Something Rhymes with Purple - Murdre

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Join Susuie and Gyles this week as they unravel the linguistic roots behind murder. From the ancient origins of 'homicide' to the sinister evolution of 'assassination', we uncover the words we use to describe humanity's darkest deeds. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Suasible: Susceptible to persuasion. Rannygazoo: Nonsense. Fudgel: To make a big show of working whilst doing nothing at all. Gyles' poem this week was 'The Stern Parent' by Harry Graham Father heard his Children scream, So he threw them in the stream, Saying, as he drowned the third, "Children should be seen, not heard!" A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast where Susie Dent and I talk about all things to do with words and language, particularly the origins of words. Susie knows everything. I know nothing. You know everyone? I don't know. Well, yes, maybe I do know everyone.

And in fact, let me name drop right from the beginning, because today's theme is inspired by, well, something that's happened to me in part this week and is over some of the newspapers today on the day we record this. The reason I was a moment or two late, Susie, coming into our home studios to make this episode of Something Rises Purple is I've been fielding calls from the Daily Mail, The Sun. If you're listening to this internationally, these are newspapers in this country that seem to like gossip. And they picked up on a conversation I had this week with the great John Cleese. Now, Susie, have you met John Cleese? I have never met John Cleese.

He is one of my comedy heroes, partly because of Monty Python, which is probably before your time. Oh, not at all. Really? No, not at all. Oh, yeah. Not so little either. No, Monty Python, I mean, you know, who doesn't like Monty Python? Yeah, hilarious, surreal comedy.

And then Fawlty Towers, which was only about, I think, 24, 26 episodes. And yet, for me, it's one of the great comic creations of all time. And the John Cleese character, Basil Fawlty, is just a nightmare, but it's a nightmare that makes you laugh. Okay? So, I was with John Cleese this week, and he was telling the story of how he had made a film called A Fish Called Wanda. Yeah. Remember this film? Yes.

In which there is a kind of suppressed hysteria. And somebody… This is Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah. And I think Kevin Kline is in the film as well. Okay. Anyway, John Cleese told me the story of how somebody watching this film had laughed so much during the first 18 minutes of it

that they actually died. They had a heart attack and died watching them, but at least they died laughing. And then he said, and Kevin Kline said, oh yeah, which scene was it? Which scene did he die in? Hoping it wasn't one of John Cleese's scenes, I suppose. Hoping it was one of his own.

Anyway, this prompted me to say, oh, well, so you've killed a man and then to tell the story of how i felt guilty because i i thought possibly i had killed uh rod hull of emu fame did you ever meet rod hull you know i have to i do know and i have to say i wasn't a huge fan just be i think do you remember when he attacked Michael Parkinson I do I just it was just all a bit too

I just felt it was just like a one trick pony I'm so sorry it was a one trick emu it was a one trick emu and I'm so sorry because I know

I will be offending a lot of people who absolutely adore it I just I didn't quite get it look different people enjoy different things just as some people

thought Buster Keaton was hilarious and Charlie Chaplin wasn't and the other other way around. You know, when it comes to humour, not everybody's to everybody's taste. Though I think everybody would agree that Forty Towers was extraordinary. I agree. And just before you get on to Rod Hull, surely there was reference made to the funniest joke in the world in Monty Python, which if anybody hears it, they instantly die. Do you remember this? Now, this does ring a distant bell. Oh. Well, what was the joke? I mean, maybe you shouldn't tell us. No, we never find out. We never find out. Oh, you never find out. It's too dangerous to find out. Exactly. And, oh, it's absolutely brilliant. It's a brilliant sketch. So, it's almost, yes, it's almost reenacting naturally. Well, I then told John Cleese how I'd gone to the theatre with Rod Hull 20 or more years ago,

whenever it was that he died. We'd gone to the theatre together on a Tuesday night. It was the first night of a show called Animal Crackers, which was a celebration of the Marx Brothers. It was very funny. But Rod Hull wasn't in a good mood. And he kept banging on about how next night he wanted to watch the football. But at home, his television wasn't working. He was on the blink. He couldn't get a signal. The aerial was sort of all skew whiff.

He was, I said, why are you making all this fuss, Rod? Just go home and sort out the aerial. And he was still banging on about this when the show ended. So I remember standing in Shaftesbury Avenue. And it was raining out the aerial. And he was still banging on about this when the show ended. So I remember standing in Shaftesbury Avenue, and it was raining after the show, saying to him, look, Rod, go home, get out a stepladder, get on that roof, fix that aerial.

Sort it, Rod, sort it. Well, the next thing I knew, I read in the newspaper the following day, or in fact, I heard on the radio, Rod Hull had gone home, got out the ladder, climbed onto the roof, tried to fix the aerial, and fallen off the roof. No. Yes. So I do feel a twinge of guilt that I'd encouraged him to, but I think I would have said if I'd been there, this is not the night for doing this. Yes. Because it was a dark and stormy night. And the truth is, if you're going to fix the aerial, do it in the daytime on a clear day.

And maybe don't do it yourself. Maybe get the professionals in. So I felt guilty about that. And I confess this to John Cleese. And of course, you can't say anything. This happened to you the other day. You also want to, this happened on my Rosebud podcast, but you were on somebody's podcast. on my Rosebud podcast, but you were on somebody's podcast and you, as a joke, didn't you, said that,

oh, when you died, you hoped to go in a bath? What would you explain what you said? No, no, no. This was the most brilliant podcast called Where There's a Will, There's a Wake, with the wonderful Kathy Burke, which, of course, is a comedy podcast. Kathy is a comedian. And the idea is that you plan your own funeral. And I think, to be fair, some of the guests have come on and it's been quite touching. I decided not to treat it hugely seriously, nor did I prepare. So when Cathy asked me, tell us about your coffin, and also tell us about your pallbearers, I chose the comedians from 8 Out of 10 Cats Just Countdown. And I said said of course my wicker coffin will be extremely heavy because i want to be buried with um 20 volumes of the oed

and we had a laugh very funny idea that was then repeated in almost every paper across the country as a serious request and it was often accompanied by quotes from funeral directors saying how tired sick and tired they were of people making complicated burial requests. And yeah, so it is amazing how these things have taken on a life of their own. And your intention at the beginning is completely misconstrued. Well, there you are. And if people do listen to this Rosebud podcast with John, please, they will see that we were being larky and amusing. And though I told the story with a smile, of course, I regret the passing of the great Rod Hull and Emu, who I did find quite amusing. I know you didn't, but I did.

So, oh my goodness. So the papers are now full of the fact that you committed manslaughter. I killed Rod Hull and I'm feeling guilty about it. Well, I didn't kill him, but I did encourage him to climb up from the roof i must admit that i do feel guilty about that um anyway that's the way these stories run and but i'm i have not committed this is going to go in your wikipedia page well that'll be the headline you know when i go my obituary will be the man who killed Rod Hull dies. Oh, my goodness. Just desserts. Oh. But anyway, this takes us on to what we're going to talk about this week, which is manslaughter.

Manslaughter. On the side. Murder. It's quite a big year for, well, for me regarding murder as well, because I have a murder mystery coming out. And you have many murder mysteries to your name. Well, I have written actually nine murder mysteries, but seven in the same series that are Victorian murder mysteries, featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, and their circle is My Detectives. And in fact, I'm excited. I think next year, they're all going to be reissued with new

covers. Oh, lovely. And there's a love. This is the reason that your publisher i'm sure asked you is that people enjoy a traditional murder mystery is your one going to be traditional oh is it traditional i'd say it's not so much a murder mystery as a mystery that might possibly involve a death um and it is based inevitably in a world that I know. So, it is based in the dictionary world. It is based in Oxford, where I live. And I took places whose bones I know and have become familiar with over the years. And as I say, yeah, I was looking at the secret lives of lexicographers as well as the secret lives of words. You shared the title with me and I thought it was so brilliant. Is it in the public domain yet? Can you tell people what it's called? Yes, this is the thing I'm most proud

of, actually. So forget the book. I quite like the title. That's the one thing that I'm really proud of. Guilty by Definition. Oh, that's ingenious. I like that. Guilty by Definition by Susanna Dent. Buy now. Pre-order now. Oh, I hate that phrase, pre-ordering. Either you're ordering or you're not ordering. Yes, I agree. How could you pre-order? Now, the kind of mystery you have written, and indeed, in a way, the kind of mystery I've written, is yours contemporary? Is it set in the modern world? Ish, yes. It's set in the modern world but it has many um a foundation in the past oh well my murder mysteries are mostly the ones the oscar wilde ones are set in the 1880s 1890s yeah but people often talk about the golden age of detective fiction which i think is predominantly

in the 1920s and 1930s how long has that phrase been going the golden age of detective fiction i don't know actually i looked it up um in the oed and it's not there as a set phrase but you're right i think in terms of the public imagination this was um the time when um it really kind of took off didn't it the who done it um now who done it is in the dictionary and I can tell you by a few clicks of the fingers. Whodunit, in the sense of who came up with the phrase whodunit? When that one came out, yeah. So 1930 is the first reference that we have so far. It might well be antedated.

And it is in relation to a murder by someone called Millwood Kennedy, half-masked murder. So 1930 then. So yeah, we're just at the tail end of this golden age. And somebody described the story as a whodunit. Was it the blurb writers or was it this manual? It was a review. It was a book review. Yes. Yes, it was. I think people think of the golden age as involving people like, people think of the golden age as involving people like of course agatha christie the supreme queen of crime nao marsh maybe dorothy l sayers yes people of that kind uh cecil day lewis and writing under the name nicholas blake these are people who wrote these kinds of murder mysteries are they the kind of i mean maybe now think of them as cozy murder mysteries are they the kind of murder mysteries you enjoy reading do you read murder mysteries you enjoy reading? Do you read murder mysteries? I do quite like murder mysteries

and I like thrillers as well as films. It's not so much the kind of the gore and the violence, it's the sort of computation, isn't it? It's trying to emulate Poirot or Miss Marple or whoever. Poirot or Miss Marple or whoever. I also love, love the BBC dramatizations of all of these. So if I ever want to relax, fall asleep, whatever, I will try and find one of those. And, you know, especially the multi-voice versions rather than the narrated ones. I love those. Do you know of a writer called C.J. Sampson? Yes. Who sadly just died. Died the other day.

But I think wrote historical murder mysteries with a little bit of... He did, he did. And I think his main character, Shardlake, actually, is, well, I think he now features in a detective series, which is on TV. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah.

And I knew a mystery writer who'd actually committed a murder oh who's that i'm trying yes a very rather distinguished lady and when i heard we went on a book tour together um and this was turned into a film i mean not not us going on the tour together she's called anne perry and she was a best-selling, British. I think she wrote a hundred more mystery novels. And when she was a teenager, I mean, years before writing her first book, she was found guilty of murder. And she and a friend of hers, they murdered the friend's mother. And I didn't know this. And I went on a book tour in France with one of my, the French versions of one of my murder mysteries. And we were down in Lyon.

And just as we were going to bed, or we'd gone to bed, she'd gone to her room, the publicist for the tour, a French woman, said, for the tour, a French woman said, you know that Madame Perry, elle a fait un meurtre sa main lui-même. C'est vrai, elle-même. She said, what do you mean? She's a meurtre. She was convicted of murder.

And I'd arranged to have breakfast with Anne Perry. So the following morning, we met at breakfast. And I didn't know the background. I didn't know how far before this had been. And I sat at breakfast really quite nervously, keeping an eye on my cup of tea because she was going to drop some poison in it. And when she reached for her knife to butter her toast, like that, she just stabbed me.

She was a delightful person. And this had happened. I mean, it's completely wrong, of course. We are not condoning murder. This happened when she was a teenager. and this was 40 or 50 years later. But it's a bit disconcerting to meet a murderer, isn't it? Well, certainly. And I have to say that there are many contributors.

Well, I say many. There are a handful of contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary who were murderers. Dictionary, who were murderers. Most famously, a man called William Minor, who was immortalized in Simon Winchester's book, The Surgeon of Crowthorne, which was made into a film actually, who was an army surgeon. And during the American Civil War, or at least after that, he, I think nowadays would have been diagnosed with PTSD, but he shot a man who he believed had broken into his room thanks to delusions that he was having. And so he was committed to a British psychiatric hospital and there became a hugely important contributor to the OED. So, you know, there are many, many definitions and entries in that great dictionary that are

down to him. What was that film called you mentioned? I can't remember what the film was called. So the book was called The Surgeon of Crowthorne. And I can find out for you because it was Mel Gibson and Sean Penn, if I remember rightly. The Professor and the Madman, it was called. Very good. Yes.

Well, the film I mentioned telling the story of Anne Perry and the murder that she committed, and indeed that she was, had been a murderer, wasn't known until the film, I think, was released, was the film called Heavenly Creatures, which came out in the 1990s. Oh, yes, it was Kate Winslet. That was such a good film.

Yes, Kate Winslet played the part of Anne Perry. Such a good film. Ah. And, yeah. That was an amazing film. I absolutely good film. Ah. And, yeah. That was an amazing film. I absolutely loved that. And very atmospheric, actually. Oh, well.

It was a brilliant film. Definitely worth watching. I've never seen it. It's definitely worth watching. I was lucky enough to know Anne Perry, and I liked her. I have a feeling she'd become a Mormon. I may have got that wrong, but I have a feeling she did. Now, look, murder.

We're talking about murder. Where does the word murder come from? Well, that's a very good question. So ultimately, it goes back to a really, really old ancient root, meaning to harm or to rub away, as if you were literally obliterating or erasing somebody from life. But it came to us from French, I think, but it was also there in Old English. And it's had various definitions over time. So for the Vikings, their custom distinguished secret slaughter, which was mord, from vig, which was slaying. So secret slaughter was the killing of someone by night or when they were asleep, for example, and that was regarded as a heinous crime. Whereas if you slayed somebody because they had committed some sort of

offence against you or your family, and you acknowledged that deed, then that was okay. You might have to pay a bit of compensation, but actually it was considered lawful. So those distinctions also came into English for a little while. So we had secret murder, and then we had the kind of open homicide. And even under Edward I, apparently, murder was only a felonious homicide, which it was called, rather than one in which, you know, there was a kind of open vengeance or killing for person for revenge. I'm intrigued that homicide is such an old word, because I think of homicide as an American term. People, you know, they talk American murder mysteries, they have homicides. You never had them in British English stories, do you?

Homicides. No. And it's a very umbrella term, really, for the killing of another human being. Because it simply comes as in suicide is killing yourself. Homicide is killing one individual. Genocide is killing lots of people. Exactly. It's the same idea.

It's the hom. But we didn't take it from U.S. English. We took it from French. Hom, in the early 13th century. And actually, it goes back to the Romans. So, as you say, from Latin. So, sidium means killing, and you'll find it, as you say, in lots of different words. And then homo meaning a man. So, those are both old words. Is manslaughter old as well? Manslaughter, old as well?

So, manslaughter is, it's that slaughter for me always sounds like it's rooted in the language of Old North, which was the Vikings. But manslaughter, I'm just going to tell you when that one first came up. 1325, so around the same time. So, it was used in distinction or contradistinction to murder. And in sort of modern law, it's when one person causes the death of someone unintentionally. I wouldn't say this is what happened with Rod Hull. But as a consequence, usually of culpable negligence, as they say, or it's because they do so intentionally, but they're provoked or they're suffering from diminished responsibility, etc. But yeah, 1325 is the first date that we have that. And I'm just going to check, because I know in German, Schlachter is slaughter. So it's possibly, it's a Germanic word. No, it is actually Old Norse. It did originate, I suppose, quite fittingly, given the fury with which they arrived on English

shores. It does come from the Vikings. Where are you on a word like that being modified to person slaughter nowadays? I've never actually heard that. So, is that an official term in law now? No, I don't think it is. I'm just wondering because there's a move in general things. You don't talk about mankind any longer. You talk about humankind. Yes. Yes, and I absolutely understand that, because the way that language has evolved is to interpret man, inevitably, as a male person. But actually, when it began, it simply meant a human being. So you will find in German, much as we might say in English, oh, one has to say that when one is in a difficult situation. The German equivalent of that is man. Man muss das sagen, for example. So you had a man, you had a wehrman, W-E-R, which was the

male prefix. So a wehrwolf is a man-wolf. And then for a woman, you had a weef-man because wife actually originally meant woman. That's another one that's really changed. And that was how we distinguished. But over time, man favoured the male, which so often happens, and it moved on to that side. So when people think that woman is actually etymologically a simple appendage of the female to a man, that's not actually the way it worked. It was wiefmanta, it was a female person. Kill. Now that's such a strong, sharp, hard word, kill. What is the origin of the word kill? Yes, well, there are lots of relatives in lots of different languages, including Old Norse again,, language of the Vikings, but we have it in German as well. In fact, it's related to a

German word, kvielen, which means to torment or to torture. But it began in English with an old English word, kvielen, which is very similar to that kvielen, to kill or murder or execute. So, very old and has been around for quite a long time. But interestingly, it didn't mean to deprive of life until around 1300. Before then, it meant to hit or to beat someone. So it was still pretty violent, but not fatally so. Let's take a quick break and then I want you to reveal to me what would be your preferred choice of murder weapon. How would you, Susie Dent, commit murder? 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, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts.

They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And this is Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect.

We are a new show breaking down the anime news, views, and shows you care about each and every week. I can't think of a better studio to bring something like this to life. We're covering all the classics. I don't know a lot about Godzilla, which I do, but I'm trying to pretend that I don't. Hold it in.

And our current faves. Luffy must have his due. Tune in every week for the latest anime updates and possibly a few debates. I remember, what was that? Say what you're gonna say and I'll circle back. You can listen to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.

And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. This is something rhymes with purple, where today we have murder in mind, but in quite a jocular way, because we're talking about the origins of words to do, particularly with murder mysteries. And as I remember, Agatha Christie, seen as, in fact, undoubtedly the best-selling murder mystery writer in the history of writing, preferred poison. She had worked in a lab or as a chemist, hadn't she, when she was young? Anyway, poison was her preferred method of murder. If you were actually going to murder somebody, Susie, what would you do? How would you do it?

This is such a leading question. Do you know what? Despite the fact that I've written a murder mystery, I've never actually thought how I would do it. And I don't have anything ingenious to say. You should be saying, I'd clobber them over the head with my 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary. No, because that will be in the papers tomorrow. Well, that's all we want. If I do say that. Susie Dent, planning murder with dictionaries. How about you? What would your choice be? Well, I was lucky enough to know the writer Phyllis James, P.D. James.

Ah, yes. Who wrote a wonderful series of murder mysteries. And she was also a very sparkly, interesting lady. And I did ask her about how to commit the perfect murder. And she said, it's very simple. We're very lucky in England because we can go to Beachy Head on the south coast. And she said, it's very simple. We're very lucky in England because we can go to Beachy Head on the South Coast. And if you go to Beachy Head and you take your intended victim for a walk on Beachy Head and you make sure you are not observed, all you need to do is when nobody else, when you're sure you're not being observed, just sharply push them over the edge of Beachy Head and nobody will have seen you and there will be no

evidence and it's as simple as that oh good grief you say simple though i think if you were to try and push a sort of fairly sturdy human being there would be resistance in which case it would be disaster there would be resistance but you take them in this, for this to work, it mustn't be someone who knows you're about to murder them. No, no, but I'd have to take a run up to it. Oh, no. I don't think just doing like that. You're on the edge of beachy head. You'd have to really, really inspire them to go right to the edge, and then you risk falling over with them.

I know, there are flaws in this. I think there are flaws in this i think there are flaws in this yes i've always felt it would work rather well because when you're not expecting it even a small sharp uh can get them over the edge that would be your method well i mean i love the roald dahl one do you remember that the famous one where oh the lamb the lamb oh my does he beat them over the head with the with lamb? It was so clever. Then eats the weapon. Yes.

It's ingenious, though, isn't it? It is absolutely ingenious. Yeah. Those tales of the unexpected, I used to absolutely love them. I mentioned poison. Poison, poisson, fish. I mean, they're not related in any way. Where does the word poison come from?

And how come it's a noun and a verb at the same time? I mean, they're not related in any way. Where does the word poison come from? And how come it's a noun and a verb at the same time? Well, simply because so many of our nouns become verbs, as you know. Oh, like to medal. You give somebody a medal at an Olympic ceremony and they've medaled. Well, just in lots of different ways.

You know, we thumb through our dictionaries, we toe the line, we impact something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and Shakespeare, as as we know was a terrific verba but um yeah poison is an interesting one actually because originally it meant a potion particularly a magic potion so it could be a medicinal one in a very benevolent way rather than a malevolent way but and later it came to mean a poisonous drink. But it all goes back to a Latin word, potio, meaning a drink. Potare was literally to drink something. And it's funny because the English word virus actually began in much the same way, because virus in Latin meant poisonous venom or something that was really sort of malignant and malevolent

and also interesting while we're on poison before the word spider came along which is probably from an old english root meaning to spin we called them atta cops and atta was a different old english word meaning poison and cop meaning the head. So an attacop was a poison head because it was once believed that spiders were incredibly poisonous. Look, there will be listeners who have planned murder for years and have not been able to commit the murder yet, but would like to commit their thoughts about murder to paper. So if you want to send us an email about your preferred method of murder. Oh, yeah, well, you can include them in our next stories.

Yep, we can, can't we? It'd be quite fun. And if there are any words that you'd like Susie to try to explain to you, do let us know. Have we heard from good people this week? Oh, we have. We have, as always, had some brilliant voice notes and emails in. So for the first, it comes from Sarah Grimes, who is an Australian living in Geneva. Hello, I'm an expat in Switzerland and I've been hooked on listening to your podcast on weekends since I discovered it. I'm curious about backslang, which I understand to be coded language spoken by English butchers.

My grandfather and his brothers were butchers in London from the 1920s through until the 1990s, when the youngest brother retired. My grandmother and grandfather met in a butcher shop when my grandmother was the cashier. They married once my grandfather owned his own shop in Wimbledon. Once my father was an adult, he also worked in the family shop. My grandparents and father used to speak a back slang. And from what I can recall, it is something that my grandfather and grandmother were initially taught in the 1920s when working in the butcher's shop. I also seem to recall that it was a coded language spoken to the other butchers in front

of customers so that customers didn't know what was being said. Essentially, it was the word spelt backwards and they would talk to each other when wanting to indicate, for example, that the customer is a nice person or not a nice person or to give a good piece of meat or not to the customer. Bear in mind that these were family shops, pre-supermarkets, so customers were regular, loyal and well-known amongst the neighbourhood. Naughty children entering the shop or people trying to shoplift could be spotted easily and communication between the butchers in backslang was also useful to stop theft. My grandparents and father have all passed away

and I wished that I had paid more attention when they used to speak about or actually speak backslang, which is coded deliberately in front of us children. Would you know anything about it or could you perhaps have an episode that covers the words of backslang, please? Thank you so much. It's Sarah Grimes. I'm an Australian living in Geneva. Well, what do you think? What an interesting subject, interesting question. I know. And what a story. It's lovely to hear that. Yes, I can tell you a little bit about it because when I wrote my book, if you remember, on different groups of people, so, you know, different tribes, as I called them, and it was about the secret languages of

Britain and actually there was none more secret than this butchers speak. Pig Latin is almost another word for it appropriately enough given it's butchers. It is a type of backslang which is Sarah is absolutely right and one of the first people to talk about backslang amongst butchers and the costumongers of London was John Camden Houghton. He wrote that the new dead meat market is strongest in the way of pure backslang. And it's a really complicated business. So words aren't just spelled backwards, although they frequently are, as Sarah's pointed out, but extra syllables are tagged on and letters are jumbled up. It's like a sort of giant anagram game in some ways. So you will have Yenom for money, Dabtros for a bad sort, which is quite often a customer. You'll have Kul the Delo Namo, meaning look at the old woman and secretly conveying the fact that she's really

irritating. Phil Heath, which was a thief. Helbat was a table, including the shambles, the bloody tables of the butchers, and all of this. And there are still some butchers who use the code, and it for them often goes by the name of Rechdubklat, Rechdubklat, butcher talk reversed. And there are some butchers who still use it because it's been passed down by often their fathers or grandfathers or, you know, grandmothers and mothers who worked in the shop before them or still own the shop. who worked in the shop before them still own the shop. And it is fascinating because very often I spoke to people who literally would go home to learn some stuff so that they could then bring it in and talk to their colleagues about it the next day.

And it can either be a euphemism for swearing. So you might say keikafu for F off. Hutraft means who farted and so on and so on. So, yeah, so it really does still exist. And it's one of those secret languages that, as I say, is still spoken, not up and down the land. I think it's probably quite rare now, sadly, but it is still just surviving. Very interesting. And thank you, Sarah Grimes, an Australian living in Geneva, who clearly once lived in London and in Wimbledon too.

Marvelous. We've had a voice note. Let's listen to that one. Dear Susie and Giles, at risk of being called a pedant, I'm writing sadly to lament the passing of two useful words that nowadays seem rarely heard. For when you wish to speculate, or even to anticipate, likely alone serves to ensure a meaning needlessly obscured. How likely? Is it more or less? That's all I'm seeking to address. With likely this and likely that, it makes me want to kick the cat.

I worry that my small campaign is destined to be all in vain. An outcome that I feared was possible seems better now described as probable. It's not up to Giles' standards, but it's doggerel penned with feeling nonetheless. When did people stop using probably and possibly and lazily use likely as an adverb instead? It's much less precise and much less elegant. It's almost as irritating as the civil servants and politicians who claim to be acting at pace. What pace? Fast, medium, slow, or in all probability, glacial? Very much enjoying your conversations. Best wishes, Peter Dawson. Well, I'm very much enjoying your doggerel, Peter, and also the very good point that you make. What's your response to that, Susie?

Well, I can understand that it's annoying, and I'm going to be even more annoying, I think, to you and to Peter, Giles, because I'm going to come out with my, well, do you know what? It's not actually very new. So, I looked it up in the OED and the first uses of likely to mean probably in all probability is from 1395. No. Yes. We have been doing this for a very long time. So, I'll give you some examples. Let me see. This is in 1579. His life by quietness in his college should likely have been prolonged. In 1540, there's another one. He will most likely be lost, and so on and so on. So many similar uses of likely as an adverb. And perhaps what's happening is it's being used in such proliferation that actually it's becoming really annoying, much like like as a filler. Because if you remember, Giles, that I didn't date back, but the OED dates back to 1778. So that too has been around for a long

time, but this is even longer. But perhaps we're using it so much that it's beginning to grate on the nerves, certainly on Peter's. So if people want to get in touch, either with their own doggrel or with questions for you or even me, what's the address? The address is purplepeople, all one word, at somethingrhymes.com. Please keep in touch. And Susie, please keep giving us three interesting words to roll around our tongues each week. What have you got for us today? roll around our tongues each week. What have you got for us today? Well, hopefully we have not today been talking a lot of ranigazoo. Ranigazoo, one of many, many, many, many words in English meaning utter nonsense.

So it's spelled R-A-N-N-Y-G-A-Z-O-O. I think it's probably pretty fanciful and onomatopoeic, but I just love the sound of it. It's called ranigazoo. Then this is a word that seemed to strike a chord with many when I put it on social media this week. It is to fudgel, which you will find in the English dialect dictionary, the great English dialect dictionary. And to fudgel is to make a really big show of working, you know, to sort of make a very big performance about working hard whilst you're actually doing nothing at all, which is dangerous, to say the least. And I don't know if this has got a slight murderous edge to it, but if you were really susceptible to persuasion, perhaps to take the poisoned cup that Giles was talking about, you are swasible or swasible.

So S-U-A-S-I-B-L-E, which is highly susceptible to persuasion. Swasible. I'm pretty swasible, actually. I always agree with the last person I met. I'm very easily swasible. Yes, I know what you mean. If someone expresses an opinion or throws doubt on something, even if 100 people before have not, that's the one that you listen to. So I know what you mean. Strange.

Well, murder has been in the air, and I felt we needed a short, sharp poem this week. So I turned to Harry Graham, who did several collections of ruthless rhymes. several collections of ruthless rhymes. Born 1874, died 1936, and, well, most of his poems are short, sharp, and shocking. This is one of them. Father heard his children scream, so he threw them in the stream, saying, as he drowned the third, children shall be seen, not heard. That is very dark. Very dark indeed. And I think we've slightly made light of obviously a tricky subject, but linguistically it's quite a productive one. Thank you so much for your company and for listening to us and for following us wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget, you can find us on social media at Something Rhymes on X and Facebook, or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production

produced by Nayadeo, with additional production from Dom Tyerman, Jennifer Mystery, Mathias Torres-Sole, and Ollie Wilson. No Rani Gazoo he. It's definitely fudgling a bit, though.