Something Rhymes with Purple - Nemophilism

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

This week we’re going al fresco and kicking the leaves on an autumnal walk through the woods. We discuss the difference between woods and forests and the connection between forests and foreigners. 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. 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.

Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. I'm sitting in my sitting room opposite the lovely, wonderful, erudite and charming... Oh no, it's actually not him. It's Giles Brandreth. Hi, Giles. Susie, it's lovely to be here. It's a little bit chilly, to be honest. Thank you for lending me the jamba that I'm wearing. The wind is whistling down your chimney.

It is. It's a very blustery day here in Oxford. But, yeah, I would like to fire, but I'm not sure that would go down very well with our producers, the noise of that crackling in the fireplace. The wind, we could be doing this al fresco. What's the origin of al fresco?

Al fresco in the freshness from outside, in other words, obviously from Italian. A bit of a modern riff on that, which is if you eat lunch at your desk in front of your computer, you are eating al fresco. Very good. But no, al fresco very good but no we are alfresco is really relevant actually because we are here today to talk about the language of nature one of my absolute favorite subjects um the vocabulary of nature just i feel is kind of ebbing away slightly and it needs to be uh pulled back particularly for our kids and there's been

so much debate about it recently which we'll come to in terms of, you know, the vocabulary of nature dropping out of junior dictionaries and whether or not that's a good thing. But hopefully we will touch on some of the beautiful, resonant, evocative vocabulary that we have. So you're taking us for a walk in the woods. I am. Are you a wood lover? I was brought up in a town.

I'm happy. I'm a townie. Occasionally I've been to the country, not for very long. I like the idea of going into a wood if there are bluebells there. Ah, beautiful. But that's about it. You're an urbanite. You are urbane. I can't see the wood for the trees.

What's the origin of that? Can't see the wood for the trees. Oh, gosh, that I think has been in English for quite a long time. And the idea is obviously that you can't see the whole picture because there are, you can't see the whole forest or the whole wood because of the trees that are standing in the way. Personally, I love trees. There is a word for a lover of trees and a lover of woods and forests. A lover of trees is a dendrophile and a lover of forests is a pneumophilist.

Isn't that beautiful? What's the difference between a wood and a forest do you know i'm actually genuinely not sure i just imagine that a forest is much denser and larger um if you want the official dictionary definition i can give it to you it's not something i've ever pondered before do you know that's what i love about my job is that every single day there will be at least questions where i think i really should know the answer to that. And I don't. Okay, so wood originally meant, it comes from German, and it meant a tree. And then it was applied to a kind of collective, a collection of trees and a grove or a cop.

So it's always been slightly smaller. French gave us forest from their fire. So that would have come over after 1066 with the Normans. And it's an extensive tract of land. So I think it is all about size as ever yeah all comes back down to size but actually that forest um I would just throw in here um ultimately goes back to the Latin as so many French words do um forest meaning out of doors and that idea of being outside gave us foreigner as well. Foreigner goes back to that same root.

Forest and foreigner have the same root? Yes. Meaning? A foreigner is somebody who's sort of other. And so outside the kind of general community, they are strangers. And a forest is? A forest just goes back to that Latin for outdoors or outside. Gosh.

Yeah. You'll be excited to know that in a newspaper this week, we have been described something rhymes with purple our podcast as a trailblazing podcast really yeah which is i think rather flattering and exciting and delightful and they particularly like you it must be said but i got a bit of a mention too but i was then intrigued by the phrase trailblazing what's the origin of that oh i love i love the story behind this because as you know i'm a great advocate of american english um which is not a new infestation there are some things i don't like but some things i absolutely adore and trailblazing goes back to

the early settlers so the the people who set sail on the mayflower or just after and um had to mark out their own settlements literally go through the woods in order to find areas where they could set up habitations. So my neck of the woods goes back to those very early days where presumably they described the land that they settled on according to its shape. And it looked like an animal's neck. So they called it my neck of the woods. They also used to go through the forest and they would chip off a bit of bark from the trees in order to show the trail that they were taking so that others could follow and find them and so they were literally those were called blazes because they shone brightly um so those exposed bits of flesh on the bark of a tree were the blazes that would then show you the trail so that was they were the first trail blazers so on a a horse's snout is the blaze,

the white thing on the front of a horse. Yeah, and a blazer used to be incredibly white and the very first blazers were very brightly coloured. So it's not the same as a blazing fire. Yeah, I think the idea is shining brightly. So a blaze in the wood, they would create a blaze on a tree and that would show you where the trail led. Yeah, and then you could follow it.

A trail blazer, how marvellous. Did you mention the word nemophilus? Yes, a lover of woods and forests. And what's the origin of that? That is, in Latin, nemos means no one. So finding Nemo, I don't know if the filmmakers meant that as a pun on, you know, Nemo meaning nothing or nobody. But Nemos in Greek means woodland.

So they took it from the Greek. And philo meaning loving is, of course, from the Greek as well. So it's nothing to do with nothing. It's to do with wood. It's nothing to do with nothing and everything to do with beautiful trees. Am I right that by hook or by crook has got some kind of forest connection? It does, yes. So when William the Conqueror came over after 1066, he established the feudal system, which a lot of people will know about.

So he confiscated the holdings of existing Saxon landowners, and then he distributed them amongst his Norman barons etc and he granted them tracts of land etc and then those tracts of land will be divided up into various holdings and by hook or by crook is intimately linked to that because the forest that belonged to a manor would then be set aside for the lords or the barons hunting and the sort of humble peasants which was neutral term in those days were forbidden any activity there including there was no no hunting nothing really but there was an exception and that was for the gathering of firewood and they could basically gather deadwood that had fallen from the trees or wherever there were sort of small branches hanging low they could lop them either with hooked poles

or they could pull them down with the hooked poles, I suppose, and then lop them with their sickles, which were their crooks. And so by hook or by crook was an entitlement granted to peasants that they could collect firewood by those means. And it then eventually morphed into something by any means possible, by hook or by crook, I will get there. And this goes back to the time of William the the conqueror more than a thousand years yeah but you'll find like sort of in devon that the bodmin register of 1525 tells us that the dinmuir wood

was ever open and common to the inhabitants of bodmin to bear away on their backs the burden of lock crop hook crook and bag wood how marvelous greatvellous. It's great, isn't it? And how do, in the wood, we have trees, the origin of the word tree? Is that interesting? Tree is really interesting because tree is probably etymologically linked to true with the idea of loyalty and steadfastness. So, you know, steadfast is an oak tree, which is great. So we think they share the same root. I mean, mean obviously there's

so much in language that goes back to this idea of trees and um that's what i mean yeah it's it's great i love it in the branches um of language as well we talk about the various branches that came from those sort of ancient languages um originally thousands of years ago so yeah we talk a lot in terms of trees which i which i love in fact there's been a really interesting debate now about how the vocabulary of the natural world has become really business-like and you know george monbiot who's a big environmental campaigning campaigner he's um you know he he says that we should talk about not the environment but we should talk about our natural world because the environment itself is quite kind of clinical.

You've got sites of special scientific interest, which doesn't really inspire wonder. It should be sites of natural wonder. And I think he's really right. I totally agree with him on this. I think, you know, we are we are kind of sanitizing our vocabulary, the natural world. sanitising our vocabulary of the natural world. And I mentioned that big debate at the beginning as to whether dictionaries should still include words like bluebell and oak tree and copse and that kind of thing, when in fact they're not really being used by kids. The issue here is that I think people who produce some publishers of children's dictionaries, quite a limited number

of words they can include, and therefore they need to include the words that children are using and might be needing to look up. And children are not needing to look up, as you say, blueberry or dandelion or some of these words. In fact, they're looking up blackberry, but in the sense of a handheld device rather than the fruit. And they are the opposite argument. And it's an age old debate. And it's really, really hard to kind of choose right or wrong out of this because the other argument is that dictionaries, given that we have no academy in English, have a role in teaching and educating,

and our children need to be educated in the natural world because of, you know, their future is at stake. So that's the other argument. I was trying to explain to one of my grandchildren the other day about how you can use a buttercup to tell if you prefer margarine to butter. Oh, I saw it. Take the buttercup. How much do you like butter?

Well, the problem was that the grandchild didn't know what margarine was. Okay. Shows you the spoilt life they're leading. And also had no idea what a buttercup was. So clearly the world has changed since my Enid Blyton childhood of the 1950s, when I had little books like I Spy Flowers. I spy books, you can still get those, I think. They're fantastic. And you've got different points out of, you know, if you spied, Big Chief I Spy awarded you badges and points for spotting things. But the point is, a dictionary is there to serve. It's not

necessarily there to educate is it well i mean it's it's so hard when it comes to nature i feel really torn because i will always say you know dictionaries reflect they don't prescribe at all but you know when it comes to the natural world i can see the vocabulary kind of ebbing away because of you know the increasingly sort of urbanized life that we live and that for me is really sad it's a source of great sadness should we talk about some of the vocabulary please that we could i mean that that you know how there's a sort of myth that the inuit have well have hundreds and hundreds of words for snow yes i say it's a myth but actually the latest research i say it's been seesawing the latest research is that in fact they

do have quite a few names for snow because they need it but what you might not know is that academics have officially logged 421 terms for snow in which language do you reckon? Is it going to be something bizarre like an Arab language? No. Where they don't see snow at all? It's not bizarre, actually. You could probably get there. Oh, well, then it's going to be Icelandic. Scots.

Oh, well, then it's going to be Icelandic. Scots. Oh, hey. Yeah, and they have the most wonderful, just Sneasel is to begin to rain or snow. So S-N-E-E-S-L, Sneasel. And a Skelf. A Skelf is a really large snowflake. To Feeful is to swirl up the snow. This is of a Niveous landscape, so Niveous meaning snowy, hence Nivea, the white face cream, by the snow. This is of a nivius landscape, so nivius meaning snowy, hence nivia, the white phase cream, by the way. Flindrican, a slight snow shower. And so it goes on. I mean, the most

wonderful vocabulary that I'm hoping is still used in pockets of Scotland, because it's just really beautiful. Okay. Any more of these words from the natural world? Because I want to ask you about trees, tree names. Tree names. Oh, gosh. I want to ask you about trees tree names tree names oh gosh I'm I want to explain to younger listeners that I'm here to service you because I know we have some seven and eight year olds who tune in yeah are lost and then occasionally I pipe up with a poem like this Susie don't worry if your job is small and your awards a few remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you. Yes, that's brilliant. So what's the origin of oak?

Oak is, I think, probably German. I mean, there's lots of what we call cognates, so similar words in different languages. In German, it's an Eiche, so it sounds quite similar, and we are essentially quite largely a Germanic language. So I think it goes back to that but i love the idea of an acorn being sometimes written as an oak corn um because people think it's a sort of you know a corn from the oak tree in fact the acre is linked to the acres of

grassland that you might see the sort of measurement of of land and nothing to do with the oak in that particular word and and listeners will remember that egg corn was another mishearing of an acorn and that has spawned a whole new linguistic variety of things this is where we get things wrong in english and we'll say things like right from the gecko or uh she and her elk are getting it wrong etc anyway that's a whole different subject. So that's oak. Oh, but before we leave snow, I wanted to ask you, because I know you know the answer to this, blizzard.

Well, only because we were talking about trailing a blaze and blazing a trail earlier. But blizzard is North American. It's one of the purely North American words that came over to us and actually originally meant a sharp blow or a knock and it was onomatopoeic um so you would you would thwack somebody you would give them a blizzard and then the idea of a kind of violent snowstorm um came from that from the knock came first and then the snowstorm came later yeah it was a sockdolager which is another another great word for a knockout blow I take my grandchildren the closest we get to nature in our part of London, is the Wetlands Centre in Barnes in southwest London.

Lovely. Where there are acres and acres of wetlands with wonderful birds coming all over the world come to us, including barnacle geese. And that's how I introduceon-based children to nature yes barnacle geese is quite an interesting one actually um the barnacle goose breeds in the arctic doesn't it in the in the tiny tundra of greenland but its place of origin was a bit of a mystery and people thought centuries ago that it hatched from a type of barnacle that would attach itself to objects floating in the water and had these sort of long feathery threads kind of flowing from it and so

that presumably suggested the notion of plumage so that was why it was called the barnacle geese goose because it was thought to hatch on the sea oh wonderful i have to tell you now yes one of my all-time favorite words i'm sure I've told you this Giles, but it's kind of linked in terms of hatching on the sea to Halcyon. You know the Halcyon, the old kingfisher, an old name for the kingfisher. H-A-L-C-Y-O-N, as in Halcyon days. We talk about Halcyon days, days of kind of serenity and stillness because the Halcyon, the kingfisher, was thought in ancient myth to breed on the sea. And it said that the king of the wind, the god of the wind, would still the waters of the sea to allow the kingfisher chicks, the halcyon chicks, to hatch.

Isn't that beautiful? That is. The waters were calm and still. Halcyon, one of my all-time favourite words in English. I've got a game to play with you. Okay. I'm going to tease it up, then we'll have the break. of it was in English. I've got a game to play with you. Okay. I'm going to tease it up, then we'll have the break. Is, out of interest, we're talking about geese, is a mongoose anything to do with a goose? Why is a mongoose called a goose? Oh, well, that comes from a native language, no, nothing to

do with a goose. It just happens to sound like... A coincidence. But it contains the word goose. Yes. Well, you know how we have a great knack in English of not being able to pronounce a foreign word. And so just, you know, making it sound like anything that sounds familiar. So avocado famously is linked to the Spanish advocate, meaning a solicitor that you have nothing in common. But because that original Aztec word sounded like avocado, they thought, let's call it that. Jerusalem, nothing to do with Jerusalem. All of that stuff we cannot pronounce for our names. And the same with the mongoose.

It comes from a Marathi, so an indigenous language, and it was mangoose US. It sounded like goose to us, so why not? Well, fine. They're totally different from goose, but let me tell you this. See if you know these words. Herpistein.

Do you know what that means? Herpistein. Something to do with wolves? No. Believe it or not, it means mongoose-like. Oh my goodness. You know, ursine means like a bear. Caprine means like a goat. Feline means like a cat.

Well, I believe that herpistein means mongoose-like. What do you think anserine means? Anserine. I know this one. Anserine. Leave that one with me. I'll leave it with you. I'll give you a break.

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 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. Yeah, I agree. We're covering all the classics. If 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 going to 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. Just before the break, I challenged you, Susie, to tell me what anserine means. I know, I know this one, but I've completely forgotten to tell me. It means goose-like, like a goose.

I've got a few more here. See if you know any of these.uine a-n-g-u-i-n-e snake like i haven't quite never heard that before well lacertian lacertian l-a-c-e-r-t-i-n like oh you know what it is how do you pronounce it then lacertian yeah lacertian yeah very good le Leonine? Lion. Of course. This is, I think, quite difficult. Lutrine. Lutrine. How are you spelling that? L-U-T-R-I-N-E. No idea. Otter-like. Ooh, love that one. Love otters. Murine. Murine is mouse-like. Ossine. O-S-C-I-N-E. Like? Ossine. O-S-C-I-N-E.

Bird. Is that a bird? Well done. It's songbird. Songbird. Now, where do these words come from? I mean, I've got a whole list of them, but did somebody just sit down and invent them? Can you do that?

Well, it's a bit like collective nouns, but they're all based on the, well, most of them are based on the Latin. Pavanine. Pavanine is like a peacock. And actually, there's a great word, which is to pavanise, which is to strut about like a peacock. Oh, I know that for you.

Which is brilliant. One more. Porcine, you will know. Pig. Yeah. Porcine and porcelain are linked because a porcelana in Italian was a cowry shell. And the cowries used to look a little bit like the snout of a pig. and the carrows used to look a little bit like the snout of a pig and because of the kind of smooth polished shells

it became known for the kind of china that we know today. So porcelain china is because a shell was pig-like in its appearance. I'm pretty sure, yes. Words are wonderful. But I think so. And if you think you could invent a word like one of these words, angwine, acroline, asinine, caprine, why not share it with us? It's purple at somethingelse.com.

Purple at somethingelse.com. Can I give you some of my favourite nature words? Of course you can. Because I'm just itching to tell you. I thought if I mentioned, I think one of my trio of words might have been susurrus or psithorism. Do you remember you remember that yes because you said is it a silent p so that's the rustling or whispering of leaves in the wind which i just think is beautiful in the summer petrichor another one i know our listeners love this one um whenever i do this on twitter people

say yes i know that smell it's the smell of rain on hot earth after a long dry spell and it goes back to the petra meaning stone in greek and then ichor which was the ethereal fluid thought to flow in the blood of the gods that beautiful it's a kind of organic compound that sort of emanates from the earth shive light shive light is so poetic and it is um the light this is coined by Gerald Manley Hopkins. The poet? The poet. And shive light is the light that filters through the boughs of the canopy of the trees. Oh. Frondescence.

Frondescence is the time when trees and plants unfurl their leaves. Frond? Yes. Frondescence. Beautiful. Do you know one of the secrets of being happy? There are seven secrets to being happy. You've written a book about this. And I'm going to share one of the secrets with you. Beautiful. Do you know one of the secrets of being happy? There are seven secrets to being happy. You've written a book about this.

And I'm going to share one of the secrets with you. Okay. To be a leaf on a tree. Because everybody in the world is an individual. You know, we all want to be unique. And we all are unique. And every leaf on every tree in the world is unique. There are no two leaves that are identical.

But we need to be on a tree to be happy. A leaf off a tree, well, it feels free. That's quite exciting. But quite quickly, the free leaf, it flirts to the ground and it dies. Do you remember that fantastic Monty Python sketch where the leaves are falling off the tree and it's like, mommy, daddy, about the leaves? Do you remember that? Oh, maybe it's just me. Well, maybe it is just you. But the point is, it rings true because we need to be leaves attached to a tree, an organism that is growing larger than ourselves. You see, we do express so much of human life in that metaphor of trees and branches, family tree, branches of your family.

So much of it is rooted, literally, again, in trees and forests. So do we have letters from our community? Have they written into us this week? Oh, we do. I've just got a couple more things for you. Oh, good. Glynn is the hazy appearance on the horizon at sea how do you spell that glen g-l-i-n simple as that an alpine glow i'll leave you with that one a rosy glow that you'll find suffusing snow covered mountain i thought alpine glow was what i had at breakfast

some people have after skiing or other activities right yes letters so we had uh one question in from a tweeter who wishes to remain anonymous but um when i put out a request on twitter for any burning questions that people had i mentioned burning or smoldering and someone says speaking of burning or smoldering where do we get the word backlog and i don't know if they were suspecting a literal origin, but the very first backlog was indeed a huge block of wood that would burn for days at the back of the hearth. It would just sort of stay there smouldering forever. And the idea of work that just builds up and builds up and builds up and just will never actually be extinguished.

What am I going to do about my backlog of emails? Because they are smouldering there. They are driving me mad. Are they? I used to sleep well. I don't. I'm now waking at five in the morning, brooding about absolutely nothing. You have, yeah, you have the grief of the dawn, matutu alipia. I do have matutu alipia.

And what you need to do is go for a walk. That's what you need to do. Leave your phone behind. But I need to clear the backlog of emails. They just keep coming in. At a certain time, some people say just select all and delete, don't they? And then if anyone really wants to get in touch with you, they'll ask again. I think that's what we should do.

You might then miss a message from the National Lottery, of course. Right, I have another question from Charlie Winston. Why can we be under or overwhelmed but never whelmed? That goes back to our discussion ages ago now on orphaned negatives you remember the kempt the couths all the positive counterparts of things like unkempt disgruntled ruthless and things they all well not all of them but most of them existed and whelmed is no different whelmed means to turn upside down or at least it did in middle english and to overwhelm was to capsize completely and to

underwhelm was to not make much of an effect at all. So untrammeled there was trampled. Well they're probably somebody asked us on Twitter whether you could mollish as well as demolish and it's almost true because in Latin they had mollere which meant to to move but it never moved into English so it's kind of half and half. Can you monish as well as admonish? Can you monish? Yes, you can monish. It goes back to Monterey, which also gave us money.

Money goes back to the goddess of the coin, Moneta. And her name means both coining money and mourning. So money always carries a warning. I want to tell the listeners she's doing this sight unseen. There are no notes or anything.

She's just, it's just... I'm just a nerd. You're just, no no it's brilliant you're absolutely brilliant anything more uh how on earth did our spelling of q come about as in a queue of people lining up to listen to our podcast j esther well that goes back to the normans we talk about the normans a lot after 1066 thousands and thousands of words flooded into english and And we used to spell Q-C-U-E, like the snooker Q. But we took the French spelling Q, which is spelled the same way as Q today. And that means the tail of an animal. And the idea is that a Q of people looks like the tail of an animal, undulating tail of an animal.

When I was a child, I thought it was undulating the letter Q, having that little tail on it. Oh, that's a lovely idea, but no. Sorry about that. Thank you. I'll put that in my pipe and smoke it. What's the origin of that, putting it in your pipe and smoking it? OED, I have looked this one up, says 1800, and the way it's written, it sounds like it was a bit like high noon,

some kind of western from the American Midwest. That's all. Put that in your pipe and schmoke it. I like it. So I think it's just an expression of disdain, isn't it? I'm just going to smoke it into fritters. Yeah. Any more letters?

Yes. From a great name. That's Jane DeVoe Duggan. When I grew up in Northampton, the general phrase for not being happy was Mardi. Is this a real word? Now I'm in the Southwest. Popular phrase is Gert Lush. I've heard that before.

Yes, we've talked about Mardi before,'t we when we were talking about poetry um but the origin of it is from mard m-a-r-r-e-d the same idea of spoilings if a document is mard it's spoiled the same thing with a child if it's mard it's been uh it's been spoiled rotten overindulged and so they grow up being mardi and sulky. There we go. There we go. You've got a book there that you wanted to share with me. I have. I think maybe some listeners will have heard of Robert McFarlane.

Paul, who is sometimes our producer, was actually taught, he was lucky enough to be taught by Robert McFarlane at uni. And he is just the biggest defender of the vocabulary of the natural world. And he is also fascinated by the connection between poetry and landscape. And he has travelled up and down the British Isles and just documented the local vocabulary, the local natural vocabulary of various places. And I would just recommend Landmark to anybody. Landmarks, it's called, because it's written with such a poet's eye and it's just beautiful and he's trying to collect the sort of vanishing vocabulary of our

countryside wonderful yeah it's gorgeous i should just say that country the countryside is a really hard time of it when it comes to people living in it because they're the bumpkins which comes from a dutch for a little barrel they're the yokels which goes back to the green woodpecker meaning green and naive whereas of course if you live in the city, as you do, you are urbane, which is linked to urban. And heathens, you know, they lived on the heath. So they've had a really rough time a bit, very unfairly. Okay, it's time for our trio, our three unusual words, interesting words. What have you got? Yes, so this is actually, these are as a tribute to Robert MacFarlane because they are from his books. So, roke, R-O-K-E, is a word from East Anglia,

for fog that rises in the evening off marshes and water meadows. I can picture it. Roke. Yeah, you really can, can't you? Yeah. And, okay, I'm literally just dipping in and just coming up because they're all so beautiful. Slidder. A slidder in Scotland in northern England is a hollow running they're all so beautiful slidder a slidder in

scotland in northern england is a hollow running down a hill a slidder a slidder isn't that really beautiful and this is one that actually links to something rhymes with purple because as we said something does rhyme with purple there are a few words which our listeners love to guess at but herple is one of them isn't it which is to with a limp. And this one is to striddle from Northern Ireland to walk uncomfortably, perhaps after a long march. So that's sort of herpling. It is herpling. I like striddling as well. Yeah.

Well, we've enjoyed striddling and herpling with you. Thank you for your company. If you've enjoyed us, do please give us a nice review somewhere and spread the word. Please do. Tell our friends. You can communicate with us, as you know, purple at somethingelse.com. And if you want to play our Ayn game,

we've been playing the game today, you know, Anserine being goose-like, Aquiline being eagle-like, Asinine being ass-like, Susie-line being Susie-like. Well, we can invent our own. We can. So between now and the time we meet next, will you invent a few oh give it a go give it a give it a go brand ryan brand ryan maybe something better

than that i know you can do better i think i can i worked out the other day that brandreth there's a substructure of piles oh that's right but isn't that archaeological it is i suppose so but it's also an anagram of bernhardt you think of the great Sarah Bernhardt. Yeah. I'm quite excited about that. She's behind the story of breaking a leg. We'll have to come to that someday. Oh, we will, because she played Hamlet with a broken leg, didn't she? She carried on. And we carry on regardless.

Come wind, and there's been some today. Come rain. Not from us. You will find us a new one every week, Something Rhymes with Purple. If you like it, please give us a review, rate us, help us spread the word. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Paul Smith with additional production from Lawrence Bassett, Steve Ackerman, our honoured guest today, and Gully.

Oh, is Gully batty, bovine, catty, cocky, crabby, foxy, lousy, mousy, mule-ish, ratty, sheepish?