Something Rhymes with Purple - Phobophobia

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

This episode comes with a heebie-jeebies warning because this week, Gyles and Susie are investigating phobias.  From the common claustrophobia to the less known gelophobia, this episode will explore what has been scaring us since the greeks. It’s also quite the confessional for our hosts as they’ll reveal their shared aerophobia, Susie’s self created prunidigiaphobia and Gyles tries to persuade us that he has glossophobia (we didn’t believe him either). However, one phobia we all know that for us Purple People isn’t a concern is porphyrophobia: a fear of Purple! A Somethin’ Else production. Don’t forget about our live show, coming to a computer near you on Thursday 25th March- grab tickets here! Gyles and Susie want to hear about any phobias that the Purple People have or any fears that don’t have a name yet, email [e-mail]. Susie's Trio:  Quonking - Unwelcome noise form the sideline  Snoaching - To speak through the nose  Nikhedonia - pleasure of anticipating victory 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

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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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. You can follow the link in the feed or go to citizenticket.co.uk for tickets. Now, though, it's on with the show. co.uk for tickets. Now though, it's on with the show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a weekly podcast where I, Giles Brandreth, and my friend Susie Dent, we get together and we talk about words and language. Susie, is there anything that frightens you? Is there anything you're scared of? Anything about which you have a phobia? Yes, it's funny, isn't it? I see phobias and being scared of

things as slightly different things. So when you say scared, that for me conjures up images of ghosts and poltergeists. So that's for me, that would would be kind of scary but phobias are much more I find much more deeply rooted and I do have a couple one of them I have mentioned before I remember when I mentioned it both on purple and on eight out of ten cats just count down the comedy show that I work on I got lots and lots of people saying yes I have that when I thought it was such a strange one but it's a fear of wrinkly fingers do you remember so I don't like my fingers being immersed in the bath or a swimming pool in fact if I'm swimming properly I'm okay I can forget about it but if I'm just splashing about with kids I have to have my hands above the surface of the water

because I just can't stand the feeling of wrinkly fingers. And the second is much more commonplace, and that is clowns, coulrophobia. Because as a child, I think I really didn't like loud noises. And clowns for me were all about unpredictability. And also they have that really sinister side to them, don't they? So those two I would say. I don't think they have that really sinister side to them. I'm a clown person. I like clowns. But what is the word for a fear of clowns? Coulrophobia. But actually, it was like many, many, I'm sure, of the phobias that we're going to talk about today. You know, they didn't have clowns in ancient Greek times. Most phobias are named after ancient Greek, particularly sometimes Latin as well. and so i think they looked not to a clown but to a

walker on stilts for coulrophobia i think that's the literal definition of it but it's applied these days to would your fear of wrinkled fingers be called prunophobia because well i call it pruny digitophobia oh very good that's your invention is it pruny digitophobia yes but pruny is definitely not ancient greek so it doesn't cut any mustard at all well i invent words too i invented lingua basso phobia for the fear of tripping up when saying a word ah newsreaders interestingly if they've got a complicated foreign word to pronounce they're so anxious about it they get through the word that was difficult and then in the next phrase is an ordinary word and they trip up on that. Yes, like the Diana Dawes. Oh yeah, exactly. We won't tell that story

again unless there's a special request. If you want the Diana Dawes, Diana Fluck story and haven't heard it before, please get in touch with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com and only at your invitation will we retell this tale. But yes, one of the words I've always dreaded, curiously, is the word misled. Whenever I see it, I want to say mizeled. Yes, absolutely. And they are called mizels or mizzles. And that might make a nice subject for an episode, actually, because as you say, you want to say that. And actually, there's no hyphen or anything to help you with misled. There was once upon a time. So we should do that, actually. Words that just come out all wrong because we have... Like anemone. Yes. Anemone or is it...

Anemone and hyperbole and all of that. All of that. Anathema. Yes. Anyway, let's stick with phobias now. Let's talk about phobias. And I suppose even I know where this comes from. Phobos is Greek for fear or horror. Yes, absolutely. Give us the basic ones. I mean, there are genuine phobias that everybody has. You have fear of clowns, which is not uncommon. Some people have a fear of, well, actually, it's a rational fear of going on a roller coaster. And I don't like horror films either. No. Almost the first date on which I took my wife back in 1968 was a Dracula film. I thought it would have her leaping into my arms.

In fact, it had her hiding under the seat. But I think, is a phobia irrational or is it rational? Because mostly people have a phobia about spiders, don't they? That's an arachnophobia, as I remember. Yes, and that's irrational, I would say. That is irrational because most spiders are harmless, aren't they? But not all. Not all.

If you're living in Australia, then there's more of a justification, I would say. But yeah, that's a really interesting one. I mean, we ought to get the psychologists amongst the purple people to tell us how much rationality and how much irrationality is involved i'm not sure but a spider is definitely a big one for many many people you can undergo exposure therapy can't you or you can actually handle one by the end of it there's hypochondria which is a kind of phobia i suppose but doesn't have phobia at the end of it. But that's just a fear of illness, what doctors call the, what is it, the worried well. Then you have a fear of flying, perhaps, which again could be deemed rational.

Aerophobia. You have a fear of heights, which is acrophobia. The acro there is linked to acrobats the acropolis because it's all the idea of a summit astrophobia which is a fear not of stars actually but a thunder and lightning i think that's probably a more recent coinage a fear of storms which i love a good thunderstorm i have to say it's one of my great enjoyments in life. No, I agree. It clears the air. It's quite exciting. Yeah. Autophobia.

Not a fear of being in a car, but you could probably get this one. Auto. Auto. Auto. Autoimmune. Autoimmune. No, I've not got it. It's a fear of being alone.

It's a fear of oneself, really. Oh, good grief. Auto meaning yes, self. So something is automatic. It operates by itself. And automaton, all of that. Those meaning yes self. So something is automatic, it operates by itself. An automaton, all of that, those are all linked. So autophobia is a fear of being alone, being on your own. Yes.

Whereas, of course, we've talked very recently about oclophobia, which is a fear of crowds. So it's the opposite. It's a fear of being outside and exposed to a lot of people. There is haemophobia, which is linked to haemorrhage, of course, which is a fear of blood. Again, a lot of people suffer from that one. And so it goes on, really. Trypanophobia is a fear of needles. So anyone who is about to be vaccinated might have a certain amount of dread in their hearts, even though obviously it's a really good thing to do. But trypanophobia, that one.

Famously, Mark Twain said, man is the only animal who blushes or needs to. I don't know whether it's true, but I think erythrophobia is a fear of blushing. Oh yes, fear of blushing. It is. I mean, I can imagine that. Did you ever, when you were younger, go through a period of blushing unnecessarily? I'd love to blush. I think blushing is actually really nice, and I never do. I was at school with a girl called Helen who blushed a lot. And I was secretly quite envious of her, actually. So no, but I can totally understand. And of course, it's self-fulfilling because the more you worry about it, probably the worse it gets. So we've got animal phobias, phobias of

the natural environment, things like being frightened of height and darkness and thunderstorms these medical phobias broken bones injections blood all that and specific situations like being alone what was the one being alone in autophobia autophobia fear of flying aerophobia and what about driving yeah that could be autophobia as well couldn't it what's that maybe that's yes again they wouldn't have had cars in ancient greece so they would have had the chariots and of course chariot is linked to cars it's interesting i posted something on twitter the other day about words that are contractions of things that just it seems quite obvious when you hear it but you might never actually get there car deriving from carriage of course and goodbye another one that we've done quite

recently, from God be with ye. And then I started thinking, of course, car is a descendant of the chariot as well. So maybe they did have one in ancient times, a word for fear of driving a chariot. But if they did, I don't know it. These phobia words, some of them obviously are brand new. There's amusing ones brought, invented, ready to get you right up to date. But others go back a long way, like claustrophobia, or claustrophobia, and agoraphobia. These are proper old Greek origin words, aren't they? One is for agro, is, I know, Greek for the marketplace. So that's a fear of open large spaces. Claustrophobia is a fear of small spaces. Yes, and actually that goes back to the Latin claustrum or claustrum,

meaning a lock or a bolt. So it's a fear of being kind of locked in. Do you have that? I have that. I can't bear it. I once was asked to do some tunnelling for a television film. Oh, yes, I couldn't do that. It's biliology. I could not do that.

And I found it quite difficult when I was in Bantamheim doing a puppet sequence, being in a little box with the puppet waiting for my big moment. But they have to do that. A year or two ago, I was hosting the Oldie of the Year Awards. The Oldie is a British magazine celebrating people of riper years. And we were giving an award that year, I think, among others, to Dame Judi Dench and to Basil Brush. Basil Brush is a puppet. See, I used to be quite scared of Basil Brush.

I used to have Basil Brushophobia as well. It was something very kind of aggressive about him, I found. What is the Greek word for a fox? Maybe that's what it should be called, foxophobia. Well, yes, I agree. I don't know is the answer. Basil Brush, to my amazement, turns out to have a person who helps work him. I feel I'm giving away a state secret now.

It is actually a puppet. I'm going to reveal that. I'm sorry if I'm upsetting people. There is a Father Christmas, but Basil Brush is a puppet. So the point was there was to be a lunch. And then after the lunch, Dame Judi Dench was to get her award. And then Basil Brush was to get his award because he'd been being Basil Brush for 70 years. And he arrived at 12 noon, the character who helps Basil Brush come to life. And he said, where do I go? I said, well, you know, you're not on until 3.15. It's 12 noon. He said, well, I've got to get into position. I said, but you're on for three and a quarter hours. He said, never

mind. So he clambered into a box, the size of a small letterbox, which was hidden under the table and had a white tablecloth put over it. So it looked as if it was part of the dining table. So that when the moment appeared for him to appear, all I had to do was pull off the tablecloth and up would pop Basil Brush. But the point is, this guy, who was Basil Brush's carer, to put it kindly, he was in this tiny box for three and a quarter hours while a whole lavish lunch was served on top and around him. I could not do that. No, I could not do that either. I've just looked up actually, when you're talking about fear of caves, there is, someone has coined speleophobia for a fear of being underground and locked in that.

One of the scariest films I ever saw when I was little. And I mean, really little. And I wasn't clearly supposed to see this. I'm not quite sure how I did. But it was of a woman being buried alive and then being stuck in her coffin and not able to, you know, it's the kind of the situation where a lot of people think saved by the bell and dead ringers and all of those things come from the phrases aren't actually attached to those but what a fate you say that you throw that in as if everybody remembers it what you're telling us about is that people in ancient days used to have in their coffins a bell uh so they could yeah well they didn't actually this is all a myth the reason i i glossed over

it i think we talked about it before, but yes, it's a bit of a myth that people would be saved by the bell by ringing from their coffin underground or that they were a dead ringer. But they're great myths. I want to know if it's true that Arthur Conan Doyle,

or was it Houdini, had a telephone buried in their coffin. Oh, yes. Because they both believed in the possibility, or one did and one didn't, the possibility of afterlife. And they were going to, I think maybe it was Arthur Conan Doyle, maybe purple people will know that, and had a telephone buried in the coffin so they could get in touch. But what was it attached to? This must be another urban myth.

Pre-mobile, presumably. The fear of being buried alive, there must be a word for that. And I don't know it, but I now definitely have it. It's extreme claustrophobia, isn't it? Absolutely. It is. Yeah. I have fear of flying, I'm afraid. It's ridiculous. It's, it's aerophobia, isn't it? It is, me too. I used to love it. I used to love turbulence. I used to embrace all of that. And then I had one particularly horrible, horrific flight where I didn't stop shaking for a week and that was it for me. Yeah. I've enjoyed not flying for a whole year. That's been one of the upsides. I know it's awful if you're in the airline industry and I know the world must carry on flying, but frankly,

if there's a train, I'll take it. I'm with you. I'm just looking at some of the lists here. How can anyone have a fear of trees trees are just i mean i'm a dendrophile but you can be a dendrophobic as well dendrophile dendrophile is a lover of trees and a dendrophobe is a hater of trees or someone who fears them i guess there's quite a lot of kids stories and you know think of the wizard of oz where the trees can be quite malevolent come to life i love those in the wizard of oz but they are terrifying you're absolutely right yes the whole idea the grimm's fairy tales where they go you know you go into the forest and the benevolent grandmother turns out to be a wolf scary trees at night that's where you might be frightened of

trees maybe maybe i just think they're the most majestic things in the world i just love the way that people you know if i were to look up now, I'm going to look it up, actually. Fear of being buried alive. Sorry to linger on this horrible subject. Sure. Someone has come up with one. There you go. Taphophobia, which goes back to the Greek taphos, meaning a grave or tomb, and phobos, obviously fear.

An abnormal fear of being buried alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. So there you go. I suffer from a rational vertigo in the sense, well, I say it's irrational, it's a genuine vertigo, put you on top of a building. Yeah. In Britain, if you see political reporters within the background,

the House of Commons on television, they usually are standing on the roof of a building called Church House, which is several hundred yards away from the House of Commons. But you get a good view of the House of Commons from this roof. And the parapet around the roof is quite shallow. So whenever I'm up there filming to have the House of Commons as the background, it's quite nerve wracking for me. What am I suffering from? Is it a fear of heights? I suppose it is.

I think it would be, yes. What's that called? That's acrophobia, remember, and that would be a symptom of acrophobia. But sometimes they're so nuanced, aren't they? Because these phobias only apply to certain situations, and I think the terms are slightly umbrella-like and don't fit every single thing. Here's another one for you, which I definitely suffer from from time to time. Spectrophobia. Can you guess what that one is? Colours of the rainbow. You don't like the colours of the rainbow? No. Some colours you don't like. Fear of mirrors. Oh, really? Yes. A fear of

mirrors. Again, some of these will be quite whimsical. That is whimsical. Why do you have a fear of mirrors? Because of seeing yourself or because the horror of not appearing in the mirror, that you look in the mirror and there's no one there? Oh, no, it's simply when you're feeling idio-repulsive, which is another word for self-repellent. I think you don't want to, yes, particularly night after the evening before or similar situations and particularly during lockdown, you know, when actually we don't really need to look in mirrors very much. And then suddenly you catch sight of yourself. I know. It is quite bleak in the morning. I sometimes get up feeling quite jolly.

And I pop into the bathroom and then I think, oh, I'm young and I'm full of life and energy. And I peer into the mirror and suddenly this old man looking like Steptoe Senior appears. And I think, oh dear, has it come to this? It it's cacophobia you are full of vitality full of them most people I know I have to say okay what about jellophobia it's not jelly g-e-l-o-p-h-o-b-i-a jellophobia cold ice no you have to know your classics for this one because it's actually a fear of laughter. Oh. And I only knew this one because there's another word in agilast, which is somebody who never ages. And I think it's because they don't get laughter marks and wrinkles. So who wants to be an agilast? As in the picture of Dorian Gray, the young man who stayed young while the picture

in the attic grew old. Exactly. Exactly. I mentioned cacophobia just then. That, I think, is a fear of ugliness. Yes, although you could extend that and have it as a fear of excrement because that's its ultimate root. Oh, as in caca, the French for excrement. Yeah, absolutely. And as in cacistocracy, government by the worst of citizens. So that's the Latin version, C-A-C-O, but it goes back to K-A-K-O in Greek. Yeah, absolutely. And as in kakistocracy, government by the worst of citizens. So that's the Latin version, C-A-C-O, but it goes back to K-A-K-O in Greek. And that means audio.

Appalling. Yes. What was that word for government by the worst? Kakistocracy. So aristocracy began as government by the best of people. So it's the Greek aristo, meaning the best. And kakistocracy is government by the worst of citizens. And those go back to ancient times. So the aristocracy, yes, was supposed to be the pick of the population. But of course, it soon took on, you know, because it was mostly people who were well-to-do and elite, it took on those overtones. That's wonderful. Tell me about glossophobia.

Glossophobia is a fear of, it's kind of really a fear of words, but it's fear of public speaking in its common sense. So it's glosso as in glossary. Yes, exactly. Glossophobia, so fear of words and using words. So if you are glossophobic, you can say, I'm afraid I can't say a few words at this event. I'm glossophobic. Exactly. The opposite of what you are. I have a fear of public speaking, even though I do it all the time. And curiously, it doesn't get any better as the years go by. But you are on TV the entire time. Don't tell me you have some kind of fear of it. I wouldn't believe that.

I think I'm talking of public speaking. Oh, okay. I suppose appearing on television is. Isn't that interesting? You see, I wouldn't have thought of appearing on television as public speaking, but you might have millions of people watching. I mean... But you don't get a sense of it, do you? Yeah. Exactly. If you stand up in a room and there are 100 people or 500 people or 1,000 people, the stomach churns for me still, even though I've been doing it for 50, 60 years. Glossophobia. I have mild glossophobia, but I try to conquer it. Give me some more of these unusual ones. I'm liking the weirder ones. This is a really, really weird and very recently coined

one. Arachibut... Sorry, it's almost impossible to pronounce. Arachibututyrophobia. It's ridiculous. What does it mean? The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Well, that's a real condition. So I'm quite sympathetic to that. Actually, I loathe that feeling. And what's the word again? Do you? I think that I would associate it with rhubarb and that horrible feeling you get behind your teeth when you eat rhubarb. I love rhubarb, but you know what I mean? If you get a particularly bitter bit of rhubarb, it's actually similar sensation on your teeth to the one you get on your fingers when you're emptying the dishwasher. All my phobias are coming out at once now. Yes. Arachibutyrophobia. I mean, don't try and pronounce it with peanut butter in your mouth

is all I would say. I think I'm getting phobophobia. Me too. Does that exist? Yes, fear of fears. Oh, really? You're getting apprehensive about getting apprehensive? Well, I think it's that thing that you just say, well, I'm not worried this morning, so I'm worried that I'm not worried about something, so I'm going to worry about it. Well, people, of course, in the run-up to schools reopening around the world and certainly around

the British Isles, some people have been suffering from scolionophobia. Yes, school phobia. I understand that, a fear of going into school. I mean, I do sometimes think that these words are so impossible to pronounce, as we've just heard, that actually they're not particularly useful and they are there simply because people want to have a bit of wordplay, don't you think? Yes. yes well some things are genuine uh i had an aunt who suffered from something called daughter phobia as in daughter but not daughter brian or daughter the name but daughter as in fur a fear of fur and that was rational because the fur made her come out in sort of spots she She got a rash. So that is sort of legitimate. Are you talking about fur accoutrements or fur on any living animal?

Fur on a living animal. Oh, okay. Touching fur. But she also was quite sensitive. She also suffered, I think, from clinophobia, which was a fear of going to bed. Yes. On the other hand,

clinomania is the overwhelming desire to lie down, which most of us have felt during lockdown. And it's pronounced clean-o, is it? I pronounce it clean-o. It could be clean-o, because you've got recline and all of that stuff. The ancient Greek scholars amongst us can correct us, but that's how I pronounce it.

And people suffer from cleanophobia, fear of going to bed, because they're fearful that they may never wake up. Wake up, yeah. You know. What's oikophobia? Do you know? Oh, an oikophobia.

Oh, now, this is really, I read this one the other day, and I remember thinking, does it sound anything like? Exactly. Is it fear of housekeeping or something? Well done. That's very, very good. I thought of it because you're mentioning aristophobia, you know, fear of aristocrats. Oikophobia is not a fear of oiks, it's a fear of home, things to do with the home. Oikophobia. Is that strange? Well, I've got one for the purple people because I'm hoping that none of us actually feel this. Porphyrophobia,

guess what that is? Well, I know there is that disease called porphyra that members of the royal family in the Victorian times were said to suffer from, some purple disease, something to do with purple. So it's to do with purple. It's fear of the colour purple, is it? Porphyrophobia. The colour purple. Indeed. If you go back to the Greek porphyra, they were mollusks that yielded this crimson dye that then when applied to cloths came out in the colour that we today call purple. And there was also a purple stone called porphyry. And we've talked before about how the dye was so rare and so expensive it was used for colouring the robes of Roman emperors and magistrates and things. But yeah, that's it. The fear of the colour purple. None of us have that.

Some of these words are giving me the heebie-jeebies. Should we take a break and then come back and you can explain to me the origin of being scared, oh, out of my wits. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there.

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What about pogonophobia? Fear of beards. Fear of beards. That's a funny one. And what about cheirophobia? How are you spelling that? C-H-E-R-O phobia. No idea.

Well, exactly. I think it's just one of these made up ones, a fear of cheerfulness. Who'd be frightened of people being cheerful? That's ridiculous. Do you remember, by the way, when I was talking about contractions earlier, do you remember that watcher, as in watcher, that we used to sort of say if we went into the pub in the 1990s, is contraction of what cheer? How are you? in what a cock what cheer what cheer my old hearty gamophobia fear of gammon no fear of marriage correct g-a-m-o well done you you know it all don't you we had fear of trees earlier on uh philophobia what could that be p-h-y-l-l-o a p-h-y-o uh leaves correct it's not pastry some people think it's fear of pastry but it's not phylophobia is a fear of leaves and this is a

genuine one too i think rather as claustrophobia is for me a genuine one anginophobia fear of a heart attack no well according to being strangled oh even worse no apparently a fear of narrowness ah okay so angina is all about it's from the latin for strangling or choking angere that's why i said that so you're going down a very narrow passageway you know in venice we all want to get back to venice some of the Calais are very narrow between streets. Really, really narrow. And you can begin, it seems, quite wide. And as you get to the end, it gets narrower and narrower.

And I find going through narrow points quite frightening. Okay. Do you remember that amazing film, Don't Look Now? Oh. God, that was so scary. That gives me the heebie-jeebies. Julie Christie, amazing. And Donald Sutherland, what a film.

Anyway. Let's just talk about some phrases related to being scared. Hebe Jebes I've given you. Yes, Hebe Jebes. So remember, we've got all sorts of rhyming phrases in English. We've got mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus, willy nilly, shilly shally, helter skelter, all sorts of things like that. And that's what's going on here. So it's a bit like in Britain, we would call it the screaming abdabs, wouldn't we? Which is another strange one. So heebie and geebie independently don't really mean anything. But heebie-geebies was coined at a time when people loved creating these kind of rhyming duplicative compounds, as we call them, or rhyming reduplication. So this is the time of the bee's knees, the kipper's knickers,

So this is the time of the bee's knees, the kipper's knickers, the elephant's adenoids, cat's whiskers, etc. So this takes you back to 1920s, America, 1920s, where there was a feeling of kind of post-Depression gaiety and exuberance, I suppose. And 1923 is the first record we have of heebie-jeebies, which was in a cartoon, I think, in a New York Journal magazine. But it caught on really quickly. And it always did such a big, giving somebody the heebie-jeebies is giving them the kind of, you know, the spooks. But we don't quite know who was the first person to use it. It might have been in that cartoon or they might have been picking it up. But it was interesting, because this reminds me of Brandress Pills. It was really popularised by an ad for laxer cold, cold breakers. And it said, have you got the heebie-jeebies? Don't worry, all you need is some of our cold breakers.

So that probably popularised it quite a bit. Well, and indeed, Brandreth's Pills were advertised if you've got the collie wobbles. Well, there you go. So there you go. These are Victorian phenomena. The Victorians liked being scared. Before the advent of the cinema and horror films,

in Victorian times, there were melodramas that were truly designed to scare the living daylights out of people. Oh, yeah. First of all, do you like having the living daylights scared out of you? And how long has that phrase been with us? Do I like it? Yes, if I'm with friends and not completely on my own listening to scary podcasts. But yes, I do.

So this goes back to, I think, the idea of eyes. Your eyes were your daylights in the 18th century. So to darken someone's daylights was to give them a black eye by punching them or knocking them senseless. And then you would beat someone's daylights after them. I guess it's the idea of, it's kind of scaring them out of their wits, only that's sort of the idea of, you know, that the life that's reflected in your eyes, if you scare the daylights out of them, you're almost killing them through fear. And living was often used as a general intensifier. So that was kind of added on for extra effect. Scared out of my wits. That's being driven mad, I suppose, by something that's so frightening.

Yes, exactly. So your wit, we kind of think of wit now as some sort of, you know, ability to be incredibly funny and quick. And indeed, it does, of course, mean that. But originally, it was the seat of consciousness and thought and of memory too so your in wit was your inner knowledge your conscience if you like where out wit was your perception of the world outside common wit was common sense nitwit actually came along much later not until the 20th century so nitwit sadly isn't part of this but obviously if you're nitwit you don't have any sense at all and those meanings of your sort of mind and your knowledge explain things like keeping your wits about you at your wits end and scared out of your wits. Let's put fear behind us, though. If there

are people listening who have got phobias that they'd like to share with us, or a phenomena that they feel don't have a word for the phobia that they're suffering from, no doubt Susie can come up with an appropriate word for you. Do get in touch with us. It is purple at somethingelse.com, and that's something without a G. Have people been in touch with us this week, Susie? Well, they have. And the first one is one that I simply cannot answer it comes from Imogen Marie Booker who probably knows that one of my favorite etymologies is daisy the flower the day's eye because it closes its petals at dusk and opens them again at dawn so it was the eye is the day I love that but she's asked nothing about the etymology really but all about who the first cow was named Daisy and why has it stuck?

Why do we call it Daisy the Cow? And honestly, I can't find the answer. But we want to know that. So I'm relying on the purple people. Yeah. That is the most wonderful question I think we have been asked in 102 episodes. Imogen Marie, how fascinating. I've always loved Daisy the Cow. I know it certainly goes back to Victorian times

because being a student of traditional English pantomime, Daisy the Cow has featured in pantomimes since the 1800s. So Daisy has been around a while. And there's often a Daisy sticking out of the mouth, isn't there, as well? Yes. Yeah. Which was the first Daisy the Cow? Oh, how wonderful. I'm so glad. You know, this whole podcast, these last two years,

this has been but a journey along a pathway leading to this moment. I feel the sky has opened. Oh, purple person, Imogen Marie, what a question. By the way, thank you for letting us know who you are, but you don't have to let us know who you are. We've had a fan in New York City. That's how he or she described themselves. And they've written to us anonymously.

A co-worker recommended your podcast and I've been hooked ever since. I thoroughly enjoy the linguistics aspect of your show and the very British style and culture that seeps in. It's a fun, if sometimes confusing, addition. That's quite amusing. I think this is coded talk. I thoroughly enjoy the linguistics aspect of the show. That's you, darling. Whoever it is really thinks

you're brilliant. And the very British style and culture that seeps in is a fun, if sometimes confusing, that's me. So you give them what he wants. I'm the confusing edition. Anyway, I haven't had to Google this many British cultural references since my last watch of Fry and Laurie. Well, I hope we're not too British because because we think of ourselves both suzy and i as world people don't we yes we are yes i hope we are international despite our aerophobia and we do think i think of english as the lingua franca of the international community now it is what's lingua franca mean actually lingua franca means the sort of free language. So it's kind of the one that everybody is free to use or can use. But we have got a whole episode on whether or not English will

be the lingua franca in years to come. But yes. What our fan in New York City is wondering is this, the origin of family member words. Why is a cousin a cousin,, a father? And why is there no gender neutral word for niece and nephew? And why are grandparents called that instead of great parents? Only after grandparents do we add great. And is it a coincidence that the term for relatives from generations past is such a positive word, great and grand rather than forebears? Yes, I think there's possibly a bit too much to answer in all of that because it's almost an entire episode, the names for family members. But very quickly, father is from fata, brother is from bruda. So we're talking about Germanic influences here.

Lots and lots of siblings, of course, in other languages. And again, we could go down lots and lots of wonderful alleyways with this one. Cousin is from the latin consabrinus which was the mother's sister's child but actually by the time it came into english it was the child of an aunt or uncle nephew is from nepos in latin hence nepotism was originally favoring one's nephew also reflected in bob's your uncle and there is a kind of informal term which is gender neutral for nieces and nephews there's a kind of collective and it's nibblings oh as in siblings but nibblings nibblings and they've been used for quite a long time actually

or the word has been used for quite a long time but it's a bit resistant to going in the dictionary I'm not quite sure why or as in dictionary makers are resistant to putting it in but nibblings is around and I quite like that one and then on the grand and the great I think less to do with praise although we all love grandparents and great-grandparents and more to do with size as of distance so grand came in simply from the French grand this simple borrowing and it was simply one step removed. So the distance becomes greater. If it's grand, it's a distance between your, if it's a grandparent, between your parent. It's one step further, if you like.

So it's putting distance between your father and the generation that went before. I'm not explaining this very well. And great, I mean, I guess we needed to distinguish, obviously, between grandparent and you can have grand-grandparent. I think that would be a bit odd. But great, I think, again, probably in the sense of another step, another sort of distance. So you're looking at people far removed from you in terms of ancestry. So that's a really bad explanation of the kind of formal family relationships. But there are so many different nuances in all of these. All my eye on Betty Martin is what Fraser Waterfield wants us to talk about. A phrase

I've always been curious about is the one used by my late nan, Hilda, from Walsall in the West Midlands. If someone had told her a story that she did not believe, she would tell us afterwards, well, of course, that was all my eye and Betty Martin. It was usually used in the context of a story where the teller was trying to elicit some sympathy for themselves, but was clearly rubbish or at the very least over-embellished. When I asked her who Betty Martin was, she didn't know. Do you have any idea about the phrase? She also used to say, all my eye, as a shorthand for the same thing. That's Fraser from Bourneville. Not sure that all my eye was actually the shorthand because I think it all began with the exclamation my eye as in you know you're pulling a fast one or don't think I'm going

to believe that so I think it's an elaboration of that all my eye or simply my eye meaning nonsense so much debate over this one and I regularly get asked this by viewers of Countdown actually where does it come from so it's obviously still used by older generations but not I think being picked up by younger ones it's also used in the sense of you wish you know and in various different ways but who was Betty Martin so some people say there was a historical Betty Martin who was a woman in Shrewsbury who was said to have punched a constable in the eye I I think that one's very far-fetched. Another Betty Martin from Kent, apparently, used to dress up like a ghost to scare her neighbours. And her name became a byword for fraud.

But again, very unlikely. But the most famous explanation, which is the one I usually give, is that it goes back to a Latin prayer, which supposedly began, Ora promihi beata Martine, meaning pray for me, blessed Martin. And that would be addressed to St. Martin. St. Martin, who, of course, as we've said in previous episodes, was a wonderful man, a soldier who gave half his cloak to a shivering beggar. And he cut, literally sliced it in half with a sword gave his half to

the beggar and his half was kept in a shrine for people to come and pray at and those shrines were called capella from little cape and eventually gave us the word chapel and indeed chaplain as well but anyway same saint martin was actually the patron saint of drunkards as well and tavern keepers and it's said that if you were to say your latin phrase or prayer quite sloppily and perhaps even drunk or i'm a pramie beata martin might come out as all my eye and betty martin there's a catch here though giles which is that no formal prayer has been found within the church and the form of of the Latin isn't quite right. But there is some evidence of prayer books having sort of similar things,

particularly with Beata Martini, Blessed Martin, which might explain the Betty Martin. That's where I'm sticking, because I think, you know, this theory has been around for a very long time, and I think there probably is some truth to it. What you say goes with me, Susan. It's a very long answer to that. No. But it's fascinating digging in. It is fascinating and intriguing, and St Martin is a riveting figure.

Have you got three interesting words to introduce us to at the end of this week's podcast? I have. Now, do you remember last week I talked about the Milver, which you said you were, which is somebody who constantly talks through a movie and really annoys the other people trying to watch well this is quite similar but it's people who make noise from the sidelines that kind of interrupt your performance and it was originally applied to acting but I think you can use it in wider context of somebody who just you know it's really annoying because they're giving you advice like say you're on the telephone and somebody's telling you what to say. So you actually can't

hear a word that's being said by the speaker on the phone. This is quonking. How do you spell that? Q-U-O-N-K-I-N-G. Quonking. Great word. This is happening all the time to me. Quonking. Stop that quonking. Oh my goodness. I love it. Unwelcome noise from the sidelines then there is snoach which i love it because it's quite onomatopoeic and to snoach is to speak through the nose you know some people have got really nasal voices and that's called snoaching and how

do you spell that one s-n-o-a-c-h s-n-o-a-c-h. S-N-O-A-C-H. Yeah. Snoach. To snoach. To speak through your nose like that. Is that nasal speaking? I'm snoaching now. I'm snoaching. I was tempted to quonk it. I'm a natural quonker, but I don't mean to be.

And it does annoy me when people do that. And what's your third word, Susie? The third one is, most people know that Nike is the goddess of victory, hence the brand. But there's a great word, Nikedonia, N-I-K-E-D-O-N-I-A, Nikedonia, and it's the pleasure of anticipating victory. Nikedonia. There you go. Nikedonia. Well, I've got a little poem for you this week. I've just thought of it, in fact, because you mentioned St. Martin, and this is. I've just thought of it, in fact, because you mentioned St. Martin. And this is a poem by a man called John Bratburn, who was an incredibly prolific

poet and an interesting figure. Died a few years ago. People are wanting him to become a saint. A lot of wonderful work in Africa. But he wrote some charming poems, and I thought you might quite like this one. And it's particularly appropriate for people who might have phobias about creepy crawly things, because maybe you shouldn't have phobias about creepy crawlies. Anyway, the poem's called Of Creepy Crawlies. Oh, snails and beetles, worms and grubs, ladybirds and slimy slugs. Though you're very down to earth, that does not decrease your worth. But for you, tall shrubs and flowers could get no good from sun and showers, because the undergrowth would be too thick for them to grow and see. Nice.

I like this slightly unexpected ending, actually. I like that one. Yeah, he's an unexpected figure, John Bradburn, and worth exploring. Good, I will look him up. Well, that's it, I think, for this week. Thank you to everybody, as ever, for listening, and please do get in touch, as Giles said,

purpleatsomethingelse.com. We are a Something Else production, produced by Lawrence Bassett, with help from Harriet Wells, as Giles said, purple at somethingelse.com. We are a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett, with help from Harriet Wells, Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale, and the porphyrophobe himself, Giles. Golly! Well, he hasn't been conking for quite a while.