Something Rhymes with Purple - Mappemonde

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Happy Tuesday Purple People, how do we find you? Listening in the bath? Camped out under the stars? Out for your daily stroll? If it’s the latter- well how serendipitous! As this episode we are taking a look at nation’s favourite pastime. Whether you’re a walker, a hiker or a orienteer there will be something in this episode for you. Susie strides ahead, boldly marches and struts her stuff through the linguistic latitude and longitude of all the walking words you can think of. She also explains why being a mountaineer is both an accomplishment and an insult… depending when one is given that moniker.  Gyles may trudge and traipse across a gentle fell but he’d never trespass, despite the etymological similarity. He also shares some classic Brandreth knowledge of literary greats whose works of writing are dependent on their walking! Elsewhere Susie and Gyles answer your purple post! Who can claim credit for the word Barbecue- our money is on the Haitians over the French but get in touch with us at [e-mail] if this analysis has given you the mulligrubs. A Somethin' Else production To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  Susie’s Trio: Guddle- To fish with one's hands Moonraker- A native of the county of Wiltshire Pinguid- A little bit oily or greasy 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. ESRB E10+. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. I don't know where you listen to this podcast. Some people listen in the bath. I thought that's a bit dangerous because, well, certainly when I was young, you were told not to have anything vaguely electrical or mechanical near the bath. But anyway, some people listen in the bath. Other people listen in the car.

People listen on headphones going to work, commuting. But a lot of people I meet seem to listen to our podcast as they're going for a walk. How, Susie Dent, do you think people listen to our podcast? From people you've met, what do they tell you about where they listen to this? To be honest, it's not come up very often, but I know we get a lot of emails from purple people saying, during the pandemic particularly, I think it was like this, you know, globally, quite often we were only allowed out for a certain amount of time a day.

I mean, that just seems extraordinary, that sentence, doesn't it? But obviously, many of us then rediscovered the joy of walking and that bit of time to stop and pause so I think a lot of purple people continued listening to us or even discovered us while they were out walking for exercise and for that just bit of release do you listen to podcasts when you're out walking when when do you listen I mean because I don't listen to them out walking when I'm out walking I'm, I was particularly loving last year, listening to the Bird Song again. Now aeroplanes are back.

So in my part of London, you hear a lot of aeroplanes. So do you listen to podcasts out walking? No, I'm like you. I also have a sort of slight fear of not hearing something important if I've got headphones in when I walk. Occasionally I do, but more often than not, I've got headphones in when I walk. So occasionally I do, but more often than not, I listen to podcasts as I fall asleep, which is lovely, but it does mean I have to keep going back to the beginning of many of them. But I find them very kind of

relaxing background chat that somehow then penetrates my consciousness. It's a bit like when people say, put a piece of paper under your pillow before you have a big exam and somehow the words will, you know, permeate your brain. I think that's... Do they say that? I've never heard that before. That was an old wives' tale when I was little, but I absolutely believed it. I remember that at school, put blotting paper, you know what blotting paper is? Absolutely, I used to have blotting paper. When you had ink and you blotted the ink and it was so if you put it inside your shoes

it would make you faint and so people put blotting paper in their shoes in the hope of fainting before an exam oh wow how funny and then you could get out of the exam will be given you know it's funny these i know i know and actually now i don't know if you've heard of tiktok giles but tiktok is that have i heard heard of TikTok? I'm virtually a TikTok. You are a TikTok. Of course I'm on it. Are you on it? I am. Of course I'm on it. I'm on it. You can see me dancing and prancing. I'm not just on it, but I'm soon going to be on it in a very big way because Mr. Motivator and I are doing some most amusing TikTok dances together to improve our posture. You are unbelievable. Whose idea was this?

It was Mr. Motivator's idea. I want to explain to people internationally if they don't know who Mr. Motivator is. Mr. Motivator is a Jamaican-born British keep fit guru, but also a marvellous actor called Derek Evans. And he became famous as Mr. Motivator back in the 1980s. And he's had a great resurgence during lockdown because he helps people keep fit. We together, we were on Michael McIntyre's recording of Michael McIntyre's program, The Wheel, the other day. And he saw me stepping off the set and he said, Giles, I don't like your posture. And I said, what am I going to do about it? He said, what you're going to do about it is you're going to imagine you've got an orange between your shoulder blades.

Hold the orange from your shoulder blades. Now squeeze that orange until the juice trickles down your spine. And I began doing that. You do it now, Susie. Pretend you've got an orange between your shoulder blades. Now squeeze that orange until the juice trickles down your spine. Are you sitting better? Oh, I'm actually in real pain.

Well, that's because... Are you supposed to squeeze that tightly? I don't think I could do this for very long. You don't have to do it very long. You've done it now. Okay, relax. If you do that every hour, when you take a little break,

you'll find quite quickly your posture improves. So the point is, you mentioned TikTok. Mr. Motivator and I are spreading the word about good posture with little exercises like squeeze your orange yeah and we're doing it to music on tiktok okay and we're going viral we're going viral no matter where you go and actually but that's not what we're here to talk about today we are what are we here to talk about today talk about walking going back going back to that subject take it

away suzy dead okay well i just wanted to talk a little bit about, well, the joy of walking, but also the ramblers kind of tribal conversation. Because as you know, I love to collect the shorthand and the jargon of particular groups of people and walkers are no different, particularly because they're quite chatty. You know, they're sort of resolutely bent on forward momentum and they like chatting at the same time so i'll just take you through a quick lexicon of first of all some of the words for walking itself if you like so i'll start with hike to go for a hike that started to appear in the early years of the 19th century its origins are a little bit elusive, but early records suggest it wasn't

a good thing. So one glossary of West Country dialect, for example, says that to hike off was to go off, used generally in a bad sense. And of course, today we still tell people to take a hike if we want them to, you know, sod off. Rambling, meanwhile, is 400 years older. That's embraced lots of different meanings. We wander off a subject if we ramble as well as down a hill. And that probably goes back to a very old Dutch word, rammelen. Now, this is quite interesting because we think it's actually linked to another Dutch word. Well, the same Dutch word, really, just a different form of it, meaning to copulate. Because apparently, to ramble was once used to the night wanderings of the amorous cat

isn't that brilliant i love that one we have tracking so that was originally afrikaans so that was to travel or migrate by ox wagon and that ultimately ultimately goes back to a Dutch word meaning to draw or to pull. So that's quite a nice one. What else do we have? We have to strut. Now, anyone who struts their stuff is a bit pavanine in my experience. Pavanine means peacock-like. You're proud like a peacock if you're pavanine.

And to pavanise is to strut around like a peacock. And to strut probably goes back simply to an old English word, don't say anything, Giles, to stand out stiffly, to swell or bulge out. Seems to be a lot of double entendre in a lot of these words. Is there, forgive me for interrupting,

but is there any intention of it being double entendre? No, I don't think so. I think it just goes back to the age old equation between a man who kind of struts his stuff and his virility. So there is a kind of link, isn't there? I suppose so. I don't think it was particularly hidden either. Nowadays, I think these are sort of hidden histories for us.

would have learnt about they have an exercise, of almost all drama schools that I know of, where they get the students to walk into the room in different ways, because you become a different character. If you walk into a room with your head bowed, leading with your head, you're a different person than if you come into the room

as it were with hips forward, strutting into the room. And so, actually, it's quite interesting to play the game of how you become into the room. And so actually, it's quite interesting to play the game of how you become into the room and you become a different person. You walk in, you stroll in, you amble in, you stride in, you strut in, you dawdle at the door. Oh, dawdle, tiptoe. Have you told us about dawdle? Dawdle is lovely. Definitely a dialect word. There's another one, daddle, to walk unsteadily. And there's one theory that it's influenced by the bird, the door,

as in the jackdaw, D-A-W, because the bird was regarded as being quite heavy and sort of cumbersome. So that's quite a nice one. Traps, I love the word traipsing. It's kind of got a bit of a kind of slogging, plodding feel to it, if you're traipsing all over the place, probably from French, trépasser, to pass beyond. The same as trudging. And I think one of my trios in the past has been trampoos. To trampoos is to kind of walk heavily and reluctantly. Something a child might do if you're dragging them along to a shop or something that you might do to the kettle in the morning. So lots and lots of different words. And there always have been. There's the

slack packer, which is a reluctant back packer. In the 19th century, there was one called a pedestrianist. And I like this because this was a 19th century form of competitive walking, which was a really popular spectator sport. And aristocrats at the time would apparently pit their footmen against one another alongside their master's carriages to see who could kind of walk the fastest, which the idea of it just makes me laugh. So lots of different motivations for walking, aren't there? There's physical benefits. Can I check a couple? Do you just touch on march? Did you touch on march, marching along? To march along is simply from the French

marché. I don't think there's anything more than that. To march for us is to march in a very regimented way. In French marché is simply to walk. Amble is from, again, from the French and it described a horse. You would have an ambling horse at the same time as you had hackney horses, ones that were just available for general hire. I would have linked it to ambulatory, as in moving around, amble. Absolutely right, ambulance, which were once walking hospitals, mobile hospitals. So, yeah, those are all linked. Saunter, to saunter.

Saunter is, I think, from the French again. And it reminds me always of the flaneur, you know, the kind of professional saunterer, the one, usually a gentleman who would kind of saunter around town and again, probably strut his or her stuff. So saunter, yeah, that's been around for quite a long time. Nothing more to say about that, except it's just such a lovely activity. What about strolling? I'm strolling along, singing a song side by side. Finally, this one's German, Strollen. And it comes from the Swiss German, ultimately,

Strollchen, meaning to stroll around or loaf about as well. So if you're strolling, you're out for a stroll, you're out for just a sort of pleasant afternoon, really, if you're out for a stroll, I think. And as I say, lots of different motivations for walking, physical benefits, and inspiration as well. So didn't Dickens make lots of nighttime walks through the streets of London to work out his plot lines? Absolutely. That's what he said he was doing. I think he probably was doing that. He walked miles. I mean, literally miles. He would walk 20 miles at a time and think through the plot.

He was not alone. The writer Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, was also a great walker. Dickens would walk much of the night and then in the morning sit down early in the morning with tea brought to him by a servant, and he would then write up what he'd been thinking about the night before. brought to him by a servant and he would then write up what he'd been thinking about the night before. But the Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, I believe, would think about what he was going to write for up to a year, walking around, working out the plot, working out the characterisation and spend a year thinking about it before he sat down to write his work. But since he ended up with

complete masterpieces that put him, you know, in the top trio, I'd say, of the world's greatest playwrights, it was worth doing. And I do that. When I'm writing a fiction, I've written a number of novels. That's how I do it. I do think of the plot while walking along. And the pace at which you walk affects what you write. I find if you trudge, it's because it's going slowly. Oh, what's the origin of trudge? It's a nice word. It's echoic.

It is. Which, in a sense, it sort of echoes the sort of feeling, anyway, about trudging along. What's the origin of that? We don't know. It appeared in the 1500s, but it says origin unknown in the dictionary. It sounds very sort of dialectical to me. One person who absolutely never trudged anywhere because he went with huge enthusiasm and is a god

to all serious walkers. And that's A.W., aka Alfred Wainwright. And he was the author of those canonical guides to the Lakeland Fells and many, many other guides to the walks of Britain. I mean, an amazing, amazing man. So, yeah, we mustn't miss him out. Well, I'm going back to Mr Motivator. Mr Motivator tells me that after I've squeezed my orange between my shoulder blades and let the juice trickle down my spine, I should then walk with purpose. OK.

Because that's one of the dangers is you just, if you dawdle as you go along or even trudge or plod. Look at your phone. It's not the same as walking with purpose or looking at the looking at the phone. I mentioned plod there. Is there a what's the origin of that? I'm pretty sure that one's on a mass pick. I'm sure that is all about just a sort of heaviness. Plod, a bit like plop, plod. Got a sort of real lumberous feel to it, hasn't it? Have you ever bagged a Munro? I do know what this means, but unpack it.

I've never bagged a Munro. I would love to. I'm not into orienteering, mountaineering. I do like walking. I like a little bit of incline and decline, but I've never done proper fell walking. So what is that thing you mentioned? Munro bagging.

Munro's are the Scottish mountains of at least 3,000 feet. And there are very few people, but very proud people, who've managed to bag all 282, including one that's called In Pin, Inaccessible Pinnacle on Sky. That's almost sheer, if you look at that one. So those who have are officially known as the completers and unofficially as the Monroe braggers because they've managed to climb all of them. They're right to boast. What an achievement. Are you a bit of a mountaineer? I'm obsessed with mountaineering books and films, absolutely

obsessed with them, but you would never find me with a crampon ever anywhere. I'm obsessed with mountaineering books and films, absolutely obsessed with them. But you would never find me with a crampon ever anywhere. I'm absolutely terrified of the idea of it. And also we talked in last week's episode about how nesh I am susceptible to the cold. I wouldn't stand a chance. I would get frostbite just even on the base camp. But I love the idea of mountains and i do love i love walking up i don't like walking down but i love walking up steep hills so i i can do that but just without any of the equipment and ice and snow thanks how old is the word mountaineering i mean it's like

mountain and then earring like engine engineering um orienteering yeah But when did the earring come into mountains? I'm going to look that up for you in the Oxford English Dictionary. 1802, and actually first mentioned in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote in one of his letters, spent the greater part of the next day mountaineering. So the noun mountaineer, actually much earlier, 1600 or 1599. And a mountaineer originally was a person who was native to a mountainous region. And actually, it was used as a bit of a synonym for a hillbilly or a sort of bumpkin, if you like,

a sort of uncivilized or uneducated person who lived in the country, a sort of backwoodsman, uncivilized or uneducated person who lived in the country a sort of backwoodsman if you like and then i think only in the 19th century came to be associated with mountain climbing this is why we need dictionaries to tell us this and why we need you because you might well be reading a book written in the 18th century where somebody is described as a mountaineer and you would think ah this is somebody who climbs mountains. But in fact, what they're saying is this is somebody who's a bit primitive who lives in the mountain region. And likewise, I think there are so many professions where you think, oh, that's quite interesting.

I'm just trying to think there's another one. I think it was a urinator was, yes, a urinator. The first meaning of that was one who dives underwater, a diver in the 17th century. Gosh, now it's somebody who takes the piss, a urinator, or in fact delivers it. So why would that have been the origin of it, somebody who was a diver? Because urinari, in Latin, meant to dive. It didn't actually mean to pee. Goodness.

I don't quite know. You see, I love the way we learn things. Orienteering, what is orienteering? And it's a much more it's quite cerebral I think as well as you know physical because you need exceptional navigational skills to use a compass and you navigate from point to point. Yes you mentioned compass there and points of the compass. Compass where does that come from? So I'm hopeless with a compass I don't know about you. I never understood where it was pointing quite what that meant.. Lots of different points of uncertainty in the history of compass. Various siblings in different languages, Portuguese, Italian, etc. German as well, compass, which was a mariner's compass. We don't particularly know. It may go back to a word for a sundial. But to be honest, we're not completely sure where that comes from.

But it's pretty old, 1400. And it's first mentioned in the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain. Gawain. I know what a compass is. And I've heard people talking about the cardinal points. And I thought, what's this got to do with a cardinal? Maybe there was a pope who decided the north would be there, the south.

And it was agreed by a college of cardinals. Is that right? Well, they're both linked, really, because cardinal goes back to a word that meant the sort of the chief, if you like. So the sort of the main the main points. You have a cardinal virtue. You have a cardinal sin in the church. It's a leading dignitary who forms part of the sacred college. So it's all to do with principal or chief, really, which, as you say, those are the two points of the compass. Ah, should we go on a camping expedition together? Would that be quite

fun? I think I would be absolutely rubbish at it. I think my navigational skills would be terrible, but I'm always willing to try. I'd be frightened also of getting lost. Also, I'm a terrible map reader. Now, of course, I'm totally dependent on SatNav on my cell phone, my mobile phone. Are you? Yes. It's appalling. I just, I mean, I'm literally, I'm going to see somebody unless I've got their postcode. I don't know where I'm going. And I used to be very good at maps and I'm no longer any good at a map. It's a very simple word, map, M-A-P. What's the origin of map? Yeah, so the map goes back to ultimately the Latin mappamundi, a map of the world, which came into French as mappamonde, meaning the same thing, but ultimately the Latin for a map. And actually it could also mean a towel or a napkin. So anything that you

sort of folded out, if you like. That's interesting because the French for napkin is nap, or tablecloth, nap. Nap. So napkin is a little one. Yes, not related to map. Ah. It's all very confusing. It's just a coincidence.

It is very confusing. It shows the tangled webs of all these things. Absolutely. Very good. Are there any other walking words that we haven't touched on well i just quite as i say quite like the sort of little things that walkers exchange amongst themselves so i think i've told you before that vitamin i is the hikers painkiller of choice for anything from blisters to muscle ache and that's ibuprofen vitamin i And then vitamin B is the beer that washes it down. So you need a bit of vitamin

I and vitamin B. A flip-flopper is a hiker who sets off in one direction, then at some point, this is me, decides to hike back in the opposite one. That would definitely be me. There's a misery index as well, I discovered. So that is the scale of suffering on a difficult walk. So 10 means you're in full on pain and intensely longing for the pub. And one means that you're probably in the pub already. What else do you have? The bivy bag, which was the sleeping bag, which is for use in the open air and so on and so forth. Oh, and if you also remember, we talked a little while ago about trailblazers um so this is linked to walking if you are a trailblazer you are in a literal sense using a

way marking system that uses painted marks along the route and blaze was a term borrowed from the vikings um and for them a blaze was a white star on a horse's forehead. And it became blaze in English. And it meant marking a tree by stripping off a piece of bark as a way of showing a path or boundary in a forest. You'll see lots of records of trail blazing. So the early settlers would mark these trees to show the path that they had taken to stake out their territory. So I love that connection between blazing a trail and walking. So again, it goes back to this idea of shining brightly. As in blazing sunshine.

Exactly right. Exactly right. Good. Let's take a quick break. And I'm going to tell you about my favourite place to walk in the British Isles. And I want to hear about yours. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy a 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. Welcome back. This is Something Rhymes with Purple, and we're walking about today. We're strolling. We're ambling. I'm trying to walk with purpose because I've been told by my new physical fitness guru, Mr. Motivator, that that's what I should be doing at all times. And I've had great fun this summer because I have spent quite a bit of time in East Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. When I was in East Yorkshire, I was walking along the seaside. I love, I was in Bridlington and I walked north and south and walking along clifftops and the edge of a beach is for me wonderful. Seeing the sea, seeing the horizon,

I love that. So I love that in East Yorkshire. And then I went over to West Yorkshire and spent time in what is known as Bronte country, near the town of Howarth, where the famous Bronte sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, lived and died young and wrote novels that are still being read nearly 200 years later. Where would you, within the British Isles, Susie Dent, where would you go for a walk? Yorkshire, I agree, is absolutely beautiful. Ilkley, the Yorkshire Moors, just stunning. Also Devon, where I go most summers, beautiful, beautiful walks. You have to avoid the times when, as my dad would say, the grockles are there, the tourists. But for the most part, you can find a spot and just sit and wander at the sea and then go off again. Oh, and Oxfordshire also is absolutely

beautiful. So many stunning walks, just in the Cotswolds, the Windrush Valley, beautiful, beautiful places. So very lucky that although I live in a city, I can just even cycle out sometimes and go for a lovely walk. When I go for a long walk, I like to be unencumbered. And I often, when I was doing this walking in Bronte country, in the West Yorkshire moors, it was fantastic. I kept encountering people who had virtually a refrigerator and all their worldly goods in huge knapsacks on their backs. Exhausting,

I suppose, necessarily if you're out camping. But for me, it's the freedom of walking unencumbered. Do you take any candle mint cake? Ah, I do like candle mint cake, but I'm on this low carb diet. It's not possible. Oh, it's so sugary. I mean, it is just pure sugar, isn't it? Kendall Mint Cake is the walker's snack of choice, I should explain for all the international purple listeners. And it is essentially just peppermint flavoured sugar in kind of hard form. And it gives you instant energy. I have to say you have a bit of a slump the other side, but it is rather delicious and it comes from Kendall in the Lake District. So a shout out to Kendall Mint Cake. Look, we better get on with our correspondence

because people have been writing to us from all over the world. Two weeks ago in our pun-tastic episode, which was called Paranormasia. Why did we call it that? Because of course, that's what it's about. That's another word for a pun. We asked you to send in your favourite pun shop names and we've had several, haven't we? Yes. Mark Hevingham from Birmingham let us know about a local greengrocer called Melon Collie. Collie, S-N-C-A-U-L-I for cauliflower. Melon Collie. The worse they are, the better they are. His excellent name would have the opposite effect on his mood and put a little spring in his step. A company of tree surgeons in Stroud in Gloucestershire went full

force with their puns, calling themselves cops and loggers. Thank you, Sheila Kutcher, for writing in about that one. And Luke Burgess enlightened us with this fantastic take on the famous London department store. It's basically a picture of a company selling fridges, washing machines. It says free fitting and free delivery. And the name is Cell Fridges. Cell Fridges. It's brilliant. Very clever. And I wondered if Cell Fridges would object to that.

The department store in Oxford Street in London, named, of course, after, eponymously, after Gordon Cell Fridge, I think was the founder of Cell Fridges. But Cell Fridges, S-E-L-L, Fridges, all one word. Very ingenious. It's brilliant. eponymously after Gordon Selfridge, I think was the founder of Selfridges. But Selfridges, S-E-L-L, Fridges, all one word. Very ingenious. It's brilliant. And we had a lovely letter from Libby Angelo Laloli. I hope I've got that right, Libby. She says she spent a lovely morning catching up on some of the podcasts. Thank you. She has a word that she'd love to know the origin

of, and it's the word mulligrab. My grandmother often used it when she was tired of a long spell of dreary weather. She would say, this weather gives me the mulligrubs, or I'm tired of this mulligrub weather. We're just going into winter now. So I often use this word myself to describe the kind of grey, drizzly weather we're experiencing at the moment. I'm not sure where Libby is actually, but we're pretty much in winter here, even though it's supposed to be summer, I have to say. Libby, your email has given me huge excitement because I often tweet this word. I think it might've been one of my trio on the podcast before now.

Mulligrubs. I haven't heard any living person use this one or remember it because I always quote it as a 16th century word. I think I've always heard that it's around and that there are a few isolated uses of it, but you have actually made me very happy. Mully grubs, a state of fit or fit of depression, low spirits, can also be a bad temper or mood, can be brought on by the weather or anything really. And we don't quite know where it comes from, but it might be linked to a mully grub. And a mully grub was a grub that feeds on coarse meal, but it was used as a term of abuse as well. It was a bit of a witch to grub really, but it was used as a kind of insult for something. And so

that may have led to it being used for kind of, you know, anything that was a bit objectionable. In the 17th century, it could also mean stomachache or colic. So if you were sick with the molly grubs, then you were not very happy at all. Love that word. And I love Claude Mansouti, who has written very generously from Australia. We've been listening to your podcast for some time here in Melbourne, pronounced Melbourne. I think we should say Melbourne as well. Yeah.

We should say Melbourne too. Except, do we say Paris? No, we say Paris. But I think Melbourne, I think most people say Melbourne, don't they? I think we just, yes. They do say. I say Melbourne because I assume it's named, I assume Melbourne was named after the great Victorian Prime Minister,

Lord Melbourne. Possibly. But maybe I'm wrong. Quite possibly. And so, but Melbourne it is. My question is about the barbecue or barbie, as we call it here. We saw a programme set in France and they were cooking pork on a spit. The French fellow who set up the spit said that the rod that went through the pig from the head, barbe, to the tail, queue, gave us the term barbe au queue, from head to tail. I imagine actually beard to tail.

But anyway, now Susie had a different derivation in an earlier podcast. But I feel this one, barbe au queue, barbe to tail, head to tail. You're making me laugh because of that listener that wrote in and told us off for our terrible fake French accents. My French accent is good. It is good. I didn't do the Australian accent because my strine is not good. I know that.

But barbe au coeur is good. And apologies to that single listener that wrote in to tell us how bad we were. No, but you're right. If it isn't good enough, I can improve it. But barbe au coeur, I think there's a certain ring to it. Now, yes, what Claude points out is that I gave a different derivation in an earlier podcast. And that derivation is that it goes back to a Haitian word, so from Haiti, a frame or Haiti, I should say, a framework of sticks set upon posts. So it was a rough wooden framework that was used for supporting meat above a fire that was then smoked or dried.

And the Oxford English Dictionary and most modern dictionaries, I have to say, they're usually very, very careful in not giving very personal comments or subjective judgments on things. This is an exception and it did make me laugh. So with apologies to Claude and the man who told him this, this is what the OED says. So it tells you that it does go back to that word from Haiti. And then it says, the alleged French barbacke beard to tail is an absurd conjecture suggested merely by the sound of the word. So there you go. That one has been roundly rejected by the OED. Sorry about that, Claude. That is coming from a great height squashing that yes but thank you very much claude for getting in touch and please if you've got any

queries questions comments ideas suggestions do get in touch with us it's simply purple at something else.com and just email us and something is spelt without a G to be a little bit different. Purple at somethingelse.com. Each week, Susie Dent introduces us to a trio of words that she loves and she would like to share with us. What are those three interesting words you've got for us today? Well, the first one I just like because, you know, the dictionary is full of words that you may not ever have to use, but you might just be glad that there is, in fact, a word for it. And this one is one of words that you may not ever have to use but you might just be glad that there is in fact a word for it and this one is one of those it's guzzle guzzle and it means to fish with one's hands so to cup your hands submerge them under the water and try and catch a fish that way to guzzle i just love the fact that that word exists um as long as you throw the fish back

this one again for well it's just an interesting one with an interesting history a moon raker not not a james bond ian fleming novel but a native of the county of wiltshire they call themselves moon rakers so the story told about this one is that a group of inhabitants of wiltshire who were a little bit worse for wear came back from a night out, saw what they saw was a large cheese or something in a pond and started raking the pond to try and get it out. It was, in fact, the reflection of the moon. But there's another story that will say that the men were in fact raking the pond for kegs of smuggled brandy. And when they were caught, they fooled everyone by saying,

oh, we were just mad or we were drunk. Either way, it gave, I have to say, affectionate nickname for inhabitants of Wiltshire, which is Moonraker. I just like the story behind that one. And finally, my third is,

if you know someone who's just a little bit greasy, a little bit unctuous, perhaps. Have I said this one before? Pingweed. Pingweed. Oh, no, I don't remember that. Pingweed means oily or greasy.

Pingweed, how do you spell it? A bit like pingu. So P-I-N-G-U-I-D. Pingu being a popular penguin in a cartoon over here. So somebody who is a bit oligianus. Yes. Is that another word for it? Oily, urahipish.

Yeah. It's of resembling fat, oily or greasy. So probably used for substances rather than people, but I reckon you can extend it a little bit. Penguin. Penguin. I like it. Have you got a poem for us, Giles?

A brilliant trio. Yes, I have got a poem. And I wanted a poem by one of the Bronte sisters because having talked today about the beauty of the Yorkshire Moors others who died very young. The Bronte sisters themselves died young at 29, 30, and 40. But that they could have created novels that have lived for nearly 200 years is remarkable. I don't think there is any other family in the history of world literature that has made such an impact. What was there in their upbringing, or was it in the world in which they were brought up, the parsonage at Howarth and the moors nearby?

When you read any of their work, the moors and the weather are part of it. Wuthering Heights, of course. Wuthering, I think, means bad weather, doesn't it? It means a washing of the wind. It means a windswept. Yeah. So Emily Bronte was the poet, I think, wuthering, I think, means bad weather, doesn't it? Yeah, it means the washing of the wind. Wind swept. Yeah. So Emily Bronte was the poet, I think, of the family.

And I've got a short poem by her. It's called Spellbound, and I think it's very evocative. The night is darkening round me. The wild winds coldly blow. But a tyrant spell has bound me, and I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending, their bare boughs weighed with snow, and the storm is fast descending, and yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, wastes beyond wastes below,

but nothing drear can move me. I will not, cannot go. Spellbound by Emily Bronte. Thank you to all the Purple people who have got in touch with us. Please keep doing so at purple at somethingelse.com. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale.

And, yes... Have I missed anyone out? Well, you haven't. Well, you've missed out this fellow who's got lost on the moor somewhere. We call him Gully. Oh, yeah, him.