Something Rhymes with Purple - Prepone

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

This week we abandon our mufty and don our finest khaki dungarees to set off from Blighty in search of the rich influence of Indian on the English language. We go doolally for juggernauts, repeat some mantras to reach nirvana, and we discover why ‘stadium’ might be your new favourite insult. And there was so much to cover that there is an extended version of this episode with an extra ten minutes of content for Purple Plus members available on Apple Subscriptions.  To find access this, please follow go to Apple Podcasts using this link now: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823?i=1000537128681.  Thank you to all the Purple People who suggested this wonderful subject and if you have a topic you’d like us to explore in a future episode then please email us: [e-mail]  A Somethin’ Else production.  Susie’s Trio: Maculate - stained Nyctophobia - an extreme fear of darkness Blandishment - false flattery in order to get what you want  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

losses and real talk with special guests from the Athletes Village and around the world you'll never have a fear of missing any Olympic action from Paris. Listen to Olympic FOMO wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by

LEGO Fortnite. LEGO Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of LEGO Play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families,

a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast about words, about language, and about the people that we meet along the way. I'm Susie Dent, and with me is my co-presenter, Giles Branderis, possibly the most prolific person I know in terms of how much he works and how much he actually produces. So, Giles, how are you? You must be shattered, are you? You never stop.

I'm in very happy form. I realise, in fact, I only realised it recently, because, as you know, one of the reasons I've been running around the country is I have a new book out called Odd Boy Out, which is a childhood memoir, an autobiography. And happily, it's in its second week in the bestseller list. So I'm very excited. But I discovered lots of things while writing this book. And one of them was to remember an old headmaster who was 82 years of age when I met him. I was a little boy of 10.

And I realized that he'd only ever said five words to me, six if you include my name, but they influenced my entire life. He said to me when I met him, I went into his study age 10, he's age 82, he looks down at me and says, Brandreth, busy people are happy people. That's all he said to me. And I think I've spent my whole life trying to be a busy person as a consequence of that. And on the whole, I found that busy people are happy people. My wife would say busy fool.

But I think it's quite good to be busy. So I've been being very busy, which means I've been being quite happy. That is excellent. Although it is good to stop occasionally and just to stare, isn't it? I find. I mean, I'm such a daydreamer and I live in my head a lot. So I think having that balance is sometimes quite difficult to achieve. But yes, if you want something done, ask a busy person is a bit of an old adage. Well, the only place we can live is in our heads. I don't think there's anywhere else you can live.

So whatever's happening to you, it's happening in your head. I think I just cogitate a bit too much. Oh, yes, you don't brood. Getting that balance right. I mean, I forget who it was who said that some ancient Greek who said the unexamined life is not worth living, that you've got to actually think about what you're doing. But I'm quite, I have reservations about too much introspection. Looking up and looking out, I think makes one a happier person than looking down and looking in. Being intrigued in the world around you, in science, in nature, in art and things going on around you is more stimulating, I think, than brooding on what's... On fallowskepsis, which is navel gazing. Oh, is that what it's called? Fallowskepsis. Why is it called fallowskepsis?

On fallowskepsis. That is just the Greek for belly button and Skepsis looking. Oh. So you're just, as you say, looking down. But we're not talking about belly buttons today. We are talking about a subject that many purple people have asked us to cover in Something Rhymes With Purple. And particularly thank you to Nekhil Shingadia, Andrew Steele, who is our Kathmandu correspondent, Giles, Abirup Sen and Tim Stewart. Thank you, all of you. And to many other people who've got in touch

about this fantastic subject, really, because we're talking about what has become known affectionately, I think, as Hinglish or Indian English as such. And this is quite a tricky term. It's been the subject of controversy because some people say that calling something Indian English implies that there's a sort of, it's just a variety. It's just a little offshoot of it rather than a sort of central language to millions of speakers. Also, other people would say, and this is true, you know, the kinds of English

used in India are so varied socially, geographically, that actually to be lumped together as one variety is to deny that richness. But I think for the purposes of discussion, the purple people will know what we're talking about. For simplicity's sake, we're talking about the huge influence of India and its citizens upon the English language. I couldn't be more excited about this episode because, I don't know if you know this, but my mother was born in India. Well, actually, she was born in what is now Pakistan. She was born in Rolpindi.

And she was, I suppose, a controversial figure in that she was a daughter of the Raj. Not a... sounds quite grand, but it wasn't grand. Her mother was a missionary. And in Edwardian times, late Victorian times, went around India on a donkey with a Bible, trying to convert people in India to Christianity. My father used to say rather cynically about his mother-in-law, yes, well, she converted them while she was on the donkey in the village giving out the sweets.

But then the moment she'd moved away, they reverted to whatever their faith had been beforehand. But this lady, my grandmother, then married a young man who was in the Indian army. And the Indian army's contribution to our freedom in this country is extraordinary over the years, both during the First World War and the Second World War. There were almost as many people from the Indian Army, Indian citizens, who fought and died in Europe during the First World War as there were in the British army from Europe. So their contribution was extraordinary. And this young man, my grandfather, married my grandmother. So my mother was brought up in Pakistan, what was then India, and she never in her head left it. So my whole life really was,

as a child, was imbued with her love of India. The people, the tastes, the smells. It was her north, her south, her east, her west. She was happy in India with Indian people. And when she was dying, aged 96, in a hospital near Brentford, she was taken from the ward where she was, the ward where she was ill, to the room where she died a few hours later by two porters, one of whom she held her hand, and they chatted in Hindi. So it was rather nice that the last words she spoke were in Hindi. So this is fascinating. So I want to hear all about it. Tell us about

how English came to India and all the rest of it. Explain the background. Well, I'm going to start with India itself, because I think the name India is quite beautiful. So it's named after the river Indus, which flows from Tibet through Kashmir and Pakistan and into the Arabian Sea. And it's related to Hindi, obviously in Hindu. But did you know India also gave its name to indigo because that was Indian dye, which I think is beautiful. And actually I have several friends whose daughters are called India. So I think it's very beautiful. But yes, the Indian influence upon English. I mean, it was introduced in a big way into India, English, in the 17th century when traders,

English-speaking traders, came to the country. And I mean, if you fast forward now, after the British rule was over in the middle of the 20th century, English obviously remained in use. I think it's estimated that 200,000 people claimed English as their first language and 125 million claimed it as the second language. And that is really significant because very often we kind of forget, we think that English is in the hands of native English speakers like ourselves, but actually no, it's in the hands of those who have it as a second or a third language. And that happened a long time ago that the importance and the number of non-native English speakers, it outgrew us a very, very long time ago. So it's important to remember that English is in their hands and not with ours. So together with Hindi, English is,

it's the official language of the Indian government, familiar to almost all people of India. And you will find it also as the language of officialdom, really, of business, of education, of administration and law particularly. So in some ways, it's quite similar to the position in Britain after the Norman Conquest. When French came flooding in, we've spoken about this on Purple before, it became the prestige language, if you like. this on Purple before, it became the prestige language, if you like. So it's wrapped up in all sorts of complicated history, as we know, in colonialism, in some really sort of dark periods of history, as well as some really, really important ones in establishing what is current India. But as a language, it is absolutely beautiful. And I think it is really important

to remember that it is not just an offshoot of English. It is actually a really important language in itself. So what are we calling this language? Are we calling it Hinglish or are we calling it Indian English? I think Indian English, for the purposes of our discussion, is fine, even though, as I say, you know, some people don't like it because it's a bit too monolithic and simplistic. But I think for what we're talking about today, I think that's okay. So tell us about what was the special nature of Indian English?

What makes it unique? Well, as always, what I love about the different Englishes around the world is that they take our language and they mould it to their environment, to their culture. Obviously, they come up with their own pronunciation, so pronunciation will be significantly different. There are lots

of sound differences between British English and Indian English, but also sort of new vocabulary. So one of the words that I think I've mentioned before, and it was one of the first to really strike me as being so clever and so inventive, was to pre-pone something. So if you want to bring something forward, that is exactly how we would express it in British English. I'm pre-poning the meeting, I'm bringing it forward. And it's simply a kind of backwards or forwards version of postpone, but it's just really clever. And it's in the dictionary. I try and use it sometimes. I'm going to pre-pone that meeting, but it's very much part of Indian English. And yeah, I just think it's incredibly clever. I've never heard that word before. Pre-pone means to bring forward. So if, as it were, how lovely. So if we'd planned to record

our podcast at 10, you could say, can we pre-pone that and do it at nine? Yes. Lovely. And if I wanted to do it at 11, I'd say, can we postpone that? I love it. So prepone is to do previously, what to postpone is to do later. Yeah. And etymologically, it's also completely accurate because pre means before and ponere in Latin was to put. So you're putting it before. And this is a word invented in India. It's an Indian English. Yeah. How intriguing. I know. And then there are just ones that just make me smile because I just think they're quite funny. So a nickname for somebody who has a bald head, sort of encircled by hair, if you like, is called a stadium. I just think it's really clever because So these are Indian English words that we need to get into our currency. So a stadium. So somebody like me, I'm afraid, who's got that like monk's tonsure, you know, like that ball bit in the middle.

Do you have a tonsure? Well, I try to keep my head up and always face you. I don't want you to see my shame. You just wear headphones all the time when you go out. Exactly. Or a little woolly hat with a pom-pom on. So that's known as a stadium, when you've got hair all around the ball bit. I love it. A stadium.

I love it. And I think what we would love to talk about particularly today is the influence upon British English of Indian English. So rather than just what do we do for them is what they have done for us. And actually, it is a huge amount. So many of the words have lost their stories, if you like, because they have been completely normalised and naturalised within British English. But we owe them to the many, many languages of India from Sanskrit to Hindi. Doolally is an Indian origin word. My father always loved the word doolally. And he used to say it came from a place. But is that possible? Somebody who is doolally means they're a little bit, the mind's gone a little bit, they're a little bit odd. If you're doolally, what is the origin of doolally?

Well, at the height of the crown rule in India, the British Army established a military base. India, the British Army established a military base. There's a sanatorium actually in Diolali, which was northeast of Bombay at the time, which also doubled as a transit camp. And at this transit camp, soldiers would obviously await their boat home. So it was both a kind of medical centre, but also a place where soldiers would wait. And boats would only leave really between the months of November and March because of the weather. And so many waited for months and months and months under either the scorching sun, Indian sun, or the deluges of, I suppose, of the monsoon season. And they were bored. They were restless. And so they were described as going deolali tap. So they pronounced it doolali,

because as we have covered so often on Purple, as British English speakers, we're not the best at appropriating foreign words. So we kind of mangle them a little bit and they come out slightly different. So doolali was their version of deolali. And tap was an Urdu word, Urdu being another incredibly influential language from India, was a word for fever, really, or malarial fever. So doolally tap was the deolally fever from the boredom, the restlessness, when you went slightly crazy, you know, from waiting for so long. So it was like camp fever. And the tap soon dropped and deolally, aka dooolally, then slipped over from services slang into mainstream English. Great. So it was a place, Doolally.

Definitely was. I love that one. What about juggernaut? travelled really, because today, I suppose, a juggernaut can be an unstoppable force. It can be a gigantic truck, which is how most of us would describe it probably. Or I don't know if you watch X-Men, but the villain in X-Men is juggernaut. Anyway, its origin sounds very unlikely, but it involves the meeting of two vastly different cultures, I suppose. So you have to go to the Puri or Puri temple and a ritual that was held there. So it was a festival really, which wooden forms of the gods, and this still happens, they're ceremonially placed on immense chariots and pulled through the streets by worshippers in huge processions and thousands and thousands of people will attend this festival or processions.

And Yaganath, and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this right, and all of the wonderful purple people who suggested this topic will be able to correct me, but in Sanskrit, it means Lord of the Universe. And this was the name. It was a deity really worshipped in Buddhism and Hinduism, and often depicted as one of the 10 incarnations or avatars of Vishnu. Vishnu being one of the three most powerful gods in the Hindu religion. So Jagannath, or Yaganath in Sanskrit, entered the English language in the early 19th century as colonial Britons really in India encountered this chariot and tried to make sense of what they were seeing. And you can read early accounts of this, and they present the festival quite often in a very patronising and alarmed way as violent and foolhardy. And they record

what they describe as the sacrifice of worshippers who would leap under the giant wheels of the chariot. So it became this incredibly sort of violent, barbarous, unstoppable force that would crush everything in its path. That's very much how it was depicted in sort of British accounts. And that dangerous image of the festival really persisted so that in Victorian Britain, a juggernaut was even used as a metaphor for the vices of alcohol or anything to which people really ruthlessly or not ruthlessly, blindly, I suppose, devoted themselves or were sacrificed. And then gradually that fell away.

And, you know, the name of the Indian deity was long forgotten by this point, but juggernaut took on the sense of this huge force and hence this huge vehicle, which kind of looks back to the very origins of the expression. So quite a story. And are all these words that now are part of British English, do they mostly date from the Victorian heyday of what was in those days the British Empire? When, for example, Queen Victoria, one of the proudest moments of her life was when she

became Empress of India. Not that she ever went there, but she had a huge fondness for India and for Indian people. Are these words all 19th century words, basically? That's when they took root and they've stayed with us ever since. Yeah, I think we have to remember the enormous influence of, I mean, it's the same during the First World War and the Second World War, of soldiers returning home with the language that they have acquired when they're posted or working overseas. So give us some, I'm loving, I love prepone. Dulally, I'm clear about now. Juggernaut, extraordinary. Blighty, actually.

People used to talk about Britain as being blighty. Is that an Indian word in origin? It is, yes. So that is from Urdu, again, Bilayati, I think, which meant foreign or European. So it was always something that was over there. And because British soldiers serving in India saw the homeland is so far away in a very nostalgic way, you know, many of them long to return, they adopted this European foreign idea of something far away in a very nostalgic way, many of them long to return, they adopted this European foreign idea of something far away and appropriated themselves. And during the First World War,

some soldiers hoped for what was called a blighty one. And a blighty one was a wound that was not too bad, but it was bad enough to get you safe passage home. Oh, that's clever. to get you safe passage home. Oh, that's clever. Oh, there are just so many. So, loot. Loot has its origins in the experience of the British, I suppose, in India. And soldiers picked it up, meaning valuables plundered from an enemy, and they picked that up from their Hindi-speaking counterpart. So, it goes back to a word meaning to rob, and that's from Sanskrit. So, Sanskrit, again, that's the ancient language, I suppose, predominantly northern India. So that's where loot comes from. And I suppose that's quite closely related semantically anyway to thug, because in the early 19th century,

a thug was a member of an organisation of professional robbers or assassins in India who strangled their victims. It was all very barbaric. Were they called, why do I think of the word thuggy? They were known as thuggies. Have I imagined that? Oh yeah, no, I think thuggy is in the dictionary actually. I've got the dictionary here as ever. It is robbery and murder formerly practiced in India by members of an organization known as the thugs in accordance with their ritual. So that thuggy was actually the consequent, well, that was basically what they perpetrated. Ah, thugs commit thuggy. And if they steal stuff from you, it's loot they're taking with them. Exactly. And thug goes back to the Hindi thug, meaning a swindler or a thief.

And then you get the first British thugs in 1830s in Glasgow. I make no comment there. I genuinely love Glasgow, so I'm not being horrible there. But that was the first record of it. Well, a lot of these words, like these words here, are grim ones. But many of the words have a kind of spiritual connotation. You mentioned the Indian gods. Where does Nirvana come from? really. And it's literally described, well, not literally described, but it defines a transcendent state. So this state is one in which there is said to be no suffering, no sense of self, and you are released from everything really. It's the final goal of Buddhism. And so we use it today to mean an idyllic state or place, if we're not making specific reference to Buddhism. And actually, it comes from Sanskrit and a verb meaning to blow out, to be extinguished. I love the idea that your sort of earthly worries and sufferings and even kind of preoccupation with yourself are just extinguished, allowing you to focus on higher things.

When you're focusing on higher things, you may repeat a mantra. Now, what is a mantra? Is that phrase I used earlier, busy people are happy people? Is that my mantra or is a mantra something different? What is a mantra? No, a mantra is something that's repeated, isn't it? I think that's the idea is that a mantra is, it's a bit deeper than a slogan and it is something that is repeated frequently in order to sort of embed it in your brain. But originally in Hinduism and Buddhism, it was a word or sound repeated in meditation, and it was to aid your concentration in meditation. And it actually is related to one of the most ancient words that we have in any language, and that's manas or man, to think, and that's related to mind and mentor. Oh, so many words in English.

Oh, we've got to take a break, but this is such a rich topic. We're going to put out an extended version of the podcast for our Purple Plus subscribers, people who belong to the Purple Club. So, if you want more fascinating etymologies and stories, do go to Apple subscriptions to sign up. We're going to take a break now, then more words from Indian English. And I think I want to dress up for this. I'm going to get my pajamas.

I hope you'll be wearing your dungarees, Susie. Oh, I love dungarees. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away?

You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy a room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex.

Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anabay! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray.

And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple, where Giles was about to get dressed, thankfully.

Giles, what are you going to wear? I'm putting on my pyjamas. This is a pyjama party. Is pyjamas another of the words that has come to us from India? Yes, yes, yes. From Urdu and from Persian, actually, as well. So the original pyjamas were more like leg coverings, and that's exactly what it means literally in those languages. So pe is leg and jama was clothing. They were sort of loose-fitting trousers, and then eventually we decided to adopt them for our own wear.

It's a little bit like mufti, actually, or mufti, as kids will call it these days. Did you ever have mufti Day at school? No, I was familiar with the word Mufti because of my mother being brought up in India. She always talked about, you know, are you wearing Mufti? But now, this is children have Mufti Days, which means they don't have to wear the uniform. They can wear anything they like. Is that what a Mufti Day is? Anything they like.

Home Clothes Day is what we used to call it as well. Yes. And Mufti is an Arabic word, and it meant a clerical official empowered to give rulings on matters of law. And it became used for casual or civil clothing amongst officers in the British military in India, again, the 19th century. And the idea we think is it was a kind of slightly jokey comparison between the flowered dressing gown and the tasseled smoking cap and the satin slippers that resembled the official dress of the Mufti clerics, but that were also what officers quite liked to wear when relaxing off duty. And what about khaki? That's another, I mean, people wear uniforms made of

khaki. That's another Indian word, isn't it, Norijan? It is, yeah. It's from Urdu again, That's another Indian word, isn't it, Noregian? It is, yeah. It's from Urdu again. And it meant dust coloured, simply. So it was a very specific colour. Well, as it is, I suppose, these days as well. But yeah, that's where it comes from, Urdu.

And then again, it comes from Kak, meaning dust, and then from Persian as well. So these are all very ancient words. What about dungarees? I suggested you'd look good in dungarees. Do you have dungarees? I have a pair. Yeah, I actually bought a pair of dungarees this summer. I kind of thought, no, I'm a bit too old for dungarees? I suggested you'd look good in dungarees. Do you have dungarees? I have a pair. Yeah, I actually bought a pair of dungarees this summer. I kind of thought,

no, I'm a bit too old for dungarees now. But actually, I really like them. They're just so comfortable. There's something about dungarees. So dungarees, yes, it's simply from the cloth that they were used for. Again, it's from Indian English, this time from Hindi, dungri. And it was the coarse, really hard-wearing cotton fabric. Most dungris, I think, these days are denim. But yeah. Speaking of denim, we know denim comes from Duneim, the place Nime, N-I,

with a little hat on it, M-E-S, in France. Does cashmere come from cashmere? It does, indeed. Cashmere, I think we covered this in our fabrics episode, which was really fun. I remember it's called stuff. Yeah, so cashmere is an early spelling of cashmere with a K, and it's fine, soft wool, and originally it was from the cashmere goat. Very good. Wonderful. Now, if you want more on words around the home that have Indian influences, go to Apple Subs for extra content. We've got correspondence to deal with from our correspondents around the world. Who have we heard from this week?

Well, actually, I mentioned Andrew Steele at the top of this episode, and our very first email is from him, because it was one of the messages that actually inspired us to talk about Indian English. He's asked about the words dickie, meaning the boot of a car, and go down, meaning a warehouse or a storage facility. And he says these are words that are almost exclusively only heard in Indian English. Could I shed some light on their origins? Okay, I've done some investigative work, Andrew, into this, and I'm not sure I've really come up trumps for you. Because if you look at dickie, and this is leaving aside the sense of Dickie in British English, meaning not quite functioning properly or not so strong or healthy, that we think comes from Dick, an old name for

Richards, and the old saying, as queer as Dick's hat band. So that takes us off into a completely different area. But dicky as a noun can mean a false front to your shirt, a folding outside seat at the back of a vehicle, a driver's seat in a carriage, or as Andrew says in Indian English, the boot of the car, of a car. And each sense, the dictionary says, probably has a different origin. And we don't know what it is, but they do all seem to go back to that pet form of the given name Richard. And now this is a real mystery because Richard, presumably, was not a particularly popular name in India. So I feel like I've really failed, Andrew, on both of these because Godan is equally... Godan actually, I don't think is actually

listed in a lot of English dictionaries. It probably should be. I know in Eastern Asia, it is a warehouse. That one, we can have a better guess at. We think it goes back to a Tamil word, simply meaning the same thing. But the trail goes a little bit cold there. So I'm sorry, Andrew, that I can't come up with some fantastic etymological explanation for these. I mean, forgive me for being logical, but if it's a godown, isn't it an abbreviation of, you know, you go down to the cellar, you go down to the warehouse, you go down to wherever you go down, put it in the godown? Well, I suppose, I mean, yes, from a literal point of view, you're right. But in Tamil, it was very different. It was a kitanku.

point of view, you're right. But in Tamil, it was very different. It was a kitanku. So I suppose, yeah, I possibly, it was as directional and as simple as that. But I tell you what I'm going to do, which I didn't do before. I say it's not mentioned in, it's not mentioned in quite a few of the dictionaries that I looked at, but it is in the OED from 1588, where it says it's partly a borrowing from Italian and partly a borrowing from Malay and from Tamil, but it doesn't really explain much more than that. But I can at least give you a date. But I think it is simply another example of how, you know, English adapts to particular environments. And it obviously is adapted to the needs of those living in India. And we don't need it here for some reason, we just stick with warehouse. But yeah, an example of the idiosyncrasies of our language

across the world. We've got time for one more piece of correspondence. This is from Zach Collins, who writes, I am American in origin, hailing from Ohio to be more specific, though I now study law in London. I find myself continuously confusing people when I use the phrase catty corner to mean diagonal. I've also heard the phrase catty wampus used in the same way, and no doubt there's some connection. Can you please tell me, and the wonderful listeners, the origin of these phrases, catty corner and catty wampus? Well, it would be lovely if it did have something to do with our feline companions, but it's just another example of how we put something in because it sounds familiar to us. It goes back to the French quatre, meaning four.

And because quatre is quite unfamiliar, I suppose, to the English tongue, we snapped it up, but we spelled it cater, c-a-t-e-r. But of course, we already had a word for four. I mean, it's referring to the kind of four corners of something, but we decided that we'd use cater for words for playing games and specifically to the four of cards or the four as it appeared on a dice. And if you look at the four spots on dice or the four symbols on a card, they kind of seem to make an X, if you like, which again, then will give you the diagonal side of things. Now, cattywampus is not actually related. So again, nothing to do with cats.

It's such a brilliant word. It actually began as catawampus. And that was the word for a bogey, a fierce or imaginary animal. And nowadays, if we do use it, it means askew or awry. But the first part of the word, perhaps they think, was suggested by other kata words like catamount, for example, which is a common name in the US for the puma or the cougar. But why it meant askew, we have absolutely no idea. But at some point, maybe, although etymologically they're distinct, askew? We have absolutely no idea. But at some point, maybe, although etymologically they're distinct, the two meanings kind of converged. And so they both mean slightly askew or at odds or

at diagonals. This is why Zach Collins listens to Something Rhymes with Purple. He discovers after all these years that catty corner means diagonal, but cattywampus means askew, and they're quite different. And it's only Susie Dent who can give you this sort of information. And it's only Susie Dent that every week can introduce you to three remarkable words, real words that she feels need greater currency. What have you got for us this week? Well, do you remember ages ago, Giles, I told you about the uses of a cover slut? Do you remember? I do indeed. Yes. So a cover slut is or was something that you would wear over the top of something else in order to hide a stain.

And we've all been there. And it made me think, I was talking about cover sluts this week for reasons I won't go into, but it made me think of the simple word maculate, which means stained. And of course, immaculate means without stain. But maculate simply means stained. And the macula of our eyes are like a little stain. And can you use, so you can use the word maculate simply means stained and the macula of our eyes are like a little stain and can you use so you can use the word maculate so somebody who is immaculate is looking perfect but if if we come in and say well you're looking maculate it means you're looking pretty grubby yes possibly or your shirt is a little maculate today um for which you need a cover

slut and then this is just one for a very frequent fear, especially on the part of children and some of us adults as well. Nyctophobia, N-Y-C-T-O-P-H-O-B-I-A. Nyctophobia is from the Greek word for night and it means an extreme fear of darkness. Nyctophobia. So if you're nyctophobic, you do not like...

The pitch black now, it's a bit of a year, isn't it? Nyctophobia. So if you're nyctophobic, you do not like... The pitch black. No, it's a bit eerie, isn't it? Nyctophobia. And finally, blandishment. Blandishment is a manner or the use of words that flatter, that coax, that cajole. So it's kind of false flattery in order to get what you want, blandishment. Blandishments is not that unusual a word, though, isn't it? Is it? Probably not. But I haven't heard it for a very long time.

I can imagine it's part of your vocabulary, though. Yeah. Not because you are guilty of it, though. Well, thank you very much. And now, look, I've got some verse for you. Well, it's really, I think, probably more poetic prose because I was thinking, oh, I must, this week, I must read a poem by an Indian poet. And there are so many of them. I love India. We didn't, I didn't ask you if you'd ever been to India. No, I absolutely haven't. Oh, you must. Can I say, maybe we should

do one of our live podcasts. We're doing lots of live podcasts, starting quite soon. Check them out. I don't know where we're going. I know we're going to Bath. I think we're going to Birmingham. We're going to Birmingham. We're going to Cadogan Hall in London. Oh, my goodness. So check out wherever we're going.

But maybe we could go to India. My mother being born there, obviously, I visited India a number of times. And how it's changed over the half century that I have been going to India. Remember the first time I went, I just loved it because the streets were so strange. The cars were driving in any direction. You could drive on either side of the road. It was wonderful. You had to slow down for the cattle on the road. You wanted to slow down for the elephants on the road. It was just amazing, teeming with beautiful people. And I go a great deal. And they love words and language. People in India adore words and language. My books, and I'm sure your books

about words and language are popular there. The radio programme I do for the BBC called Just a Minute. It has a huge following in India. Millions of people tune into it there. So I hope we have a lot of listeners to Something Rhymes with Purple in India. So please do get in touch with us

if you are one of those people. It's purple at somethingelse.com. My Indian poem. I decided to give you some lines by Rabindranath Tagore. Are you familiar with Rabindranath Tagore? No. You're not. I'm not.

Oh, well, I'm quite surprised. You're not? I'm not. Oh, well, I'm quite surprised. 1861 to 1941, he was the first Asian poet to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. And again, I was thinking about him recently when writing this childhood memoir of mine, because I went to a school called Bidale's in Hampshire, founded by a man called John Badley. And Mr. Badley, who lived from 1865 to 1967, was a contemporary and a friend of Rabindranath Tagore, who for many people is one of the most famous Indian poets. Anyway, so I can say that I've

shaken the hand, that shook the hand, of the first Asian poet to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. One remove, I can give you Tagore. But I'm going to give you, if I may, three poetic lines by Rabindranath Tagore. You cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. The butterfly counts not months, but moments, and has time enough. You cannot cross the sea by standing. Love that. I mean, your choices of poetry are always so pertinent somehow. They're brilliant. Thank you you so much and thank you to everybody for listening to us today do please keep getting in touch purple at something else.com

something rhymes with purple as always is the something else production produced by laurence bassett and harriet wells with additional production from steve ackerman jen mystery jay biel and of course well i don't know do you think he wears pajamas i hope so well he's certainly weird or cattywampus. It's Gully!