your two favourites? I liked Fruit Salads, which, do you remember Fruit Salads?

They were these sort of little stripy chews that were sold alongside Black Jacks. Although I think Black Jacks actually have a slightly shady part to them. I'm not sure their name was entirely innocent, but I did love those. And they were kind of licorice flavours. So those I loved. I loved wine gums. Do you know why wine gums got their name or how they got their name? Please tell me. Well, apparently Charles Maynard, who invented them in the early 20th century, he wanted to distract drinkers from alcohol. And so he called them wine gums and labelled

each one with a drink name as if it would sort of encourage abstinence. Whereas I was scoffing them as a seven-year-old, far more happily than I was drinking port. Well, we used to have wine gum and candied cigarette parties. Yes. And we would take the wine gums and put them in little wine glasses. And we'd actually drink one at a time from the wine gums and put them in little wine glasses. And we'd actually drink one at a time from the wine glass. And then while in the other hand, we'd hold these cigarettes. And there were two types of cigarettes. There was the ones that were purely made of candy that had a little pink

tip. Do you remember those? Didn't they have ones that kind of lit up? Do you remember those? I do. I don't think they were sweets. I think they've just lit up. They glowed at the bottom. Joke things, yeah. I think the ones that you could eat, ones that were made of candy and had a little kind of pink top. And there were other ones that were actually made of chocolate that had white edible paper around them. Oh, I don't remember those. Okay.

And there were some that actually had sort of like filter tips, a coloured edge to the paper. Oh, it's all coming back to me now. I know. This is the thing. Honestly, it's like asking someone for their favourite kids' TV programme or their favourite word. Sweets has the same effect. Did you like any boiled sweets?

I liked a lemon sherbet. I think it was a hard edge. Lemon sherbet. It was a sort of hard boiled sweet on the outside. Yeah, it did. It was rough on the top of your mouth. Yes. Bonbons. I. Bonbons.

I love bonbons. You can still get toffee bonbons, raspberry bonbons. Bonbon is obviously a French word meaning sweet. Sweet. Nice, nice. Yeah. But the boiled sweet in England is called hard candy in America, isn't it? Yes.

Yes, absolutely. And it's boiled. Can you believe this? The sugar-based syrup that gives us boiled sweets and hard candy is boiled to 320 degrees Fahrenheit, 160 degrees centigrade to make it. Lollipops. Lollipops also quite often hard candy, aren't they? And I love that because we think it goes back to the use of lolly for tongue. And one of your favourite words is lollygagging, isn't it? As if you're dawdling with your tongue hanging out. And then the pop bit is the slap of your lips as you take the lollipop out.

Oh my gosh. Which is great. I'm liking it. Lollipop. How old is the word lollipop then? Lollipop. Well, I think it was invented in the 1900s as a sweet. But I'm going to look this up because I have a feeling that lollipop itself is probably

a little bit older, but let's have a look. 1784. Yeah. And it was then water ice on a stick. So it was a little bit like an ice cream. Yeah. But you still can get, of course, ice lollies, which are ice lollipops. Of course. Same thing in Australian English, lollies are all sweets as far as I know. So I can't wait to get all the emails in from the purple people on this one. What about fruit pastels? I loved those as well. Fruit pastels. Now look, if I give you a tube of wine gums or a tube of fruit pastels, which of those would you go for the wine gums over the pastels? Green or lemon. Oh, of those two, pastels probably.

So would I, because they were softer. And they had a sugary coating on the outside, and then they sort of melted in your mouth. And I'm with you on the green and the yellow. So the green, I've got, what would the flavour of the green be? The yellow, I suppose, was lemony. Green was always lime. But pastel's got an interesting etymology because it's actually linked to bread,

panis, bread, because it meant a little loaf, a pastille, and then something that was kind of tiny and sort of almost loaf shaped, which of course fruit pastilles aren't because they're now completely round. But originally these pastilles were slightly lozenge shaped and sort of a bit longer and then curved at the edges. So that's where pastille comes from, French, obviously, pastilles. So part of a really big family that gave us companion and company and accompany, all from the idea of bread and people we eat bread with. As a child at Christmas, I would often be given, only at Christmas, it was a special thing to look forward to, a candy cane. White and red striped candy cane. And I one year was given one that was

so long, I could actually do a bit of dancing with it and swing it around as though I were Fred Astaire. It was too good to eat. Did you have a candy cane? There's a lovely story. Yeah, I still do have candy canes. There's a lovely story attached to them, which is that it goes back to the 17th century and a choir master at Cologne Cathedral in Germany, who wanted his young singers to keep quiet during the ceremony, during the Christmas, I think it was a crash ceremony. And so he would hand out these sugar sticks so that they could suck on those quietly. And in honour of the occasion, apparently, he bent them into shepherd's crooks

to suit the Christmas story. Isn't that lovely? That's charming. You mentioned sucking on them. The phrase, suck it and see, do you think that relates to me and the gobstoppers? You know, you suck it and see what colour it turns out to be. I mean, what is the origin? You've heard of that phrase, haven't you?

Suck it and see. I have, suck it and see. It's like the proof of the pudding though, isn't it really? 1951, and it's mentioned in another great lexicographer's work, Eric Partridge, who was a great slang collector in the 20th century. He says it is a derisive catchphrase that was current in the 1890s, so he places it back to the 20th century. He says it is a derisive catchphrase that was current in the 1890s. So he places it back to the 19th century. And then in 1968, we have the new scientists reporting that biologists prefer to employ the suck it and see approach adopted by Harold Wilson

to politics rather than the impractical idealism of Michael Foot. That's interesting. Well, I loved sucking aniseed balls. I loved the colour that it made your tongue that then became that sort of dark reddish colour and your lips too. In fact, I used to put aniseed balls, I used to rub them on my lips to give me lipstick. I remember now, it's all coming back. You know where aniseed comes from, obviously. No idea. It's the seed of the anise plant, which it's got a sweet flavour. It's similar to licorice or fennel, isn't it? And if you like aniseed, I'm guessing you like ouzo, which I really don't.

I used to. I know you don't drink now. When I drank alcohol, I loved ouzo and I loved pernod, which is the French equivalent. Yes, not me at all. Ouzo, sort of pale whitish colour. Pernod, lovely yellow colour. And I loved the smell of all that, not me at all. Uzo, sort of pale whitish colour. Pernod, lovely yellow colour. And I loved the smell

of all that. I adored that. Oh, that's interesting. And what about, and you can still get these, I know because I have bought myself one

not too long ago, a sherbet dip. No, I did exactly the same thing and I was disappointed. A sherbet, a habdab, I called it,

but it is a sherbet dip. Oh, the habdab, yes, yes. That was a lollipop. The sherbet dip was the licorice stick and the sherbet habdab or whatever it was called, sherbet dabs, was a lollipop that you dipped in your sherbet. You're quite right. So the sherbet dip, was it a little sort of piece of paper in which the sherbet, like a triangular shaped sherbet envelope where the sherbet was? like a triangular shaped sherbet envelope where the sherbet was and then you had a licorice stick which was hollow so like a straw licorice straw and you could suck it up. Sherbet is just too sweet now but that's another one that comes from Arabic and it's actually a sibling of sorbet sherbet and sorbet closely related to syrup too and they were all originally drinks so very very sweet sweet drinks And in fact, they're based on the Arabic sariba, to drink. But that sort of sweet sherbet was originally

used to make a fizzy drink in the 1850s. So a long heritage, that one. What about one of my favourite places in the world is Blackpool. Do you ever go to Blackpool? I haven't been to Blackpool for a very long time. I need to go again. You must go again. Christmas lights in Blackpool. If you're in Britain between, well, it was the 3rd of September and the 3rd of January, the Blackpool illumination's fantastic. And they're creating a kind of winter wonderland up there at the moment with sort of artificial snow and ice rinks.

It's fantastic. But during the summer, when it's hot and warm, you want to walk through blackpool with of course a wonderful candy floss on a stick ah do you like candy floss funfairs everywhere i do love candy floss and it's candy obviously but the floss bit uh is just a reference to that rough silk which envelops the cocoon of the silk worm. So it's that kind of texture. And it's called cotton candy, isn't it? For the same reason in the US. It's called cotton candy. Why is that a device?

Bun like cotton. Well, I think it's the idea of something flimsy and almost like gossamer, this texture of the candy that we're eating. So it's bun sugar, isn't it, essentially? After the break, because it's time for a break, I need to tell you about licorice, all sorts, and find out which is your favourite. And I want to know about eye candy

and how we've taken sweets into other areas. Oh, so much to talk about. Okay, I'm going off to suck a raspberry jujube. Back with you in a couple of minutes. A raspberry jujube. Oh my goodness. 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, how do you want to be comfortable? Or Julie Bowen, my very glamorous stepmom. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts.

Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers internet. Visit rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple, where I'm hoping to be educated on the raspberry jujube. Are you not familiar with the word? I've been giggling about it ever since. Well, look up the word jujube. How do you spell it? Is it like juj? Well, I don't know what the origin is. My father was always talking about jujubes. I imagine,

therefore, it's an Edwardian word. My father was born in 1910 at the end of the Edwardian era, My father was born in 1910 at the end of the Edwardian era, but obviously his parents were Edwardians. And he, as a child, loved a jujube. And that's J-U-J-U-B-E. So what is the definition of the dictionary? And when does it come from? Well, it begins with an edible berry-like droop, so the fruit of various species of plants. Then in 1835, it's first recorded as a lozenge made of gum, Arabic, gelatin, etc. flavoured with that fruit, or at least imitating that fruit. And I'm afraid to tell you that the last record we have of it in the OED is 1866. So it's not very current. This tells our listeners everything they need to know about me and my vocabulary maybe we could do a special edition of something rhymes with purple where instead of you know we

can you can actually listen to something without the ads if you choose to by joining the purple club but maybe we should have an extra place where you don't need to listen to me because everything i say is so out of date i kept getting my own back because you were mocking me for not knowing what on earth a jujube was. But anyway. Oh, it's so funny. But I promise you, my father talked about jujubes all the time.

And we'd go into the shop and he'd say, well, we're looking, this is why we had such difficulty when we were in Woolworths, because he'd be saying, oh, where are the raspberry jujubes? They took it as completely confused. Well, there you go.

I think you might get something rather different these days. Anyway, licorice all sorts, I need to ask you about, because I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with licorice. My mum used to have licorice toffees from Callard and Bowser, which were the nicest things on earth. They were sort of wrapped beautifully in this sort of carton with this really delicious foil.

And I loved them. But soft licorice, not sure of it. Licorice itself comes from the Greek meaning sweet root, nothing to do with liquor. Sweet root because it's made by evaporating the juice of the root of certain members of the pea family. But there's a lovely story behind the invention, well, at least the inspiration behind licorice all sorts.

Have you heard it before? Well, you know, they're made by bassets they're called bassets licorice all sorts um over here anyway we should explain because i'm not sure how global they are they're a sort of mix of sweets that are all flavored licorice obviously and they're like sort of a lot of them are like sandwiches so you have different layers of what is kind of sweet. How would you describe it? It's a sort of sweet candy layers almost, but soft. And then just little strips of licorice in between. I'm not describing these very well, but they sort of come in all shapes and flavours. Anyway, apparently a salesman or a sales rep from the company Bassets was visiting a client at a sweet shop and showing the client various samples of the licorice sweets that the company had made, all individual ones. The client was just a bit meh about them until the salesman gathered up his samples to leave and then

dropped all of them. And all over the floor was this wonderful, colourful assortment of sweets that the client decided, actually, do you know what? I quite like those. And that was supposed to be the inspiration behind the licorice, all sorts. And I adore them. Well, how interesting, because I don't like them at all. I love the colour. I love the variety of the colour. I love the way we give them different names. I think there's a red one called Betty Bassett. There's Bertie Bassett, who's become a real character. All that is great fun. But the taste for me is disappointing. I love pure licorice. A licorice stick for me is fantastic. What about jelly babies? Do you like jelly babies? of an Austrian confectioner who worked for a friars, I think they were called, of Lancashire. And he wanted to make a mould for jelly bears, at least that's what he was asked to do. But he thought that what he made actually looked more like newborn infants. But the name they gave them,

was just so ghoulish. Before they became known as jelly babies, they were called unclaimed babies. Oh my goodness. Isn't that awful? Well, I mean, I thought called unclaimed babies. Oh my goodness. Isn't that awful? Well, I mean, I thought you were going to say sweet fetus, but I think unclaimed babies is pretty tragic too. Pretty awful. It was short-lived for no surprise there. And then Bassets of Sheffield took over and they called them jelly babies, which is clearly

much better. Does Turkish delight come from Turkey? Turkish delight is from Turkey? Turkish delight is from Turkey. And the 19th century apparently saw an unknown British traveller discover what was essentially a dessert and bring it back. And it was traditionally called locum, and he couldn't remember the name. This is the story. I mean, we're not sure how true it is. And he renamed it Turkish delight. the story i mean we're not sure how true it is and he renamed it turkish delight and charles dickens in edwin drood has a lovely well one of his characters has a fantastic alternative name for turkish delight which is lumps of delight uh and apparently one of the characters and i don't

know edwin drood so i don't know the novel but apparently one of them says to what the lumps of delight shop and the answer is a turkish sweet meat sir so um yes turkish delight i again i prefer the sort of bastardized chocolate version to the highly perfumed original i'm so sorry i'm a real philistine when it comes to that because the highly perfect if there's a little nut inside it is particularly good oh okay ah yes you like the chocolate coated version yes do you know i mean by no card the english playwright yes um genius and he went to north africa for a holiday once and um he reported back to his friends in england that he was i'm now an anchor what i am known as English delight. Anyway, that's by the by.

I love that. I love that. Let's turn to some of the phrases. We've talked about sweet tooth, which I think should correctly be sweet tooth. It's clear what that means. Yes. No, I was only, it's just, I won't go over it again, but it was just that if you're talking about more than one person's sweet tooth, what do you say?

And I'm not sure sweet tooth is sweet. Anyway, it's a challenge. That goes back to the 14th century, believe it or not, as in a taste or liking for sweet things. Yeah, that's a challenge. Anyway, it's a challenge. That goes back to the 14th century, believe it or not, as in a taste or liking for sweet things. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. There's also the sweet spot, the sweet spot, which is the point on a bat or a club or a racket when it makes the most effective contact with the ball.

So it's a sport term originally recorded from the 1970s. But it's swept into other areas, hasn't it? I mean, when people say, oh, you hit the sweet spot. Yes, exactly. It's now used generally in an idiomatic sense for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that is sweet as in nice.

A lot of these are to do with sweetness being something that people feel warm about. I think the sweet spot is a very precise spot, isn't it? Where it's that sort of absolute place where the ball hits or whatever. Toute suite. Toute suite. Toute suite means it's actually, obviously, it's actually the French, isn't it? And it's not the sweets at all. It's suite as in S-U-I, meaning immediately. T-E. Meaning following. Yes. Yes. Or following. Exactly. And you asked about Sugar Daddy, Yes, or following. Exactly.

And you asked about Sugar Daddy, an elderly man who lavishes gifts on a young woman. 1926 is the first reference we have of that. That's how we first met, isn't it, Susie? Speak for yourself. We also have Sweet in Sweet F.A. Oh, yes. Sweet Fanny Adams.

Yes, who was? Sweet Fanny Adams. Now, Fanny Adams was a real person. It's something to do with a murder, as I recall. Oh, horrible. Sweet Fanny Adams. Yes, who was? Now, Fanny Adams was a real person. It's something to do with a murder, as I recall. Oh, horrible. It's very, very grisly. Yes, a poor child who was abducted and murdered. And aboard ships, Sweet Fanny Adams became a horrible, dark euphemism for the kind of tinned rations that people had because her body, I think, was dismembered. It's all really grim.

that people had because her body, I think, was dismembered. It's all really grim. But of course, the Fanny Adams, the F.A. bit has now been substituted by another F.A. So Sweet F.A. somehow suits the Sweet Fanny Adams thing. But yeah, really dark history. Not very nice. Is that enough sweet talk for today? Should we move on to the correspondence?

I think we should. And invite people. Do tell us your sweet stories and also ask specific questions if you've got them about the names of of sweets sweet meats in your part of the world if you want to get in touch with us it's purple at something else.com something without a g who have we heard from this week suzy oh we have a fantastic question one of my favorites actually to date from jenny bell dear suzy and giles i'm so glad i found your podcast i studied linguistics at university and love all things language related my question is to do with the word butterfly why are the english french spanish italian and german words for butterfly

butterfly papillon mariposa schmetterling far farfalla. So different. Thank you for all the brilliant discussions so far and please keep them coming. What a polyglot. And her accent for each one, completely differentiated. Gosh. Absolutely brilliant. Well, first of all, butterfly, I should say, Jenny.

We're not completely sure why it's called butterfly. We don't think it is an inversion of flutterby, which is often the sort of children's etymology i know and we have talked about this haven't we jars i think there are two theories one is that which is not nearly as nice as flutterby it's that the butterfly's poo is slightly buttery colored yellow colored and the other is that that our sort of old wives tell that butterflies would fly in through an open window and land on any available butter. And that too is behind Schmetterling because Schmetten in German means cream and

ling is a sort of little diminutive. So that was due to a similar belief that butterflies eat milk products or that witches transform themselves into butterflies in order to steal cream and butter and things, which is lovely. So I love the way that these are wrapped up in superstition. Papillon is simply straight from the Latin papilio, meaning butterfly. But if you remember, Giles, that it's a sibling of pavilion because the tent or awning of a pavilion looks like giant butterfly wings which are kind of spread out which is lovely farfalle that possibly does also look back to the latin papilio via an old italian dialect papaglioni so it may have traveled in you know through various dialects in italy through catalan as well and through french to end up from papaglioni to farfalle. Is there a pasta called farfalle?

Yes, farfalle pasta, which is butterfly shaped. Exactly right. Mariposa, the most accepted etymology, says that it comes from the expression mariposa, as in land. And you'll find that in children's songs and games. And it's funny in Sardinian as well, apparently there are similar words, Maria Vola, Maria Fly. So it's a reference to the Virgin Mary. And again, wrapped up in all sorts of superstitions and religious beliefs, which I think is lovely. And finally, oh, I should just say

that use of the Virgin Mary, that use of sort of personal names isn't unusual, particularly in Romance languages. So you have, for example, a ladybird in Spanish, the mariquita. You have a marieta in Catalan. And on, you know, we have Renard in French, which is from a French personal name, we have the robin. We've talked about this before. So those are the various etymologies that do have some threads, some common threads, which are sort of winding through them. But it's such a lovely question. And, you know, as we said, just brilliant accent. So thank you so much for that, Jenny. Wonderful. I'm sticking with a butterfly

being an inversion of flutterby. It's so good. It has to be true, even though it isn't. Yeah, I understand exactly where you're coming from. We do have also another email, this one from Graham Marshall, which is also really interesting. And he's in Sydney, isn't he? Melbourne. Oh, no, he was from Sydney, but I think he's in touch with us from Melbourne. Hi there. I was just remembering about the struggle of up-and-coming musicians,

including the time The Clash spent a day gluing posters all over town for an upcoming gig. At the end of the day, they had nothing to eat except for the leftover glue, which I assume was edible because it was made from flour and water. But I wondered if glue might then have a relationship to gluten, the protein in wheat. Graham from Sydney, supporter of the Purple podcast, Fremantle Dockers, Purple Jersey, Melbourne Storm, Purple Jersey.

Ah, that's clever. Clever stuff. Well, what do you think? Yes, absolutely. They are related. Both gluten and gluten go back to gluten, which is the Latin for glue. You'll find it in a glutenate as well. Because gluten is a mixture of two proteins that

you find in cereal grains, especially wheat, and they're responsible for the elastic, slightly gluey texture of dough. Simple as that. Simple as that, but you'd never think it. Completely brilliant. Well, this is why we are so grateful. Thank you very much indeed, Graham Marshall, for getting in touch. And for everybody who from around the world does get in touch, you can get in touch with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. And you can actually meet us too, because we're doing some live podcasts on stage. And I think our next show is on the 20th of November at London's Fortune Theatre. Wherever you are, come and see us. Each show is different from the last show or the next show. And we just love meeting the Purple people. For tickets and info, go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. Somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. Or follow us on social media at Something Rhymes on Twitter

and Facebook or Something Rhymes With on Instagram. That's quite a lot of things to remember, isn't it? There are. And then now I've got my trio, which is more stuff to remember. I should just say quite often, they are not always sort of very trippy off the tongue. So if you're struggling with any of the spellings in my trio, you can always find them in the programme description blurb

of each episode. And you'll also find the title and author of Giles's poem. So three quick ones for you today, Giles. One is, you know, I love these old markers of time, like yestreen for yesterday evening and overmorrow for the day after tomorrow. Here's another one, eftsoons. Eftsoons just means very soon after. And how do you spell eftsoons?

E-F-T-S-O-O-N-S. And is it one word, eftsoons? Yeah, eftsoons, which is just beautiful, I think. My second one, palcriny. Now, you won't recognise this one. Pal, as in my pal, Giles. And then criny, C-H-R-O-N-Y. Now, this is a neologism, and it's from my friend Tom Reed Wilson, who's written lovely books, especially for children about etymology. And he created this word to mean being in wonderful synchrony with a friend, palchrony. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Yeah, we're on the same wavelength, palchrony. Exactly. The third one is probably something that many of us felt, I think, once lockdown ended, because we were so used to our four walls, and then suddenly we were allowed to go out. I should have mentioned it at the time, really, but I came across it the other day. Eleutherophobia is a fear of freedom. And that's E-L-E-U-T-H-E-R-O-phobia. Eleutherophobia, a fear of freedom. That's interesting. I've been to a beautiful island called Eleuthera. It's in the Bahamas and it must be called Eleuthera because Eleuthera means freedom. I had no idea when I was there. It wasn't so far away. I'd fly there this afternoon. It rivals Blackpool

in what it has to offer. It's fantastic. Perfect. Perfect. Take some candy canes with you. Right. What about your poem? It's a short poem and it had a kind of, well, I felt it was appropriate given we've been talking about sweets with interesting and amusing names. This is a very short poem, just four lines, written by my friend, David Walser. He's a neighbour of mine in South West London, in Barnes, where I live. He was the lifelong partner of Jan Pinkowski, another marvellous artist who created the Meg, Mog and Owl books with Helen Nicol. Do you remember those lovely books? Yes, yes. Anyway, David Walser is an artist, a ceramicist and a poet. And this is a four-line nonsense verse that I felt was apt to share with

you today. When making a jus in your newly bought blender, a sip is quite hopeless. You must have a snurple. Did you add beetroot? Then the snurple is purple. And a snurple that's purple is fit for a turple. Enjoy. I feel like jus should have been in that poem somewhere. It could have been, couldn't it? Yes, exactly. I think he meant a Jou, J-U-S, which people now call. They get served lunch and they say it comes with a Jou. Exactly.

Like a foam. Pretentious Tosh. Well, we hope you haven't found us pretentious, Tosh. And if you have loved the show, please keep following us and subscribe. And do recommend us to friends and family. And for more Purple, why not consider the purple plus club add free listening and bonus episodes on words and language something rhymes with purple this is something else and sony music entertainment production produced by harriet wells with additional production from chris skinner jen

mystery jay beale teddy riley and i don't really know what to say about him really. He's a walking jujube. We haven't seen him since 1864. It's Gully.