Something Rhymes with Purple - Paronomasia

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Purple People hello and welcome to this week’s episode! If you’re feeling a bit powfagged never fear, we’ll be guiding you through King of the Dad Joke, the “highest form of literature”… yes, we are of course talking about Puns! Yes puns, or paronomasia if you’re being a real word nerd (which we always are). From our favourite famous punster William Shakespeare, to punny kebab shops (Abrakebabra, Jason Donervan) Gyles and Susie will be having a look at why we love them. Elsewhere we get pedantic with pronunciation and answer your purple post- Charlotte is Trying, Katie is sick of the weather and Megan has sang a song? Sung a song? Susie and Gyles will explain. To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple A Somethin' Else production Susie's Trio: Puzzomous- Disgustingly obsequious  Fratchy- Short tempered and quarrelsome Nidorosity- Belching with the smell of undigested meat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Hello and welcome to this episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast about words and language and various musings from me, Susie Dent, and my co-host, Giles Branderis. We've got some light relief today, Giles, haven't we? When you say light relief, we're going to be going into the world of pun-demonium. Because I love a pun.

But first, I do sense you're looking particularly chilled this morning. There's a kind of pink suffusion across your face. Is that because my screen is playing up as I look at you on Zoom? Do you know, I'm such a sucker for any cosmetic product that says it gives you a glow and they never work. So I've resorted to other means. And you're right. I have got in front of me a Himalayan salt lamp. So this was a present from my sister and it is supposed to suffuse the room with calm, relaxing, ionising, perhaps, little particles. All the scientists listening will be banging their heads on the wall because I've described that

extremely badly. But if I start to nod off or if I enter a kind of state of complete zen in the middle of this podcast, just keep talking. I've got one of those and it drives me mad. It puts up the blood pressure because I haven't worked out quite how to make it work you've got to put little things into it haven't you to create the infusion well you just put these little rocks these little himalayan salt is supposed to be incredibly um healing in so many different ways but unfortunately this has been sitting here for so long that i think the particles are going to be drifting around they're largely going to be dust but i've decided to give it a go today because honestly you're not going to be happy with this but I'm not sure I'm a really punny person really Richard Whiteley who I worked

with on Countdown the game show that I've worked on for a long time he was the first and original host and was a huge lover of puns and I tend to groan whenever there's a pun and some some deliverers of puns like Tim Vine for example who's a British comedian who is probably the pun meister I would say in this country he hates it when people groan doesn't like it at all and a brilliant producer one of our brilliant producers Lawrence has reminded me that Samuel Johnson called punning the lowest form of humor so I have a sort of very illustrious predecessor and not quite being able to make their minds up,

although it sounds like he did, about puns. But Alfred Hitchcock said that puns are the highest form of literature. Well, there you are. And it's a little bit of linguistic slapstick for me. I know they can be very, very clever, but I'm never very good with that sort of slapstick thing. But I think today you're going to convert me. So I no longer groan.

I just sort of sit in awe and listen with a big smile on my face. Well, I think groaning is part of it. But I have got a treat in store because I've been collecting some of Tim's choicest puns over the years. And I'm going to share some with you and with people who have tuned in from all over the world to listen to us. I mean, because in my book, the reason I love puns is that pun power is at the heart of wordplay. Lots of dictionaries give slightly different variations on the definition of a pun.

But the one I looked up this morning was in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. And they describe the pun, I think, nicely and concisely as a humorous way of using a word or phrase so that more than one meaning is suggested. And what I find fascinating is the paradox that lies behind them. The worse they are, somehow the better they are. Let me give you one of my favorites. I think this is genius. What do you call a patronizing confidence trickster coming down the stairs? What do you call a patronising confidence trickster coming down the stairs? You call him a condescending condescending. Ah, very good.

I like that. You see, I like the person who first described a kiss as elliptical. Elliptical. The elliptical kiss. Elliptical. So I'd like to share a kiss as elliptical. Elliptical, the elliptical kiss, elliptical. So I'd like to share a pun with you about chemistry, but would it get the right reaction? So they come in all shapes and sizes.

I have created for myself a kind of pun library, and this is one of the first ones I collected because I've been doing this since I was a boy. Puberty is a hair-raising experience. That's short and sharp. But yeah, these have been around for such a long time. I mean, it's quite tempting to think of puns as being quite a modern phenomenon. But actually, I think if you look back to the text of the ancients, you will find puns there. And I know a lot of linguists, including David Crystal, who we mentioned very often, thinks that English actually lends itself remarkably well to wordplay as evidenced so much by Shakespeare, but particularly to

puns. Shall I quickly tell you where pun comes from, by the way? Please. It's a kind of a humorous riff, I suppose, on punctilio. And punctilio is a fine or petty point of conduct or procedure. But here the emphasis is on the fine because it's a very nuanced, I suppose, bit of wordplay. I would argue that puns are very often not very nuanced, but anyway, that is the origin of it. And it's also known as paranomasia, which comes from the Greek para meaning beside and onomasia meaning naming. Onomastics is the study of names. So that's where the pun comes from. And it's an art. It's an art. And you're right, it does have an ancient heritage.

I mean, many of the literary giants of the past have been master punsters. Shakespeare reveled in puns. Yes. Ask for me tomorrow, says Mercutio, as he's about to die, and you shall find me a grave man. Another English, well, actually Irish playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, punned his way into a lovely compliment addressed to a lovely girl called Miss Payne, spelled P-A-Y-N-E. Tis true, I am ill, but I cannot complain, for he never knew pleasure who never knew pain. It's quite nice, isn't it? It is quite nice. Yeah. And I love the fact that, especially with Shakespeare,

it's a bit of a kind of word detection game because quite often his puns are very much based on the vocabulary of the time and the sort of double entendre of the time. So they're not always very obvious to modern ears, but if you do some unpacking, you realise just how clever they are. That's it. It is the cleverness of it. Hilaire Belloc wrote his own punning epitaph. When I am dead, I hope it may be said, his sins were scarlet, but his books were red. That is clever. There was a headline, Ernest Hemingway, when he died, he'd been known as Papa,

Papa Hemingway. And one of the newspapers'd been known as Papa, Papa Hemingway. And one of the newspapers, it may have been the New York Times, had a famous headline that simply read, Papa Passes, which was a literary joke, because Papa Passes is a famous phrase, I think, from a poem by Robert Browning. So that really was quite ingenious. And newspaper headline writers, I mean, they rely on the pun, don't they, for their humour, and some of them are genius. Some of them are just slightly annoying. In the Euros, of course, England are playing Germany, and I'm already dreading the puns that are going to appear

for that. In fact, by the time this comes out, they'll probably have been and gone, but they always elicit the worst kind of puns, in my view. Some stand the test of time. In my pun collection, I have one from a novel written by Richard Hughes in 1938. The novel was called In Hazard, and this is the sentence. Presently, she told Dick she had a cat so smart that it first ate cheese and then breathed down the mouse holes with baited breath to entice the creatures out. Do you get it? Baited breath. Baited breath because it's the cheese, which is the bait. Baited, if it's the cheese, is a bait. It's B-A-I-T-E-D. You have to know your English there. Yes. But baited, to mean anticipating, is B-A-T-E.

Well, baited actually, baited breath actually means shortened breath. So you're kind of breathing quite shallowly in expectation. So it's a shortening of abated. So there's a wonderful pun, two different spellings in the same. I mean, this is, I mean, for me, there's a kind of erotic charge in this. That's a homophone, that one, isn't it? Then the baited. Yes.

And a lot of puns rely on those. Homophone, homograph. What is a homophone? What is a homograph? Oh, homograph is a word that is spelled the same of another, but not necessarily pronounced the same. And usually has come from a completely different root. So if you take bow, to take a bow,

and bow, the bow that you might have in your hair a homophone is a word that has the same pronunciation as another but again different meaning different origins or spelling so new as a new pair of shoes and i knew that for example and then you have you have the homonym which is not too far away actually so homonym is one of two or more words that has the same spelling or pronunciation, but different meanings and origins. So there's a whole collection there. And actually, they are quite often the bedrocks of puns, aren't they? They certainly are.

I mean, let me give you an example here. And this is one of my favourites because I think it could hardly be better. And it could also hardly be worse. It's the payoff to a famous story written by Bennett Cerf. And the story is about a private detective who is hired to trace a missing person named Ree, R-H-E-E. And this man, Ree, used to work for Life magazine, which was a hugely famous magazine in America, in New York. Eventually, the detective ran his man to ground and exclaimed, ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you. Isn't that ingenious? Yeah, that is good.

I've actually made, I've got a pun notebook. I just keep reams of these. And I take part in a radio program in the UK called Just a Minute. And one of the best puns I ever came across was a riff from Marcus Brigstock. He did a thing telling us about the inflatable school, which had an inflatable headmaster and inflatable pupils. And one day an inflatable schoolboy came to the school with a pin. And the headmaster said to the schoolboy, do you realise that you've let me down, you've let yourself down, and worst of all, you've let the whole school down. Yeah, that's a famous joke, that one, isn't it?

It is a famous joke, but isn't it clever? It's very clever. You see, I just, I love that. And do you know Milton Jones? Have you heard of Milton Jones? Milton Jones is brilliant. Yes, I've done a radio show with him. And he almost does as many puns, I think, as Tim Vine.

It's one line is he throws them away. Years ago, I used to supply filofaxes to the mafia. Yes, I was involved in very organised crime. You've got to admit that's ingenious. That's excellent, yeah. But the basis of it is a pun. I'll just give you a few of Tim Vines, since you mentioned him. Okay, yes, of course. So to give people who don't know about him a flavour of what he does.

Black Beauty. Now there's a dark horse. I took part in the sun tanning Olympics. I got a bronze. This bloke said to me, I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in the library. I thought, there's a turn up for the books. You've got to admire the ingenuity of it, don't you think? You do. It's funny. Do you know what? I'm just beginning to realise that actually what I needed was about 10 cups of coffee before this episode, because I woke up a little bit crumpsy today, as in a little bit kind of, and this is a really good antidote for me but the word that I tweeted as my word of the day was a giggle mug and a giggle mug this is not you Giles is

someone who is perpetually cheery and only increases your bad mood because they're constantly sort of smiling and grinning and I think in some ways the pun is the linguistic form of the giggle mug in other words it's constantly kind of happy and you have to be in the right state of mind so i'm getting there i'm getting there apologies if my reactions aren't as exuberant as they should be but um yeah the crumpsiness is going it's working well i think you're doing very well and i fear i probably am a giggle mump um i think you're a giggle mug i think puns are giggle mug yes and i think we call them i think we call them punsters. Punsters, okay.

I think. I think that's what they like to be called, not punners. Let me look this up. I think it is a punster because a punner is there in a very different sense of pun, which is to consolidate earth or rubble by pounding it. I love that. Puns are kind of jokey puns. They do sometimes pound you on the head.

And then other ones are incredibly subtle, as you've shown. I've got a list of some fantastic shop names, because I think no matter where our purple listeners are, they will have their own local shops which have chosen some incredibly clever names. Well, should we have those as a treat after the break? Okay, let's do that. I'll just give you a couple more to take us into it. I was neutral till a live wire promised me the earth.

That's good. Neat. The system of decimal notation has its points, but fractions are often vulgar. Very good. Quite nice. And finally, a Puritan is a person who knows what they like. A Puritan is a person who knows what they like. Do you get it? Saying no, N-O-E-S. N-O-E-S? Yeah. No, I'm saying no.

Oh, thank goodness. Oh, sorry. As in N-O-S, as in nose. Well, this is an example of your homophone. It sounds the same, but it's spelt differently. Yeah. That's a really tough one. These are really subtle.

Oh, these are. Oh, yes. You're with somebody who really is a little bit one. These are really subtle. Oh, these are. Oh, yes. Well, you're with somebody who really is a little bit obsessive about this. Yeah. Nosey stuff. That's material you're talking about after the break. Nosey snuff. Bless you.

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Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill, who had limited prospects outside of acting. The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime. And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier.

Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. We're back and you've got shop names. You see, puns become memorable. I think people, when they name shops, want to give them ingenious names, like the hairdresser locally here,

which is called Curl Up and Die, which is actually a rather grim name for a hairdresser, isn't it? But the idea is you curl up and you die, D-I-Y-E. That's brilliant. I've never heard that one. So is that in London? Yeah, around the corner from here. That's very clever. Okay, so I've got some more here and I absolutely love these. These are the ones that really tickle my fancy, actually. So I'm definitely getting there. Okay, this is a locksmith in Portsmouth, Sherlock Holmes. Oh, I love that. And that's appropriate because Arthur Conan Doyle had a medical practice, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes, in Portsmouth. I wouldn't be surprised if this particular locksmith isn't

around the corner from where Arthur Conan Doyle lived lived and that's what gave them the notion of calling it shorelock home that's clever maybe there's a blue plaque nearby could be could well be that inspired them yeah um okay this is a chain of kebab shops in ireland abracababra oh that's genius um and along the same uh theme a kebab van in Bristol, Jason Donovan. Now, you have to know that there's a very successful series that was imported into Britain and possibly many other countries from Australia called Neighbours. And one of the big stars was called Jason Donovan. So that's a joke on his name. This is an absolutely brilliant one, I think. Cocktail bar in Fulham, Tequila Mockingbird.

Oh, it's wonderful. I love that one. Absolutely brilliant one, I think. Cocktail Bar in Fulham, Tequila Mockingbird. Oh, it's wonderful. I love that one. I have to throw in something here because regular listeners do say to me, if I haven't done a name drop, I get a little tweet saying, not much name dropping this week. But since you mentioned Jason Donovan, years ago when he was starring in, I think, Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat, the wonderful Andrew Lloyd Webber,

Tim Rice musical at the London Palladium. Palladium. Yeah, I saw him there too. I saw him there. And in his dressing room afterwards, he was changing and he introduced me to the possibilities of waxing. Perhaps I'm sharing too much, but I'm now, I'm not bronzed as he always was, but I do wax. Just sharing. Do you? Gosh, I would never have put you down for a waxer. And it's very true, actually.

It's thanks to Jason Donovan. Okay. I did a programme with Jason quite recently, actually, and he's just never ages. And he is incredibly smooth. You're right. So obviously he's still waxing well. You see, there are lots of possibilities for punning and waxing, you see. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Jason Donovan. Oh, yes, exactly. His career goes on and on. So Jason Donovan waxes, but never wanes. That's instant punning. Very good. Okay, so here are some tree surgeons in North London. Tree wise men.

They should be in Ireland. Tree wise men. Anyway, Florist and Milton Keynes. Back to the Future that is superb it's sort of Back to the Future the film you see you're warming

to these pans now I love this one and a fish and chip shop in the Ronda Valley a fish called Ronda very good as well

and then you have to know about the film called A Fish Called Wanda so sometimes you need to know your popular culture that's kind of unopinning these, but these are brilliant. And we would love to hear, wouldn't we, the sort of local punning shop names from our listeners, because there'll be some brilliant ones across the world. So please remember to email us.

It's purple at something else.com. And it's something without the G, purple at something else.com. So please let us know and we'll definitely come back to them. Lots of people have been in touch. The advantage the advantage of course of easy origami is twofold i like that one that's a good one i think that's one of tim vines uh advent calendars their days are numbered velcro what a ripoff these are definitely tim's aren't they they are tim's this is one of his most famous ones and i think this is the one that maybe won an award at the Edinburgh Fringe as well. Conjunctivitis.com. That's a site for sore eyes. Yes. Yes. See, it's ingenious. So please, if you've got a pun that you adore or even one that you hate, maybe we should have a competition to find

the world's worst ever pun. And we could give we could send them some of our merch uh as a prize what about the best and the worst so how about the best shop name and the worst pun we will be the judges and our decision is final all right okay have you been asked this week suzy to talk about people mispronouncing words. There was a story in the newspaper the other day based on a survey. 2,000 people were surveyed and 35% complained about the way some people say certain words.

Pacifically, instead of specifically. Probably, instead of probably. That's called haplology, yeah. What's it called? Hap-lology. Oh, you mentioned that before. Yeah, yeah. When we swallow.

Hap-lology. I'm going to write that down. So things like February, September. It really annoys people. And so I assumed whenever I get a call to talk about the English language, I assume it's because your answer phone was on and they couldn't get through to you. So they've come through to Giles instead. And so I've had so many calls this week saying, oh, will you come on and talk about people saying specially instead of especially? But I didn't know the answer to specially versus especially.

I'd have thought that specially probably is allowed now. As always with these things, and I'm so boring about this, I think that, you know, these kinds of arguments have been going on for a very, very long time. And so if I look, for example, this is not about pronunciation, but if i look at disinterested and uninterested or less and fewer and all those kind of big debates you will always find that we've been having those for at least two centuries so let me look up specially and see for a special purpose goes back to the 14th century that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is particularly, aren't we? Especially, particularly 14th century.

There you go. Really? Yeah. So for people to be, if it's a mistake, people have been making it for 700 years. Well, yeah. And I wouldn't say it is a mistake, really. I'm going to look up especially now, principally, chiefly,

that's later for 1400. So especially is correct. Well, no one says correct, but it's as standard. Well, yeah, by maybe 60 years or so. And it's quite difficult to get it exactly right with written records. Can I tell you, at my age, 60 years actually makes a difference. You know, you've got 60 years more to go. I probably haven't.

I'm waxing. I'm taking the tablets. I've got the crystals in the corner of the room. I'm doing everything I can to get down there with the kids. I've discovered this week the word Leng for being beautiful. You're Leng. I've not heard that. No.

Oh, look it up. My daughter keeps looking at me and making a sort of, she puts her hand on her chin and she goes, swag. And swag means cool, I think. Good. Well, I'm putting my hand on my chin too. Swag. Swag. Swag and L lang and like we better get to our correspondence we're running out of time for our correspondence oh lord correspondence everybody yeah what have we had this week because i i haven't got them

you've got them in front of you yes uh well a nice email from colin campbell uh referencing my using pofag or powfag to mean tired out he says my wife for decades has described the little bobbles that appear on a well-worn jumper as powfags and thus the jumper is powfagged I guess it could still mean the jumper is tired out but she says she's never heard it used in that sense that's really interesting I hate those little bobbles I can never get you know my favorite jumpers I can never ever get get them off uh So thank you, Colin, for that. Colin's in Devon. So that's obviously, again, a specific dialect sense, which is really interesting. Kate Lang, or Liang, sorry, says, Hi, Susie and Giles. It's that time of year again, and the weather can only be described as muggy. Can you tell me where this word comes from?

And I can. Kate's in Bristol, but it's not actually a particularly local word. It's pretty much standard now. And it comes from the mid-18th century, but its roots are much, much older because we think the Vikings probably brought this one over. And in their language of Old Norse, mugger meant mist or drizzle. So I suppose it's that idea of not so much the drizzle sense, but the kind of humidity and the sort of stickiness. Mugger as in muggy. Yes. What we also might call swallowing. Swallowing is kind of really sweltering with heat. So yeah, it's probably got its roots in a Viking word.

Charlotte Godfrey has said, Dear Susie and Giles, one thing I find especially interesting is when the same word has completely different meanings or usages. I wanted to ask about the word try. Is this an instance of the English word having multiple origins or have the multiple meanings developed in English? So there's try in rugby, there's trying as in she's been really trying today, you know, a trial, an ordeal or a test period or that kind of thing. This is a perfect example of a good word for a pun. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, my wife is always saying to me, are you trying? And I said, well, I may not be, but you are. Exactly. Well, there probably is actually a single origin behind all of this,

which is an old French word, probably brought in by the Normans, trier, which meant to sift. And if you hold on to that idea of sifting, you can see all its kind of metaphorical applications. So at a trial, a judge is sifting through the evidence to come to a conclusion. If you are trying to do something, you are putting it to the test and you're putting yourself to the test, you're testing it. And in rugby, touching the ball down behind the opposing goal line, that's been called a try because it gives the scoring side the right to try to kick a goal. So that's where that one's from. And if you are being trying, as in your pun, Giles, then you are really putting someone to the test because you're being so annoying.

You are testing the limits. Very good. Term of trial. Megan has been in touch. Megan Tancock. And Megan is asking, I was just wondering when to use sang and when to use sung for the past tense of the verb to sing. Oh, I sang at the concert. I sung at the concert. No, I sung at the concert doesn't sound right. No, I had sung at the concert. So this is just a simple distinction between the past sang, I sang in the shower,

and the past participle, which is sung. So they're not really interchangeable. I sung this one yesterday would be considered non-standard, whereas I had sang is also incorrect or non-standard. But the reason I really love this email from Megan is she says, I love the podcast and it's been a true oasis. And oasis is a word that I've used, haven't I, Giles? Because particularly during lockdown, it was a real refuge for me, the podcast, just something to look forward to every week when everything else had stopped. And it reminded me about the

origin of oasis, which is also lovely because in the classical world, Oasis with a capital O was the name of a really fertile spot in the Libyan desert. And it comes from an ancient Egyptian word for a dwelling place. And then it came to be used for a place of calm in the midst of trouble or turmoil, which I love. Well, people listen to Something Rhymes with Purple to hear wonderful stuff from Susie about the origins of words. And occasionally they listen to hear the hot gossip that I'm able to bring to you. And I've got an exclusive now, which I'm prompted to think about because of that interesting question from Megan about sung and sang. This is about Noel Gallagher? No. Oh, what have you? No, I was just thinking Oasis, sorry.

I was going down that way. Is there new goss? Is there new goss about Noel? No. This is, this will make you laugh or smile or maybe make you despair. I have been taking part in a television series, I'm taking part in a television series called Celebrity Gogglebox. And I sit in front of my television

with my friend Maureen Lipman and we watch TV, and they film us, and then edited highlights appear at the end of the week. And it's a great fun show to do. And as a result of this, I've been introduced to a program called Naked Attraction. And Naked Attraction is a TV show. It may appear in lots of countries, I don't know, but in the UK, it's been going for a few years now. And basically, it's a dating show, but you see the people naked. That's the point. And you choose them on the basis of whether you like the look of what they've got to offer. And it's got a kind of grim hypnotic effect on me. I'm completely hooked on it. And because I've said I'm hooked on

it, I was invited this week to audition. No. No, no, no, no, no, not for Celebrity Naked Attraction. I have declined that already, even though Maureen and I were briefly tempted. And I have been waxing for years, thanks to Jason Donovan. No, I was asked this week whether I would consider auditioning for a new show called Singing in the Shower. The idea of this, it's like there's a successful thing called the masked singer and the masked dancer. This is a late night version and people will be in the shower singing. That's what the show is. So what are you seeing? You're seeing frosted glass and a sort of vague figure behind it and then hearing their voice.

At the beginning. But I think then the host, i.e. me, comes on, pulls open the shower but i think then the host i.e me comes on pulls open the shower door rips back the curtain i haven't yet i haven't yet broached it with my wife because i'm in trouble with my wife already because all sorts of reasons well actually because on this morning this week we were asked uh whether we wore underwear underneath our nightwear. Oh yeah, that was a big question, wasn't it? This is the big one. Obviously, the question of the hour. Most of the world is thinking about that. And I confessed that I think sleep is a time for freedom. And that, you know, so going to bed in

the nude is a good thing. I did add that, of course, my wife insists on the light being turned off first. She was not amused to be brought into the discussion at all. So I don't know that she's going to be encouraging me to take part in the auditions to possibly be the host. Let alone coming to watch. She won't be watching. I won't be watching. I will be glued. Absent.

Singing in the shower. I'm getting slightly worried about you here, John. Steam rising. The door opening. Let's move on. Shall we have my trio? Out steps Jason Donovan. Yes, let's. Oh, I forgot. Oh, I thought we were coming to the end of the show. I'd forgotten about your trio. My trio and your poem. I'll do a very short poem and you do

a quick trio. Okay. So I mentioned that I was feeling a little bit crumpsy this morning and you can absolutely see this is the case from the three words that I've chosen because I'm afraid they're all slightly... So the first is a pussimus. Pussimus. P-U-Z-Z-O-M-O-U-S. It means disgustingly obsequious. Oh, he's such a pussimus individual. I just love the sound of that one. Fratchy, absolutely the same as synonym for crumpsy. If you are fratchy, you are short-tempered and quarrelsome. And this is possibly the worst. I can only apologise for this one. I think now, after all the puns and things, I would have chosen a slightly cheerier word. But the fact that there is a word for this

struck me as being slightly funny too. It's nuderosity. N-I-D-O-R-O-S-I-T-Y. It's absolutely disgusting. I apologise. Belching with the smell of undigested meat. Oh, good grief. I know. What an awful word. Someone's actually created a word for that. Nuderosity. Nuderosity?

Nuderosity. No, get off the nudism. Nuderosity. N-I-D-O-R-O-S-I-T-Y. Now, how do you get the N-I-E-D into that? N-I-D-O. So it's not from name on your divot. How do you get the N-I-E-D into that? N-I-D. Oh, so it's not from the French meaning a nest. So nothing to do with nest building.

And everything to do with nidor, which is, I'm going to have to look this up, but I think that is Latin for possibly meat or belching. Hang on. Oh, rich, strong smell or fumes. There you go. Nidor. There you are. Yeah.

So say the word again one last time. Needle-osity. I mean, when are you ever going to use it? But still, there's a whiff of needle-osity around here. Anyway, your poem. Very short, four lines. A little touch of Shakespeare, but in the modern idiom, because the world has changed.

Fear no more the heat of the sun. The English summer has begun. There is a bank where on the wild time grows. You can't get money there. It's had to close. Midsummer night's dream on the bank where the wild time grows. Gorgeous. Well, thank you so much for listening to us. And just to remind you, please do get in touch because we love to hear from you. It's purple at something else dot com. Something Rise with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells

with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Paul Brogdon, and just Mr. Invisible, really. I don't know where he is. Gully, who's away auditioning, apparently, for a new show called Singing in the Shower. Can't wait to open the door on him.