Something Rhymes with Purple - Protest

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

Purple People we have been feeling flumped and slumped, so this week we’re getting pumped for Protest! And how thrilling protest can be. Whether its sedition or insurrection, riot or revolt, Susie and Gyles explore the words of protest and revolution.  Susie tells us why the Roman god Jupiter may have some thoughts about that incident at Capitol Hill, Gyles delights in the anti-ageism of the Senate and even manages to find something saucy in Congress.  Gyles and Susie also answer mail, get to the root of carrots/carets/carats and solve your excellent cross word clues. Featuring “Inspector Morse” by Jim Parker. Susie's Trio: Jawbation- an tedious, extensive rebuke Fossick- to rummage around, to search about Twickered- a word from the Isle of Wight, to be tired and weary A Somethin’ Else production If you would like to get in touch with Gyles and Susie with any questions, please email [e-mail]. Our fabulous new range of merchandise is now live at https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple PLUS for this first week we are giving you 10% off all items if you use the code purple2021. So whether you’re buying a treat for yourself or a gift for a Purple loved one then now is the time to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Something Rhymes with Purple Hello again and welcome once more to Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast all about words and language, and it is presented by me, Giles Brandreth, and my friend, colleague, and the world's leading lexicographer, though she doesn't describe herself as that, but it is what she is, and she is Susie Dent. How are you, Susie? Hello, and hello to all the purple people listening. I'm fine,

actually. Thank you, Giles. I am feeling okay. I have to say, I did have a week where I completely flumped and slumped and couldn't quite get the energy to do anything, which is not like me at all, but I've come out of it a bit. I'm glad you have. But if you were like that, you were as the people are, because there was a report out this last week from University College London. They'd canvassed some 70,000 people and found that in this lockdown, everybody or most people were more lethargic, less active, more sort of droopy than during the last lockdown. And there'd been

quite a big drop in the amount of people getting involved in hobbies, volunteering activities, a reduction of going out to do volunteering of about 36%. 13% had decreased those general activities. And as we know, happiness depends on pursuing your passions. And while, you know, listening to the radio is interesting and watching TV can be fun, we do need to be actively engaged in things. I've been going loopy at this end. Genuinely, when there was the snow 10 days ago, I thought, oh, this is amusing. And my wife found me in the garden. She said, what on earth are you doing? You're naked. I said, I'm not totally naked. I'm wearing this sort of cardigan. She said, what are you doing? I said, I'm taking topless photographs of myself. I've seen Liz Hurley doing it and she's gone viral. My wife

said, you will not go viral. You'll be arrested. Come on in. So I did. But we're all going a little bit mad, aren't we? I mean, have you been going a bit loopy or just feeling limp? No, not loopy, luckily. I just, I think throughout lockdown, I you been going a bit loopy or just feeling limp? No, not loopy, luckily. I just, I think throughout lockdown, I've been operating by being slightly manic in that kind of working, working, working, getting everything done and feeling the adrenaline of actually ticking things off my list. And weirdly, being manic in that way reduces my anxiety levels.

But I have to say, I think it was the first working week of January, I just couldn't get it together. I couldn't get the enthusiasm together. And the more idle I am, the worse I feel. I think I'm quite like you. I remember you saying to me that work defines you. And I feel that does me a little bit as well. But anyway, I'm back up and running and pleased to say and I'm definitely fueled by coffee. I mean, the truth is busy people are happy people. But it's quite difficult to be busy if you are locked up in your home. And if you're faced with the nightmare of homeschooling, it is challenging. So really, what we're saying is purple people, if you're feeling a bit pooped, we're feeling a bit pooped too.

Can't even get the words out, can we? Now, look, one of the things I've been doing to keep my spirits up is avoiding the news on television. One of the things I've been doing to keep my spirits up is avoiding the news on television. But I did, a couple of weeks ago, I did watch the inauguration of President Joe Biden on television because I thought I like to collect historic events. Like I watched the moon landings back in the 1960s. I remember watching when they took down the Berlin Wall. I thought these are things that are happening in our world. Television brings them into our homes. Let's watch. So having avoided, really, politics and the American election

completely, I thought, I will watch this. And it was interesting. But you actually followed last year, the American election quite actively, didn't you? Oh, every second in a strange sort of way. I think once I knew which way the vote was going, I think I began to relax and became absolutely fascinated by it. So I was watching CNN on a loop, like so many people, in fact, not the most impartial of channels has to be said, but still incredibly interesting. had the terrible, terrible event in Washington at the Capitol. And that was also mesmerising, but in the most kind of gruelling way. You know, thrilling, perhaps in the original sense of the word, which used to mean to pierce someone with a sword, and then we were pierced with fascination, but it wasn't always a very good fascination. And yeah, that's kind of how I felt. So thank goodness we are past those now. Well, I had a very interesting encounter this week with the person who is the disinformation correspondent for the BBC.

And she was telling me that a lot of research has been done on people who spread not simply fake news, but who believe in conspiracy theories that have been patently shown not to be true. And all the research shows that actually just saying you're a fool, you're wrong, is not very helpful. No. That actually you've got to be empathetic. You've got to actually try and see what is it that triggered their need to believe in this conspiracy theory. She was explaining to me how there are genuinely, there were people, thousands of them, who believed, for example, that the royal family were all lizards

and involved in some enormous international paedophile ring. I mean, totally bizarre and patently not true, but believed by some. And she was saying, you've got to question why people feel able or want to take on these things. So I've been looking at, as it were, protesters and people who believe in strange things in a more sympathetic way as a result of that. But I wanted to know a little bit about the language of protest. I thought you're the person to tell me. Have you ever been on a protest march, Susie Denton?

I have been on various kind of green marches, if you like. So I've participated in some marches against climate change, very peaceful ones, I have to say. And I wouldn't say I've ever been a kind of militant protester, but certainly there were some great ones in Oxford against climate change where lots of school kids went as well. So you could go as a family and it was incredibly reassuring, really, that you could see so many people who were equally passionate, but not in a militant way. How about you? It's quite exhilarating. I've only been on two marches. They were both peace marches. One was in the 1960s during my gap year. Is that a phrase people still use, the gap between school

and university? The world's become so muddled now. When are you at school? When are you at university? Do you get to either? Do you have a year in between? Anyway, during my gap year, I had sort of a year off before going to university. I went to the United States of America, which was then quite an exotic place to go to in the 1960s. And it was at the height of the Vietnam War. And I took part in a march on Washington, D.C. And there were literally millions of us in this march. And I heard Martin Luther King. He was one of the speakers. He was long. Isn't that amazing? He was a long, long way away. You know, he was one of the speakers. He was long. How amazing. Isn't that amazing? He was a long, long way away. You know, he was a little sort of pin figure in the far distance.

But we had the sound of him relayed to us. It was extraordinary. And then I took part in an anti-war march in the year 2000, I think it was, against the Iraq War. Iraq. And that was in London. I walked to Trafalgar Square. Yeah. That was, again.

Were you an MP then? No. I ceased to Trafalgar Square. Yeah. That was, again... Were you an MP then? No, I ceased to be an MP. And I just, you know, I thought, well, actually, I mean, it's quite good to be able to do it in a peaceful protest. Yes, stand up and be counted. Tell me what the word protest means. Because pro sounds like something positive.

Test means an exam. Explain that word. Yes. So it goes back to the Latin protestare. And then it came into us via French, as it always did. So pro in the sense means fourth, and testare means to call to witness. So in other words, it's related to testament, it's related to testify, it's actually related to testicle as well, because a man's testicles were seen by the Romans as proof of or witness of their

virility. So they're all related. But yes, it's to kind of call to witness. In other words, it's kind of pretty much what you were doing. If you believe in something, you go and you are witness to your own, you know, opinions and your own protests. So that is where that one came from. What was really interesting about the events at the Capitol in Washington was that media in the US weren't completely sure at the beginning what to call them. So some called them riots, other people called it an insurrection, which I think is the word that Joe Biden used, in fact. Some called it sedition, others revolt. No one called it a revolution because I don't think... It got that far. No. But it was really, really interesting. And we can go through those actually because those have all got interesting histories. Take me through them.

Okay. Shall I start with insurrection? So as I say, this was at the time President-elect Biden's response to the violence. So it's defined in the dictionary as an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government. And it goes back to the Latin again, insurgere, meaning to rise against. And in a really rare public move, I understand the National Public Radio stations in Washington announced that they were formally choosing insurrection as the official broadcast term for the day. So they kind of agreed it. Sedition, sedition had already been used of Donald Trump's attempts to override the results of the election, you know, to overthrow it and to be an autocrat, I suppose. So sedition is from the Latin meaning separation, in fact, and it's defined as

speech or conduct inciting people to rebel against authority. Now, sedition is slightly different from treason, because that's a direct attempt to overthrow that authority, whereas sedition is kind of inciting it, which is why it was applied to Trump, because it was said that he was inciting the mob, if you like. That was another term that was used to move on the Capitol, but he wasn't directly involved in it himself. Sorry, sedition. What is the origin of that word? It goes back to the Latin meaning separation. So it's an attempt to separate the people from the authority, if you like, or from the government. Others, it has to be said, thought that the line between sedition and treason had been crossed and that Trump had been treasonous

in his actions. But for the most part, it was either sedition or insurrection. And there was another verb, I don't know if you noticed it, that kept cropping up that we hardly ever hear. And I really have only kind of experienced it on Countdown. And it's to foment, not ferment, I really have only kind of experienced it on Countdown. And it's to foment, not ferment, but foment. How do you spell that? F-O-M-E-N-T. Oh, yeah.

To foment is to kind of stir up. So to incite again, I guess. And it goes back to the Latin fervere, meaning to heat. And it first meant actually you would foment injuries with heated potions or wax. So it's a cure originally, but then it's meaning kind of switched dramatically from kind of soothing pain to actually instigating it. So the idea is that you arouse emotions or ignite them as a call to action. So those were some of the terms that were being bandied about. You mentioned the word riot. Where does that come from? So riot, I have to look this one up. Certainly it came to us via the French, just while I'm looking this up. It was interesting that when there were the Black Lives Matter marches and protests early on, they were quite often called riots.

was law and order as if he was calling against, you know, law breaking and disorder. And certainly there was some of it, but not nearly to the extent that, you know, the language was suggesting. But riots actually weren't applied to the protesters at the Capitol. And so some people were kind of saying, well, riot is such a loaded term. Why was it just applied to the Black Lives Matter marches? So, yes, riot goes back to the French, rioter, meaning to quarrel. But its ultimate origin is unknown. So there you go. And revolt and revolution, obviously the same source. Yes. And it's all about turning something around. So a revolution is, you know, if you talk about the revolution of a wheel, as it revolves, it's to turn round or to roll. And a revolution is the

overthrow, if you like, the rolling over of a government. That's where we kind of rev when we turn over a motor. And revolt was, again, it was the idea of overthrowing, but then it also developed the sense of making someone turn away in disgust, as in that's revolting, but it's all the idea of turning. Before we go on to actually talk about the protesters and manning the barricades, explain this to me, because one of my grandchildren wanted to know this. All this was happening at the Capitol building in the Capitol, Washington DC being the capital of the United States of America, the Capitol building being this building where the Congress and the Senate gather.

Capitol and Capit capital, are they connected one with another? Yeah, it's quite interesting. Actually, my brother-in-law also messaged me about this saying, yeah, it's capital just as kind of weird American spelling of it. The answer is no, although they do go back to the same origins, which is the Latin caput, C-A-P-U-T, which meant a head. So a capital letter is like the chief letter, if you like, the capital city is the chief city of a country. And it can also mean wealth. So the idea of being sort of large, I suppose. So that's... Oh, that's as in capitalism.

As in capitalism, as in I'm going to put some capital into this, etc. So it's the idea of being chief or major, I suppose. The Capitol goes back to the Latin Capitolium. And that was the name of a temple who in Roman times was dedicated to Jupiter. And Jupiter was the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus. And it sat, this is the key thing, it once sat on the smallest of Rome's seven hills, which was called the Capitoline Hill. And of course, in Washington, the full name of the capital is Capitol Hill. So it's all based in Roman times. So actually, that area is called the Capitol Hill. And within the Capitol Hill are the Senate and the Congress. And do they have interesting origins? Well, I like Senate. I mean, critics of government might say, oh, yes, that makes perfect sense,

because it's linked to senile, because it's all to do with Senex, old man. And in Roman times, again, the senators were old, generally old men, but they were thought to then bring not just age, but wisdom, the wisdom of age, which is actually a really lovely way of looking at it because I think age discrimination is just so powerful. Whereas in other countries, I'm going off a tangent here, but we look at age as kind of, yeah, as I say, a bringer of wisdom, but we don't have that, do we?

We just worship youth. We do at the moment. We have worshipping old people in the sense that we, I speak as one, are the people getting the vaccine first. Well, that is true. So, you know, for once, the old people are being treated in a special way. Have you had yours? I hope by the time we air this, I will have had mine.

So when we next speak, I shall be able to give you a full report. Obviously, I shall be happy to have whatever vaccine I'm offered. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed it'll be the Oxford one. I feel we all show solidarity. There is, I'm totally going off tangent here, but there is a wonderful video and I'm so sorry, I don't know the name of the comedian or the performer. Oh, the young man. It's hilarious, isn't it? It's so clever. So for the purple people who haven't seen it, it's a man who basically is operating in the stereotype

that a lot of people hold of Oxford students. Yeah, he's absolutely wonderful. I was so sympathetic to him. I thought he was real from it. He's going, okay, yeah, well, I'm hoping for the Oxford one, you know, because that's the one, you know, how it is. Isn't that? My whole family's been there.

He says, hi, what vaccine did you get? Oh, right. No, I had the Oxford one. Yes, yes. My whole family did it. So I thought, well, why not? And, you know, I think it just gives a long lasting immunity. Anyway, it's just very, very funny.

It's delightful. Completely delightful. Yeah, I wouldn't care which one I get. I wouldn't either. I should be very, very grateful to get whatever I'm given. But going back to the Americans, Congress. Yes. Senate, you gave us Cenex, the older people, and of course, the new president being the oldest president in the history of the presidency. I'm looking forward to him having two terms and being a president knocking 90. Be fantastic.

That'd be amazing. Congress, that goes to the other end, of course, because Congress is what you do at the beginning of the journey through life. To achieve people, you need Congress. Well, that's true in the sexual Congress sense. Absolutely. Because it's all to do with a meeting, either a meeting of bodies or a meeting of minds or a meeting of delegates, especially those from a political party, which is how it came to mean the kind of national legislative body. how it came to mean the kind of national legislative body. It was founded in 1787, the US Congress. So yes, it's all about coming together and meeting. I think con is with and the grass goes back to a Latin verb meaning to walk. So it's people who you walk with in life. Lovely. So exactly, making Congress. I want to get back to protests. But while we're with the Americans, the Democrats and the Republicans, well, we know the history of the parties, the Democrats have the colour blue, and the Republicans have the colour red, which is, as it were, the other way around to left-right in Britain, where the left has the red, as in the red

flag that they used to be in old communist days, and the right seems to have blue as the colour. It's a link with the Soviet Union, isn't it? The idea that, yes, if you're left-leaning. I don't know where the blue originates, but in America, the Democrats are donkeys and the Republicans are elephants. Yes. And it's strange, as you say, it's a kind of flip. The blue and red is a flip of what we have in both the UK and other nations. So just to start with the colours, apparently they had nothing to do with either party originally. But in the 70s, the TV station or channel NBC had its first colour electoral map on air and bulbs would turn red for Jimmy Carter, or Jimmy Carter won Democrat states and blue for Gerald Ford won Republican states. And by the 1980 elections, other TV networks somehow kind of followed suit, but it was a bit confusing for a while. So it was only very recently because of

TV representation that actually the colours settled on blue for Democrats and red for Republicans. As for the animals, I think it's thought that Republican elephant was first used during Abraham Lincoln's election campaign. So that was in the 19th century. No one quite knows why. Maybe it was a symbol of strength, you know, of kind of magnitude. But certainly it was made popular, as words so often are, in a cartoon in a magazine after a man called Thomas Nast, who was a Republican, drew it. So that was that. And the Democratic donkey was first used earlier when, I think it was the 1820s, when the candidate Andrew Jackson used it. Now, he apparently had been called a donkey as a nickname, but he quite liked it, which is a bit strange. And again, the same cartoonist later used it to represent the Democrats. And so I think it

was thanks to this cartoonist, Thomas Nast, that actually both these emblems settled on their individual parties, which is amazing. Very good. Well, people like to be associated with donkeys. I do remember the last time donkey came up on our podcast a year or more ago, I talked about the book that my friend Derek Nimmo, the actor, wrote about animals. And there was a donkey featured on the cover. And it wasn't until the cover had actually been printed that one noticed that the donkey well it wasn't just a well-hung donkey but it was a well-hung donkey in a state of high excitement at meeting Derek Nimmo and this appeared on the cover and I think at the time you said I don't believe this but happily people tweeted and instagrammed photographs of this cover with this exuberant donkey and this may explain

why the politician was happy to be likened to a donkey. Maybe, but you wouldn't think it would kind of help his presidential credentials. But you never know. They get on to extraordinary things in the White House. Well, you would know also in political circles. I tell you, I would know some of these things because I was a friend of, and I know you like a bit of name dropping, so I'll throw this one in. I'm a friend of a man called Walter Cronkite. Does that mean anything to you? Yes, yes. dropping, so I'll throw this one in. I'm a friend of a man called Walter Cronkite. Does that name mean anything to you? Yes, yes.

Now, was he not a newscaster? He was the great newscaster. He was the man at CBS. He'd been a wartime correspondent based in Europe, but he then became, as it were, the most trusted man in America. And I got to know him quite well. And he was a lovely guy. And he'd met literally every American president in his lifetime,

from Franklin Delano Roosevelt right the way through to Clinton and Obama. And he said that in his experience, undoubtedly the man in theory best equipped to be president, the most intellectually adept of all the presidents that he'd encountered, was undoubtedly Jimmy Carter. He said he was extraordinary, a man of great integrity and high intelligence. But he said he only succeeded in serving one term because he wasn't a politician. He didn't know how to make it all work on Capitol Hill. He didn't

know how to manage the Senate and the Congress. And that's why he fell by the wayside. That's really interesting. When I lived in America on the East Coast for a while, I think my anchor of choice was always Dan Rather, who was absolutely brilliant. And I follow him on Twitter now and he's quite something. I used to work for CBS News and occasionally was allowed to meet Dan Rather when I went over to New York. And it was like getting an audience with the Queen, except the Queen is much more natural and informal than Dan Rather, because it was like meeting a demigod. It was like going to Oz to meet the wizard. I mean, it was extraordinary. There was an invisible moat around him at all time. His suit was impeccable. His hair was absolutely in position. You may speak to Mr.

Rather now. You only have eight seconds. Mr. Rather, may I present this guy, Giles from England? Eight seconds, eight seconds. It was extraordinary, may I present this guy, Giles from England. Eight seconds, eight seconds. It was extraordinary. I hope this wasn't his instigation because he comes across as being actually quite humble. He does. And of course, he is now a much older person. They treated him like a god. And he was a god.

And of course, there, it's a country where the older the newscaster, somehow the more respect they are held in. And Mr Cronkite, for 30 years after his retirement, he still had an office in CBS Towers called Mr Cronkite's office. This huge suite of rooms where people answered letters for him. Quite extraordinary. The only time I ever feel like a US president is when I'm filming. You will have had this as well. And the wonderful, wonderful team, the runners, for example, on their little headsets will say,

Susie's coming down now, she's on her way, to the people on the floor, you know, in the studio. And that's the only time that I feel like I've almost got a bodyguard, although most of the time it's just me. Well, I'm glad you don't need a bodyguard. No, me too. Because it must be a nightmare to be someone who has constantly got a bodyguard near you to live normally. I remember Jerry Springer coming on Countdown and he had two bodyguards with him.

So, yeah, I agree with you. Absolutely not something I want. Should we take a break? Let's take a quick break. During that break, if you want, you can try and go on to Twitter or Instagram and find Josh Berry. I think that's the guy you were talking about, Susie. The young comedian. He's hilarious and he's an impressionist as well.

Very, very amusing. Look him up, but don't go very far because we should be back in a moment. We're still protesting. I want to know about manning the barricades and bringing down the guillotine. Whether it's the weekend, the beginning of summer, or the end of the school year,

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language of protest. And I want to know about manning the barricades. I'm thinking now of probably the most famous revolution still in the story of the world and its revolutions, the French Revolution, at the end of the 18th century, manning the barricades. That was the era of that. What are barricades? Well, actually, do you know what? It goes back to a protest a couple of centuries before the French Revolution, but it also did have applicational relevance during the French Revolution. But it's really interesting. So I have to say, I'm not a historian, so I'm hoping I'm going to get this right. But you go back to the 36 years that were the kind of wars of religion, which really threatened stability of France, really. So you had the Huguenots, and you had

the House of Guise. So both of them were basically protesting against the beliefs of each other. And in 1576, Henry III signed a peace treaty, which accorded full religious liberty to the Huguenots. And the Duke of Guise was absolutely not happy with this. He entered Paris, even though he'd been forbidden by the king, and was welcomed by the Parisians, by all accounts. And they erected barricades to prevent any of the subjects who were loyal to the king from supporting their sovereign and Henry III fled, etc, etc. Anyway, barricade goes back to the French barrique, which means a barrel that in turn comes from the Spanish. And these were physical casks that were weighted with

earth and stones they were erected to block the streets and isolate the king and that event was referred to as la journée des barricades and that is how we have got barricade as a sort of physical barrier in English and actually barrica in Spanish ak, is related to our barrel, but it's also related to so many other words in English. You've got a barrier, you've got the bar, as in the physical bar in a court of law, and you've got embarrassed because embarrassed has got that barra in it. And it means to be impeded as well as disconcerted. So something is kind of stopping you from, I guess, feeling at your best. Or, you know, you might be in an embarrassing situation in a way that it prevents you from moving forward. So it's got so many siblings in English.

But that is where barricade in the physical sense arose. And then I think I'm right in saying that they also were used during the French Revolution. Just give us that. I'm sure we've discussed this before, but it's one of my favourites. Monsieur, was it Madame Guillotine? They called it Madame Guillotine, the way they executed people during the French Revolution. But there was somebody called Guillotine, wasn't there, who either designed it or used it?

What is the origin of that? Well, it was really odd because when Anne Boleyn was beheaded in the 1500s with a stroke of the sword, she apparently remarked really gratefully that her neck was small because she knew that death by the sword was rarely quick. But weirdly, that was the death that was accorded to the nobility because for the common people, the ultimate punishment was the gallows. But then if you fast forward 250 years, there was a doctor

and he was called Joseph Ignace, I guess, Guillotin. And he decided to change that. And actually he had really, I suppose, benevolent in some ways, purpose in mind, because he was really troubled by the inequality and he was troubled by the suffering endured by any victim of execution. So he proposed to a government assembly that no matter where you came from, what your social class was, the punishment should be the same. And that punishment should be carried out by a simple, incredibly efficient machine. And he knew about prototype machines that were being used in Scotland. He turned to a surgeon for help and they created something that was,

I think it was called the Louisette. I think the doctor was called Louis, Dr. Louis. And it was originally called the Louisette, but then it was later given the eponym Guillotin. But he created it in order to make, you know, if somebody had to be executed, he wanted it to be done as humanely as possible, which is strange. And then, of course, it was propelled into our language during the reign of terror in France when it was put to use for thousands, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, etc. Revolutionaries are so-called because they are revolting. Dissidents are so-called because they are... what are they doing?

Dissidents. So dissident, again, it actually, strangely, it sounds like it might be related to sedition, but it's not. It's all about sitting. And the Latin sederator, sit, just comes up in so many different words in English, from kind of sedan to sedentary and things that you might guess at. But dissident originally just meant sitting apart. So it was somebody who you didn't want to sit next to because they were rebelling against you or your authority, etc. So it's sitting apart, that's a dissident. Well, look look we had some dissidents writing to us this week and perhaps we should turn to our correspondence now because we talked about crosswords the other day and there were some people on twitter saying that some of the clues that we were saying were clues really

were just sort of simple riddles and we hadn't really got yes we got we got a bit of flack and that's fair enough hands up for that um yeah we don't know everything about everything well suzy knows most things i absolutely don't yeah but you do you do anyway we had lots of brilliant cryptic clues sent in obviously as well some we can solve some we're still working on anyway thanks to everybody a couple that tickled me stewart norman wrote hello to you both. I've thoroughly enjoyed all the podcasts, most recently said about crosswords, made me send in my favourite clue. And I'm not sure whether this would meet the criteria of the proper crossword aficionados. Anyway, two people are working together on a crossword and one says to the other,

empty postman sack. The second says many letters the first replies none it's empty very good quite clever anyway well done captain stewart norman and um have you got the one from david kahil i don't read it out oh fine david carl i think it's how you pronounce it c-a-h-i-l-l who lives in santander how extraordinary to live in a bank. Oh, no, it's a place in north of Spain. He took the opportunity to appeal to our vanity. Here are three simple crossword clues for you. Are these Susie and Giles's coloured followers?

Are these Susie and Giles's coloured followers? Oh, I think I've got them. I've got that one. You got that one? Purple people? Purple purple people it's not very cryptic but it's quite fun see dust in unusual podcaster see dust in unusual podcaster and that's five and four see dust well i think i know what the answer is. Oh, yes, I do see it. Sea dust in is an anagram of Susie Dent. I'm so used to E.T.'s undies. I never see any anagrams of my name. Oh, is that an anagram? E.T.'s undies? Yes, E.T.'s undies.

When we were talking about presidents, I remember meeting Vice President Sparrow Agnew, who was, was he Gerald Ford's Vice President? Anyway, he was a Vice President and I met him. And unfortunately, when I met him, I'd just done an anagram of his name, which was Grow a Penis. And I could not, as I shook hands with him, I wanted to share with him, did he know that his name was, I didn't, I want you to know, I didn't. Maybe not on the first meeting. Not on the first meeting. And there wasn't a second meeting because I think by then he'd been arrested and imprisoned he was one of those american vice presidents that sort of fell from grace and there's the third one there's something in a biology lesson that is wonderfully eloquent something in a biology lesson there's

got to be a biology lesson oh oh it's you it's giles g y l e s inL-E-S in the middle. You see, biology lesson. So that's very clever. Thank you, David. He says thank you to us for entertaining and enlightening him. But in fact, we have to thank him for his contribution. I have an email here from Andrew Harvey, who's also wanting to comment on our crosswords episode, because we had mentioned Inspector Morse and his enjoyment of crosswords.

And he says the theme tune for Morse was written by Australian composer Barrington Feelong. And I absolutely love that tune. It takes me right back to the beautiful red car I read in Colin Dexter's books and then watching the programmes. It's just the most beautiful theme tune. Apparently Feelong loved cryptic crosswords and into the theme tune he wove an audible pulse, which can be heard throughout the piece. And the pulse, I never knew this, spells out the word Morse in Morse code. It's so evocative, isn't it? I must say, I've been re-watching some of the old episodes

and they certainly stand the test of time. They're brilliant. And they've obviously reached New Zealand as well because Andrew is in Auckland. Oh, it's global. Yeah. It's global. And I have to say, I'm a friend of Sheila Hancock, as you know,

who's the widow of John Thor, and his estate still gets a little bit of income from the Morse programmes being shown all over the world. And she runs a charity and supports young people in the arts through money that she raises from the old morse episodes how amazing isn't that marvelous necessary now yeah that's brilliant so it's fantastic brilliant i just loved i loved and i love the spin-offs i love the one you know where they had the sidekick having his own series uh kevin wakely and then there was a sort of junior mini morse a kind of young morse

called endeavor i love that series too i'm'm just hooked. Yeah. Hooked on Morse. Anyway. Brilliant. Fanny Cook has been in touch. What a glorious name. Fanny Cook. That's fantastic. Dear Giles and Susie, my absolute favourite crossword clue was in The Times a couple of years ago. Cat and dog or cat and dog? Seven letters. That's the clue. Cat and dog or cat and dog. Seven letters. The answer, whip it. A cat, of course, is a cat and nine tails, which is a kind of whip. A dog or a cat is a pet. Whip and pet, put them together, you get whip it, which is a dog. A cat and dog or cat and dog.

It's brilliant. That is fiendish. Fanny also has a question, doesn't she? Yes, she does, because she is a cook. And this is her question. Go for it. Well, she wants to know if there's any connection between syllabus, syllable, and a syllabub. Gosh, I haven't heard the word syllabub for ages. It's the sort of pudding that Fanny Craddock would have created. Syllabus, syllable, syllabub. What is the connection? Yes. Okay, there isn't one, I'm afraid to tell you. So syllabus first appeared from Latin to mean a table of contents of a series of lectures. But apparently, it began as a mistake because it was

a misreading of a Greek word, citibus, meaning a parchment label or a table of contents. So they kind of transpose some of the letters. And the misprint appeared in the 15th century and just then has stayed with us ever since. So that's syllabus. Syllabub, we don't know where that comes from. Syllabub is kind of milk and wine, isn't it? It's very sweet. But it can also mean really florid prose too.

But we don't know where that comes from, but we're pretty sure it's not linked to syllabus. And a syllable goes back to the Greek, meaning that which is held together, because a syllable is several sounds or letters taken together. So they are all etymologically distinct, even though they sound so similar. And if you can tell us the exact origin of syllabub, please get in touch. It's purple at something else dot com. Something spelt without a G, just to be a little bit difficult. Purple at something else dot com. One more quick letter from somebody whose name sounds as if it could be a crossword puzzle clue. Edward H. Kafka Gelbrecht. He gives his address as

soon to be clear of West Virginia. It's wonderful we have this global audience. Thank you for being there. He's asking about carrots with an O and carrots with an A. Dear Susie and Giles, serendipity. I just finished listening to your delightful Talk with Marta episode and I happen to be munching on a late night carrot. Well done him.

While Susie gave her trio, which included nyctalopia, N-Y-C-T-A-L-O-P-I-A, the condition of poor vision in low light. Not if I can help it. And that got me wondering, can Susie shed any light on the shared or divergent histories and meanings of carrot, C-A-R-R-O-T, that says in the vegetable, carrot, C-A-R-E-T, you'll have to remind me what that is, and carrot, C-A-R-A-T, stroke, carrot, K-A-R-A-t stroke carrot k-a-r-a-t many thanks okay whirlwind tool i will start with the carrot as in carrot of gold or diamond etc so it's a unit of weight used to

measure the size of a gemstone or to weigh gold etc so hundreds of years ago when people needed a standard weight for weighing their gems they turned to the carob tree and the seed of the carob tree apparently weighed in their view approximately the same as the smallest gemstone and so that was decided as the base unit for weight and the seed was called a carat and so that was given to the measurement so any stone that was about the weight of one seed was thought to weigh one carat. So that goes back to the tree. Carat with an E, C-A-R-E-T, is a kind of a mark made on a written document to indicate the place where something's to be inserted. So it's the kind of the upside down U, except it's very pointed. I think that's the carat. And that goes back to the Latin meaning to be without, there is lacking. In other words,

you need to insert something here. And the carrot, I also love them. This has been around for centuries. It was a medicinal plant to the ancients. It was used as an aphrodisiac. It was used as a cure against poison. We have purple-rooted carrots going back as early as the 7th century, et cetera. And that simply goes back to a Greek word, keraton, meaning a carrot. So not particularly interesting, except the theory that carrots are good for the eyesight apparently began in ancient times, but it was really hyped up in the Second World War, because apparently the government really wanted people to eat more carrots, which was one of the few foods that you could get quite easily, it wasn't rationed. And so they put it about that pilots of night fighter jets

consumed vast quantities of carrots to help them see in the dark. So I'm not entirely sure that carrots, I mean, I'm sure there are compounds in them that do help you see in the dark, vitamin A, et cetera, but they're certainly not the only ones. Well, we're back where we started

because I began by talking about conspiracy theories and that seems to be an official conspiracy theory during the Second World War, spread out there, eat carrots, see in the dark. How intriguing. There's apparently another one to do with spinach. And I remember the scientist Adam Hart-Davis telling me that the whole idea about spinach and strength and iron was down to the misplacing of a decimal point in some scientific paper on how much iron spinach contains. So, yes, it's leafy and it contains iron, but just as much as any other green vegetable. And Popeye the sailor, man. Oh, I loved Popeye. I was always fascinated with Popeye's relationship with olive oil because they appeared to live together, but they weren't married. It was very

shocking in the 1950s when I was watching. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Yeah. And they had a child. They had a love child, didn't they, called Tweety Pie or something. I'm getting confused now.

Oh, I don't know. I remember Wimpy, the one who just sat down and ate loads and loads of hamburgers. Do you remember him? He was Popeye's friend. I do remember Wimpy. OK. Yes. We have Wimpy bars.

OK. Oh, is it like Wimpy bars? Wimpy and... I think Wimpy was probably named after Popeye. I don't know. No. I have no idea. There's no connection between the Wimpy Bars? I think Wimpy was probably named after Papa. I don't know. No, there's no connection between the Wimpy Bar and Papa. You can't just throw something in a programme about words. Well, why not?

Because Wimpy, the character, sat and ate stacks of hamburgers. Oh, I don't know which came first. I'm sure Popeye came much before. I think Popeye was invented in the 1920s or 1930s. Well, there you go. That's probably why the Wimpy Bar was so named. There can be no connection between Wimpy as the cartoon character in the Popeye series, who I think anyway may have been spelt with an E, W-I-M-P-E-Y. No, no, I don't think so.

Well, I'm not sure. We'll have to get to grips with that. Between now and next week, that's your homework. Okay. Okay. For those who have no clue what we're talking about, Wimpy Bars used to be a really popular hamburger chain. clue what we're talking about wimpy bars used to be really popular hamburger chain and you would pop down the wimpy for a cheap hamburger and chips oh and they were superb and they had these enormous tomatoes made out of plastic and yes ketchup ketchup bottles oh i loved them they were great oh they were those those are the days do you want my trio i want your trio yes because we're running out of time. My goodness, we've been on. So the first one is jawbation, which is a long and tedious harangue.

So it's a lecture that someone delivers to you. It might link into your conspiracy theorist who liked to deliver a few jawbations, or indeed anybody, but I quite like the sound of that one. The next one is something I do all the time, because no matter how small my bag or rucksack is, I can never find anything in it. And to fossick is to rootle around for something. So if you're fossicking, you're just kind of grumbling around in your bag trying to find the thing that you need. And finally, I mentioned that I was just feeling a little bit apathetic at the

start of January, the start of the year. To be twickered is a term from the Isle of Wight for being tired and exhausted and just a little bit limp. Twickered. Oh, well, but you're no longer twickered now after we've had our time together. No, I really enjoyed that. And I enjoyed today because my day began by seeing a rainbow. I looked out of the window and there was a rainbow.

My part of London, we had a rainbow today. And it took me to the poem I'm going to share with you by William Wordsworth. And I think this is the poem that introduces to our language a phrase that has been used, well, universally ever since. The poem is called My Heart Leaps Up. My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began. So is it now I am a man. It's not beautiful. William Wordsworth, who I think coined the phrase, the child is father of the man, bound each to each by natural piety. Isn't that beautiful? William Wordsworth, who I think coined the phrase, the child is father of the man, and this may be the poem that he coined it for.

Lovely. That's very, very beautiful. I love rainbows. There's something so special about those. That's our lot. That is our lot. So just fussing around for our credits, thank you so much for listening and do please get in touch we have had so many brilliant letters particularly during lockdown which really cheered us up the email is purple at something else dot com something right with purple is a something else

production produced by lawrence bassett with additional production from harriet wells steve ackerman ella mcleod jay beal and i don't know where he is. Now he's permanently triggered. It's golly.