Something Rhymes with Purple - Octopodes

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Today we are getting all in a tangle (and we will be entertaining the 8 legged type that has fittingly titled today’s episode) as we dive into the devilish world of plurals in the English language. We will watch our one foot transform into two feet, see a solitary goose find some friends and become geese, and find out why a mouse does not multiply into meese. Susie is on hand to steer us through this confusing, complex and sometimes plain incorrect history that will take us from the Germans, to the Anglo-Saxons, to the Greeks. Together with Gyles, she’ll take a look at the moments of pop culture and technology that have also added an extra element to this convoluted etymological terrain.  A Somethin' Else production. Susie's Trio:  Nuddle - to walk alone with your head held low  Croggie - to ride on the handlebars on your friends bike.  Slabsauce- person who enjoys eating fine food. Try 6 free issues of The Week magazine worth £23.94 today. Go to http://bit.ly/SomethingRhymeswithPurple and use your special code PURPLE to claim your 6 week free trial today. To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple 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

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with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main We'll see you next time. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, where my brilliant co-presenter Giles Brandreth and I talk about the things that we love about the English language and sometimes the things that are really great on us.

And today's subject is going to be one of the latter, I think, Giles, isn't it? Well, more rather than great make us despair at times. Do you remember the end of last week I quoted a famous old poem about the impossibility of getting plurals right? We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes, but the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes. And that sort of confusion. Why is one goose a goose and two geese a geese,

but the one mouse is a mouse, not meese and mice? I mean, it's all very, very confusing. And I'm intrigued by this. And I spent some time doing some homework on it. And I'm going to share some of that with you today. And you can correct me where you think I'm going wrong. Because I discovered when looking into this, because it so infuriates people, and it came up the other day, do you remember, when I referred to a roof, several roof being roofs? And you said, no, no, no, no, you're wrong. Yes. You remember that?

But when you and I were at school, it definitely was roofs, wasn't it? Yeah. And we were rhyming it with hoof, I suppose. Hoof and hooves, roof and roofs, and wife and wives. Yeah. But you're telling me now that's not right.

Well, as in the dictionary will now tell you, it's roofs. And I, for a long time, thought that I totally imagined roofs or was simply given the wrong one at school. But no, I think there's enough corroboration from people that actually we were taught that it was roof and roofs. And it seems now to have changed to the slightly blander roof and roofs. Well, let me take you through this.

I'm going to begin in the Germanic world because I know that's the world where you're most happily at home. I know that's the world where you're most happily at home. The essence of what purple people must realize that pluralizing English is a singular business. But there is actually, as I've discovered, an explanation for most, if not all, of the apparently illogical discrepancies between one plural and another. And it's to do, usually, with the root words, where the root word comes from.

The reason, for example, that the plural of ox is oxen is that both words have come down to us from Anglo-Saxon, the old English language derived, isn't it, from West Germanic? Yes. Spoken in large parts of England, southern Scotland, between the 5th and 12th centuries. So our modern vocabulary includes thousands of words of Anglo-Saxon descent, from axe and eye to you, yelp. But I seem to remember you telling me, I know that buxom and buttock and frowzy are Anglo-Saxon words, but I remember you telling me that the four-letter word F-U-C-K isn't.

People often refer to it as an Anglo-Saxon word, but it isn't. No, its first records were in the Middle Ages. So quite often we will refer to those good old Anglo-Saxon words as a synonym, or as a euphemism, I suppose, for swear words. But actually only things like shit and bollocks, really, are from Anglo-Saxon, and the rest of them came about much later. This is going to be one of those episodes where people really learn a lot and what will amaze you is other than oxen in my view only two other plural nouns in modern english end the same way they are can you guess what they were ox oxen what are the other two child children correct oh you're brilliant and related to that

but not so every day brother brethren correct oh you know it all yes oh no i don't know you're completely right once upon a time other nouns like i and house house were pluralized as iron and hausen and the plural of hose for example what you wear uh used to be hausen. And the plural of hose, for example, what you wear, used to be hausen. And of course, we still have lederhosen. In Germany, yeah, that's the German plural. So there's a Germanic explanation, too, for why we get geese from goose and feet from foot, because they change in form. These are known as, am I right, mutated plurals?

Yes, the vowels mutate in the plural. The mutation involving changing the vowel sound of the singular word in a process called umlaut. Is that right? Not as in the thing of umlaut. No, umlaut does mean a change in sound. So that definitely makes sense. And actually the en versus s thing is quite interesting because those two plurals coexisted for quite a long time. And I think the s was preferred in the south and the en was preferred in the north.

I think I've got that right. Could have been the other way around, but there were sort of regional differences. And then eventually en in Middle English was ousted by the s as the kind of standard plural. And that, I mean, other examples of this, where certain words of Anglo-Saxon origin, when we pluralise them, change in this way. Foot becomes feet. Goose becomes geese.

Louse becomes lice. Man becomes men. Mouse, mice. Tooth, teeth. Woman, woman. Just as a side here, correct me if I'm wrong, the plural of mouse is always mice, isn't it? Unless you've got a computer mouse. Well, you know, let's argue about that. And also,

unless you're American, because I know Americans of a certain generation are under the misapprehension that meese may be acceptable. This is thanks, you're too young for this, but there was a Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series when I was a little boy called Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx, which featured as a regular segment, Huckleberry Hound Show. That's when I saw it. That's when it was a regular on that in the late 1950s when I was a tiny boy and I

loved Huckleberry Hound. Anyway, the series it's in the tradition of Tom and Jerry. It featured two young mice, Pixie and Dixie, and their bow-tied feline nemesis, Mr. Jinx, whose voice was modelled on that of the actor Marlon Brando. And whose oft-repeated catchphrase was, I hates those meeses to pieces. And that's why people of my generation in America often think that the plural of mouse is meese.

Although, can I be a right pedant here? Of course you can. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary, that meese plural goes right back to the 1800s and was pretty much the common plural then. So it's got form. Well, move over, Marlon Brando. It's not you after all. It's the dictionary, as we always thought. Now, you say that the plural of the computer mouse is mouses, do you?

Well, it can be either, I think. If I was to look this up in the Oxford Dictionary, I think it will tell you that as far as the computer sense of mouse is concerned, you can have either. OK. Yeah. Well, let's go for either let's be let's be generous let's be inclusive now when referring to other animals the plural of moose is what oh so the plural of moose is moose because it comes from algonquian so it's a native american

language which is why we don't have meese or mooses. Very good. And there are other things like this. Fish? Well, there are people who dispute fish because when I was a boy again, Frankie Howard sang a song about three little fishes. And some authorities, I think, allow fishes as a plural for fish. Yes, Oxford dictionaries do.

This is because there was a song called Three Little Fishes, became a number one hit in America in the late 1930s, recorded by Kay Kaiser and his orchestra, but popular in this country, the UK, where we're speaking from, when I was a little boy, recorded by the comedian Frankie Howard. So that's why some people say fishes but fish of course is correct sheep anything to say about sheep no because the plural is sheep and same for swine yes same for swine also quite

confusing that's old english sheep so we've had sheep in the language for you know for instance anglo-saxon times. Just on the computer mices, or sorry, mices, I was combining them both there. The computer mice, if I look at a usage note in the Oxford Dictionaries, it says that people often feel that this sense of the word needs its own distinctive plural. But in fact, the ordinary plural mice for the computer version is commoner. And the first recorded use of it is from 1984.

And that is mice as well. So although it says you can have both, it does say the sort of most common one is mice. Good. Now, I want to get on to some spelling problems, because the world of ProRolls is full of spelling challenges. Do you remember the vice president, Dan Quayle, how he got potato wrong? He spelt potato with an E on the end. And that's the only thing anybody will ever remember him for. It's awful, isn't it?

But what I want to ask you, Susie Dent, is why is potatoes without an E in the plural, potatos, and tomatoes wrong without an E? Tomato is in the singular. It just tomato make it plural put an s on the end is incorrect but avocados is correct isn't it avocado add the s for the plural of avocado can you explain that i think it's purely well idiosyncrasy but also the fact that avocado is from aztec aztec remember it means testicle in the Aztec language because of its shape, because an avocado is slightly testicle-shaped. And then came into Spanish, et cetera.

But it doesn't quite make sense because potato came to us from, I think that's from Spanish. So it came through Spanish again and originally meant a sweet potato. And then a tomato called the love apple for a long time because it was considered an aphrodisiac is actually also like avocado from that Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. So it doesn't really make sense. And I think it is purely down to idiosyncrasy. And as you know, Giles, I work on, have a spelling app with the wonderful Solinka lot. And we spend all our time trying to explain the

etymology of words that can't be spelled phonetically and there are so many of them. Well help me with this the word bus as I know comes from the Latin omnibus. Yes for all. The plural can be buses I think with one s-e-s or or buses, B-U-S-S-E-S. Am I right? Yes, yes. And now I think you will find that the standard is buses with, in this country, B-U-S-E-S, whereas in the US, I think they have three S's. But in British English, the standard is just one in the middle.

Buses is also an old-fashioned word for a kiss, isn't it? Oh, busa, that's Germanic. Yeah, a bus or a busa. When we were busing one another. So there can be different kinds of buses. But the bus often ends up at a terminus. And the word terminus, like the word omnibus, it comes from the Latin. But the plural of terminus can be terminuses one s yes or it can be i think termini it can be termini but you'll find that with so many but it's never terminuses with two s's but buses can be with two s's yes yes i know but we're here to help we're here to help so let's let's yes go on what about octopus yeah oh remind me what the answer is there. It's not octopi, is it?

No. It's some other funny word because it's Greek and not Latin. It's Greek, exactly. So people wrongly assume because it's got the US, understandably, that it's Latin. And so they call them octopi. But actually, the standard plural is now the English version octopuses with only one S in the middle. But the Greek, if you want to stick etymologically to its origin, is octopuses with only one s in the middle but the Greek if you want to stick

etymologically to its origin is octopodes that's it octopodes octopodes I'm warming up on this have I got time have I got time to explore a few things like nouns ending in y because yes that always interests me city becomes cities cherry becomes cherries calamity becomes calamities. That is actually a pretty standard rule, isn't it? If it ends in a Y, I-S is the plural. Yes, but remember that cherry, that's actually, again, misunderstanding on someone's part. Remember, English is chock full of mistakes.

So we took the French cerise, and because it ended in an S s we assumed it was a plural and so we decided to create the singular from cerise and came up with ceri or cherry so we created cherry as a singular even though a cerise in french is already singular but we just misunderstood it good well i like that now i think it's a rule that if the word the noun ends ends in CH or S or SH or X or Z, you add ES to form the plural, like buses or church becomes churches, quiz becomes quizzes, tax becomes taxes, wish becomes wishes. Is that right? Yes, I'm sure there'll be exceptions to that. Ah, yeah, and I hit on one straight away. The example I gave you that of quiz becoming quizzes. Suddenly there's an extra Z there. Where's that come from? Yeah, I don't know.

I honestly, I did warn you that in this episode, a lot of the time I will be saying, yeah, it's funny that. Yeah. And I can't really give you an answer. But that's what's so intriguing,

isn't it? Yeah. Do you know where quiz comes from? Tell me. Can you guess what it might be a shortening of? Quiz? I don't know.

I mean, I know to quiz is to look at something through a quizzing glass people who are quizzical are inquiring possibly uh is it a latin phrase quiz something q u i s yes it could be from the sort of the idea that it means what but also it was probably influenced by inquisitive along the way. Oh. Yeah. Very good. I mentioned words ending in CH like church become churches. But of course, there's a special exception that is worth noting.

And that's what's lovely about this. What I like about this is the fact there aren't any definitive answers in some cases. And it is to do with the evolution. We don't need to put everything in boxes. We can have disagreements as a rule words that end with ch do require the plural es witches watches batches bitches but if the ch ending is pronounced with a k sound you just add a solitary s so that batch becomes batches, but epoch becomes epochs. Yeah. Monarch becomes monarchs. Monarchs.

Stomach becomes stomachs. I love it. I just adore that. It's so strange, isn't it? Can we do one more? I'll give you my quiz. I've got a quiz for you. What about, because this is where we came in with roof and roofs

yes calf the plural is calves isn't it yes knife is knives sheath is sheaves shelf shelves wife wives yes okay okay so what you're saying i think what people are now saying is that once upon a time certainly to the beginning of the 20th century, the plural of roof and hoof would be roofs and hooves. Yes. Now roofs, though still technically allowable, is regarded as archaic and best avoided. Yes, I wouldn't allow it on countdown. So I remember someone came up with roofs and I blithely said,

oh, yes, that's fine, and then looked it up in the dictionary and it's not there anymore, I'm afraid. Where are you on half? The plural of half. Let's go. Oh, halves. It is halves, is it? Yes. So let's go halves.

We're going out for dinner. We're going halves. Yes. OK. Scarves. And you're wearing, I like the scarf. Have you got another one at home? Yes, you've got several scarves.

Or is it scarves? Scarves. And what about wharf? Wharves. Yeah. Excuse me. Come unstuck here, aren't you? Dwarves. And what about wharf? Wharves. Yeah. I'm going to go. Excuse me. Come on, I'm stuck here.

Tell me about Snow White and the seven... Well, we know they're people of restricted growth, correctly. But what would you say? Dwarves or dwarves? Dwarves, I would say. Yeah, but you're not... Do you want me to look this up? I'm not looking any of these up.

No, of course you're not. We're just chatting about it. We don't need you to look it up. Because I think it's interesting. I think if you're putting on a Christmas pantomime, on the poster it's going to say Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with an F-S, even though Seven Dwarves would probably be allowable today.

I will let you know. I mean, it is all pretty difficult because... Oh, either, it says. Either. So we have all those words ending in F that become V-E-S, but a lot of other words like belief is beliefs, isn't it? Chief, chiefs. Grief, griefs. Oh, what about oaf?

You have got loaf. You've got a loaf of bread. Several loaves of what? Several loaves are loaves. Loaves. But if you call me an oaf and there's several people like me, what are we? I know. We're oaf and there's several people like me what are we I know we're oafs

I know I love it do you love it or do you just think oh for heaven's sake no I think that's what's so intriguing that us

you know that oaf I love because oaf once meant a changeling so it was believed to be an elf's child

that had been left in place of the real child. So it was sort of stolen by the mischievous elves and a changeling was left in their place. But it's from Old Norse, so it probably originated in the Vikings and their mythology, which possibly explains why it doesn't become Oves then in the plural. You see? Does that make sense? It makes total sense. I think once one stops and begins to think about it, it does begin to make sense.

I was going to say that in the case of leaf, the plural is always leaves. Am I right? You are, I think. Unless you are leafing through a book, in which case the verb would be the F. Make sense? It would make sense and unless they're people listening as i know there are in canada oh yeah very lucky we have a big canadian following for something rhymes with purple and no doubt somebody will be writing to us from toronto to tell us that all their life they have supported the maple leafs hockey team really yeah do you know the wonderful

thing about the Oxford dictionary that I have in front of me is that I can actually click onto US English and I think it also includes Canadian English so I'm putting leafs in here and it simply takes me to the verb yeah so um I'm sure you're right. It's probably just not registering Canadian English, which it needs to. But that's fascinating. I didn't know that. Oh, oh, oh, it's almost time for our break. But before we go to the break, I'm just going to give you some amusing oh ones. See if you can unravel all these. We've discussed avocado becomes avocados, solo becomes solos without an e, zero becomes zeros with or without an e, would you say? Zeros, if you're zeroing in on something as a verb, it's es,

and if it's a number, zero is a noun, it's os. Excellent. And obviously, if there's a vowel before the final o, you just add a single s, like rodeo becomes rodeo, studio, studios, zoo, zoos. But with a number of nouns ending in o, ES is always added to the plural, such as buffalo becomes buffalo. Bows with an ES. Domino, dominoes. Echo, echoes. Vito, vitos.

Torpedo, torpedoes. And yet there are some, I think, and let me end on this, where for no good reason, you get a choice. Banjo, banjo or banjos, cargo, with an E or without an E, flamingo, with or without an E, I just love it. Volcano can be volcanoes or volcanoes. I think that is wonderful. And if you have different ways of doing it in your part of the world, or if you are a supporter of the Toronto Maple Leafs,

and in fact, they've now changed and called themselves the Maple Leafs, do let us know. It's purple at somethingelse.com. I wonder what the plural of purple people is. Well, I suppose that is plural. Maybe that will be another explosion on a different day. Let's take a break.

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because you've threatened me with a quiz. Well, it's just a few questions. I want to know what the plural of certain words and phrases correctly should be. For example, attorney general. Oh, attorney's general. You're correct, because you're speaking in the United Kingdom. As with solicitor's general, postmaster's general, secretary's general, the general in these compounds originated not as a noun, like a military general, but it's an adjective, general, as opposed to specific.

But in America, it's attorney generals. Here in the UK, it's attorneys general. So you scored a point. Okay. Scampi, looking for the plural. That is plural, surely. Correct. Correct. Well done. I tried to fool you. I couldn't. It's not Scampa. Scampi is the Italian plural of Scampo. Like Panini and Panino, isn't it? Except no one ever says Panino.

Panino. Sounds like a character. I'll have a Panino for lunch. Yeah, and it made my nose grow very, very long indeed. Lord Lieutenant. I think it's the same. Lord Lieutenants in the US and Lord's Lieutenant for us. Lord Lieutenant because they're lieutenants representing the Lord or sovereign. Yes, you're right. But actually,

I don't think they have Lord lieutenants in the US. They haven't bothered about that. What about Sergeant Major? You see, if I was saying this in everyday conversation, I would say Sergeant Majors. But it's probably wrong. I think they all follow the same rule, don't they? Because Major here is the adjective. sergeant major sergeant's major is allowed but sergeant majors is preferred as being more natural so you've got it right again okay you see your instinct is always so sure mother-in-law mother's-in-law correct court. Court-martial. Courts-martial. Very good. Martial here is the adjective for military, which is why courts-martial is preferred, but court-martial is also acceptable. Sleight of hand. I like this one. I'd never ever put that in the plural. Well, several people doing it.

Remarkable series of slights of hand. Slights has to be because, again, of hand is, you wouldn't have slights, slight of hands, I don't think. What about jack in the box? I would say jack in the boxes, but that's probably wrong. Well, I think that's quite a difficult one. Jack's in the box because it sounds better. But you're right.

Actually, it's technically, it should be Jack. Because if you've got a series of toys and they're all Jack in the boxes, you've got a series of Jack in the boxes, haven't you? Rather than a series... Or Jack's in the boxes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the joy of this is something that you can make up as you go along.

I love it. Femme Fatale. Femme with an S, Fat fatale with an s as well both of them yeah sorry uh and finally cool the sack cool the sack bottom of the sack or ass of the sack is its literal meaning should be c-u-l-s-d-e-s-A-C-S. Comme il faut. S-A-C. Bravo.

Salut, la copine. Susie Dent knows all the answers. 10 out of 10. Is that right? Of course it is. You're brilliant, Susie. Inside that amazing head of yours is so much incredible information. It's quite fantastic.

Anyway. Well, thank you. I actually had a lot of notes about the vagaries of english pronunciation which i'm not sure we've got time for today bring them next week or the week after it's gonna be me saying well you know it's just because english words came from so many different roots and that's why i pronounce them differently and i will sound like a board record but i not a board record but I'm very happy to I know a lot of our listeners get hot and bothered about pronunciation totally understandably

so we can definitely talk about it if you would like I would like to talk about that I want to return to plurals another day but immediately I want to get on to the communications we've had from people around the world starting in. Mike Mason has been in touch. What is the origin behind words that are only plural? Ah, like pants, trousers, scissors. My Welsh wife often says, pass me a scissors, and it drives me mad. I understand that. It mostly is because these things like binoculars is the same.

We talk about a pair pair of trousers pair of scissors pair of binoculars because they have two parts to them and it's as simple as that and of course trousers began as two separate parts they were coverings for the whole leg that were then tied together they were separate and they were tied together at the waist and when they became a single garment, they still retained the plural. And so, yeah, it's simply to do with the fact that they have two components generally to them. Good. We were talking about mice and meese and meeses. There's a library mouse inquiry from Rachel McElhenney. I was listening to your latest episode where the topic of bookworms came up.

I thought you might like the Spanish equivalent, which is ratón de biblioteca or library mouse. I always picture one wearing some glasses while he reads on the floor. I love that. So we've got bookworms, library mice. It would be great to hear any others from around the world. People can email us at purple at something else dot com. Great. Somebody who has is Grahamham stokes i'm an automotive lecturer in a lesson recently we were discussing car airbags and i was asked why the detonator used to set off an airbag was called a squib i'm aware of the links that the word has with explosives and fireworks as in its definition and the meanings behind the phrases like a damp squib

but was unable to explain the etymology of the word and why it's become known as a squib are you able to help yeah yeah tell us well do you know what we don't really know it goes back to the 1500s and perhaps because it is a kind of small hissing explosion, if you like. Perhaps it's kind of squib, perhaps it's slightly imitative or echoic in its sound. But to be honest, I'm not sure squib to me really sounds like a hissing sound before exploding. But it's got lots and lots of different meanings.

It can be a filler in a newspaper. It can be a weak person. It can be a short kick on kickoff in American football and in baseball. I think it's a blooper, I think. So lots and lots of different meanings, all of them sort of usually to do with something kind of weak or small or, you know, that fails in some way, as with damp squib, not damp squid, famously uh which is a firework that just doesn't ever go off because it is too damp but i guess the idea of an airbag then is that it goes off with a small explosion as i discovered once to my cost in a hire car going on holiday in france where there was almighty explosion of smoke and i had no idea what had happened we'd simply gone over a bump on a country road and all hell broke loose and we had to get out of the car in case it blew up.

So that definitely was a squib and a half. Do you do fireworks with your children? Yes. Do you? I love fireworks. How about you? We used to do milk bottles with rockets in. You put a milk bottle in the garden

in a bit of earth to keep it steady. You'd put the rocket in, you'd light it and then you'd run away as quickly as possible and of course they were all or every firework i've ever lit was a damp squib except the time i went back to try and see what was going on no it was fine i just fell backwards it went up into the air it was still a bit of a damn squib i'm no good at that sort of thing anyway thanks graham for being in touch. And one more from Stuart Clary. Yesterday, our train mad son asked about why training, as in teaching someone to do something, is called training.

Is it anything to do with trains? Good question, Stuart. Yes, it does. I mean, train has had a really kind of complicated but very exciting life because it's taken in tractors and cloaks and grapevines and royal processions. And it all begins with the Latin trahare, meaning to pull or to draw. And the past tense of that verb, the past participle was tractus. So that gave us the pulling vehicle, the tractor. It gave us the tracts of land that they cover.

It gave us contracts, which draws together arrangements, pulls them together. Extracts in which something is drawn out. It gave us the train of a wedding dress, gave us a train or procession of things, a royal retinue. And of course, that gave rise to the locomotive sense. royal retinue. And of course, that gave rise to the locomotive sense, lots of kind of cars, engines, etc, that get together in a procession and then pull something along. And then equally, if you train a vine, you draw it out and you manipulate it into a desired form. And when you train somebody in a skill, you are moulding people, you're pulling them along and equipping them for a particular

task. So really incredibly productive verb, that trahere in Latin. I think the plural of the word dent is encyclopedia. She knows it all. She's quite brilliant. Have you got three interesting words to share with us this week? What are they? The first, I think we all do this occasionally, particularly if you are looking at your phone, but perhaps let's leave technology behind, to nuddle in Suffolk dialect is to walk alone with the head held low. To nuddle. N-U-D-D-L-E. Yes. Lovely word. One that will be very well known to our British listeners. And the reason I mention it is because I would love to know what this is called around the world.

Because for some reason, so much vocabulary collects around it. And that's riding on the crossbar or the handlebars of someone else's bike. And in Britain, it's riding backy or it's riding croggy quite often. So croggy is my second one. C-R-O-G-G-I-E. It's a ride on the crossbar or the handlebars of your friend's bike. I've never heard that word. Never heard that word before. What did you used to call it? I didn't. I would never invite anyone. I mean, I'm so on a two-wheeled bicycle. I'm so unsteady. I'd never invite anyone to join me. On my tricycle, of course, you're very

welcome to sit in the basket to the front or the back. But, OK. But croggy, that's what it's called. Riding croggy. Well, there's lots and lots of different words for it. As I say, I would love to know what the purple people call it. And finally, I'm going to give you, from the 16th century, a slap sauce. A slap sauce is a person who enjoys eating fine food or a glutton. I love it. A slap sauce.

Well, now we can all go out to restaurants. We can all become slap sauces. We can. Why not? Just don't make too much noise with your guzzling. I don't like people who make noises while they're eating. Nor do I. But we are beginning to go out to see friends again.

Oh, that's nice. If you're in a part of the world where that isn't possible, please keep in touch with us because we are here for you. And do just communicate with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. I always end with a poem. It's a short one today. It's by a brilliant British poet, Stevie Smith.

And, well, it's very timely now that certainly within the British Isles we're able to go out and see people we haven't seen for quite a while. The pleasures of friendship are exquisite. How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit. I go to my friend, we walk on the grass, and the hours and moments like minutes pass. Oh, that's lovely. Who was that by stevie smith very nice marvelous person and there's some lovely recordings of her reading poetry that's i think a fun way of introducing yourself to new words is to go into your computer look up a poet's name and often you will find there are recordings of them reading their own work and it's fascinating I think to hear how they read. We all need more poetry in our lives

and more friends and get in touch with us, you know where we are, it's purple at somethingelse.com. Something Rhymes with Purple is as always a Something Else production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production from Harriet Wells, Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale, and he's off nuddling somewhere, I guess. The Nuddler, who is Gully!

What's a plural of Gully, I wonder?