Something Rhymes with Purple - Mortarboard

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Recorded live at the Oxford Playhouse on Sunday 9th October 2021.   Gyles and Susie explore the wordy world of Universities as they return to their University home of Oxford.    Come discover what seminars have in common with semen, how gold tassels gave us the term ’Toff’, why the mortarboard and the pestle & mortar are linked and Susie shares the ultimate excuse for bunking off class early to go for a drink down The White Rabbit (an Oxford pub named after Oxford resident, Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).   Gyles teaches Susie what it means to 'sport one's oak' and Susie shares some further sporting references revealing why chess boards and dominoes are also linked to University life.   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:   Peristeronic - of or relating to pigeons.  Hirquiticke - horny teenager  Backspang - a loophole that allows you to renege on a deal.    Gyles read ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll    ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves        Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:  All mimsy were the borogoves,        And the mome raths outgrabe.   “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!        The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun        The frumious Bandersnatch!”   He took his vorpal sword in hand;        Long time the manxome foe he sought—  So rested he by the Tumtum tree        And stood awhile in thought.   And, as in uffish thought he stood,        The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,  Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,        And burbled as it came!   One, two! One, two!  And through and through        The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head        He went galumphing back.   “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?        Come to my arms, my beamish boy!  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”        He chortled in his joy.   ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves        Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:  All mimsy were the borogoves,        And the mome raths outgrabe.    A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.     Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Something else. PSRB E10+. Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience and the Purple people often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple.

I'm Giles Brandreth and this week I'm on the stage of the Oxford Playhouse Theatre in Oxford, and I'm with my friend, partner and podcast companion, Susie Dent. It's exciting to be here, isn't it? It is. Your wife is sitting in the audience there, so maybe not the partner bit. Oh, my working partner. Working partner. That's good.

Your working partner. Do you know, can I say, this partner world, this is a podcast we just listened to for the first time, all about words and language etymology. Where does the word partner come from? And when did people begin using it about relationships as opposed to, my father was a solicitor, he talked about his partners all his life, until the end of his life when he had to start talking about his working partners

because people thought that these people, he's got an awful lot of partners for an old man. because people thought that these people had got an awful lot of partners for an old man. Do you know, I always think that English is, I mean, it's the richest language that I know, but I always find there is a gap for significant others. I mean, significant other itself is just really clunky, isn't it? Here's my significant other. But once you pass a certain age, my boyfriend or girlfriend sounds a bit odd. So I suppose partner is what we'll do, and that's why it has that sort of, you know, overarching meaning. It's from German, simply, because we are a Germanic language, so it's a straight borrowing from there. It became partner in the US, so they put a D in it,

and that's as far as we got, really. As you know, I do shows with the wonderful Dame Judi Dench, who is now in her late 80s and feels awkward calling her partner her boyfriend, because she feels that's the wrong thing to do. So she calls him, I think rather good, her fellow. This is my fellow. My fellow. And what does he call her, I wonder? Dame Judi. Fair enough. Fair enough. There's a lovely phrase in German which I always just think is really nice, which is Lebensgefährte, and that's Lebensgefährte, which is your lifetime companion or your life companion. I think that's quite nice. Lebensgefährte.

Yeah, or I would be your Lebensgefährtin. It sounds like a large sausage dish, doesn't it? We will have the Lebensgefährte with the sauerkraut. Oh, my dear. I do love German.. So tell us, welcome us to the show. Tell us what we've got to do today. So, well, this is the second show of our new tour, as you say. And today, because we're in my hometown of Oxford, because we're in a town and city that you know extremely well,

we are talking about Oxford. It's history, but we're going to broaden it out as well and talk about the vocabulary of university life and the sort of town and gown juxtaposition and how we have fared with that over the centuries. Yes, because both of us were lucky enough to be offered our education at this university. I was at New College, Oxford, in the late 1960s. And you were at which college? I was at Somerville.

Beautiful, glorious Somerville. Which in my day was entirely a women's college. And you were at which college? I was at Somerville. Beautiful, glorious Somerville. Which in my day was entirely a women's college. And mine too. Yeah, so it went mixed quite soon after I left. But yes, we used to be ferried to Oriel College, which was all male at that time, all sherry evenings. At my college, we had Madeira evenings. Ooh, hot pot.

Now this will shock people. Has anyone ever drunk, oh, I don't drink sherry. I'm pleased to say that Oxford University we had Madeira evenings. Now this will shock people. I'm pleased to say that Oxford University admitted women for degrees long before Cambridge. You will find this hard to believe and deeply shocking. Women were not fully admitted to degrees at Cambridge University until the end of the Second World War. It's hard to believe, isn't it?

But there you go. But we can discuss all that. So we were both educated here. Susie has worked here for many years and lived here for many years. I have worked here off and on. Can I begin by asking you about the word university? This is a university city. University, where does that word come from? Yeah, so university is the uni bit is obviously whole. The versity is linked to varsity. And it's all really about a seat of learning. It is the seat of academia.

Is that the arse in vars, then, the seat? No. No, I love that idea, though. That would make a brilliant folk etymology. So, it's really all about, it's quite hard to pick it apart, but it's the same sort of verse that you will find in universality. It's sort of about bringing something together and unifying it, hence the uni bit. And academia is also very nice because academia goes back to,

well, do you know where that goes back to? Academe. The academy. Ah, no. It goes back to Plato, who in ancient Greece, obviously very hugely influential philosopher, and he taught at the academia in ancient Greece. And such was the impact of his learning

that it then rippled through the ages. Oh, it was just the name of the place, the academia. Yeah, we get that for quite a lot. So we get Stoic from the name of a place that actually goes back to the Greek for painted porch, because the building where the philosophers taught, obviously, in this case, had a painted porch. Cynic is white dog, because it was named after a gymnasium, although a lot of people thought maybe the cynics were quite dogged in their approach.

But anyway, so you've got the cynics, the stoics, and the academics as well, all named after buildings. Good. That's established university. This is a university that has a college, a collegiate system, as does, I think, the University of Durham, and there are other universities around the world. College, where does that word come from? Yeah, so college is straight from Latin. So we get collegium and all sorts. And it originally was a sort of organised society that were performing certain common functions. So if we think about something that is kind of collegiate,

they are all collected together. So college and collect are siblings in language. Fine. And here, this has been a collegiate university, you know, since the 14th century or whenever it all began. And I think it was something to do with the sort of townspeople and the gown people not getting on very well and that it was something to do with the sort of townspeople and the gown people not getting on very well and that it's safer to have sort of specific houses for the different students to...

Yeah, and actually they often had kind of clerical roles as well. So, you know when students in either their long gowns or their short gowns, those are called subfusque. Why is it called subfusque? That means sort of almost brown colored it's very unglamorous but it's kind of dark it means darks that they're dressed in in dark colors and very often they would wear also these not quite the mortarboards that we see today which

of course look like a builder's mortarboard but they would wear these sort of slightly floppy hats with gold tassels on them which were quite similar to that those of the clergy and those gold tassels were called tufts and of course because these were quite privileged people very often from the aristocracy eventually they were sons of peers in the House of Lords tuft became toff which is where we get the toff. So the origin of a toff are the tufts. The gold tassel tufts. The tufts are the headgear of university people. And you still see those, that kind of headgear. You see mortarboards, but you also see the kind of hat you're talking about during degree days.

And during exams, during matriculation. There's so many words to unravel. Matriculation is quite nice, actually, because on on the recent podcast you asked me about alma mater do you remember alma mater and uh that means um sort of generous mother really almost sort of nursing mother so it's someone who kind of gives you protection and that martyr is mother and it's linked to matrix and all that sort of thing and it's linked to matriculate because when you matriculate you are being brought under the the roof or the protection of the mother University I hope people are taking notes

Considerable speed you mentioned the gown and indeed in my day you had for example to wear your gown For tutorials for lectures for dining in Hall Yeah, you're required to wear your gown, and certainly for taking the exams. What is the origin of the word gown? Because it relates to town and gown, the town being the people who are not in the university, the gown representing the university people.

What's gowns worth? Well, the early gowns were trimmed with fur, and actually goes back to a Latin word meaning just that, with sort of fur kind of trimmings. And often actually in monasteries given to elderly monks who needed that warmth. Do you know, I think I need a gown. As in a dressing gown in a way. Well, same sort of thing, yeah.

And so gown is a version of a word meaning fur. Yeah, Latin guna. So it literally means embellished or trimmed with fur. Guna, G-U-N-N-A. She knows so much. It's wonderful. It's like watching a pinball machine. And the way it goes, bing, bing, Guna, G-U-N-N-A. She knows so much. It's wonderful. It's like watching a pinball machine. And the way it goes, bing, bing, bing, bing.

If she's going too quick, just say, slow down, Susie. We're taking notes here at the back. Good, okay. So that is university, that is college, that is the gown, long or short, that's subfusque and alma mater. We come here for an education, educare, that must be Latin. It is, yeah. And again, it's a relative of so many words in English. So it goes back to the Latin

ducere, meaning to lead. So you will find that not just in educate, you will find it in induct, you will find it in produce, you will find it in seduce, which is almost lead astray. So the idea of kind of leading someone and giving them direction is there in all of those. Well, I think one of my tutors led me astray. Well, no, he didn't. He was a wonderful man. He was called Richard Cobb. And he was, I think, eventually the professor of modern history at this university. And I went to him to learn about the... What did I go to him for? The French Revolution.

That was it. That was his expertise. He was a great man. And he was the person who pioneered the idea of history from the bottom up rather than the top down. Not teaching about kings and queens and leaders and generals and, you know, czars and all the rest, but actually about the working people. So his teaching about the French Revolution wasn't so much about Robespierre and the king and what was going on there, but actually what were the peasants doing? What were the people doing? And I went for my first tutorial, and I went the first

day to my first tutorial with him due at 10 a.m. And I climbed the stairs, and I was about to knock on his door, and we'll discuss sporting an oak and that expression in a moment. Oh, I don't know the name of that one. Oh, he wasn't sporting his oak. I'm glad to hear it. I'll explain that to you. The point was, there were two doors.

When the double doors are closed, you're sporting your oak. You mean you don't want people to come in. But when it's open, you're not sporting your oak and you can take visitors. So I was about to knock on the door and I waited until the clock began to strike ten. I was about to knock and I suddenly heard this voice inside the room going, Oh, you are such an idiot. You bastard.

You vermin. You're such a fool. Oh, I loathe you. I just, I thought, my God, this is how he's treating his first student of the day? What am I in for and he went on with his vituperation? I thought this is too, I don't know why, then he fell silent. I thought I'll try and knock again and then another rampage Oh, I loathe you how I despise you you are lower than a snake's belly You are in terrible language. Oh, this is awful language. I thought, this is awful, awful.

I thought, well, but I'm here, I'd better... Oh, dear. Anyway, I did knock eventually and the voice said, come! And I opened the door and went in and there was this rather mild-looking elderly man sitting on his own in the middle of the room. And I said, I'm so sorry, I thought you had somebody with you. He said, no, no, I was on my own. I said, I thought I heard a raised voice. He said, yes, it was me. I'm so angry with myself. He had put his papers down somewhere, and he

couldn't remember where he'd put them, and he was cursing as he looked for them everywhere. And it was then explained, as he opened what was not, was it not the first bottle of the day, and poured me a libation. And so 10 in the morning. Wow. And I'm sure that sort of thing isn't allowed now, but it was great fun. But you had a great time. We had a great time.

Anyway, he was a good man. And I did this year a book called A History of Britain in Just a Minute. But I thought I couldn't publish it until I knew that Professor Cobb was dead. Because the history in it is rather inaccurate. And of course, I realized if I'd done it when he was alive, it would have killed him.

And now he's just turning in his grave. But anyway, that's by the way. Can I put you up on something? Yes. Wordy, which is you mentioned the town and the gown and et cetera. So quite a few words have slipped into English from the way that students particularly looked down on the townsfolk. So cad, for example,

goes back to cadet, so somebody who was seen as being sort of quite green and, you know, just a little bit naive, if you like. Obviously, it took on much sort of more scurrilous meanings later on, but it was used by the academics to look down on the townsfolk and also snob a lot of people think that snob goes back to the latin sine nobilitate which is without nobility so you're just a hanger-on basically but this again what was originally a word for a shoemaker or a cobbler and it became a nickname used of anyone who was considered to be townsfolk a a peasant, but also who was trying to kind of suck up to those above them. Hence the snob was somebody who was always trying to climb the social ladder. So they had kind of quite weird beginnings.

But they were born in that, you know, as I say, town gown drama. So the snob and the toff begins in the academic world. I mentioned Professor Cobb being one of my tutors. What is the original word tutor? Tutare, tutulare or something. Yeah, teaching, exactly. Tutelage, same sort of thing. Simple as that.

Is that Latin? Yes. It's funny, isn't it? Because I'm so aware of the fact, through all our podcasts, and we're always saying either it's Latin or it's Germanic, but mostly it's Latin. But obviously we have hoovered up words

from every language under the sun. The balance of our language, the vocabulary we use now, are there one or two principal sources? And is Latin more than Germanic? under the sun. The balance of our language, the vocabulary we use now, are there one or two principal sources? And is Latin more than Germanic? And what about Greek? Quite often the journey was Greek to Latin to French to us.

So a huge number of words came via that route. And then, as we always say, after 1066, thanks to the Normans, we took borrowings wholesale from French. So that was when we were really flooded with the French vocabulary because we thought it was posh and lovely and cool and fashionable. And then Germanic, you will find in a lot of Anglo-Saxon words

with a touch of Viking influence as well in the Danelaw up north. But a lot of Anglo-Saxon, Old English words are primarily Germanic in source. Okay. You've given us education. You've given us academia. We occasionally, as well as tutorials, we had seminars.

What is a seminar? Well, a seminar is a relative of semen because it's all about seed. So, well, it's all about sowing the seeds. I quite like that. It's a bit personal, isn't it? Maybe. But did you ever go to a symposium when you were a student? No.

I always think this is the best excuse ever for a student to say to their teacher, I'm just going to a symposium, so I have to knock off early. Because a symposium in ancient Britain was a drinking party. No. Yeah. Well, my friend, Professor Cobb, would have loved a symposium. Exactly. He had one every day. Yeah.

So that's seminars. People who work in universities. We have, oh, the dean of a college, the head of a college. There's always a dean somewhere. This is because in the olden days, a lot of the colleges will have had a clerical element to them. In fact, in this country, a Christian Church of England element to them.

But I think there was a time in the 19th century when to certainly to live in the college, you had to be a clergyman. Is that right? I think you probably did, yeah. And the dean, a dean is what? There's a religious link there too. So in Roman times, a dean, or a decem, so it's D-E-C-E-M, meaning of ten, was a commander in charge of ten soldiers, or ten units. And in a monastery, a dean then, as it became in English, was in charge of 10 monks.

So it's all about the number 10. And now it is much more about position than anything to do with who you're in charge of. Fine. So a dean is part of the management of university. What about the bursa? Bursa goes back to the French bourse. Actually, that's still the name for the French

stock exchange, but it's a purse. So just as the word budget, when we have the budget, is linked to this purse that this time Chancellor of the Exchequer, do you remember where Exchequer comes from? Chessboard. Yes. It's to do with the checkered tablecloth that they used to count money on for the kings. So the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have this budget, which was a purse, and a burs, as well, which is a slightly bigger purse. It gave this purse itself, actually, and a bursar is in charge of the money. Do you know a musical written by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds that in the 1950s was the longest-running musical in the history of the West End called Salad Days. I've never seen it, but...

You must see it. It is a joy. It opens with this number. The things that are done by Don, the things that are done in Norta. If you want to cram for a Latin exam, just visit our Latin Quarter. It's a charming show, and I think it's completely delightful. And it is set in a university, a university like Oxford or Cambridge. The things that are done by a don. Why are the people who teach at universities called dons?

Yeah, don, again, part of this huge family. So don goes back to the Latin, dominus meaning lord or master. And that gave us loads of things. So it gave us dungeon, where somebody lorded it over you and was master over your fate. It gave us the mafiadon, of course, somebody who's in charge. It also gave us domino, because the very first meaning of a domino was a black robe that was worn to masquerades.

And these black robes reminded people of monks who, of course, obeyed their master, the lord. So it gave us the domino as well. And eventually these wonderful, ornate capes and hooded cloaks gave us their name to the spotted tiles that were the same colour, the dominoes. Oh, you mean when you play the game of dominoes? Yeah, it goes back to... It's all the same thing?

All the same thing. Oh, it's fantastic. Okay. Let's go on with people who actually work in the university. A professor, somebody who is a professor. Oh, yeah. They just profess their knowledge to their students. So it's all about public teaching. And the pro is the same thing as in pro vice-chancellor, provost, professor. So the fession is as in confession.

Confess, fess up, all of that. But the pro is meaning? Forth. Forth. So you're expressing forth. You are a professor. Exactly. Oh,'re expressing fourth. You are a professor. Exactly. Oh, I love it.

When you arrive at the university, you are an undergraduate. Well, that's obvious because you're not a graduate. But how do you become a grad… what's the origin of graduating? It's all about grades. It's all about steps, steps up on a ladder. So it goes back to the Roman's word for steps and stages, really. And a new person is called a fresher. Yeah, so I would love to that.

So when I studied in America and I didn't continue with my PhD because I decided academia was not for me. So I stayed at my university and I taught, they always called them fresh men, even though I had a mixed class, which I thought was really wrong. But it's just they are literally fresh. They have just come. They are first years, as opposed to sophomores. Oh, yes. And Americans then have, after freshers, freshmen, they have sophomores. Sophomores.

What does that mean? Yeah, so sophos in Greek, I think, also gave a sophisticated. I think it's you're wiser, essentially. You were wiser in your second year. I'm not sure that applied to me. If you're listening to our podcast internationally, and I'm proud to say Something Rides With Purple has a big international audience, we love it and we're very grateful. Do please, if you've got queries about how your academic world is run and you've got your own vocabulary, let us know. You can communicate with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. And something is spelt rather bizarrely without a g i don't want you to stop but we have to stop for two reasons we're going to take a quick commercial

break if you if you don't like the advertisements you can actually join our purple plus club where for a small payment you don't have to listen to the advertisements though i do rather enjoy the advertisements because i like the sound of my own voice. 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?

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We are thrilled to be here, and we're particularly thrilled because we've got purple people in the audience, and we've had lots of correspondence this week. Take us through people who have been in touch. Okay, so the first person I want to mention is Kerith Griffiths, in touch. Okay, so the first person I want to mention is Keris Griffiths, who has asked us about the word mortarboard, which we actually briefly mentioned early on. And Keris asked, is it related to the mortar in bricks and mortar? And the answer is yes. And it actually goes back to the Latin mortarium, which was essentially what we would call a mortar today, as in a pestle and mortar used to grind up ingredients.

And in the same way, I don't really know enough about what a builder uses with his mortar board, but essentially it's all about ground up ingredients. And of course, because the academic cap looked like a mortar board, it got its name from that. Originally a nickname and now pretty much the official name. Good. any more words from the world of university should we ask the audience yes any queries about words to do

specifically with university ladies asked about dissertation good one okay i'm gonna look that one up because actually i don't know i i imagine it's something to do with serving forth, and that's as far as I get. It wasn't a dessert. You're just dessert. No, just dessert. That would be slightly different. You're just dessert is something that you deserve, so it comes to you. Nothing to do with your dessert that you eat, and that's from the French dessert,

which is to sort of serve at the table. Dissertation. Dissertation. Oh, it's not that interesting, really. Maybe that's why I repress it. It's fromation. Oh, it's not that interesting, really. Maybe that's why I repressed it. It's from the Latin dissertare, to discuss or argue or debate. So simple Latin borrowing. Well, that's okay. That's interesting. Yes. Yes. And there's another one there, lady with a white sleeve. Degree. Degree. You're an optimist. Well, same sort of thing. So again,

it's a relative of that family of graduation as well. It's all about steps up, which is why we talk about steps up in temperature as being degrees. So it's all about climbing upwards. Degris, but what's the origin of the words? Is it degris? Yeah, it came to us from French, and it will almost certainly be from Latin.

And it is... De gradis, yes, as I say, step, gradis, that kind of thing. The gradis is the step? Yeah. Oh, the hands are shooting up everywhere. On the right here. I knew someone was going to come up with battles. Oh, the bills! The battles, for those who don't know, are your bills that come at the end of every term telling you how much you've spent.

Those were called collections. Did we have something to do with collections? Were they exams? They were called battles in my day. Collections were exams. I think you're right. And I think that's because they collected the fee. The exams were at the end of the term and also student fees were collected. I think that's where that comes from.

The battles, we think goes back, and they're spelled E-L-S, we think goes back to battle with a double T-L-E, but not in terms of the military campaign, but in the idea of giving food or nourishing. And that story has been completely lost. So we don't know how battle came to look like the military battle and meant something so, so different. I'm sorry, you've lost me.

What's it got to do with eating food? It's about that sense of battle meant to give food or to nourish again. And so battles are what you pay for food. Forgive me, before a battle became a fight, a battle meant giving food. About the same time. So quite often you will find words that look exactly the same,

but have come from completely different family trees and seem to have nothing in common at all. And battle and battle is one of them. So battle means food and nourishment. And your battles... Yeah, so when we pay our battles, we're paying for... Food and nourishment.

Exactly. So here we go. To battle, which was spelt B-A-T-T-L-E from the 16th century, completely different from the battlements, et cetera. There we are. One last one here. Polytechnic. Thank you for broadening the whole discussion.

No, it's nice. We don't use polytechnic anymore. No. Here, oxypoly is now the brilliant Brooks. Anyway, polytechnic is... Well, the poly bit is many. Poly. Technic, because originally it was...

They specialised in the sort of technical arts, if you like, or technical, practical subjects, and then it became... So many practical subjects is polytechnic. Polytechnic. And what about poly put the kettle on? Is it related in any way? I mean, are parrots called... Why are parrots called poly?

In other languages, they're called Peter. So we have Pierrot, which is little Peter. As in Perroquet, being the French for parrot. Perroquet, exactly. Has to do with Pierrot. Because we love, as we have said often on the podcast, we love giving animals and birds proper names. So we have Robin Redbreast, we have the magpie, which was Margaret, maggoty pie they were originally,

but magpie and all sorts of Margaret riffs. And we just love doing that. There we go. Do you know what it's time for now? Tell me. The guesses. Let's do the definition of my trio. Great. The first one that I gave you was peristeronic. Peristeronic. Okay. So far, we've had a shandy made with peroni and tonic.

Like that. That's from Tim and Lex in Milton Keynes. We have a temper tantrum, peristeronic. A temper tantrum caused by the lack of selection of sauces in Nando's or other popular chicken-based eateries, and a clean perineum from Will Applin in Romsey. And actually, those last two definitions come together because I always love, you know, at Christmas time, the weird sort of junction between Christmas and New Year when nothing much happens is sometimes called the merineum

because it's a weird straddling thing. What do you call the distance between one Nando's and another? The periperineum. Anyway, that's Rachel Riley's joke. I blame her for that one. Okay, so I love those. Those are the three that have been picked out by our listeners. Do we think the middle one, the Nando's one, is the winner?

Do we agree? Don't you think? Yeah, okay. So that's from Ian Dolan in Bournemouth. Thank you for that. A temper tantrum caused by the lack of selection of sources in Nando's or other popular chicken based eateries. Thank you for that. The real definition, peristeronic, is relating to pigeons. So there is a peristeronic mess in my back garden, for example, or in Trafalgar Square, et cetera. The real definition is definitions are often so much why is that the definition perry means pigeon uh yeah it's it's quite difficult to unpick these sometimes because you'll find particularly in latin and greek that there are numerous words for different

things but it's one of the words for pigeons yeah okay the next one is a really curious looking word which i love and it's from a 1625 glossary. Okay. And it's herquitic. Herquitic spelled? It's H-I-R-Q-U-I-T-I-C-K-E, herquitic. So, oh, it's Tim and Lex again, have said it's a cricket match after you've been hitting the mouth with a ball, as in hurty cricket. He, who wisely only says P, and we don't know the full name in Oxford, says that a herquitic is every conversation with my ex-wife. I love that. And then Samantha in Oxford says, the silent prayer you utter every time the PM

announces another policy for growth. Oh, well, I like that one. Shall I give you the real definition, then we can choose the winner. The real definition of a herquitic is, it's not defined as such in the 17th century dictionary, but this is the essence of it, a horny teenager. Well, I think that should get the prize. I think that's the best definition. You think the 17th century glossary should get the definition? Yeah, I think so. Should get the prize. We need to give it to someone here. So I think, should it be every conversation with my ex-wife?

Yes, because clearly there's been a lot of suffering to get that on both sides. Okay, yes, let's do that. So that was from P though. You're going to have to go up to the box office and announce yourself. Can I ask you about P briefly? With a word like psalm, why is the P silent? We did used to pronounce it. The P-s combination is always found in Greek, so you'll find psalter as well, s-a-l-t-e-r, but it was pronounced much like the k in knife and knitting and things. Yeah, but because of the way that we

struggle with some sound combinations, we tend to drop what doesn't sound natural. I always like that phrase, the P is silent, as in swimming pool. Swimming pool. Okay, last one, backspang. Okay, backspang. This is a weird one. So from Siobhan in Steeple, Claydon, we have the noise that people over the age of 40 make when getting off the sofa. Love that.

Oh, that's good. That's brilliant. Roderick in Warwick says a sense of dread and shame prompted by accidentally seeing one's rear view in a mirror. Oh, that's brilliant. The back's bang. Yeah, that's fantastic. These are all really, okay, I'm not sure about this one. Tom in Blaydon, a victory slap upon completion of all fours copulation.

What? Okay. Moving swiftly on. Okay. So you've got that one. The noise that people at the age of 40 make when getting off the sofa or a sense of dread and shame by accidentally, when you accidentally see your rear view in a mirror. They're all rather good to be honest. the naughty one is quite clever yes but the rear view mirror is the one that's too close i think that's brilliant that's from roderick in warwick thank you roderick that was really good it's actually much more boring a backspang is a loophole that allows you to renege on a deal yeah strange but from now on it's going to be when you find yourself idio-repulsive,

which is when you look at yourself in the mirror and you think, ugh, idio-repulsive. That's my trio. Do you have a poem for us today? I'm going to conclude by reading you a famous poem from a famous book, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. And this is the poem that introduces more new words to the English language than any other poem written in the history of the English language. Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did guard and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borrow goves, and the moam raths outgrabe. Beware the jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch.

Beware the jub-jub bird, and shun the frumious bandersnatch. He took his vorpal sword in hand, long time the manxum foe he sought, so rested he by the tum-tum tree, and stood a while in thought. And as in offish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood and burbled as it came, one-two, one-two, and through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack. He left it dead, and with its head he went

galumphing back. And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy. O, frabjous day, kaloo, kalay! He chortled in his joy. T'was brillig, and the slithy toves Did guard and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the boroghoves,

And the moam-wr-rats outgrabe. Oh, I love that. So, just very quickly, Chortle chuckle and snort, that's his portmanteau, and Galump is gallop and triumph. It's wonderful. It's absolutely brilliant. If ever you think of a subject you'd like us to talk about on Something Lines with Purple, do send us an email.

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And feel free to recommend us to friends and family because we'd really like the Purple family to grow. Something Rhymes with Purple. Is there Something Else? and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Produced by Sophie King and Harriet Wells, alongside Sam Hodges and Andrew Quick from Tilted for the live shows. Additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Teddy Riley and...

Kelly! Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much indeed.