Something Rhymes with Purple - Pissabed

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

This week is all about YOU the listener. We go through loads of your (much appreciated) emails to debate the origins of phrases like By Hook or By Crook, discuss the myriad alternative definitions of the word ‘growler’, and unveil the bizarre connection between lions’ teeth and wetting the bed… We also reveal the origins of the words ‘correspond’ and ‘letter’, explain what CC on an email means and highlight the importance of little snails and monkeys’ tails in online correspondence. A Somethin’ Else production. Susie’s trio: Cherubimical - described someone who is a happy drunk Jamais vu - “never seen” (the opposite of deja vu); the feeling of never having encountered something despite being familiar with it Lickpenny - something that uses up large amounts of money If you’d like to get in touch with a question for Susie and Gyles for a future episode, email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello again and welcome again to Something Rhymes with Purple. I say again, this may be your first time, and if it is, it's particularly exciting to have you with us. This is a podcast that we produce every week where Susie Dent, my lovely friend, famous for being the person in Dictionary Corner, but really perhaps the person in the world who I think knows more about words and language and etymology than anyone else on the planet Earth, she and I get together once a week and we chat about words and language. And we do it because we love words and language. Language is power. And because people want to increase their word power. Is that a fair summary of what we're trying

to do? Apart from the world bitch with me, that's a very fair summary. You are global, Susie Dent. And today, we've been quite lucky because you can communicate with us, purple at something else, that's something without the G else dot com. That's the way to communicate with us. And people have been communicating over the months. And we're feeling a bit guilty because Christmas is coming. And not only have I not sent any Christmas cards yet, but we haven't dealt with this huge backlog of correspondence.

Where does the word correspondence come from? Yes, because we are dedicating this particular episode to those questions that have come in. And before I get to correspondence, can I just say genuinely, thank you so much for all of them, because not only do we get some fantastic questions from our very discerning listeners, but also just some really nice comments about the programme. Correspondence, where does that word come from? Well, it's from the Latin as so often, and it's from re meaning again. You've got the co meaning together, re meaning again, and spondere in Latin was to pledge.

It's the root of sponsor. So to respond to someone is to kind of pledge allegiance in return. So you are actually, much as answer has swear within it, you are swearing allegiance in your response. So to correspond is actually also to confess loyalty or profess loyalty to someone, which I think is rather nice. Wonderful. I like that. 1500 is that one. In the early days, people corresponded almost entirely by letter. Yes. But why is it called a letter? Does it come from letters of the alphabet? Yeah, very simple. That one, Latin again, the

Romans used literae for their letters. And the ultimate origin of that one is a mystery, but we do know at least it goes back to ancient Rome. Which came first, the letter as in the letter of the alphabet or the letter as in a piece of correspondence? The letter of the alphabet. Fine. Yeah.

So thank you for your letters and correspondence, often sent to us from your computer, where on my computer, I know it says at the top, whoever you are, the sender, and then it says who you're sending it to. And then underneath it says CC or BCC. Now, I know what CC stands for, but many people don't. What does that CC stand for? I always need to be reminded of this one as well. Well, CC just means carbon copy. And it goes back to the days when pieces of carbon paper copied writing from one sheet to another, especially when you were filling out a form.

Do you remember that? They were black, weren't they? Obviously, carbon. And you would get the ink all over your fingers. They are not always black. They come in blue. They come in green. They come in red, carbon paper.

And there are still lots of people who use carbon paper. I happened to be having supper the other night with a police detective. All the stories he told me. Anyway, he said the Metropolitan Police are among the largest consumers of carbon paper still. Really? Because I thought they put everything, all their notes straight into some kind of an app. Into a system. But no, no.

He said we still have notebooks. We have carbon paper so you can duplicate things. And it reminded me that when I was in government in a long time ago now, a quarter of a century ago, I was a government whip. And we used to keep notes about what was going on in the Houses of Parliament, reporting on what people were doing and saying. And we would write it in a little loose leaf folder,

notebook, and we had bits of carbon paper. So there was one for the top copy, which went to the chief whip. And there for the top copy which went to the chief whip and there was a second copy that went to the prime minister and we put in the safe for the prime minister and there was the the third copy which was left in the notebook so people still use carbon paper i loved it did you i just remember my dad using it so cc stands for carbon cc and then the bcc obviously is blind carbon copy in In other words, not everybody can see who it's been copied into. The at symbol is quite a nice one on emails

because that actually is a really, really old symbol. It's meant various things over time. So medieval monks, for example, would use it for towards. So it was ad for them. And it might have just been an embellished way of saying ad towards something. The A with the little circle around it. Yes, the at symbol. We need a better symbol for it.

It goes back to medieval times. Yes. Old monks were doing this. Old monks were doing this. We do need another name for it because the Italians call it a snail, apparently. I don't know what the actual Italian word is. And the Dutch call it a monkey tail. And we just call it the at symbol.

But then in 1971, just to kind of complete the picture, there was a computer scientist called Ray Tomlinson and he really needed to find a symbol for connecting people who program computers with each other. And it genuinely came down to the random act of looking at his keyboard and thinking, okay, that one's used quite often, I won't use that. How about the at one? Because he needed something that was really infrequently used so it wouldn't be mistaken with others. And he slightly randomly, as I say, just

landed upon that one. And the rest is history. Before we dig into all the emails we have received, I'm going to share with you what I think is the briefest correspondence that has ever been in the history of correspondence. OK. This takes place in 1862. Does that give you a clue? It's a correspondence in French, though it's actually international. It's between Victor Hugo, the great French novelist who wrote famously... Les Miserables.

Les Miserables, better known as The Glums. Les Miserables, he wrote it in 1862. And this is a correspondence between Victor Hugo and his publisher. The author, Victor Hugo, was on holiday and anxious to know how his new novel, Les Miserables, was selling, wrote to the publisher a letter which simply contained a huge question mark. That was the length of the correspondence. It was sent to the publisher and the publisher replied. What did the publisher reply?

Exclamation mark. A huge exclamation mark. Excellent. I love that. Okay. Very much like that. Kick off with the email, Susie. Okay.

Well, I'm going to start with some just lovely additions, really, to some of the stories that we've covered already. This one is from Wayne Lee, who said he was listening to our story of where the phrase by hook or by crook originated. Here in Waterford, Ireland, it's told it comes from the English invading Ireland trying to take the city of Waterford, which they were having difficulty with. On either side of the Waterford estuary, you have Hookhead and Crook Village. So it's said by the English they would take Waterford by hook or by crook. And I love this story. Is there any truth in it at all? There's so many stories associated with this expression. No. There's another one and then I'll tell you the true origin again. But the other one associates the phrase with two gentlemen

called Hook and Crook. And uh the difficulties of establishing the exact locations of plots of land after the great fire of london so that was what 1666 and the surveyors appointed to determine the right of the various claimants were mr hook and mr crook who basically really got going um with alacrity and they permitted the rebuilding of the city to proceed without any delay and so the saying is said to be well we'll get somebody out of difficulty quickly no truth in that either because sadly if you look at the dates and it's the same for the lovely Irish origin they just don't work because by hook or by crook was recorded as early as the 14th century which is long before the civil war and the Great Fire. So we do think it goes back

to peasants' rights to gather firewood, either by a hooked staff, if you like, or a crook. So if anything was on low hanging branches, they were permitted by the monarch to collect that wood for fire. By hook, which you can cut with, and by crook, which is what shepherds use and bishops hold. Yes, that's true. I think, to be honest, they like the rhyme of it rather than the meaning. But, you know, the idea was there. Well, thank you, Wayne, for getting in touch.

Thank you, Wayne. Turns out you're totally wrong, but it was nice to hear. No, no, it's great because I love that story. Of course we love it. There's another fantastic one here from Matt Eyre. So bear with me on this one because it's quite involved, but it's brilliant. He says he's a British Arctic whaling historianaling historian what a job what a job title and he spends most of his time

reading the extant log books and diaries of 19th century british whalers he thought this passage would be of interest to us this is relating to the expression under the thumb um under the thumb i'm under the thumb of certain so yeah he says it's from the 1859 diary of r.h hillard who was a surgeon aboard the dundee whaler narwhal and it talks of a very remarkably pointed island which has received the rather unique name of the devil's thumb which i think is not inappropriate considering all the ships are lost when under the thumb and matt goes on to say that the Devil's Thumb is a landmark that signifies the entrance to Melville Bay off the northwest coast of Greenland.

And it's the most dangerous section of Arctic whaling voyages because over 200 ships have been crushed in the ice and lost there. And on sighting the thumb, Matt says, crews will bring their personal effects on deck, ready to abandon ship at a moment's notice. Isn't that a wonderful story? Again, expression was recorded from the 1700s. Matt knows it's probably not the origin of it, but that's the thing about idioms.

They're given sort of new meanings to fit new realities, and I absolutely love that one. So the origin, though, of the phrase under the thumb, you're under someone's thumb, what does it mean? It's simply, it's as literal as you might expect. Well, not literal, because obviously no one's pressing their thumb upon you, but it's as transparent as you might imagine. They've because obviously no one's pressing their thumb upon you but it's as transparent as you might imagine they're just sort of got total pressure or control on you i must also say that matt says that he absolutely loved being from

newcastle the hadaway episode and apparently does have been lots of comments about your brilliant accents over recent weeks oh thank you i think thank you very much we will rise above that okay it's the scottish one that they seem to like the most okay i'm moving on to growlers Thank you. I think. Thank you very much. We will rise above that. Okay. It's the Scottish one that they seem to like the most. Okay. I'm moving on to growlers now. Forgive me for this. Now, do you remember this?

I said how embarrassing it was one day on Countdown when growler came up as a possible, not answer, but a possible word from the nine random letters selected. And Rachel was just bent over double laughing while Nick and I had a discussion about the meaning of growler because there is a rather ruder version of that. It's not in the dictionary, not in the standard dictionary. It shows you how innocent I am. It may be a matter of age because Nick, you and I are more of an age than, as it were, you and Miss Riley.

And a growler to me is one of several things. A growler is somebody who growls. It's also the mechanism put in a teddy bear to make it growl. And I think there was a Victorian vehicle known as a growler. Oh, OK. That would go around London as a horse and four. I think growlers appear in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. So those are the growlers I'm familiar with.

Now it's part of the female anatomy. No. A slang term. But apparently, thanks to Sarah Wood in Nova Scotia, we now know that it's a large size of beer bottle often available at craft beer breweries. That's great. Grief.

Well, I don't think we need to go any further with any of that. But how interesting. A growler. Someone's got to be very careful. Okay, I'm whizzing through these because we've got so many. On to Jules Swanson. Hello, Susie and Giles. So she loves the podcast.

This is getting a bit like Steve Wright, isn't it? Loves the show, Steve. Yeah, I love Steve Wright. And also those two sidekicks. If you've ever done a Steve Wright show, it's never just Steve Wright. There are two people on the side of him who actually are very good. Okay, so Jules Swanson says, Although we're Canadian, my family has always had an obsession with the OED,

the Oxford English Dictionary, and many family arguments have been solved by pulling out our battered OED. Great, I love that. Obviously, I would love to know, says Jules, the origins of the phrase, how come? Instead of asking why. I don't know if it's commonly used in the UK,

but in Canada, we love it. How come? How come? Well, it started off in North America, but we do use it a lot over here, but it goes back to the mid-19th century, and it's simply from the older phrase, how comes it that? How did it happen that? I think that's a Shakespearean phrase. How comes it that my Lord of Worcester is not yet at Shrewsbury? Very good. my Lord of Worcester is not yet at Shrewsbury. Very good. So there you go. Very, very simple.

Okay. From Pat Connolly in Dublin. Recently, I was sending a birthday greeting to my nephew, Daniel, when to acknowledge his fortitude and strength of character, isn't that lovely, I called him Dan the Lion, which got me thinking about whether the word Dan the Lion has anything to do with Daniel and the lion's den. I'm curious to know if there's a connection. Wow. Sadly not. It's a lovely idea and it's not one I've heard before. Dan the lion. Dandelion comes from don, as in my name, dent, don de lion, a lion's tooth in French. Dandelion, this is the flower, the dandelion. This is the, yes, the plant. And also there's confusion about the dandelion because in the film The Wizard of Oz, there's a line about the lion being a dandelion. Oh, there you go.

He was a dandelion. It's all linked. And it's because of the jagged shape of the plant's leaves. And a lot of people will know that in Old English, a dandelion was called a pisser bed because it's a diuretic. If you eat dandelion leaves, you'll find dandelion tea, for example, which will help you with your waterworks. Pisser bed. Pisser bed? Yeah, they told it like it was tea, for example, which will help you with your waterworks. Pissabed. Pissabed?

Yeah, they told it like it was. You see, we say it pays to increase your word power. Why talk about a dandelion when you can use the word pissabed? Exactly. Pissabed tea. Thank you, Pat Connolly from Dublin. This one's for you, Giles, actually. This is all about your lovely sleep games, which have been really, really popular. We're always talking about sleep and lack of it, aren't we?

Mm-hmm. So, good evening, purples all. What do we call our listeners, by the way? I think we need a collective noun for purple listeners. Oh, yes. Any suggestions would be fantastic. Should we ask our listeners to come up with one? Yes.

I'd love that. I'd love that. Anyway, this is from Matthew Dougal. He says, just been thinking about Christian names or first names with alternative meanings, beginning with for your game mr b very good how about l she in french erica means heather earl uh earnest oh very good um although it's spelt slightly differently honest isn't it eddie again spelt differently but a whirlpool i like that one and oh i was just about to say ttN, but that's not a first name.

Elan is quite an interesting one, isn't it? Yes. As in? Elan. Elan in French is like dash, a bit of dash and sort of savoir faire, isn't it? Elan. Yeah, he did it with Elan. And Elan, E-L-A-N, it's an Irish name.

It's a Scottish alternative spelling of Ian, apparently. Okay. You've heard of Elon Musk, the man behind the Tesla. By the time I next see you, Susie Dent, I shall have had delivered my Tesla. Wow. And I'll be able to tell you if I've made it work or not. Yeah. Oh, thank you, Matthew, for those. They're brilliant. I'm still playing the game night after night. If you're new to this, the idea of the game is if you can't get to sleep you basically go through the alphabet and you think of names people's first names that also have a secondary meaning for example we've got to f now faith it's both a girl's name and

also it means faith having having faith having confidence having a belief fay f-a-y it's a girl's name and it's a fairy isn't it was that f-e-y f-e-y yeah but fey to be slightly fey means to be f-e-y so that that's a real word uh flora yeah i love flora girl's name a margarine um it's a vegetation frank yeah to be open you see this is this is how i get sometimes i get overexcited. I think, oh, Frank, that's rather good. It means open. It means being free. It means I'm wide awake when I should be falling asleep.

Oh, that's a great story behind Frank. Remind me to tell you another one. Oh, what's that? What's a great story? No, no, it's just a long involved story about the sort of origin of the word, of the name France, et cetera. You can't tease people. And frankincense and all that stuff.

You can't tease people. Okay. Well, it goes back to the Franks. The Franks were invaders of Gaul, etc. They basically subjugated all the natives. And to be Frank meant to be free. So if you were a Frank, you were considered to be superior, which is why Frankincense is superior incense.

And of course, eventually they gave their name to France too. So the French, this is why they think they're superior. And the currency, etc. Oh, I love the French. Let's not go there. No, I love the French too. I adore the French. As you know, I went to the French Lycée. Oh, yes, I did.

Oh, yeah. Oh. I think on that note, we'll take a break. What do you think? Let's definitely take a break. Sainte-Luc-Aupin. Au revoir. Help.

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wherever you get your podcasts oh I like that frank discussion we had earlier and before we get round to Grace

both a girl's name and it means a favour or Guy haha a boy's name also a word for a chap we're going to have a whole episode aren't we about first names we are and I'll come back to Guy because that's quite interesting means of favour, or Guy, a boy's name, also a word for a chap. We're going to have a whole episode, aren't we, about first names?

We are, and I'll come back to Guy because that's quite interesting. Very good. Today we are dealing with the correspondence. Yes. Communications that have been sent to us either by text, by tweet, or by letter. Well, actually, none have been received by letter. They've been by email. I think they will have, yeah. Yeah, because nobody knows what I'll address.

But snail mail is absolutely fine, if they can find us us where does snail mail come from just because it's slow yeah well there's more ways to write a letter and there's more ways to skin a cat tell us skin a cat okay mary mcleod actually this one comes from she's a secondary school teacher and she used the expression there's more than one way to skin a cat and i thought where does that come from well luckily i think it has nothing to do with the actual skinning of a real animal. Because if you look back, there are lots and lots of variants. I mean, they're all fairly grim. There are many more ways to kill a cat than choking it with butter. There are many more ways to kill a dog than

hanging. But the answer to Mary is it's just one of many, many variants and it's a pretty horrible one. But for some reason, English speakers delighted in that kind of black humour. Mary McClure adds, Susie, can you suggest a less ghastly alternative

for the same phrase? Gosh. More way than one to skin a cat. To my head, more than one way to toss a pancake. Oh, what is that? I don't know there is. Well, yeah, in't know there is.

Well, yeah, in my house there is. Or dice a mushroom. There you go. There we are. There's more than one way to... Oh. Gosh, leave that one with us, mate. It's a really good question. Yeah, exactly. We are not instantaneous phrase makers, are we? That should be. More than one way to skin a cat.

Yeah. Any listener suggestions, welcome again. Exactly. Okay. A nip okay a nip a nip of strong liquor that's from simon stretton isn't it and he is suggesting it could be a contraction of nipenthe yes i don't think he's right because i think nipenthe is spelled n-e-p-e-n-t-h-e and that's something to do with sleep is it a drug that induces sleep that's absolutely right i think it was one of my trio once upon a time trios yeah it Yeah, it's mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, and it's a drug that liberates the mind from grief or from trouble, really, which is lovely. It can be, today we use it as sort of, you know, alcohol or

perhaps a sort of nice encounter, something that actually is cathartic and restoring, restorative. But a nip. I think it's literally from the idea of something strong, like a strong tot of whiskey or brandy will sort of nip the back of your throat. It's a tiny tot. Oh, it's a tiny, like a physical nip. It will hurt you. It'll sort of give you a little...

Almost, yes. Although one other alternative theory is that it comes from the Low German word nippiken. I had to look this up and it was used as early as 1796. I love that word nippiken. I had to look this up and it was used as early as 1796. I love that word, nippiken. A little nipper. So, well, we're not totally there with nip, are we? No. Can you do a little bit better with ab?

Aaron is asking, how on earth does ab, the letters A-B, mean such opposite things? I'm thinking aboriginal versus abnormal. From the original. But one means rooted in and the other means removed from. English, why you no make sense, says Aaron. What's the answer to all that? Well, I beg to disagree with Aaron. Lovely letter and it's definitely a subject that's worth going into

because I think it's fascinating. It involves prefixes. What more can you want? But ab does mean away from and it fits with a subject that's worth going into because I think it's fascinating. It involves prefixes. What more can you want? But ab does mean away from, and it fits with both of these. So aboriginal, the indigenous people of Australia, et cetera, means from the beginning. So from, he mentions origin in his email.

So it's right from the beginning, from the creation of that world. So they were native indigenous people who were there first. And abnormal means away from from being the key thing normal so you deviate from the norm and that ab prefix you will find in lots and lots of different things um absent or absent being away from a place abduct to lead away absurd absurd means um off key surd meant sort of deaf. Oh, as in the French word sourd.

S-O-U-R-D. Exactly. It's all to do with sound. So if you're absurd, you move away from the sort of the right sound, if you like. Aberrant, wander away. Absorb, to suck away. Aberrant. I would say aberrant.

No, would I? Aberrant. Aberrant. Aberrant. Aberrant. That means away from the normal. You're going to come to this with one of my trios, actually. One of my words from my trio is when you,

there's a completely normal word that you look at and think, I actually don't recognise that anymore. How do I say it? Oh, but that happens to me all the time. I'm looking at a word that I feel I know. It happened to me again today. I saw the word shopfitter and I saw shoplifter. Yeah.

It's strange. It's strange how they might. Anyway, go on. Shall we move on to a really interesting question again from they're all interesting uh these John Huxtable why is there a b at the end of num and thumb we did a whole episode didn't we on silent letters and how often they look back to either mistakes or just sort of the way that language is mutated over time including sounds where we used to have knights instead of knights in shining armour, etc. And we owe the silent B to the fact that centuries ago, our ancestors did actually pronounce this B.

So we've lost the sound, but we've kept the spelling. And if you remember, spelling and sound divorced centuries ago, which is why English is so gnarly it's so gnarly a language I love it for that gnarly as in g-n-a-r-l-y though you are pronouncing it gnarly n-a-r-l-y absolutely right so the b sound was lost by about 1300 presumably because English speakers couldn't really be bothered to say it and because the sort of the more modern words in those days weren't actually pronouncing those like thumb which is a bit of an anomaly. So thumb it would have been I hit my thumb with the hammer and now my thumb feels number. No thumb is a bit of a rogue case because the B there is there's got no origins in history it's probably influenced by thimble. Thumb ultimately goes back to a really

old word meaning to swell because it's the swollen finger that's how it was seen tumory which gave us tumescent um oh my gosh etc etc we're getting back to the growler yay very good let's move on now and let's enjoy the pudding club. Why does pudding have an ing ending, asks Mariana Rodal de Massa. I can't give you the total story for this, but I will tell you where pudding comes from. It's actually from the French boudin, meaning black pudding, because all puddings were once savoury, weren't they? And that's... I love how you say, weren't they? None of us had any idea they were savoury. I'm sorry. Yes, they were. So in Henry VIII's time, they were full of meat, sometimes full of songbirds, etc. And other what was seen as delicacies in those days.

So a boudin, which is the French for black pudding, is from the Latin batelus, meaning little sausage. Again, keeping that savoury theme and not going back to Jemessent. That means that pudding, etymologically, is related to botulism because botellus, the little sausage, also gave us botulism. So the ing, I think, must have been to the English speaker's ear. It must have just sounded more familiar than the a or in sound of the French. A brief communication from Sam Price, who cuts to the chase and says, where does accolade come from? A double C O L A D. Accolade. He asks, is it linked to pina colada?

What about the idea? It's a lovely idea. Well, I'll start with accolade. If you think of a shirt collar, the col in that is all about your neck. And accolade also has got the neck in it, because in the older days, if a monarch wanted to bestow a knighthood or an honour upon somebody, they wouldn't touch their shoulder with a sword. They would give them a hug, a royal hug. So they would wrap their hands around their neck or their shoulders. And that was the sign of approval. So accolade and collard are siblings. That's fascinating. It's great, isn't it?

So a hug, when you're getting a niger in the old days, they used to hug you close. Yes. Give you a hug and around the neck. Or maybe one of those bro hugs where you just kind of bump shoulders. Yeah. And pina colada means strained pineapple. So the colada there has nothing to do with accolade

and it's really related to a colander. It's all about strained fruit in this case. So I guess the only link is that if you've had two pina coladas, you might go around hugging everybody. And that I will come to with one of my trio of words, actually. Before we get to your trio, Susie, we've actually had a trio of words sent in from GiffGaff, the mobile company run by you, who have a proposition've actually had a trio of words sent in from GIFGAF, the mobile company

run by you. We have a proposition for our lovely listeners ahead of Christmas. If you're buying a phone as a gift for a loved one or even for yourself, then why not consider buying a refurbished phone? GIFGAF say this option is three things. Smart. The phones are great quality and cost less than buying new. Savvy. All gift-gift phones come with a 12-month warranty. And sustainable. Going refurbished is a more sustainable option than buying new. So, exciting stuff there, Susie. But with my something rhymes with purple hat on, I can't help but ask the origins of those three S's. Okay, so smart, savvy and sustainable. Well, smart is a kind of a word that once meant something sort of rather bad, inflicting severe pain, but is now sort of good

thing. It's the same idea as sharp. If something is smart, it's kind of intense and on the point. So your skin smarts when you slap it. It does, absolutely right. And that retains the kind of original meaning of the word. But of course, now smart is absolutely what you want to be. Something with an edge. Something with an edge, something intense. Sustainable. Sustainable, well, one of the biggest buzzwords of this century, surely, quite straightforward history. Able to be sustained, that's from the French soutenir, able to be held, so it's enduring. And speaking of the French soutenir, sa vie? Yes, absolutely right. You're right. That's from the French soutenir, able to be held. So it's enduring. And speaking of the French soutenir, savie? Yes, absolutely right. You're right. It's from the French savoir, to know. We talk about savoir faire, knowing what to do in any situation and lots of links in other languages. But if you're

savvy, you're sassy and you know what to do. Good. Smart, savvy and sustainable. If you're interested in joining them, where should they go, Susie? Okay. To find out more, they can go to gifgaf.com forward slash refurbished. That's gifgaf, G-I-F-F-G-A-F-F.com forward slash refurbished. Good. Well, that's gifgaf's trio of words. Let's have yours now, Susie. Okay, well, I just mentioned there that if you've had too many pina coladas, you might go around giving everybody accolades. If you are a happy drunk, you can call yourself a cherubimical. Oh, that's nice.

That's nice, like a little cherubim. That's lovely. Yes, cherubimical, happy drunk. Now, you know, earlier in the programme, I mentioned the sort of sensation where you are looking at a word that should be totally familiar to you, but actually it suddenly seems incredibly new and you don't know what to do with it. That is known as jamais vu, the opposite of déjà vu, which of course means already seen, that sort of sensation that I've done this before at some point, even if you haven't. Jamais vu means never seen. And it is that sensation of never having encountered something that is very, very familiar to you. Okay, the

third one is a lick penny, a costly enterprise, something that demands great expenditure and probably isn't going to be worth it in the end. That cannot describe something rhymes with purple. It really is done in Susie Dent's sitting room with just us and a, well, actually a whole team of which one could say the word jamais vu. Because we give credits, as we're going to do in a minute, to a raft of people we have never seen. Look, if you've enjoyed listening to us,

please give us a nice review, recommend us to a friend. If you've got a question, we'll certainly do another questions episode quite soon. Just want to get in touch. You can also email us at purple at something else dot com. Something Writes with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by people we have seen and we love. Laurence Bassett with additional production from Paul Smith,

Steve Ackerman and Gully. Gully jamais vu.