Something Rhymes with Purple - Phylactology

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Pssst… yes you… how do you fancy being a birdwatcher or perhaps a sleeper ready to wake up in time for the dead drop? Well, listen in and allow Agents Brandreth and Dent to provide you with the linguistic pocket-litter to avoid you blowing your cover. If you haven’t yet cracked the code, this week we’re discussing the intricate language of the murky world of espionage. Find out the difference between the Scalphunters and the Lamplighters, get your “shoes” from the Cobbler and join us as we go undercover and onto spook street… oh, and remember, it’s freezing in London today… When Susie and Gyles come in from the cold, they seize the opportunity to answer lots of your questions on pub names, the connection (or lack thereof) between the compass points and the news, and they flip lunch on its head. A Somethin’ Else production. Susie’s Trio: Nuncheon - a drink to be taken at luncheon A fit of the clevers - a sudden spurt of activity when you notice the time Jack brew - a cuppa you make without making one for anyone else. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Giles, and I'm here fooling about but having fun because we're going to talk about spies and espionage and I'm trying to get into the mood and I'm going to be talking about spies and espionage with my friend the Mata Hari of lexicography, the brilliant Susie Dent. Are you there Susie? Oh you're in the half dark too. I can see how everybody because we've got zoom on, we're communicating through zoom though you can only hear us. Susie Dent where are you there, Susie? Oh, you're in the half dark too. I can see how everybody, because we've got Zoom on, we're communicating through Zoom, though you can only hear us. Susie Dent, where are you and why are you in the dark? Well, I'm not in nearly anything quite so secretive of yours. I'm still in my office. It just so happens that it's a pretty dismal day as we're recording. So I haven't got much daylight coming in. And yes, I have, I mean, I've mentioned before, I think, the slightly horrible

figure, but I quite like her, a piñata that was made of me for the comedy show that I work on. And she's staring at me from the left. So that's kind of spooking me out a little bit. So that might be quite appropriate for spies. But otherwise, I'm afraid I have nothing Bond-like in my room at all. Apart from my leopard skin bikini, obviously. Your leopard skin bikini? Well, can't you see? My goodness. That's why the room is darkened.

Well, look, what she does in Oxford on her own is up to her. We will be exploring the word spook. We'll be exploring, if you haven't come across this before, this is a show where we talk about words and language, etymology. And we thought that we would delve into the world of espionage and spycraft this week. I imagine when you were an undergraduate at Oxford a few years ago, Susie Dent, what college were you at, remind me? I was at Somerville. And did somebody one day come up in the library and tap you on the shoulder and said,

could we perhaps have a cup of coffee and talk about, have you thought about what you're going to do next in life? Would you be interested in helping the country in some way? Did that happen to you? I would love to spin you a yarn at this point and give you chapter and verse of how I was approached in the Bodleian Library. But the answer is no. And the only compensation I can give myself over that is that actually apparently most spies, and they're not called that, I don't think, within the Secret Service, most of them actually apply these days. I think I have heard that the tapping on the shoulder doesn't happen anymore. But I'm sure Stephen Fry said that happened to him when he was at Cambridge.

good many years ago. Now, we know the names of the heads of MI5, which we didn't. Yes, that's very true. 30, 40 years ago, they weren't known. And in fact, because we do know the names of them, I do know two former heads of MI5. One is Stella Remington, who is a splendid person, and the other is Eliza Manningham Buller, who is also a splendid person. And she was a contemporary of mine at Oxford. I got to know her because she was a keen amateur actress. We appeared together in some plays. We were in a Pinter play together. Have you ever heard of a play called The Misprint? That's written by Harold Punter. We were in a genuine play by Harold Pinter. And she also then appeared in a play that I produced, a production of Cinderella, in which she played

the Fairy Queen. Well, I'll tell you my Oxford connections. I told you I was at Somerville, and the principal of my college at the time was Daphne Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth, who was one of Britain's most remarkable spies. She had a really distinguished career in the Secret Intelligence Service that nobody knew about. And actually, when she retired, I remember reading

this piece that in her office behind her, she had a little kind of cabinet, which I think I remember. I used to go to her office where she would catch up with you on how you were getting on, et cetera. She was an amazing woman, slightly scary. But apparently within that little cabinet, she had a revolver that was from her time as a spy. But she was absolutely formidable and such a character. Well, Eliza Manning Buller was such a character too. She was great as the Fairy Queen and went on to become the head of MI5. I can never remember the difference between MI5 and MI6. I know the MI stands for Military Intelligence.

Yes. stands for military intelligence. Yes. There have been apparently 19 MIs, but only five and six still survive. So I think five is apparently international affairs. So internal affairs and six is international.

That's it. Very good. Good. Yes. Well, we know that the spying world full of Oxford educated wordsmiths in the old days, clues hidden in cryptic crosswords, etc.

All that stuff with the Enigma machine. Oh, Bletchley Park. The whole Bletchley story is quite incredible as well. And of course, we've had the Imitation Game film quite recently as well. What was the essence of that? Enigma was the German code, wasn't it? It was used by the Nazis quite prolifically, really. And then it was cracked by the British intelligence services using some of the most amazing computers, including one called Colossus at Bletchley Park. And in

fact, there's a brilliant book about Colossus as well. There's just, there's so much to read about the spy world and there's so much to see. I mean, we'll come to the spies in popular culture later with John le Carré, of course, and James Bond, because I know you're a Bond fan. I am a Bond fan. Well, shall we get round and maybe to some of the spying terms? And you can give me the definitions of them and then we can explore, as it were, sideways from there. The word spy, where does the word spy come from? Spy is, it came to us from the French, espion, which is simply to actually look at something or spot it. So it's, you know,

and we have to espy, which was the descendant of espion. And so a word like espionage comes from espying, to see. Espier, to see in the French, espion again. So to look out for, which people being on the lookout actually gave us quite a lot of vocabulary in English. I mean, not completely related to spies, but alert. The word alert actually goes back to the Italian allaerte, to the watchtower, just as alarm goes back to alla arme in Italian, get to arms, you know, telling soldiers to kind of wake up and get to it because the enemy was nigh. So, yeah, there's quite a lot. We talk

about ciphers these days, of course, and we talk about ciphers and spies. What is a cipher? A cipher is, strictly speaking, it's a symbol or a character of no value by itself. And it actually goes back to the Arabic for the symbol zero or naught. And from there, it came to mean something that could stand for anything or something that was empty. And so you could put anything encoded in there that you wanted to. So a symbolic character or a hieroglyph or something that was empty. And so you could put anything encoded in there that you wanted to. So symbolic character or a hieroglyph or something. Did you know that during the Second World War, the Japanese had a type B cipher machine for generating these ciphers and it was

nicknamed Purple by the Americans. So we were there, the purple people, you were there because of the colour of the folders that the encryptions were held in. They were purple folders. So they were known as purple. Well, purple, I mean, we've talked about the history of purple before, but it was always used for incredibly important documents as well as emperor's garments and that kind of thing. Because where it came from, these porphyria, these mollusks, it was incredibly expensive to extract the purple dye. So it was always used for things of importance. the purple dye. So it was always used for things of importance. It's funny. One of the things that I was thinking about when I was thinking about spies is I covered spies in my book on tribal

language and the language used by groups of people. I think I just had a chink of an opening into their world. I'm not sure, a little bit like the world of Freemasons, I suppose. I'm not sure how much we will ever know of the real vocabulary that's going on at any one time. We may be giving it far more mystique than it actually has. And I think we tend to apply this kind of language thinking, oh yes, it must be used. They must call each other spies. They must call each other spooks. But do you know what? I bet they don't. If there are any spies listening, please write anonymously. And we'd genuinely love to know. But I think spies outside, at least, are called spooks simply because of their stealth and invisibility. Explain to me why spook.

Oh, is spook meaning ghost? Yes. The whole idea that you can't really see them. And that, you know, that they are meant, they're designed to be invisible. But shall I give you some more? Give us some of the terms you picked up when you were delving into the spy world. So a birdwatcher is another term for a spy. A cobbler.

Cobbler is quite an interesting one. I guess someone who cobbles things together. But it's a spy who creates false passports and visas and diplomas and other documents that their agents might then need. A dangle. This is one who apparently approaches a foreign intelligence agency in the hope of being recruited as a spy and of course then become a double agent whereas a discard is an agent allowed to be arrested in order to protect more valuable agents so it's a throwaway really someone who's deemed expendable it's a bit hard isn't it a bit brutal then there

was a floater these are all the sort of the people that I'm focusing on now. But the floater, that's someone who's just used once or only occasionally within an intelligence operation. So they may have a role in the outside world as well. And of course, friends, that's the collective term for members of the secret intelligence service. Oh, our friends. I find that quite sinister, really. Then you've got a raven. I love the word raven.

It's just so beautiful. But a raven, you talked about Mata Hari earlier. Raven is the male agent, a bit like a honeypot, I suppose, employed to seduce people for intelligence purposes. But actually, within the secret service and i've again i can't claim to say that this is totally accurate but this is what i've heard the female equivalent of the raven is not a honeypot anymore it's a swallow oh and then you've got the sleeper the agent living as an ordinary citizen in a foreign country and they probably floated as well i would

think they act only when there's a situation that they're needed for. And then a walk-in, and that's a potential asset who just turns up at the embassy door and says, I can offer my services. So somebody on the reception calls up to the head of MI5 and says, we've got a walk-in, we've got a walk-in. Yes, exactly. And finally, just in terms of the people you've got a rabbit the rabbit is

the target of an investigation so the subject of an investigation is the rabbit perhaps because they want them to be caught in the headlights who knows although the whole idea of spying is that you don't have any headlights if you are a spy and feel we've got all these words wrong would you give us please do it's purple at somethingelse.com. Feel free to blow her cover. Oh, blowing your cover. What's the origin of that? Yeah, well, I think that that's a military term, isn't it?

It's just the idea of kind of, you know, exploding someone's protective equipment. Where they're hidden. They're hidden somewhere and you blow them up. You blow them up. To blow their cover. Lovely. You've got quite a lot of similar things like that. You've got bang and burn, which is a sabotage operation.

And you've got a blow back, which is a sabotage operation and you've got a blow back which is a deception that's planted abroad by an intelligence agency and then it returns to that agency with very unfortunate consequences um so you've got quite a few sort of military metaphors in there you've got black bag jobs those are secret entries into buildings that you can steal materials. Black bag jobs. Black bag job. Tonight it's a black bag job. Do you think they go around saying this to one another?

No. Sort of putting their hand up to their mouths and saying, it's a black bag job tonight. I can imagine them saying, we've got a dead drop. We've got a dead drop. That's the secret location where you can leave all your messages for another person to pick up. Which sleeper is working on this one? Have you got the bird watcher ready?

And there's a brush pass. What's the brush pass? Brush pass is a brief encounter where you, you know, where information is swapped. Oh, I see, literally brush pass, and that's when they swap the newspapers. Do you think any of this really happens, or we just pick this up?

Do you think they just fool you? Oh, I don't know. I mean, do you have to go in disguise to, where did you go, that building? I can't possibly divulge my sources where i got these from you did tell me the other day about a phrase pocket litter and that made me laugh what is pocket litter that's just items in a spy's pocket receipts tickets etc so if they're actually picked up they've got things that add authenticity to their pretend identity

and their shoes the shoes are a false passport or a visa. And then if all else fails, you've got the L pill, apparently. But who knows if that's actually... It's a poison pill. Oh, no. I know. And you've finished off.

I mean, it's all, in a sense, exciting and fun. And then you read in the newspapers about unfortunate Russians being poisoned or not by tea at airports and people dying. And, you know, the case of the couple in Salisbury. And of course, he was, as it were, a double agent. It's quite interesting to me. I write murder mysteries and I enjoy a murder mystery and I like humorous murder mysteries. And then I sometimes stop to think, well, actually, real people are dying here. It's a murder mystery. We then I sometimes stop and think, well, actually, real people are dying here.

It's a murder mystery. We're making it entertainment. I've always been fascinated by that. We've always loved murder mysteries. And actually, children also, there's some very, very successful series out there for kids in their early teens, and they're all murder mysteries. Something that absolutely seduces you into wanting to solve a whodunit it's fascinating um there's one more that again who knows but i love the idea of this this is a hello number a hello number is a number used to indicate an emergency so the agent in trouble will deliver some kind of coded message for help such as hello it's freezing in london

today that kind of reminds me of the cold war it's freezing in London today. That kind of reminds me of the Cold War. It's freezing in London. A bit of a daft line, if it's brilliantly hot, that would alert anybody listening in. Oh, no, it is not freezing in London today. Why is he saying it? Do you think he could be the sleeper awaking? We talk about coming in from the cold and there was a spy who came in from the cold. Of course. That was the first great John le Carré. Shall we talk about some of the great spy writers like John le Carré and Ian Fleming after our break? And also, I'll just tell you where the Cold War got its name because I didn't know this until I looked it up. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.

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Or how Jamal Williams uses the mindset of Naruto for his NFL career. Listen to Crunchyroll Presents The anime effect every friday wherever you get your podcast also from something else katie piper's extraordinary people join katie for a series of powerful and inspirational conversations with people who have triumphed over adversity with guests including Fern Cotton. And what about when you get really lazy journalism? So, like, people that draw just one line, they take it out of context, and that's really sad because... It is, it is.

And I've also been on the receiving end of it so many times. Sometimes to really tragic levels for me where I've really not felt able to cope with it. Yeah. Zoe Sugg and Nadia Hussain. I think the thing with women, firstly, is that women sometimes don't always like to see other women succeed. Mm-hmm. I think that's right, yeah.

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of that, and I think that's why just... It's really hard sometimes because in the last four years i've changed so much listen now in apple podcasts spotify and all good podcast apps hello this is something rhymes with purple with super spies you can see why we are not spies or could this be a double bluff char Charles Brandreth and Susie Dent. The Cold War gave rise to so much amazing spy genre literature.

What is the origin of the expression, the Cold War, Susie? Well, it's funny because George Orwell was the first to use it as a general term just at the end of World War II in 1945. And he was contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare. But we think it's kind of linked to the nuclear warfare idea because both sides in the Cold War were afraid of fighting each other directly, whereas in a hot war, nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So it's kind of, I think the idea was that it was a kind of indirect war, if you like, but still incredibly scary. Did you live under the shadow of the Cold War?

I did. Indeed, when I was brought up, we had the Iron Curtain. That was a phrase I know made famous by Winston Churchill in a speech after the war, but I don't think it necessarily originated it. No, I'll tell you, I'm going to look it up in the OED now because you've got me thinking. So it's there as a literal iron screen which can be lowered onto the front of the stage to protect the auditorium from fire. That's 1794. Then 1819, an impenetrable barrier, especially one which prevents access or communication. War, actually first mentioned in 1920 and then properly in 1945 in a report of the speech by Schwerin von Krusig, the German foreign minister. And then very soon after, Winston Churchill, who says, an iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind.

Yes. And it went on for many years, really, until the Gorbachev era in Russia. And I do remember when the Berlin Wall came down. Young people find this hard to believe that there were... It never existed. It never existed. But there was Eastern Europe and it was literally locked off. And Berlin had a wall where people in East Berlin couldn't get out to West Berlin. And I went there a number of times.

The first time I went there, and this is literally true, I went there because I'd formed a friendship by letter with a teddy bear collector in East Berlin. And he wanted me to have a teddy bear of his. And we went to Checkpoint Charlie. And he was on one side that he couldn't come out into the West. And he threw his teddy bear across the Berlin Wall. Oh, how amazing. And then a few years later, I took my children back there when the wall was being dismantled.

And we all went and helped dismantle the Berlin Wall. And so each of my children and us, we've got bits of the Berlin Wall in our house as a souvenir. And this lovely man, Jochen Frank, who is still alive, his wife and family, same age as me, he is still a journalist in East Berlin. And he now, of course, can travel anywhere in Germany.

But interestingly, visiting Eastern Germany, I still meet older people who have a kind of nostalgia, believe it or not, for the days before. Really? Yeah. Well, no, I'm sure that does exist. If you ever wanted to read the most amazing account of growing up in East Germany, I can't recommend this book more highly. I had to review it for, I think it was The Spectator ages ago. And it's one of my absolute favourite reads of all time. It's called Red Love by Maxim Leo. And it's unforgettable. It's a brilliant book. Red Love by Maxim... Red Love by Maxim Leo or Leo, Elio.

Maxim Leo. Oh, I want to read that. It's amazing. I've read many of the books by John Le Carre. Yes. His real name is David Cornwall. I've blown his cover. But John Le Carre became famous

for writing The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. He was in the Secret Service himself for quite a short while, I believe. I had a master at school called George Bird, who had also been in the Secret Service. And I remember when I was in school and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold was first published and came out,

he said, yes, it's quite accurate, but he hasn't given anything away and we're not very happy with him. And he didn't rise very high. Never mind that. He became and is the master of the Cold War spy novel, John le Carré. Did he introduce us to some words like mole? I mean, you know, a mole.

Is that a spy on the inside? He certainly popularised them in Tinker Tailor, I think it was, from the 70s. I think it's simply there someone who I mean who knows how much he picked up himself from his time there but a person who works underground so in darkness and in secrecy so I think it's quite a very vivid but quite an obvious metaphor but you know I haven't read many of his novels but I have listened to them and Radio 4 in this country in Britain have I don't know if they'll be available to people outside but I've done some brilliant dramatizations of his novels with Simon Russell

Beale Smiley I mean they're they're absolutely amazing I would definitely recommend those yes he's in good well the circus of course the circus the circus was the headquarters was it that was the in-house name for MI6 yes and. And then he talks about Gerald, the mole that the control is seeking and control is the former head of MI6 in his novels. What else have you got? Sculpt Hunters. Those are the ones who handle kidnapping and blackmail and assassination.

Honey Traps, we talked about. Housekeepers, the finance department, the lamplighters. That's quite romantic, isn't the finance department, the lamplighters. That's quite romantic, isn't it? What are the lamplighters? They're the surveillance department at MI6. Oh, I'm going to get one of the lamplighters onto this. Is that all right, Smiley?

Yes. And interesting, you know, I talked before about the cobblers. I mean, maybe what John le Carré did is he took the spy terms and then gave them a bit of a twist because in his novels, the shoemakers are the ones who document, who forge documents and provide passports and things. So that'd be really interesting if that's what he did. Oh, the real word is cobblers, which you discovered years later.

And he had, in order, because that's what my contact, George Byrd, my old teacher, died the other day, went into his 90s, told me that he had actually not given any secrets away. Well, he wouldn't have done. So maybe he took real things and twisted them so that he wasn't actually giving a revelation. What about Ian Fleming? Ian Fleming, more popular than John le Carré, more accessible, more adventurous, more sexy, now much more politically incorrect. Probably with the early novels, you wouldn't want to read them because of some of the assumptions and references but he gave us m didn't he he gave us m he gave us q q is short for quartermaster and m is short for i think it's short for mi6 but it was said to

be derived from mansfield smith coming who was the first director of the intelligence service and who signed papers with a c but we we've talked before, I know you've talked about Roger Moore before, who you knew quite well. Did you meet any of the other Bond? I've met all the James Bonds. Oh, good grief. Why did I ask that question? I can do you my impression of Sean Connery with a joke. We did jokes the other day, and this one's still in my head. Two pebbles are on the beach and one pebble says to the other are you married and the other pebble replies no i'm shingle

get it i knew there'd be a sh in there so exactly that's my um sean connery impression are you allowed to say who's your favorite well my favorite is ro Roger Moore, but the current one I think is pretty damn good. Okay. Daniel Craig. I read the most amazing anecdote about Roger Moore the other day. He was being celebrated on Twitter, perhaps as an anniversary of his death, potentially. But it was a boy, well, it was a man now remembering how as a boy he had spotted Roger Moore at an airport and had persuaded his dad, who didn't watch anything and had no clue who this man was, that James Bond was actually sitting over there and could they go and ask for his autograph. And they went up, asked for his autograph and Roger Moore

very happily gave it. And then when they went back to sit down, the boy looked and was devastated to see that he had signed it, Roger Moore. And he said, it can't be James Bond. It's just, it's not the right person. Anyway, years later, he was in a book signing queue where Roger Moore was signing copies of his autobiography. And the man finally gets to him and says, years ago, you won't remember this, but I met you at an airport and I was devastated that you signed your real name rather than James Bond. And Roger Moore said, oh yeah, sorry about that. And then in the book, he said, my name really is James Bond, but I can't possibly blow my cover.

It was just so sweet. Isn't that a lovely story? Yes. I love that. And it's just, yeah, it was just a really nice film. Do you have a favourite James Bond film or character? I thought Timothy Dalton was actually really good. I thought he was brooding enough.

Roger Moore was just a bit too comical for me. Even though as a man, I think he was astonishing and clearly lovely. But for me, he didn't have quite the charisma. But he was definitely my mum's favourite, Roger Moore. I think he's the real Bond expert's favourite, isn't he, really? You know, the Queen really likes James Bond. The reason that she did that Daniel Craig stunt, which was hilarious, at the Olympics, do you remember?

Very good. And did it all in one take, you the Olympics. Do you remember? Very good. And did it all in one take, you know, all in one take, just fantastic, is that she had seen all the Bond films. And in the good old days, when they had the Royal Yacht Britannia and the Queen would spend her summers going around the Scottish, you know, the waters up there, she would always, with the family, they would have James Bond nights. After dinner, they would all sit around and watch the latest James Bond movie. People who are literary say that Kingsley Amis, who I think did write a James Bond novel, post-James Bond, he came up with the word phylactology. He did. That was counter-espionage, wasn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, I did look this up in the OED, and there's only one use of it in a book that he wrote called The Anti-Death League. It says, apparently what's called the philosophy of flactology, spy catching to you, has been transformed. And that was a novel where the lives of characters working in a fictional British army camp were followed. And there's a secret weapon being tested there, et cetera. So a bit of espionage going on in there too. And that goes back, we think, for, it means capable of being guarded, I think is the idea. It's a really complicated term and it's not one that ever took off, as you can see. I mean, I love the fact that espionage crept into so many different things, because in 1915, a heavily armoured combat vehicle called Little Willie, do you know about this? It

rolled into military service. And this was Britain's sort of devastating secret weapon. It was finally revealed because for months it had been under construction in separate locations and listed in all the documents as a water carrier for mesopotamia and this code name gave rise to the eventual name of the secret weapon which was the tank so the tank goes back to that coded name water carrier for mesopotamia and that was how they worked on it for so long because the enemy wouldn't they thought it was simply a water tank how ingenious i just it's just everywhere you You get subterfuge everywhere. And secrets generally never make the light of day, but things like that really do. We haven't mentioned Box 500. That's how civil servants know MI5 affectionately, because officially during wartime, it was

P.O. Box 500. If you have been in the Secret Service and would like to put us right on our spycraft lingo, it's purple at somethingelse.com. Something without a G. Have lots of people been in touch this week? Yes. Do you know what? You know, we talked about pubs quite recently.

Yes. Lots of people got in touch with some of their fantastically named local watering holes. and this one I absolutely loved it comes from Joshua Warman so thanks Joshua kettle and wink in Cornwall or kettle and wink and he gives which I believe is actually the actual derivation of this because Cornwall has been a haunt of smugglers he says since Elizabethan times and around the beginning of the last century this pub

was already a favorite of locals who knew it as the kiddly wink ale houses kept smuggled brandy in a kettle to deceive the excise officers so a regular customer would look at the kettle and wink when he gave his order so the term going down to the kettle and wink arose and then led it to becoming the kiddly wink and actually there's another thread to weave in here joshua because tiddly wink used to be an old name for a pub we think it's unrelated to the game unless games were actually you know there is a british game called tiddly winks i don't know if it's a worldwide game involving little colored counters and flicking them with your thumb but tidddlywink was once a slang term for getting tiddly and possibly falling asleep because wink used to mean to close your eyes rather than just

close them briefly. And so tiddlywink and kiddlywink are quite similar as well. So I suspect there was some influence going on too, but isn't that fantastic? Very good. Oh, is it kiddlywink? Is it, could that be a child as well? Well, kiddlywink is a child, isn't it? That's another name for a child, the little kiddlywink. I think that's just a riff well kiddlywink is kiddlywink is a child isn't it that's another name for each other little kiddlywink i think that's just a riff on tiddlywink probably because he's little um and actually jeff holt has been in touch to say he once came across a roadside pub called the cock in derbyshire but instead of a picture of a cockerel or any other cock come to that there was a picture of a horse after a little research, we discovered that cock referred to a cock horse, a spare horse that was hired out to coachmen to give their coaches a bit of extra horsepower on hills.

Question, why is a spare coach horse called a cock? And that reminded me of the nursery rhyme, is it ride a cock? Ride a cock horse to Boundbury Cross to see a fair lady upon a white horse. And I always thought it was because it had a cocked or docked tail. But no, I did look this up and Geoff is absolutely right. It was an extra horse that was used to help coachmen, well, to help the other horse pull the heavy coaches up the hills. And we think cock in this sense, it's because apparently the first cock horses were really fine horses, which perhaps explains the use in the nursery rhyme.

And they used to strut about like a cockerel. That's what is thought of there. So, yeah, that's an interesting one. So please do keep sending in your pub names, actually, because there are loads, obviously hundreds that we didn't cover, but such a fascinating subject. Have you got one there? I've got so many here. hundreds that we didn't cover, but such a fascinating subject. Have you got one there?

I've got so many here. Wayne Lee has been in touch, wants to talk about the news, or rather N-E-W-S. North, east, west, south. What's the origin of north, south, east and west? Have they got anything to do with the word news? Or is it just a coincidence? It's a coincidence. And I see this on social media all the time that people think it becomes, it comes from the fact that news came in from all corners of the globe and it's not actually news itself is a variation of the French nouvelle which means the same thing news etc so it's got a very long legacy nothing to do with the compass and all of those words are Germanic so all of them came to us from germans you've got norden zuden austin and veston in modern german and they all mean different things like south i think might come from an

ancient root meaning south side which is nice and east i think has something to do with where the sun goes down with easter and yes it is it is linked linked to Easter and also the Orient and all of that. And West, I think, is linked to Vespers, because that might come from an ancient root meaning evening or dusk. But absolutely nothing to do with the word news. So there we are. Sorry about that. Now, here's one from Emma.

Or is it Ma? No, it couldn't be my Ma, because she's no longer with us. Hello, Giles and Susie. Firstly, I'd like to thank you for a great podcast. It's a lovely thing to say. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. There was a famous debate

on the marvellous BBC show QI. This is a television programme in the UK and the conversation was between Stephen Fry and Victoria Codden-Mitchell on the origin of the word lunch. Could you please tell us where the word comes from? Interestingly, you know,

I do remember ages ago, I told you how people thought that the British version of cheese on toast called Welsh rabbit was poshified and made into Welsh rare bit. And so people assume nowadays that Welsh rare bit was the original and rabbit was just a funny take on it. But in fact, it was an insult towards the Welsh and the fact they couldn't afford any meat. So they just had cheese on toast instead. Well, luncheon is quite similar because lunch came first and luncheon was simply the posher version that people thought, you know, was necessary because lunch for some reason sounded too infridig. And it goes back to a really old word, meaning a thick piece or hunk and referring to the slice of bread of course that

people would have you know bread and dripping or whatever they had so and that's where it comes from it was it was a hunk of bread and then yeah people thought lunch isn't good enough we need to make it luncheon excellent so it was extended to luncheon lunch is the real word luncheon the posh version is simply a later word to make lunch seem a grander event are you coming for luncheon, the posh version, is simply a later word to make lunch seem a grander event. Are you coming for luncheon? A luncheon. Actually, I'll save that for my trio. Let's go to your trio.

What have you got for us this week? You just made me think of this. I'm going to use this on the spot. We talked about luncheon. Nuncheon, so it's luncheon with an N, is a drink taken at lunch. A luncheon. I don't know if you're partial to a luncheon or not. I don't drink, but I could have a nuncheon or not. I don't

drink, but I could have a non-alcoholic. I want an NNA nuncheon. I'll have a non-alcoholic nuncheon. You could. You absolutely could. You don't drink heavily, do you? I don't, but I do drink. Also, I am prone to a fit of the clevers. Fit of the clevers is a sudden spurt of activity when you notice the time friday afternoons always oh that's very ingenious that's what we often have towards the end of the podcast a fit of the clevers we realize we've got all this in a fit of the clevers oh it's a lovely phrase and how long has it been around oh fit of the clevers has been around since at least the 19th century oh lovely i had a fit of a clever one. Go on.

Now, this one I may have mentioned before, but it happens quite a lot in my house, so we use it quite a lot. A jack brew. A cup you make for yourself without getting one for anyone else. A jack brew? Yes, that's what it's called in the army. Oh, he's got himself a jack brew.

So it's look after yourself. I'm all right, Jack. That must be the opposite. I'm all right, Jack. Exactly. It's a jack brew. The jack brew. Yeah, it happens quite a lot here, I'm afraid. Oh my God. I think you've drawn your eyebrows too high. Susie, you're looking at me quite surprised. That's a joke. I'm warming up to my joke because what I thought, I thought you'd give us three good words. I thought I'd just tell you a joke. Okay.

What's the best thing about Switzerland? I don't know, but the flag is a big plus. Oh. Now, don't forget, as I told you the other day, groaning is good. Yes. Laughing is good. A bear walks into a bar and says, give me a gin and a tonic. Why the big paws?

Asked the bartender. You get it? I was thinking, have you forgotten the punchline? No. Oh, I like that one. I forget the punchline. I like that one. That's our lot.

If you want to communicate with us, it's purple at somethingelse.com. Do keep in touch with us. Please recommend us to friends. Keep in contact. We're a Something Else production, aren't we? Produced by Lawrence Bassett with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Harriet Wells, Grace Laker, and a double act of their twiddling the knobs. It's Gully and... Jay, I'm glad you said you didn't say twiddling the knobs. It's Gully and... Jay, I'm glad you didn't say twiddling their knobs. No, I certainly didn't. The nuncheons are on Susie, boys.