Something Rhymes with Purple - Phloem

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Here in the UK, we’re striding into summer - we’ve just celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee where people were quaffing Pimm’s at street parties up and down the country and with Wimbledon just around the corner, an episode on Summer Fruits seemed the perfect way to add some extra garnish to your summer excitement.  We’ll discover what barbarians and rhubarb have in common, why you should carry a basket as a third wheel on a date and what could make you a ‘top banana’. Susie and Gyles share stories of their favourite - and least favourite - deserts and with peachy keenness, Gyles shares a number of royal name drops. We’ll dive to the bottom of the sea to meet Davy Jones in our correspondence section before wrapping up with an excellent trio from susie (see below) and a beautiful poem from Gyles.  A Somethin’ Else production.  We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them in to [e-mail]  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple. We currently have 20% off all our merchandise in our store.  If you would like to join the Purple Plus Club on Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work. Susie's Trio:  Winx: To bray like a donkey Skirr: The sound of birds’ wings in flight Desticate: To squeak like a rat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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hosted by me, Giles Brandreth, and my friend, the world's leading lexicographer, Susie Dent. She always denies that. How are you today, Susie? I'm very well, thank you. Feeling always denies that. How are you today, Susie? I'm very well, thank you. Feeling quite summery today. How about you? Well, it's been on and off summer, hasn't it? It has. I went, oh, a week ago to Yeovil at a funny day that began at the Oval and ended in Yeovil. The Oval is a cricket ground in London. I ought to explain that to some of our international listeners. And Yeovil is a lovely town in Somerset. And I began

the day at one and I ended it at the other. At the beginning of the day, it was cold. In the middle of the day, it was wonderfully hot. At the end of the day, it was pouring with rain. So I felt I had all the seasons in one day. That's the beauty of England, I have to say. And the day I was doing this was the last day of the celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Again, our international listeners, we should involve them because we have people beyond, as it were, the United Kingdom, and indeed beyond the 15 countries that the Queen is head of state, and indeed beyond the 54 countries where the Queen is head of the Commonwealth. So we have a global audience, and they may not know that we have a Queen in this country.

Elizabeth II, she's been our Queen since 1952. And we've been celebrating our Platinum Jubilee. Where do these names come from? Why was it called the Platinum Jubilee as opposed to, I don't know, the gold-plated or the... It's really interesting. I'm not sure anybody completely knows why we associate certain anniversaries with certain materials from paper to platinum but it's obviously been a tradition that that goes back a long long way i

thought you were going to ask me about jubilee because that's got a lovely etymology if you want that one well i i'm going to ask you about jubilee having got platinum out of the way platinum is the metal the material the precious metal so it's considered to be more precious i suppose than gold or diamond which were the earlier ones it's very very precious it is very precious and just as a complete side note you know everyone complains that the americans call aluminium aluminum well actually that's what we used to call it because we matched it with platinum until later on we decided to match it with magnesium. But aluminum was ours for a while as well. Very good.

So yeah, just to throw that in. But Jubilee is a nice one because it goes back to the Hebrew yubel, which meant a ram's horn trumpet, so a shofar in other words. And the Jubilee, which involved the emancipation of slaves and the leaving land fallow, so it could sort of go wild and recuperate, that was announced with a blow of the ram's horn trumpet. So that's where that comes from. So it's a ram's horn trumpet.

Well, there was plenty of trumpeting going on at the Jubilee. Did you take part in lots of celebrations? I did. I went to see my mum, which was lovely, who is a staunch fan of the Queen. She shares a birthday with the Queen. Oh, fantastic. And we had a Jubilee lunch, which was really nice.

How about you? Well, you did loads. You were comment a Jubilee lunch, which was really nice. How about you? Well, you did loads. You were commentating, I think, weren't you, on the telly? I was very lucky to be involved all the way through. So I was sort of taking part in different activities on different days. On that final Sunday, I was at the Oval because there was one of the big lunches people organised all over the country. And this was organised really by the Royal Voluntary Service, used to be called the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, founded before the Second World War. And it basically

celebrates volunteers. And I was there with lots of volunteer champions, people who were being acknowledged for their contribution in volunteering throughout the country. And the Prince of Wales was there, and the Duchess of Cornwall was there there and I was there wearing my corgi jumper. And I was quite excited to be photographed with the Prince of Wales wearing my corgi jumper. And this picture appeared in various places, including Australia, where you will, yes, you'll be amused to know. Somebody sent me this on an email. They said this picture will amuse you. The caption was Prince Charles with man in corgi

jumper. That was me. So the fellow said, I thought this would put you in your place quite nicely. And it does. And it did. But it was a wonderful corgi jumper. And it was a wonderful day. And the point is, at this big lunch, there were wonderful things to drink, pims, fruit and sandwiches. And people were really loving the strawberries. And it suddenly made me think that this is the theme for today. In fact, it's a suggestion that I think one of our purple people, Joanne Douglas, came up with. She wanted an episode on summer fruits.

Joanne, actually, though she comes originally from England, is one of our international listeners. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama. And I assume, is Birmingham, Alabama named after Birmingham, England? Probably is, isn't it? Yes, it would have been. So the settlers who came over from Britain, I guess, well, I know they took all their, well, not all of them, but a lot of their place names with them, as they did with a lot of English dialect, which is why you will find a lot of our old dialect words, which are kind of obsolete now, still thriving

over in the US. Well, Joanne wants to hear all about strawberries and raspberries and plums and rhubarb. Tell me about some of that straightforward stuff in a straightforward way. I mean, the word strawberry, where does that come from? With straw and berry, I assume? Yeah, I'm afraid with strawberries and raspberries, you know, the two most common summer fruits, I suppose, come from, and it's very frustrating. Raspberry, we have absolutely no idea where that comes from and no one knows what the rasp bit means. Look in any estymological dictionary and it will say the same and we know that it goes back to the sort of Anglo-Latin venum raspace which was a

kind of sweet rose-coloured wine but where that comes from we have absolutely no idea. And as for strawberries, well again maybe it's a reference to the little chaff like seeds that cover the fruit but we have absolutely no idea i do know that in old english it was called an earth berry oh it's rather nice yeah it is nice isn't it i've got some feeling can strawberries be grown in straw yeah that's another theory is that actually sometimes it's kind of spread on the ground where the strawberries grow so it's another theory is that actually sometimes it's kind of spread on the ground where the strawberries grow. So it's another theory. But to be honest, nobody has ever quite got to the bottom of it. What to me is so interesting is the variability of the quality

of strawberries and raspberries. Occasionally you get a strawberry that is just beyond belief wonderful. Yes. Plums, rhubarb, anything interesting to say there? I don't know how you feel about plums. I absolutely love them. It goes back to, again, an old English borrowing from lots and lots of Germanic languages. But again, do you know what? Take it back far enough. We don't know where it comes from, sadly.

So that's that one. Rhubarb is a lovely one though, because we have talked about the distrust of foreigners and how that is exemplified in English and has been for absolutely centuries. So do you remember that I told you that the Greek barbaros for a barbarian, someone who was beyond the borders, if you like, is based on the Greek foreign, essentially. So anyone who was foreign was considered a barbarian and therefore the enemy. And rhubarb actually is the foreign fruit. It was so exotic in Europe that they decided to, well, and indeed for the Romans, that they decided to call it a foreign fruit because it came from elsewhere. It possibly is to do with Ra, R-H-A, which was an ancient name for the river Volga.

But certainly the Barbaros means foreign. And as I say, that makes rhubarb an unlikely sibling of barbarian. Where are you on eating rhubarb? It's got to be so perfectly prepared, isn't it, to work? Yes, I know. Because automatically I've done that kind of thing with my teeth. Because if you have sour rhubarb, it's just nothing worse than that kind of feeling. It's like eating a very unripe banana in my experience. It just sets your teeth on edge. I love rhubarb it's just nothing worse than that that kind of feeling on it it's like eating a very unripe banana in my experience it just sets your teeth on edge I love rhubarb rhubarb crumbles

possibly my favorite pudding with the exception perhaps of blackberry and apple crumble but yeah it has to be done properly and it has I think I saw a chef on Sunday brunch which is a program that you and I both really like and they cooked cooked it with butter and a tiny, tiny bit of vinegar, I think, which took the edge off. But the butter really, really helped and in a tiny bit of water. And I've tried that and it was absolutely delicious. Oh, it sounds fantastic.

Well, now the fruits, of course, have sprung into our language. I mean, for example, I mean, we're talking about berries, strawberries, raspberry. We've discussed too often, we won't go berries, strawberries, raspberry, we've discussed too often, we won't go back there, the vulgar noise that is the raspberry. What about gooseberry? Why? I mean, a gooseberry, a little goosegog is a little green fruit with little hairs all over it. We know what a gooseberry is. Why is it a gooseberry? Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Well,

I think the fact that it's related to the goose is probably what we call folk etymology, because it seems to be related in lots of other languages to words that are a bit like krause or kreuzel. And both of those meant kind of crispy and curly in other languages. No part of the plant suggests a goose at all. So we think it's because these foreign words sounded, well, were unpronounceable to us. We decided to link it, as we so often do, with the nearest available and familiar English term, which is what we've done with the gooseberry. Meanwhile, if you are a gooseberry and you're with a couple who are kind of going out and you're just there as a sort of one in the middle, stuck out a little bit, that probably goes back to the idea of a chaperone who would accompany a young couple out, as was expected in centuries past. The idea is that you

might pretend that you were picking gooseberries, which would be the sort of rationale for you being there at all. You're going on the romantic walk as the third party because you've got your basket and you're collecting gooseberries on the way. Exactly. Pretending not to look behind you as they're canoodling. That's lovely. And also old gooseberry was a term for the devil believe it or not and then children are found under a gooseberry bush aren't they so it's a bit like you know a stork bringing a baby it's the same idea how long is that thing going around i remember that the babies are discovered under the gooseberry bush yes yeah i agree and it's just the sort of the whole euphemistic way in which we

try and explain sex and reproduction to kids. We just say, oh, a stork flew in and brought the baby or we found it under a gooseberry bush. It's lovely, isn't it? So that is centuries old too. This is reminding me of an old joke from my childhood about the two strawberries in the same bed. And because they'd been in the same bed, they ended up in the same jam. You say there's no connection with geese in gooseberry, but I'm wondering, you talk about same bed and because they'd been in the same bed they ended up in the same jam boom boom oh you say there's no connection with geese in gooseberry but i'm wondering you talk about gooseberry skin don't you gooseberry flesh that when your skin it's very goosebump goose bumps and that's because i imagine you look like a plucked goose goose you do you know and maybe a gooseberry looks a bit

bald with little sticking out bits maybe it could be looking like a plucked goose. Maybe. Yeah, I think, I mean, the goose bumps or the goose pimples, definitely. I think that was first actually applied to recovering addicts whose skin would get very, very kind of sweaty and the hairs would kind of stand on end. But also they get these little, you know, what we would call goose bumps that we get from fright or suspense or whatever these days well well done uh with gooseberry and we've been cherry

picking the answers there haha cherry picking i mean obviously cherry where does cherry come from uh cherry is straight from the french cherries and we saw you cherries as a color don't we cherries top for example the queen's quite fond of Cherise. Oh, is it? You pronounce it Cherise, not Cerise. I would say Cherise, but do you want me to look this up and see? Well, I think it's... Let's see, maybe it's Cerise. My recollection is Cerise for cherry is C-E-R-I-S-E. No, you might be right.

I'm sure my mum would say Cherise. Let me look it up. Well, whatever your mother does is right, and she's... No, you're absolutely right. It is Cerise. It's my fault. No. A light, clear red colour, and it comes from French, literally, cherry. Yes, so apologies for that. You're absolutely right. It is Cerise. It's my fault. No. A light, clear red colour. And it comes from French, literally, Cherie.

Yes, so apologies for that. You were totally right. Well, it's good. Can I say something, Susie Dent? Once in a while, once in a blue moon, it is good for me to be right. I am so rarely right, it would be nice for me. So thank you. Let's keep that bit in. Cherie, picking, though, where does that come from? Yes, well, the first reference that the dictionary has is from 1940. And it's from the Railroad Magazine. So this is from the US and talks about a cherry picker being a switch man, so called because of red lights on the switch stands. And by extension any railroad man who is always figuring on the

best jobs and sidestepping undesirable ones would also be called a cherry picker because they were picking the best of the fruit but also according to this record based on the old saying life is a bowl of cherries and why is life a bowl of cherries because it's so sweet sweet yes sweet and jammy sweet and jammy. Sweet and jammy. And yet there is the odd stone in the middle of a cherry and you can break your teeth on that. So that, yeah.

I used to love as a child cherries, picking cherries, rinsing cherries. My mother would put them in the colander and we'd rinse them. And then I was allowed to sort of put them on to divide them up between us. And I loved wearing them as earrings. You wear cherries. Do you know what I mean? Because when they were on the stalks and sometimes you got three cherries on the same stalk and they made fabulous earrings anyway oh amazing yeah you've just also brought back a memory of how my mum used to make because we you couldn't really get fresh raspberries all year round when I was growing up so if she was making a raspberry tart or something she would get her raspberries from the can and she would always let

me drink the sweet syrup at the end of it straight from the can oh nice memories those are my favorite childhood memory almost I think is with icing when my mother had made a cake and had put the icing onto the cake the rest of the bowl was given to me. Yes, yes. And it was a large bowl, which was yellow inside, and there was a wooden spoon, and I was able to, I scraped it, scraped it, and ate it. Oh, gosh, that was good. I remember that with chocolate, chocolate icing. Delicious.

Now, yes, we're getting a bit carried away here. Tell me about peach, the peach. People have peachy skin. People are peachy keen. or are they peachy keen yeah well i guess because everything about a peach its color its texture its flavor is sort of healthy it's got a pink flush it's fresh it's soft it's downy all of those things so somebody might have a peachy complexion meaning it's sort of just as i say fresh and soft maybe a tiny bit downy so that goes back to the 16th century and if we're peachy complexion meaning it's sort of just as i say fresh and soft maybe a tiny bit downy so that goes back to the 16th century and if we're peachy keen i think that's a riff on the early 20th century use in the us of something peachy to mean excellent or marvelous or if it was

of a woman attractive and desirable so again it's all to do with the fact that peaches are sweet and fresh and juicy is the peach related to a plum well in in botanical terms probably i don, it's all to do with the fact that peaches are sweet and fresh and juicy. Is the peach related to a plum? Well, in botanical terms... Probably. I don't know. As a stoned fruit, yes. But you know when we call something a plum job? Oh, yeah.

That might also be, like the sort of peachiness, it might be to do with the fact that a plum is ripe and juicy. But also, during the 16th century, a plum was £1,000. You know when we have all these terms for various sums of money and they're really mysterious as to where they came from. But £500 was a monkey and a pony was £25. A plum, £1,000 was a vast sum of money. So a plum job was quite possibly one that earned you a lot, usually for very little work.

So we think that's where that comes from. Whenever I see the word plum, I think of P.G. Woodhouse. Pelham Woodhouse, he was known to his friends as Plum. Yes. Oh, we mentioned rhubarb earlier. We didn't talk about the famous, you know, if you're in a crowd scene, it's Julius Caesar, and you've got the crowd in Rome, and they're all supposed to go around going rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. What's the origin of them saying rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb? Well, I think you've just sort of answered it yourself. Because if you just say rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. What's the origin of them saying rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb? Well, I think you've just sort of answered it yourself. Because if you just say rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, if you watch my lips while I'm saying it, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, it just sounds like I'm making every day, albeit unintelligible conversation. So that's the

idea that I think the mouth movements that it induces somehow looks like people are having some sort of earnest conversation behind that you're really not supposed to focus on, but at least they're, you know, they're acting normally. Very good. I'm liking that. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. Do you know who I mean by an actress called Brenda Blethyn? Yes, that definitely rings a bell. She stars in a very successful television series called Vera,

which is hugely popular, not just in this country, but it's shown all around the world. And she's one of my favourite actresses, but I can never say her name correctly. It's hard. It's a real tongue twister. Try saying it three times quickly. Brenda Blethen, Brenda Blethen, Brenda...

Actually, I'm doing it quite well today. Brenda Blethen, Brenda Blethen, Brenda Blethen, Brenda Blethen. Yeah, you've done it. Well done. So I don't know why I got you that from Rhubarb, Rhubarb. OK, let's go on now oh yes tell me about um kiwi fruit and jackfruit i mean are they related is jack was jack a person kiwi i think of associated with new zealand but explain yes and that's exactly where

that comes from okay so i'll start with kiwi so kiwi obviously is one of those tailless, flightless birds, which is native to New Zealand, long bill. And so the kiwi became associated with New Zealand and the sort of Chinese gooseberries, as they used to be called, I don't quite know why they were called Chinese gooseberries, are what became known as kiwi fruit because they were cultivated in New Zealand. So, and of course we call New Zealanders kiwis. So that's that one. And a jackfruit, it'd be really tempting to think that this is a use of jack, as we often talk about on Purple, you know, to mean any kind of generic man or profession, lumberjack, jack of all trades, et cetera, et cetera. But actually this is very different because first of all, it's a tropical Asian tree and it's related to the breadfruit. And you will find it, I'm sure people know,

very much as a kind of popular, increasingly popular substitute for meat. And nothing to do with jacka and everything to do with the Portuguese jaca, J-A-C-A, and a word from Malay, which is chaka, C-H-A-K-A. And just like we did before with the gooseberry, we kind of thought, can't pronounce that. Sounds a bit like Jack. We'll put that in. When it comes to fruity words, Susie Dent, you are top banana.

You can explain that to us after we take a little break. Okay. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

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I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill. I had friends in organized crime. Sofia Vergara. Why do you want to be comfortable? Julie Bowen. I used to be the crier. And Aubrey Anderson-Emmons. I was so down bad for the middle of Miranda when I was like eight.

You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Giles Brandreth. With me is Susie Dent. She's top banana. What's the origin? Well, where does the word banana come from? And why we talk about somebody being a top banana? Well, I'll start with the top banana thing.

So that essentially began, as so much does, as kind of wonderful, joyful theatre slang. So that goes back a few decades for somebody who was the leading role, but particularly the leading comic in any kind of burlesque, you know, entertainment, if you like. So it started off there and why a banana I think because it was just a nice sounding substitute for lots of similar riffs on the same theme so you have top dog you have top bollocks apologies to my younger viewers etc and it just seemed to fit but I don't think there is anything more to it. I don't think they were dressed like bananas or whatever. As for where it comes from, it's believed to come from Africa and banan, which is the Arabic word for a finger, which makes total sense.

So a bunch of bananas looks like a handful of fingers. It does. And also, did you know that the date also goes back to fingers because the dates growing on the trees look a little bit like fingers. Do they? Well, because I haven't told. the trees look a little bit like fingers. Do they? Well, so I'm told. Do they? Dates look like fingers. They look like little stubby, they look like toes.

They look like toes, not fingers. I have an aversion to dates, you know. I do. They're very, very sweet, aren't they? Well, they also make me wretch. They're stringy. I've always had a... Oh, I've never found them stringy.

It's because when I was a pupil at the French Lycée in London, then called the Lycée Francais de Londres, on Wednesday afternoons for pudding at lunch, we always had a box of dates on the table. And they were dark, they were greasy, they were stringy. And you were expected to eat one. And it really made me wretch. The only reason I got through them

is because if you kept a certain number of lids, after I think you've got eight lids, you could send the lids or the labels from the lids off to somewhere in France and you got back a képi, the hat belonging to somebody from the French Foreign Legion. It was only made of plastic,

but I did like dressing up as a French Foreign Legionnaire. Oh, yes, I can imagine. But you mentioned the stringy bits. First of all, back to dates. I think it's the finger-shaped leaves rather than the fruit themselves. Ah, thank you. But also the stringy bit on a banana. Do you know what that's called?

That horrible bit that if you actually accidentally eat it. I do know there's a word for it. Tell me what it is. You've told me before. Phlegmlegm oh how do you spell that it sounds a bit like phlegm which is why it's really not very nice it's p-h-l-o-e-m phlegm p-h-l-o-e-m phlegm oh that's a very so when you're peeling your banana you say there's that little stringy bit oh phlegm oh i love that it means a lot more so botanists will be able to tell us that it actually means a lot more. It's the kind of vascular tissues in plants, apparently,

and it's got a really important role because it conducts sugars and stuff downwards from the leaves. I think that's its idea. But I was told that those stringy bits are called phloem as well. You know so much, Susie Dent. I love it. Well, that's very random. Can I say I'm not envious?

There's no sour grapes from me. Aha, sour grapes. Well, first of all random. Can I say, I'm not envious, there's no sour grapes from me. Aha, sour grapes. Well, first of all, grape, where does that come from? And then why sour grapes? So sour grapes is directly from Aesop, which I think most people would guess. But the grape goes back to the French grap, meaning a hook, which was probably the implement used when grapes were being harvested. So that's where that comes from.

As for sour grapes, so in one of Aesop's fables, a fox stares longingly at this mouthwatering bunch of grapes, but the branch bearing these delicious fruits is simply too high. And so the fox tries again and again in vain to reach them. And eventually he gives up and he sits down in disgust, declares himself a fool and says, here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for. In other words, he can't get it

and he feels resentful about it, but he kind of makes up an excuse as to why it wasn't worth it in the first place. That's brilliant. And I love the way you assume everyone's heard of Aesop's fables. Oh, you ought to do an episode on Aesop. We should.

I mean, I think I'm right in remembering that Aesop was a slave as well as a storyteller. And he lived in ancient Greece a long time ago. I mean, before the Common Era, as we now call it. I mean, you know, 500 or so years before then. And he wrote these stories that have been around since then. I mean, they began as an oral tradition and then developed into being written in both Greek and then subsequently in Latin. Anyway.

Yeah, 6th century BC. Let's dedicate an episode to him because actually a lot of his fables probably came from other places, not from him, but they're associated with him because he became such a sort of prominent figure in the sort of Greek canon. We are going to celebrate Aesop.

And if, if listeners purple people if you ever you think of something oh i wish they'd talk about i wish they'd discover more i'd like to know more about anybody or anything in the world of words and language do get in touch it's purple at something else.com that's something without the g oh now look there were people saying to me at the weekend i couldn't give give a fig about the Jubilee celebrations. And that's fair enough. People can care what they care about. But why were they saying I couldn't give a fig? Yeah, the poor fig, really.

The fig has been used metaphorically to mean anything small, worthless or contemptible for absolutely centuries. So never a fig used to mean not at all. If you couldn't give a fig or a fig's end for it, it's like you really couldn't be bothered, something might not be worth a fig, etc. So all of these possibly go back to a contemptuous gesture that you can probably still find around today, where a fig was basically consisted in thrusting the thumb between two of your closed fingers or into the mouth. And it then resembled a certain part of the female anatomy. That was the idea.

For a while, it was called the fig of Spain. And you could then give someone the fig, this contemptuous gesture. Quite why a fig? I don't know. But actually, you know, the word sycophant, that actually originally meant a fig shower. So somebody who showed that kind of contemptuous gesture to somebody else and really had quite a journey after then to become somebody who was sort of fawning and, you know, overly flattering. So almost the opposite. But that's how it began as a fig shower. Very good. What about being sour? A bit of a lemon? What does a bit of a lemon mean?

I mean, I've heard of that expression. Where does lemon come from to begin with? Lemon is, well, you know what we call it in French? And we call it citron. Citron. Yeah, for quite a long time. But actually that's from Arabic. And in Arabic, limon was a collective term for all kinds of fruits of this kind. And in old French, before they had citron, they had limon,

which actually in modern French means a lime. So it's kind of travelled around the place. And on fruit machines, so-called, because a lot of the symbols on there are actually fruit, the lemon is the least valuable one. So that might be behind us saying, well, the answer is a lemon. In other words, the outcome is completely unsatisfactory. But I think added into that is the sort of tartness of a lemon that actually, if it's not sweetened up by anything else, it's not particularly something pleasant. I mean, I love lemons. I know you're very into gambling.

You're constantly at those gambling machines putting coins in. When three lemons come up, is that a bad thing? Do you know what? I so don't know this. Before we started the podcast, I was talking with our producers about the US and Lawrence has just come back from the US and I said, did you get to Vegas, which is a place I have no fond memories of.

And he said, no, not my cup of tea. I also said that when I went, I think I was age 12, 13, they even had slot machines in the ladies' loos. So yeah, not for me. I'm afraid I really can't tell you whether three, the purple' loos. So, yeah, not for me, I'm afraid. I really can't tell you whether the purple people can. I don't know. I guess so.

If you know the answer, you know where to get in touch with us. Now, speaking of lemons and citron, when I was young and going to France, I loved a citron pressé. Yes. And they did an orange pressé as well, but basically it was squeezed lemon juice and then you sweetened it with sugar and put in water.

And I could make a citron pressé last for hours. Let's just touch, we've got time, quickly on some of the drinks that people have in the summer in the UK. Pim's is still popular. Pim's is, it's a commercial product, isn't it? I mean, named after, I imagine, is it a Mr. Pym? Yeah, James Pym, who in the 19th century was the owner or the proprietor of the London Oyster Bar, where they first created these drinks. So middle of the 19th century, James Pym's. Yeah. Are you a Pym's fan? No, well, I don't drink alcohol. Oh, you don't? Yeah, that's true. I'm permanently on the elderflower now. Yeah. I mean, you know,

it's not that exciting. It's okay. You just don't get the kick, do you? I have to get my kick from the company I keep, which is why I like to be with you. Now. Oh. Oh, George, you're talking a lot of cobblers again. Now you're going to talk cobblers. Yeah, I am.

Exactly. Oh, we're on the money together today. A cobbler. I mean, cobbler we know is a euphemism for testicles for some reason, and that's where you get the phrase, what a load of cobblers from, I assume. Is that right? Well, no. So cobblers is currently rhyming slang. So it's a load of nonsense if something is a load of cobblers. But actually, the rhyming bit is cobblers alls, A-W-L-S,

balls. In other words, it's a load of balls. So that's probably where the testicular reference comes in. But an all is a cobbler's tool. An A-W-L, spelled's a load of balls. So that's probably where the testicular reference comes in. But an awl is a cobbler's tool. An AWL, spelled A-W-L. A-W-L, yeah. It's an implement used in the cobbling trade. So that's where it comes from, rhyming sound. Cobblers, awls, balls. The drink that's a cobbler.

Yeah, we don't know where that comes from. So it's wine, sugar, lemon, ice, I think. And we don't know why. It's called lots of different theories. And one is that it patches up the drinkers. In other words words much as you might patch up a shoe at the cobblers so it kind of restores you and you know takes you to a better place albeit temporarily well i know pims from the days when i used to drink it packed a punch a punch that's what's a punch is it because it does pack a punch that it's called a punch the drink yeah tempting to think that the sort of, the sort of paint stripper variety, but actually it's beautiful. It's got really

lovely origin, which is the Sanskrit Panka. I think it's a hard C. Others may be able to correct me because it came from Sanskrit to Hindi and then on to us. But it means five kinds of, because the drink originally had five ingredients. I think we touched on this on our Christmas episode, actually. The five ingredients, they varied. Some involved molasses, some involved fruit juices, but essentially it was alcohol, there was water, there were spices, there was sugar, and as I say, juices, molasses, other things coming into that top five.

And you've got five fingers in your thumb, I mean, in your hand. And to actually inflict a punch, you need a handful. So take a big connection there. All right handful. So take a look at the connections. All right. Look, we've only touched the surface. If there are more things in the world of fruit that you want to know about, you know where to get in touch with us.

It's purple at somethingelse.com. Have people been in touch with us this week, Susie? I'm sure they have. Yes, they certainly have. And I love the fact that we now get many voice notes. And this week's couple of queries no exception the first comes from Graham Subron. Hi both when a film director finishes filming a movie the phrase that's a wrap is often used historically now I was always told that the wrap in this

instance was an acronym for wind reel and print is there any truth in this or is there another explanation? Thank you in advance and I'm loving the podcast. Well, isn't that an interesting question from Graham in Middleton. Do you know the answer, Susie? Oh, it's one of those ones where the backronym, and if you remember, a backronym is a kind of acronym that's created in order to retrospectively account for the origin of a word. Quite often, they're much more interesting than the actual truth. And I love the idea of wind, reel and print. It's been around for a while, that theory, but there is no evidence to support it, Graham, I'm afraid. The idea is simply, we think, of wrapping something up, as in let's wrap up now, which has been an idiomatic use for quite a long time. You know, let's just wrap this up. Let's

just finish it as if you're kind of putting it all together and then moving on. That's a rap. It dates back to about the 1970s. So fairly recent, really, but still used, actually. And you have rap parties as well. If you're working on a TV programme and the series ends, for example, you might have a rap party if you're lucky. Good.

Well, we have a message from somebody called Tim Richard now. Hi Susie. Hi Giles. For many years now, probably decades, I've been trying to find the answer to my question. I was reminded only recently about someone nameless announcing that they didn't know who this person was. Susie, you and Giles are my last hope. Giles, you may even have met him or a relative. But apart from a 1970s balladeer, who was the famous Davy Jones, whose sailors seemed so fearful of him and his locker? Many thanks, Susie and Giles. Carry on the good work. Oh, what a very nice message from Tim Richard there. Well, Davy Jones. I wish I had met him, the original Davy Jones and his locker. What is the origin of that, Davy Jones's locker?

Yeah, this has kind of come to the fore because of the Wagatha Christie trial, which I suspect you haven't been following. And I haven't really been following it either. But I think it became a thing and a bit of a meme. You mean I haven't been following it? Oh, have you been following it? I'm gripped into it. Oh, OK.

Absolutely. Changing sides week by week. I'm totally following it. Oh, yes. People who haven't been following it internationally. WAGS stands for Wives and Girlfriends. And the partners of two very famous footballers were in dispute. We won't go into the details of it. And the judgment has come

in, but we haven't, as it were, heard what the price to be paid for that is. Anyway, it has been an interesting trial. And I have been following it. Oh, yes, indeed. My poor Peter Andre. I've been sending him postcards of reassurance ever since. Anyway, carry on. Okay. So, Davy Jones's locker is basically the bottom of the sea, isn't it? And it's regarded as the grave of those who were drowned at sea. That's the locker part. And Davy Jones was nautical slang in the 18th century.

And it essentially always meant the evil spirit of the sea. So this sort of unknown but malevolent force that lived at the bottom of the sea. And I think possibly, as Tim has guessed, there are so many theories as to who this man was. And I'm afraid we don't really know. So we can trace it back to the 18th century nautical slang, as I say, the sort of evil god of the seas. Some people think that he was a British tavern owner who tricked drunk soldiers onto ships

so he would conscript them or draft them on by plying them with alcohol. Others believe it's simply another word for the devil, Davy, devil. Others believe it's simply another word for the devil, Davy, devil. Others believe it goes back to the biblical Jonah. But the earliest reference we possibly have is 1726 in Daniel Defoe's Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts. But I'm so sorry, Tim, to let you down. The answer is we just don't know. And whoever he was, if indeed he ever existed in physical form, don't know. And whoever he was, if indeed he ever existed in physical form, has been mythologised to the nth degree. And so it's a really, really hazy path to follow back. But the work will go

on, as I always say. And this trial, known in the press as the Wagatha Christie trial. This is a play on words, Agatha Christie, but called Wagatha Christie because of wives and girlfriends. Rooney accused Ms Vardy of leaking posts from her private Instagram account to a newspaper. And this is the trial that came out as a result of this. Is there a word for creating something like a Wagatha Christie as a name? I mean, it's a kind of wordplay, isn't it? I think it is a portmanteau, actually. I mean, even though it involves someone's name, normally a portmanteau is a mash-up of parts from existing words, but I think this still counts as a portmanteau. So the WAG, which, of course, is an acronym for wives and girlfriends,

used particularly of footballers, and Agatha, as in Christy. So very, very clever portmanteau, but I think that's what it is. Good. Susie, thank you, and thank you, our correspondents. Do feel free to get in touch. You know where we are. It's purple at somethingelse.com. And that's where every week at about this time in the podcast, Susie introduces us to three favourite words of hers with which we may not be familiar.

What have you got for us today? I have three sounds for you and the purple people today, just because they make me laugh. And as always, I'm not sure how useful they will be in everyday conversation, but I love these three. So the first is winx, W-I-N-X. And that is a very rare word meaning to bray like a donkey. So if someone has a really annoying, extremely loud laugh, you might say stop winxing to bray like a donkey, which I quite like. say stop winxing to bray like a donkey which i quite like the next one is skr s-k-i-r-r and that is the sound of birds wings in flight so if they're sort of taking off if for example you startle a pheasant as you're walking along and they take off then scurrying is what you can hear as they take

to the air and my third one and i have my doubts about this one because it's attested to in very few dictionaries, but I just still like the sound of it. I think we could come up with a better word to be honest, but I like the fact such a word exists, is desticate. D-E-S-T-I-C-A-T-E and it means to squeak like a rat. Oh, I like that. To desticate. To squeak like a rat. Desticate. It doesn't sound very ratty to me, but anyway, that's what it means. Good. Well, I like that. To desticate, to squeak like a rat. Desticate. It doesn't sound very ratty to me, but anyway, that's what it means. Good. Well, three intriguing words. And if you want to remember them, you've got to write them down and you've got to begin to use them. That's what I find. Yes. So do you have a lovely poem for us today, Giles? I have a lovely poem. I'm just going to

touch on why I've chosen this poem for this week. And I'll tell you more about it next time we meet, because we began with talking about the Queen's Jubilee and how, because of doing various broadcasting, reporting things, I found myself visiting Buckingham Palace several times, which was very exciting. But I also found myself last week visiting Clarence House, which is the home in London of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. And the reason I was there, because I was recording a conversation for a new podcast, which is just been launched, called the Commonwealth Poetry Podcast.

And I think it may be of interest to our listeners because there are 54 countries in the Commonwealth. We are, you know, Something Rhymes with Purple is a global podcast. And what I'm doing with my daughter, Afra, is I'm doing a virtual tour of the Commonwealth, and it's proving completely fascinating. We are visiting, in turn, 54 different countries to explore those countries a little bit, but also really to explore the language and the poetry of those countries. And the reason we began at Clarence House as a kind of introduction to it is this is being done under the auspices of the Royal Commonwealth Society, of which I'm an ambassador,

and the University of Chester, of which I'm chancellor. And the Duchess of Cornwall is the vice president, I think, of the Royal Commonwealth Society. I think the Queen And the Duchess of Cornwall is the Vice President, I think, of the Royal Commonwealth Society. I think the Queen is the President. And she's also an honorary graduate of the University of Chester. So we began with her and her choice of poems just to sort of set the ball rolling. Next time we meet, I'll tell you more about the Commonwealth countries we're going to, and maybe introduce you to a poem from somewhere in the Commonwealth. But I thought I'd share with you today one of the poems that was chosen by the Duchess of Cornwall, because I think it's a lovely one. And it's not one that I, curiously, I like Christina Rossetti,

and I should really have known this poem, but I didn't. It's called Echo, written by a Victorian poet, born 1830, died 1894, Christina Rossetti. Come to me in the silence of the night. Come in the speaking silence of a dream. Come with soft, rounded cheeks and eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream. Come back in tears, oh memory, hope, love of finished years. O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet, Whose wakening should have been in paradise, Where souls brimful of love abide and meet, Where thirsting, longing eyes watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more. Yet come to me in dreams that I may live my very life again, though cold in death. Come back to me in dreams that I may give pulse for pulse, breath for breath, speak low, lean low,

as long ago, my love, how long ago. Oh, that's so wistful. It is. It's powerful stuff, isn't it? Anyway, so that was the poem that the Duchess of Cornwall chose for our Commonwealth Poetry Podcast. And it's interesting. I mean, what's lovely, it's a poem that she has tried to learn by heart. And just as I think actually writing down your words, your trio and trying to use them as a way of really understanding and getting to grips with them. I think when it comes to poetry,

reading it out loud and maybe even trying to learn it is the way to get to grips with poetry, not just reading it on the page, but reading it out loud. Yeah, no, I think it's the same with study for A-levels and all of that stuff. Writing down can really, really help. Yeah, and do you know what we've done, of course?

In our extras, we have extras for the people who've joined the purple plus club can get bonus episodes and we've done we're doing a series aren't we on different poets and you for a change you are reading the poems and we're talking a little bit about the poet yes and it's it's fun to do and if you want to join the purple plus club just follow the link in the program description it certainly will and i'm learning a lot from those as well, I have to say. Please, can we, when we get to H, by the way, can we do Houseman? We can. A.E. Houseman. Yes. Brilliant.

Of course we can. Lovely. I've got the poem as well, I'm going to suggest to you. Anyway, we'll get there and hopefully people can follow us and join in. But we will always also be here on the regular podcast. And if you do like us, please keep following us. And please do recommend us to friends. And most importantly, get in touch via purple at somethingelse.com. We currently have 20% off on all our stock in our online store. We've got amusing merch that people might like.

If you're an enthusiastic purple person, go to the link in the episode description and we've got t-shirts and mugs and totes available while stocks last something wise purple is a something else production it was produced by lawrence bassett and harriet wells with additional production from chris skinner jen mystery jay beale and i haven't seen him in a while, actually. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. It's golly. It's golly. Oh, the original jackfruit.