Something Rhymes with Purple - Over-egging the Pudding

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

Happy Tuesday Purple People and welcome to what is literally our best ever, extra special, supersized edition of the show! This week Gyles and Susie will be exploring the humongous world of hyperbole. They're stars, legends and heroes- but don't tell them I said so... Whether you're feeling rather mediocre or you're half way up a mountain, join us as we attempt to hop off the euphemism treadmill and prove that it's actually quite nice to be quite nice! Elsewhere Susie explains the dangers of gilding the lily and Gyles ponders the difference between inflation, truth and an alternative fact, before answering mail from you, our wonderful Purple People, for whom no superlative is too emphatic! A Somethin’ Else production. Don’t forget about our live show, coming to a computer near you on Thursday 25th March- grab tickets here! We're sure there are a million zillion exasperating examples of exaggerations you'd like to share, so get in touch by emailing us here: [e-mail]. Susie’s Trio: Dixiefixie- To be held in a state of confinement Doggerybaw- Nonsense Puckeration- Anything that gets us hot under the collar  Our fabulous new range of merchandise is now live at https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple PLUS for this first week we are giving you 10% off all items if you use the code purple2021. So whether you’re buying a treat for yourself or a gift for a Purple loved one then now is the time to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Hello, purple people. Giles and Susie here with a reminder that tickets for our online live show taking place on Thursday, 25th March 2021 are on sale at citizen-ticket.co.uk. So make sure you get yours today. It's going to be a great show please do come and join us wherever you are in the world as we celebrate all things words and language plus we get to answer your wordy questions live on the night we really can't wait to see you there

and you can follow the link in the feed or go to citizen ticket.co.uk for tickets now though it's on with the show. Hello, this is another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. It's a podcast all about words and language, and it's presented by me, Giles Brandreth, and by my friend and colleague, Susie Dent. I'm in London, England. She's in Oxford, Oxfordshire. How are you, Susie? I'm okay, thank you. you i am okay i've had the vaccine whoop yay suzy's had this it's taken over from the weather english people when they met in olden days used to talk about the weather now they talk first have you had your jab and then which jab did you have oh it's like the josh berry sketch that we've talked about before. Yes. Oh, I had the Oxford. I did actually have the Oxford one, fittingly, because I had it in Oxford. Felt rough for a day. But that was it.

all. And I think the, I mean, we're happy with it. We're comfortable. We don't feel we're about to have blood clots. We're not alarmist. We're taking it in our stride and we're moving on. I'm actually looking forward to my second jab. And I, you know, I'm a friend of a man called John Prescott, who was deputy prime minister. And when I was an MP, his parents were constituents of mine. That's how I got to know him. And of course i knew him when he was a member of parliament i was a member of parliament at the time and he was known for a while as two jags prescott and i'm longing for him to get his second jab so then i can tweet and i can say congratulations two jabs prescott yay you can see i'm in skittish mood i can see you've been thinking about that one for a long time but um but yes aren't we lucky we are so lucky

that we there was actually just just very quickly on this there was such a nice atmosphere in the queue it was quite a long queue when i went and apart from a few grumbles about having to wait which again is quintessentially british most people were just absolutely delighted um and yeah what a team it was so yes so that's happened since I last spoke to you, I think. Remind me why we in Britain call it a queue and in America, they call it a line. Well, I don't know when that difference emerged, but we took our queue as we often, you know, when the Normans came over, as we often say,

Norman French became the language of the elite and prestige. And so law was suddenly filled with lots of French terms. And we probably took Q from there as well, because la queue, spelled the same way in French, means a tail. So they saw a Q as looking sort of undulating, like an animal's tail. And a line, I guess, is just a bit more transparent. Don't know when the difference occurred, but I suspect ours is just all down to wanting to be a little bit elite, like the the French. Today we're going to talk about hyperbole. I pronounce it hyperbole. Some people say as in Super Bowl, hyperbole, but it is

hyperbole. Why is it hyperbole? What does that word mean? Hyperbole is from the Greek. So if you unpack it, it consists of two elements and it means to throw over. So it's the idea of kind of going higher and higher and higher. There's also the hyperbola in mathematics is all to do with open-ended curves, I think. But it's about excess, essentially. So hyperbole is excess, it's exaggeration, it's linguistic inflation when we don't think that the existing language and the existing terminology is enough. when we don't think that the existing language and the existing terminology is enough. This is the moment for me to pay tribute to one of my linguistic heroes,

who in his own way, therefore, was a master of hyperbole, who sadly died the other day, the great Murray Walker, much-loved idiosyncratic voice of Formula One, known for his Murrayisms and sort of pants on fire commentating style, wasn't he? He was so excitable, wasn't he? He was so excitable. Do you have a favourite? This is, I want to explain this to our world listeners. Formula One, where despite us all wanting and loving the environment, still people seem to watch it, where racing cars go vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. This lovely man, Murray Walker, who had been in advertising, became a much-loved commentator and said extraordinary things, didn't he?

Yes. Well, I can only remember two. And, you know, as with all of these things, they may be apocryphal, possibly. It's a bit like Yogi Berra saying it's like déjà vu all over again. So apologies to the late Murray if these are wrong. But apparently he said there's nothing wrong with the car, except it's on fire. I wish I could do his voice. And then I think, wasn't that the sort of the legendary time when someone put their middle finger up and he said something like, I'm going for first. In other words, he was trying to explain away why somebody would put up his middle finger. And so he said, well, I'm going to accept the interpretation that he's saying first.

So those are the two I remember. Oh, I don't make mistakes, he insisted. I make prophecies, which immediately turn out to be wrong. I mean, sometimes they went wrong almost instantly. I mean, one of his famous catchphrases was, unless I'm very much mistaken, I am very much mistaken, he would say immediately afterwards. I just loved it. The car in front is absolutely unique, except for the one behind, which is identical. I mean, you couldn't make it up. And now, excuse me while I interrupt myself, he would say, Tambay's hopes, which were previously nil, are now absolutely zero. I mean, this is gorgeous stuff

isn't it another occasion he reflected simply that the status quo could well be as it was before oh mansell is slowing down definitely taking it easy oh no he isn't it's a lap record i just think it's fantastic i've been reading i'm going to say with great pleasure obviously not with sadness i've been reading his obituaries but i've been reading, I was going to say with great pleasure, obviously not with sadness, I've been reading his obituaries, but I've been reading them with pleasure. He lived to quite a good age. He lived to 97 and he had a long and full life and some very interesting obituaries. And in one of them, I discovered, which I hadn't known before, that he had been an advertising man in his early days.

And that may explain his wonderful way with words. The main accounts he looked after in the early 60s were Vauxhall cars and Mars confectionery and pet foods, whose products he was obliged to endorse to shopkeepers by solemnly opening a tin of kitty cat and consuming the contents, in those days mostly whale meat, to demonstrate their wholesome nature. And the phrases that he came up with during his advertising days included the slogan for the bird food, Trill makes budgies bounce with health,

and for opal fruits, made to make your mouth water. Correct. Made to make your mouth water. Unfortunately, that advertising tune was the same as S.O. Blue, if you remember that. And so I always used to end up singing S.O. Blue, made to make the mouth water. And S.O. Blue, if you remember that. And so I always used to end up singing S.O. Blue made to make the mouth water. And S.O. Blue is actually a type of petrol. That wasn't very good. Those two have come completely conflated in my head. But you're right to mention advertising

because they are, of course, full of hyperbole. And that's what we are talking about today. You know, why be tired when you can be shattered or not just have an appetite, but you've got to be starving. And you might be a little bit scared, but you are terrified and everything is awesome or hideous. And it's a kind of linguistic supersizing and we are all guilty of it. Well, look, welcome, therefore, if you've just joined us to our best ever extra special supersized edition of the show that already gives 110% effort 1 million percent of the time. Why do we do this, Susie? Well, there's been some really fascinating research done in recent years, really, to explore why we do like inflation. And one of the theories is that we actually

do this in order to stimulate our brain more. And one of the observations that have been made is that actually extroverts require more cortical stimulation than introverts. In other words, in order to feel something, they have to describe something in very, very intense terms. And the result is that it just kind of builds up and up and up. So they're never hot, but they're sweltering. And as I say, everything is kind of full of melodrama. And that apparently is because you need more linguistic bang for your buck if you are an extrovert, which is fascinating. But I think we are also all guilty of it because, I don't know if you've known, heard of the very famous linguist, Stephen Pinker. He describes something called the euphemism treadmill, whereby one euphemism for

something kind of gets itself to be perhaps either too direct, so we create another euphemism, or the euphemism gets tired and so we create another one. And it's just one continuous thing. And that's exactly like hyperbole, because now, you know know if we've been describing fairly sad things as tragic for a long time but when something truly tragic comes along you need that truly or you need that you know that intensify because tragic isn't enough the same with heroes heroes had to become superheroes because a hero wasn't enough by itself and sort of prefixes like uber, or as I say, super, or there was a mega, whatever, kind of become these linguistic pylons, because by themselves, the words have become diluted. So you get an absolute term like unique, and people say, can't say it was unique,

because it actually is unique. They have to say it was completely unique, or amazingly unique, it actually is unique. They have to say it was completely unique or amazingly unique or remarkably unique. So everything is, I can see that. Everything is egged up. Egged up? Is that the right? Beefed up, not egged up.

I think it's egging on. It's egged on. It's beefed up. It's supercharged. It's beefed up and it's egged on. Egged on, by the way, we must do a programme or an episode on advertising, which you mentioned,

because go to work on an egg. Go to work, I remember it well. Go to work on an egg go to i remember it well go to work on an egg that was the the writer faye weldon really worked in advertising and what about naughty but nice usually accompanied by a picture of a chocolate eclair or something amazing naughty but nice i like who who came up rushdy you're joking. No. Salman Rushdie. I think we were talking about the benefits of cream. Naughty but nice. Naughty but nice. Oh, yes. Well, do you know, I loved, who is it? Oh, Kipling.

Mr. Kipling's cakes. Do you remember? Exceedingly good cakes. Exceedingly good cakes. And he had that, whoever the narrator was, had that brilliant rumble in his voice. Anyway, we should do, we definitely should do an episode on advertising. Yeah, we will. Back to hyperbole.

You will find it everywhere. So as you say with unique, things aren't unique anymore. Unbelievable is usually all too believable nowadays. And there are adjectives that actually were once perfectly sort of standard and acceptable. So we know about nice. perfectly sort of standard and acceptable so we know about nice if you say to somebody oh i that that jumper's nice or if i was to say to you do you like my do you like my haircut jars and you'd said yes it's nice i would think oh okay it's obviously not that good because you haven't piled on the exceptional adjectives which is ridiculous really but nice is the same interesting as another you might say oh that's

interesting um average we use average and mediocre now to mean really sort of middle of the road boring bland things were actually mediocre meant halfway up the mountain so you were kind of halfway up and that was a good thing so you were on your way up to the summit and average began in trading terms when it was all about the liability share between a ship and its cargo in transportation. And it simply meant things that were sort of evened out. But again, if something is average, it's run of the mill and probably not seen as being particularly exciting. So all of these have kind of lost their power. And because of that, we need to up the game.

And there's no way we can undo this. I mean, I was reading the newspaper the weekend and glanced at a very dull column about gardening. And it really was rather dull, but I hadn't seen it in the paper before. And I looked at the headline and the paper was telling us, was introducing us to this glorious new column where our brilliant writer, and there's nothing glorious or brilliant about it, but those are the go-to words. Yes, of course. And the danger, of course, is that nothing means very much anymore because we've

kind of exhausted ourselves. And so what happens then is not only do you reach for these intensifying adjectives, but tautology becomes quite common as well. So if you look at or listen to sports commentary, there's not just grit. It now has to be grit and determination. And there's no strength without stamina. And I don't know if you remember when in 2018, Donald Trump, then president, was talking about the UK and the US's so-called special relationships. Special relationship has become the label, hasn't it, for our relationship with the US. And he simply ran out of superlatives. So he just called them the highest level of

special because he didn't really know where to go with it so sometimes we just come up short because we've as i say we've just we've just exhausted ourselves and our language and it's it's everywhere and i think as i say i use it all the time too you know i definitely don't excuse myself from this weather forecasts also are quite full of melodrama so you'll have wonderful new phrases like thundersnow or a frankenstorm, weather bombs. And in fact, winds, talking about bombs, winds are often bombarding. So everything has to pack a punch. You cannot now have a middle of the road. As I say, middle of the road was a perfectly respectable place to be.

You can't have that anymore. Does it work with numbers? Do people now talk about, I mean, I said earlier, 110%. Does actually people do that, does it work with numbers do people now talk about i mean i said earlier 110 percent does actually yeah people do that do they with with numbers i don't know 110 percent is the best example i can think of but i suppose you say million zillion yeah million zillion i love you not just once humongous yes you're right we kind of resort to those sort of vague supersized adjectives don't we and you ask about whether or not we will ever go back. I think at some point we probably will have to. There's some consolation in the fact that we have actually been doing this for a very long time. So do you know what uptitling is?

Uptitling? No. Yes. Okay. So uptitling is where you make what is quite a sort of standard job sound absolutely extraordinary. But in so doing, you lose all sense of what this person is actually doing. So a shelf stacker becomes a stock replenishment executive. So it's that kind of sort of slight euphemism, euphemistic glamour that sometimes gets a bit ridiculous. But in the 1960s, the Oxford English Dictionary has, maybe it was the 1940s, has a record of a rat catcher being called a rodent operative. So it's not entirely new.

I do remember a window cleaner once being described as a scandiscopist. But why that should be, yes. I know window washers have been called vision clearance engineers, but where the scandiscopist comes from i'm not at all sure no i'm not sure either on that front that sounds a bit voyeuristic to me the the bbc famously has funny titles for people things like sort of head of vision a receptionist nowadays apparently can be called a director of first impressions oh that's just ridiculous and that's sort of marketing associates are called brand warriors, aren't they? And we have people in government who are now czars if they're in

charge of things. So, yeah, we've been doing this for a little while. What is an underwater ceramic technician? Boilerman? Boiler woman? Apparently it's a dishwasher. An underwater ceramic technician? I mean, please. I don't like that. What about literally? Does that really get on your nerves? I literally died laughing. Yes, because none of it's true. Well, no, it's so interesting now. But you know, as we always say, dictionaries record usage as they don't prescribe it. And so it gets a lot of people very hot under the collar that literally now has a figurative meaning in the dictionary. So it will say literally, but it will also give the figurative

sense where it's just an intensifier, which is exactly how we use it. That's a perfect example of hyperbole. And that's a, that's genuine hyperbole. I mean, I think some of these job titles are invented, you know, a talent delivery specialist being a recruitment consultant or a marketing associate being called a brand warrior. I can see that happening. We are the brand warriors. Now, I think I've heard brand warrior, actually. But it's the same as when you go into a coffee shop. I made this mistake the other day. I was ordering a small coffee. I'd completely forgotten the labels and the names for coffee because I hadn't been to a coffee shop for such a long time. And it said grande. And I grande and i said oh no i only wanted a small and

they said yes that is small yes isn't that ridiculous it is slightly stupid what is it if that's a small if grande is small what's a medium what's a large i actually genuinely can't even can't remember it's quite it's quite odd actually it's venti isn't there and the one that seems large is actually sounds a bit small. One is called tall, wasn't it? What's the tall one called? Yeah, I think it depends which chain you go to. Oh.

I think tall is small. I think tall is the smallest that you can get at one particular chain. It's crazy, and it's very difficult to one-pick. Actually, one place where there's kind of the opposite of supersizing is in clothes and clothes sizes because what used to be an eight when I was a teenager would now be a six and it's all to do with kind of for some reason making you feel better and feel smaller which again is a bit ridiculous so that's the kind of move in the opposite direction I tend to go for the ones

that say extra small small medium and large and then, and then I know where I am. Yeah. And I do everything online also. We do. I'm afraid we do now. I'm getting quite nervous about going back into a shop. Are you? I'm actually getting a bit nervous about going. It seems ridiculous, doesn't it? I think I'm getting a bit sort of social phobic.

You are not alone, Giles. I think so many of us are going to feel that. Apart from maybe the under at a huge generalization coming up in the purple people will correct us massively but you know apart from seeing our closest and dearest i think a lot of people will be quite nervous about going into any kind of big big space apart from maybe the you know those in their 20s i don't know i might be wrong i know the students are itching to get back to their parties. So what is our bottom line on hyperbole? Are we in favour of it? Are we simply recognising it? Do we want to encourage people to use? I think we do want to encourage people to use the language

more imaginatively. So it's a little bit of a cop out simply to fall back on super duper. Yeah, it's true, isn't it? I think we haven't quite got rid of the understatement that it's supposed to be so British. There are phrases that work in the opposite direction. So I might say to you, that's not bad. And actually, that's not bad. It's saying that's really good. That's called litotes. Oh, litotes. Why is it called litotes? It's kind of like it's sort of underplaying something for effect. So actually, you are achieving the opposite. It's a kind of little bit of of down shifting if you like there's what there's one other area that i must mention in fact maybe we

have mentioned this and we did a beauty and makeup episode didn't we i think when i talked about the names that were given to makeup bits and bobs which are actually ridiculous and so sexualized i mean it's a slightly different subject but again it's all about sort of bigging something up. So I don't know, a blusher will be called a glow job and it really, it gets orgasm. There's another one. There's loads of ones like these. That's another area when we go shopping,

whether it's makeup or whether it's chocolates that are not just covered in whatever, they're now enrobed and lovingly dusted with cocoa and truffles are hand-dipped and eggs are farmed fresh and all of that stuff. I was reading a survey about chocolate and sex, since you mentioned both in the last sentence. And it was interesting that people were divided 50-50 on which they preferred in life,

chocolate or sex. My wife said the only difference from her point of view was that the advantage of sex was that it used up calories. The disadvantage of chocolate was that you gained calories. But on every other basis, probably chocolate is to be preferred. I think a lot of people are probably with you on that one. Moving swiftly on, but only on to underpants. When we had our punctuation episodes, I'm dipping right back into the back catalogue here, we talked a lot about exclamation marks, which are kind of key to hyperbole, because, you know, when we haven't got the words to add bombast,

we kind of add a bit of gusto with our punctuation marks school kids are being urged to reduce their habit and you know sometimes you can seem as terry pratchett would say sort of a little bit psychotic if you use so many exclamation marks and you remember he said all those exclamation marks five a sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head so that was his view of deliberate dramatic over egging the pudding over egging the pudding that was that that was the metaphor i was looking for that's good not egging someone on i like over egging the pudding isn't interesting how phrases come into the language you know it doesn't take much to be a legend

these days somebody says the the slide i was on local radio the other day and I said something quite banal. And the fellow said, oh God, you're a legend. You're a legend. I mean, honestly. Or it's the same with awesome. And every agreement is a landmark one. And you know, somebody, you might say something a little bit clever and they'll say, oh, that's genius. Which of course it's anything but. And you're a star if you get someone a coffee it's all of those so actually you know when someone is a real star or a real legend or a real hero as i said before it's it's where do we go you know it's a dangerous path that we are following but i guess there is so much white noise around whether it's from social media whether it's you know just noise cacophony in our

in our lives that we have to be heard. And in order to be heard, you need to pilot on. So I think possibly that's where the impulse is coming from. And when we're being heard, we're giving now not just the truth, we're giving our truth. I mean, it's rather like unique. Either there's something's unique or it isn't. Either something's true or it isn't. The phrase has gained currency because I think it is a phrase that was either used by Meghan during the interview with Oprah Winfrey or certainly around it of I want to speak my truth. And I suppose what people mean is the truth from my point of view and their point of view. And of course, indeed, as the queen observed in the buckingham palace statement recollections may vary recollections may vary so i suppose truth

truths may vary so what one is offering is my truth but yeah it feels i don't think we're going quite as far as trump's alternative facts clearly what was that what was that what did what did he offer he offered something that was clearly untrue and he he said, no, that's not facts. But I can see a little bit more clearly that my truth might be, as you say, something that seems true from my perspective and is how I felt, whether or not it's the kind of empirical truth that everyone else took on. But it's a difficult one. I mean, the whole area of fake news has dominated us really for the last three or four years. But then George Orwell predicted this too. And hyperbole is all part of that, isn't it? Because the more we build something up, the more we lose sight of the original, really.

Speaking of losing sight, people can catch sight of us. Because you know, later this week, we're doing our live version of something. It's on Thursday. And I think it's at 7.30 in London time, different times around the world. It's virtual. That's a bizarre expression, isn't it? It's virtual, but it's real. I mean, virtual implies that we'll be there as kind of puppets or...

Avatars. Avatars. But what's the origin of avatar as a word? Avatar actually is really interesting. It is, I think it's Sanskrit origin of avatar as a word? Avatar actually is really interesting. It is, I think it's Sanskrit. It's got a very sacred origin. So in Hinduism, it's a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth.

From there, obviously much, much later, it moved to mean an icon or a figure representing you in a video game, et cetera. But it's from Sanskrit originally. We won't be avatars. We will be real people, live. We're going to have a blast. And can people contribute and ask us questions?

Yes, we've got a Q&A so they can ask us questions. So as many people, as many of the purple people that we can have, because we've talked before about the fantastic evening we had in London, in Islington, where we had just, we were so humbled, weren't we? I think we still feel quite emotional about that evening because the purple people really meant something that night because you could really see that there's a community of people who are as word nerdy and passionate as we are. So it was great. So hopefully some of those will be coming as well. Look, if you want to get involved, just follow the link

that's in the programme description for today. And that will take you straight through and you can book your tickets and you can be with us this Thursday evening. And if it's after Thursday and you missed it when you're listening to this, well, you did miss a classic. An absolute classic, says he with foresight. But don't worry, there's a complete library of more than 100 episodes that you can catch up at a later date. Look, as Murray Walker would say, with half the race gone, there's half the race still to go. Let's take a break. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze

through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Shrink the Books is back for a brand new season. This is the podcast where we put our favorite

fictional TV characters into therapy. Join me, Ben Bailey-Smith, and our brand new psychotherapist, Nimone Metaxas. Hi, Ben. Yes, this season we're going to be putting the likes of Tommy from Peaky Blinders, Cersei from Game of Thrones on the couch to learn why their behaviour creates so much drama.

So make sure you press the follow button to get new episodes as soon as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Shrink the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Welcome back. One of the joys of Something Rhymes with Purple is that it's for the purple people, and the purple people play their part, and they get in touch with us. And we've had so many communications this week. Something on phobias has come in from Jose Salgado, and he is in Lisbon. He's been in touch to point out a rather cruel one. The fear of long words is apparently hippopotamonstrosequideliaphobia.

Sesquipedalian means a very long word. And it actually means a word that is a foot and a half long. And so a hippopotamonstro is actually brilliant for this episode because it's massive hyperbole all there in one. So as we've just discovered, it is impossible to pronounce. I'm going to give it one more go. Hippopotamonstrocesquipedaliophobia. Bravo. The way you said that was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Well done, you.

Sensational. It's a made-up word, is it? Yes, obviously. Of course, it's a made-up word. Well done, you. Sensational. It's a made up word, is it? Yes, obviously. Of course, it's a made up word. Like everything. Yes. We've got another new word coming in from Mark LaViolette. What a great name. And he talks about in times of pandemic when the immunity that we were seeking by reclusing ourselves to the basement with a plethora of snacks in order, he says, to practice niche pastimes, was nerd immunity. Oh, that's neat. So he is a director of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada.

So thank you for that, Mark. He's a professor. That's very impressive. Kingston, Ontario. We are truly international. Closer to home, one of our regular contributors, Ems Jenkins, has been in touch. Hello, Susie and Giles.

Congratulations on your 104th and 102nd episodes. Because you described it, didn't you, as a 101th. I'm looking forward to the 100th. I absolutely love the show. Oh, it's very nice. I run a garden machinery shop in South Wales. And a job that came into us the other day got me thinking about the word puncture. Does this have the same root as the word punctuate? I often think of punctuation

as a stabbing of sentences. Well, Ems is spot on with that one, actually, because it was originally, as we talked about this in our punctuation episode again, it was the pointing of psalms for the purpose of singing them so introducing the right pauses so that you could sing them with the right sense and essentially it was a marking with points in writing in order to show pauses show emphasis and that kind of thing that and puncture both go back to the latin punctus which in turn was the past participle of pundere which meant to prick or to pierce. And of course, if you have a puncture, you have a pierced tyre.

So it was pretty much to do with a stabbing of sentences, whether or not you were literally stabbing it with your pen or whether it was just the fact that you were actually marking it with points, you know, is open to conjecture. But yes, it is all to do with piercing your text or piercing your tyre. Gosh, there we are.

Next up, smarmy. Oh, that's a good one. Leo Risley, this is from, he's wondering about the origin of smarm and smarminess. He's recently wondered about the unctuous word, such a good term, that unctuous, and whether it shares its origins with the Polish word for grease, smar,

which I believe comes from the Middle High German, schmehr. And I think schmehren is still in German for smearing. And indeed, that was the original meaning of smarm. It was to smear or bedaub. And it was specially to smear it with pomade. You know, that scented ointment for your hair. Yes, yes. I always think of Hercule Poirot with his pomade. So that scented ointment for your hair yes yes with his pomade so that's

originally what it meant and we don't know quite where it comes from but it does the sound of it does suggest smear and it does suggest something as um leo says something unctuous and then eventually it was to smear with flattery and that was how shmarm and smarm then came to mean you're just a little bit fake if you're smarmy but he also asked about toodaloo because he signs off toodaloo doesn't he as in toodaloo ta-ta yes and he wonders where that comes from and he wonders if it comes from the french meaning see you soon and um yeah again he's our purple listeners are amazing because yes there is an element of that in it so toodleodle Pip and Toodleoo came about the sort of time when the motor car became very, very popular.

So there was another expression, toot toot, for goodbye, that conjures up the sound that an old motor car might make as it was leaving. That led probably to the Toodleoo bit. But the Pip Pip, Toodle pip, follows the same idea of repeated sound, maybe made by car horn. But yes, there might well have been a toodaloo, see you soon, at play here, picked up by British soldiers fighting in France during the First World War. So all of those probably came to cement toodaloo in the dictionary. Well, if people want to get in touch with us with their queries, because we'll do our best to answer them, well, Susie will, just get in touch with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com and something doesn't have a G in it, just to be perverse.

Do you have a trio of interesting words to which you'd like to introduce us this week? Well, the first is because I hope that we are all, no matter which country we're in, that we are all gradually edging our way towards some kind of freedom. So I've got a phrase here from dialects, which originally meant to be kind of in prison. It was all about being in a state of confinement, which seems fairly apt for what we've been living through for the last year. And it's Dixie Fixie. So we've been in a Dixie Fixie for quite a long time. Probably goes back to Dixit, he said, meaning a judge that would send someone to prison. But Dixie Fixie became a general term for being just confined somewhere, as I say, which is what we've all been feeling. Another D for you,

Doggery Boar. I just love this one daggery bar is nonsense has to be said with a world west accent i reckon doggery boar even though it was around and uh quite well in english dialect for quite a long time doggery boar and finally you know the sort of annoyance or vexation that gets you all hot and bothered and you just can't think straight because you're just annoyed, so annoyed with yourself. That is puckeration and probably goes back to puck meaning a mischievous spirit, famously obviously in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but even before then it meant this kind of mischievous sprite that would cause all sorts of things, cause all sorts of havoc. So puckeration is anything that gets you hot under the collar. And do you have a trick for helping us to remember these words?

I mean, my feeling is what I ought to do is choose a word each week and then use it several times during the week. Because often you introduce me to a word and then a month later, I vaguely remember there was a word, but I can't remember what the word is. Yes. For me, it's been all about exposure. So it's one of the joys of my life that I kind of experience an emotion or experience something and I think oh yes there's a word for that and I have to dig around for it in my head but I think learning a word a day learning a new word a day is is brilliant reading widely is brilliant listening to podcasts is is brilliant and that's just the way that you you can easily build up your vocabulary but also also using it in context. So applying one of

these words like, oh gosh, I was in such a puckeration yesterday and applying it to an actual situation really, really helps because that will help cement it, as I say, in your head. Well, you bring immense knowledge to our podcast. I just bring occasional name dropping. I feel I haven't brought any names to drop this week. And then I suddenly remembered that I was thinking about Billie Jean King the other day. I was thinking about her on my birthday, which every year coincides with International Women's Day. And it was first held, International Women's Day, in New York a long time ago, back in 1909. But it got official recognition from the United Nations in the 1970s, I think in 1975. And I was thinking about it

on the day itself, because one of the most impressive women I have met is Billie Jean King, the great tennis player. And she introduced me to a most amusing poem. You may remember that she challenged a rather arrogant former tennis champion called Bobby Riggs. Or maybe he challenged her to play tennis because he didn't believe that a woman could beat a man at tennis. And a movie was made of this. Anyway, there was this famous match, Bobby Riggs versus Billie Jean King, back in 1973. And a poem was written about it by Liz Brownlee. And this is my short poem for this week. Bobby Riggs, tennis champ, said a woman couldn't beat a man. Billie Jean King, tennis champ, in three straight sets showed a woman can.

Excellent. I like that. And don't be too worried about your name dropping because I think we got Harry and Meghan. Oh, yes, we did. But the Billie Jean King was a proper encounter. We were just mentioning Meghan and Harry. Well, we weren't because we've given them up for Lent.

So we didn't. Well, speak for yourself. Do you know what? I can't wait for the end of Lent because I love a hot cross bun. Aren't they good? They are good. I know. And I know it's not good.

I know I shouldn't be recommending this. Slightly over toasted. So it's a little bit burnt with real butter. Now, talking about hyperbole of food, I have no idea how this is described on the packet, but you can get luxury hot cross buns that are kind of made with marmalade. Oh, they're so good. I would call that gilding the lily, if I may say so.

That's overdoing it. You don't need, keep your marmalade off. It's like people say, put marmite underneath on your toast before you put on the baked beans on top. No, no. You haven't tried this yet, Charles. I'm going to send you one. Oh, you're right.

I haven't tried it. It is extremely good. And I hope that we've been all right and sort of good, even without the marmalade, for you today. Thank you so much for listening. Something Rides With Purple is a Something Else production. Produced by Lawrence Bassett. With production from Harriet Wells, Steve Ackermanerman ella mcleod jay beal and the man for whom no superlatives would suffice really don't you reckon giles oh he's a dixie fit himself it's gully