Something Rhymes with Purple - Purpuriam (Pp)

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

Gyles and Susie are sticking to their New Years Resolutions and really getting out of their comfort zone this week as they focus their etymological microscope on the world of science and chemistry… so expect lots of head-scratching from our hosts as they attempt to decode the periodic table with the help from Greek gods, cockerels and silver mines. Today’s journey of discovery will also encounter the life and achievements of Robert Bunsen, how sacrificial goats gave us pharmacies and if that wasn’t enough, Gyles will be serenading us too! A Somethin’ Else production If you would like to get in touch with Gyles and Susie with any questions, please email [e-mail]. Trio  Scribacious - having the tendency to write a lot or too much. Twankle - To play idly on a musical instrument  Lucubration - Nocturnal study or meditation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers Internet. Visit Rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, a podcast all about words,

language, and passions, really. And today we're going to be talking about something that isn't actually a particular passion of mine on the face of it. Although once you kind of delve into its vocabulary, for me, of course, it does then light up. But Giles, I should say, Giles Brandreth, who is my co-presenter, who I'm looking at on Zoom. Hello, Giles, first of all. Hello, it's lovely to be with you, Susie. I was excited when you said this is going to be about passion. I thought, oh, yes, I'm into passion. And then I realised when we chatted about this earlier in the week, you said, let's talk about science. And my heart sank because science has never been a big thing in my life. And at school, I was very bad at anything to do with science. When did I score naught,

literally naught, in the end of year exam? Zero, zilch, nothing in physics and in chemistry. I struggled even in maths. Biology, because there was an element of passion involved, until I found that a lot of our biology seemed to be about botany. I did a little bit better. But when it came to chemistry and physics, I knew nothing. Were you any good at science at school? No, it was a bit of a slog for me as well, which is why I say it wasn't the true love of mine. But I think we have to be very beware, particularly as girls, as women, to say,

oh, I was hopeless at this. You know, there seems to be a bit of a formula where young girls particularly feel quite comfortable saying, oh, I'm rubbish at maths. Whereas actually it's a bit of a throwaway line, but I think it really does then percolate through. And a lot of girls don't then follow STEM subjects when actually they would be absolutely brilliant at it. So I'm always a bit loathe to say, oh, I was terrible at science as if it didn't really matter because I would have loved to have been really good. I was okay at chemistry, actually.

I had a really lovely teacher, Mrs Cairns, who got very cross with me. I can't remember if she gave me a detention because I inadvertently copied her Scottish accent when replying to a question. But how interesting. I really didn't mean to. Our chemistry teacher was also Scottish.

He was called Mr. Payne. And I do remember I sat next in class, I sat at the front of the class, even in science, I sat at the front of the class. And sitting next door to me was a girl called Diana, Di. She was known as Di. And I remember being in the middle of a class with Mr. Payne, a chemistry lesson. And suddenly Di got up and left the room in a hurry. And everyone was totally confused.

And he called her back and said, what on earth are you doing? And she said, well, you told me to leave. And what he'd said was, carbon dioxide, come on, Di, outside. And she misheard. She was half listening to his very thick Scottish accent. Carbon dioxide came over us, come on, Di, outside. There you go. I think I'm trying to remember what my misdemeanor was. I think I simply just said, I know, or something like that. And that was enough. That is. I honestly didn't mean to.

My ear had just picked up. I genuinely really love Mrs. Cairns. So physics, I have to say, I've genuinely really struggled with because I don't think I have that kind of ordered mind. And I'm sure scientists listening will tell me I'm massively stereotyping their subject. But, you know, it's similar for maths with me. I loved algebra, perhaps because it involved letters. But anything to do with geometry, I think my mind just slightly balked at. But, you know, I will not give up. And chemistry, just thinking about it for today, I just thought, actually, you know, I really loved this. I loved

the periodic table. What do you remember from the periodic table? Did you learn it off by heart? I remember nothing from the periodic table. I was actually almost anti-science. And this was a period at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, there'd been a lecture given by a man called C.P. Snow. Are you familiar with this lecture about the two cultures? No, I know of C.P. Snow, but I don't know the lecture. C.P. Snow, Sir Charles Snow, eventually Lord Snow. He became the science minister in Harold Wilson's government. He had been a civil servant.

He was a wonderful novelist. If you enjoy a good novel, I can't recommend too highly his novel set in academia. He did a series of novels that basically portray different aspects of the establishment. I think the best ones are about university college life in Oxbridge, one called The Masters. But he wrote others about civil service, The New Men, a really fantastic, now much forgotten novelist, C.P. Snow. Anyway, he wrote this lecture about the two cultures, saying basically the problem in Britain is that we've divided into two cultures. They're the people who follow the arts and they're the scientists.

And somehow the arts people think they're superior to the scientists. And he was really comparing and contrasting us with Germany, where at that time the sciences were taken much more seriously, where people who were scientists were called doctor and respected, and it became a, you know, a valued thing. And in our culture at this period, 60 years ago or so, it was the arts were everything, scientists were less. And I sided basically with the arts people. Of course, I was wrong, I was an idiot. And I have missed out in life as a consequence. So I don't even know what the periodic tables are. What are they? they well the periodic table is basically it's a table of elements it tells us about the elements that are all around us i don't quite know whether we were asked to learn it off by heart or whether i just did it anyway but it basically arranges chemical elements and it goes hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron carbon nitrogen and that's

where i stop but it goes on and on and on. And I just found it fun. Again, maybe because it involved letters. I liked the abbreviations for the different chemicals. And can I do a little test on you? Or is this going to be completely new to us? Well, you can certainly do a test on me. I'm very happy to give it a go. Yes. Okay. So do you know what HE might stand for? Helium. Very good. Oh, that was just a guess. No, that's excellent.

Is H hydrogen? H is hydrogen. What about K? K, nitrogen, even though it's spelt with an N normally. I don't know. No, K is potassium. Very good. K is potassium.

P-B, I like this one because it involves a bit of etymology. Tell me. PB is lead because in Latin, lead was plumbum with a B. And that explains why we have the silent B in plumber. Do you remember? Because we had plumber without the B and then Renaissance scribes who wanted to show off the classical heritage of English decided that they needed to put back some of the Latin letters that we had lost. So they snuck a bee or sneaked, sorry for those who hate American English, they sneaked a bee into plumber. But we didn't pronounce it because sound and spelling had long ago divorced.

And yeah, that's where we get it from. But plum is lead. So plum line is spelled P-L-U-M-B line. Yeah. I can't remember what a plumb line does. It's to do with measuring something, isn't it? Yes. It's a precursor to the spirit level. So it's a weight with a pointed tip on the bottom, suspended from a string.

And it's used basically for making sure that you have a vertical line. And yes, it does indeed go back to plumber meaning lead because that was the material once used for the kind of bob at the end the weighted bob there you go one more for you yes s n i didn't know this one i have to say this is from harry our producer s n yeah i've got no It's tin. And that goes back again to the Latin stanum, the tin. So, you know, they're not all completely obvious, but the naming of the elements is quite fun. The reason why certain names were chosen, and there are lots and lots of different catalysts for the names that we have, for elements that everybody would recognize

one thing just to throw in which i find quite interesting i'm going off with a bit of a tangent here but you know i mentioned american english and how people hate snuck instead of sneaked as a past tense well one other big beef i find is that people hate aluminum for aluminium yes you know that was ours before? And it is entirely dependent upon whether you want to rhyme it with platinum or magnesium. And before we decided to follow the pattern of magnesium, we actually followed platinum. So we had aluminum. And is it spelt aluminum? I mean, how is it correctly spelt? Yes, there's no I.

There is no I, even though we pronounce it as though it's got an I, there is never an I. Oh, no, no. No, no. The way that we pronounce it now reflects the I that we put in when we decided to follow the pattern of magnesium. So it's spelt like magnesium and it's pronounced aluminium in the UK. But in America, it's aluminum and it's spelt like platinum. The only thing I know about the elements I learned from an American professor. See if I can give you a clue as to who he was. Professor Thomas Andrew Lira, mathematician, taught at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, University of California at Santa Cruz. He received international popularity when I was at school in the 50s and 60s as Tom Lira. Have you heard of Tom Lira? It's L-E-H-R-E-R. L-E-H-R-E-R. He was a writer and performer of humorous songs. And he wrote one in 1959, where he set the names of 102 of the chemical elements that were known at the time to the tune of the Major General's song from Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Pirates of Prince Anne's. You know, I am the very model of

a modern Major General. And it goes, there's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, and selenium, and hydrogen, and oxygen, and nitrogen, and runium, and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, and iron, americum, ruthenium, uranium. It goes on. There's page after page of it. And he does the sulfur, californium, and fermium, hercalium, a page of it. And he does the sulfur, californium, and fermium, herculeum, and also mendeluvium, einsteinium, nobilamium, argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium, and chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium. These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard. And there may be many others, but they haven't yet been discovered. There were verse after verse after verse of it.

And of course, it's dated now. Yeah, I mean, basically, if you can learn the periodic table, I can't think of a better one than that. That's fun. Although all of those seem very unpronounceable. Before we start formally, I can tell you a bit about the etymology of science itself and chemistry, etc. You've just reminded me of a really silly moment on 8 out of 10 cats does countdown the comedy

version of countdown which is late night so we're allowed to be a little bit rude but in true school girl fashion and i apologize for this in advance so you know for any kids watching just cover your ears there is an element or a chemical that appears in the dictionary, which is called coming tonight. C-U-M-M-I-N-G-T-O-N-I-T-E. And it just always made me laugh, but it was an eponym because it was named after someone called Cummington. So it was coming tonight, but it just... Oh, how very funny, coming tonight.

No, I'm sorry about that. People have to have what is known as a takeaway from each podcast, and that's our takeaway from today's podcast. I'm not sure that's it. But did you tell me helium then is based on what and promethium is based on what and iridium is based on what give me those okay so helium it follows a protocol one of the many in naming the elements which is based on mythological concepts or characters so helium was i mean you can think probably of the god

associated with helium um helium hera i don't know uh helios helios as in heliotrope yeah as in the personification of the sun very good because you know heliotrope as he says comes from the greek turns towards the sun helium named for the greek god of the sun helios possibly because it was discovered by a french astronomer jules yanson and he apparently observed it during the solar eclipse of 1868 so i think that was the inspiration for that one you've also got promethium which comes from prometheus of course who was prometheus you remember Prometheus was the one who had all those sort of huge tasks. He was a titan god of fire. So he defied the gods by stealing fire and then he gave it to humanity as civilisation. Well done him. But he was punished. Remember,

he was bound to a rock and an eagle was sent to eat his liver. The liver in Greek medicine was thought to be the seat of all emotions. And it was horrendous because his liver would be eaten away and then it would grow back again overnight. And then it would be eaten again by the eagle. So it was a bit like the kind of worst kind of groundhog day. So promethium is an element known as PM. Now, just because there will be, I hope, people who are having to homeschool and are listening to this, hoping to learn something. Just remind me, when you say this is the table of elements, elements are the things that make up our world, are they? I mean, what is an element? What are we listing here? Yes, they are elemental, aren't they?

They are the essential parts of our world. And they're basically substances that can't be broken down into simpler substances. So they are the primary constituents of all matter. And each one has an atomic number, which you also find in the periodic table. So they're pure substances excellent and they can't be broken down into simpler ones they are it very good so we have helium named after helios promethium named after prometheus and iridium named after iris iris yes the goddess of the rainbow i I think Iris is such a beautiful, beautiful name. Can I just interrupt here, though, talking about homeschooling and just talk about science in general and chemistry, because we kind of dived in in the middle of the periodic table and we can certainly come back to that.

But science itself, I think, is great. And talking about how you regret, you know, not having immersed yourself in it, perhaps as fully as you could have done and having to sort of take one of the binary options of it's either science or arts, which, you know, is really sad that you felt you had to make that choice, I think. But science itself, I love the etymology of it because it comes from the Latin meaning all knowledge. And I think scientists would probably say, you know, science itself does underpin all knowledge of of life really so i love that and chemistry itself is also a nice one because chemistry is you know for any kids who are listening who love harry potter or parents who are homeschooling you think of sort of alchemy and the kind of magical mixing of potions etc alchemy actually gave us chemistry because alchemy has got that Arabic prefix al in it, meaning the. It gave us alcohol, which was very much part of distillation in ancient chemistry. And it gave us algorithm. It gave us many, many things in science and in

mathematics, etc. And remind me again, alchemy is turning base metal into gold. That's the essence of alchemy, is it? Yes. And by extension, it also meant a lot more besides, really. It was just, yes, to kind of produce what was held to be the essence of life, but also then kind of became very much part of general learning. And do you remember that was also called grammar? Grammar, as well as science, encompassed all learning. And remember, that was also called grammar. Grammar, as well as science, encompassed all learning. And it was only much later that it came to, you know, to encompass

the sort of linguistic side of learning and the magical side of it, because the grammar, the learning included all this alchemy and what were known as the dark arts. That became glamour much later on. I can't pretend it's my teacher's fault that I wasn't interested in science. I willingly, it was my own decision, I decided that the arts were fun. That's where the glamorous people were and that the science people were nerdy people. That was my prejudiced view aged 11, 12, 13. I can only apologise in retrospect and I'm the person who lost out. It's rather like giving up playing the piano. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd gone on practicing. So as soon as I could abandon

chemistry and physics, I did. And I think one of the reasons I scored so poorly was that I almost wanted to be told, you've got to drop these subjects. I did okay at the maths because I knew you had to get maths to get to the next stage. There was nothing to me sexy about science. And of course, I see what a fool I was. If only they'd told me. Yeah, I think it's the opposite now. It's the opposite. And also, if I'd realised, get into alchemy, my goodness, I could have turned base metal into gold and made my fortune. Gosh. And then that would be it. Chemistry itself has a really long and convoluted etymology, but

it's quite a nice one to try to follow. So I say it derives from alchemy, and that in turn comes from an Arabic word, as I mentioned. But the ultimate origin is a little bit uncertain, but some people think it comes from an ancient Egyptian name for Egypt itself, which was Khem, K-H-E-M, which was actually spelled in many different ways, but that meant blackness. And some believe that that referred to the rich soil of the Nile Valley, the river valley. And so alchemy then was the Egyptian art or the black art. So that's one of the amazing theories, the fact that it still has that kind of magical connotation that was very much, you know, linked with alchemy, etc. in the past. You mentioned platinum when we were talking about

the rhyming of aluminium and aluminium. You mentioned platinum. Platinum, is that one of the elements? Yes, P-T, platinum. And is it named after Pluto? No. So I imagine plutonium is named after Pluto. Yes. And platinum is named after what? This is a nice one. So now we move on to a different inspiration. Platinum is actually named after what? This is a nice one. So now we move on to a different inspiration. Platinum is actually named after a place. So we talked about those that are named after people. At least we began with the mythological people, didn't we? Or a mythological idea.

Platinum is actually from the Spanish platina. And that means little silver because apparently it was first detected in a silver mine. So that's quite a nice one. You know, you can see that. And also there's another element which has, well, in fact, there's four elements which are named after a Swedish village that I'm really not going to be able to pronounce, Ytterby, I think. And that's got four elements named after it, including erbium and terbium. Just to stay with the kind of naming inspirations, there's some like hydrogen, so very basic, that are named after a property of an element. Can you guess with hydrogen what's

inside hydrogen? Hydro is something to do with water? Yes. Good. Because hydrogen burns in air to form water. Very good. So that's hydrogen. Oxygen. Ox oxygen i think this is always kind of surprises people really including me because it involves the greek prefix oxy which means acid because oxygen it was believed and i'm not enough of a scientist to say whether this is true or not but to be an essential component of acids and that became oxygen in french and then turned into english as oxygen then there are eponyms. Then there are elements that are named after scientists. Like coming tonight.

Like coming tonight. Exactly. Who is a person, Mr. or Mrs. Cummington. They found this element and it was therefore named after them. It became a coming tonight, which is lovely. And indeed, in the song by Tom L lira that i gave that terrible rendition of einstein's name came up so there's obviously one named after him yes einsteinium absolutely any other people curium curium named after marie and pierre curie who discovered radium and there's

gallium as well and yeah so there are quite a few eponyms. I mean, many of them, particularly from, I suppose, the more obscure elements that you might not remember from your basic chemistry and your basic knowledge of the periodic table. It doesn't come more basic than mine. Tell me that I do have a faint recollection you mentioned gallium there. Are there being some controversy or even controversy about the naming of gallium? Yes, gallium was discovered by a French scientist, Paul-Emile Lecoq de Bois-Baudrin, who apparently named gallium in honour of France. And France, gallia, in Latin, it gave us gall, of course, as well. But some people later thought, no, actually, this is an act of extreme egotism because he named it for himself, because Gallus is also apparently Latin for Le Coq.

But he apparently denied all knowledge of this and said that that hadn't been his intention. Is that why the crowing cock is the symbol of France? It must be, you know? Yes. Yes. You know, you see on top of the tricolore, they have a cock chanting away. It must be because le coq, the crowing cock, is the symbol, the Gaelic symbol of France. There you are.

There you go. And what's really interesting also is that Gaelic in Scottish, in Scots, I should say, means bold, cheeky or flashy, or you can be kind of reckless. So I don't know if that's also linked to a rooster or cockerel. Cock as in cocky? Yeah. As in being cocky? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, now look, I thought I was not waving but drowning. And now I'm both waving and drowning. Let's take a quick break. And then I want you to tell me all about the Bunsen burner while I tell you the terrible things I did with the Bunsen burners in our chemistry class. Oh dear.

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but I'm getting a masterclass from the scientist in residence, Susie Dent. Oh, you're absolutely not. I so need to take a proper course in chemistry. So scientists everywhere, please don't despair of our lack of knowledge. We are trying here. Indeed, Purple people, if you are scientists and you want to put us right on anything that we have said, feel free to get in touch. It's purple at somethingelse.com is how you email us, something without a G.

I mentioned the Bunsen burner because the only fun I ever got in science, in the chemistry class, was playing with the Bunsen burners. And indeed... Yes, they were fun, weren't they? One Shrove Tuesday, 1962, I managed to toss the world's tiniest pancake on the Bunsen burner. I brought a little saucepan and some pancake mix, and I used the Bunsen burner to toss my pancake. And indeed, Mr. Payne said, you're a right tosser. And he was not far wrong. And that was quite a shocking thing for a teacher to say back in 1962. So I know

that Bunsen burners are what give you the heat in the chemistry class, used for experiments normally, but used by me for tossing my little pancake when I was a schoolboy. I take it that the Bunsen burner is named after a Mr. Bunsen. Yes, a Herr Bunsen, in fact, because he was a German chemist and his full name was Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen and he together with somebody called Gustav Kirchhoff pioneered spectroscopy which allowed new elements to be identified so he identified cesium for example and he also famously determined the composition of the sun and the stars and many other sort of you know elemental substances but he is most remembered of course for the Bunsen burner which came about in 1855 so there you go and I too had great fun with Bunsen burners although the use of them was

strictly rationed at my school and we had the whole I suppose what would be now like PPE the whole visors, etc. And I think that made it even more, there was that sort of element of danger, wasn't there, which was the only one that we were allowed in school, really. We had no PPE at my school. I can tell you that was no, I don't remember any protective equipment. You just went in there, pressed a button and the gas began and there was a lovely blue flame and it shot up. But I think I lived before the age of health and safety. Possibly.

Just to follow on from you talking about, you know, the chemical elements, the substances that cannot be broken down. There's also, of course, when we talk about the elements more generally, we're talking about the four substances that are seen as the fundamental constituents of the world, and that is earth, water, air and fire. And that was particularly strong in ancient and medieval philosophy. So yeah, it is really fascinating. The etymology of it, I think, is really fascinating. What else did you use? Do you remember what other instruments? Yes. Well, I do remember we fiddled around with things in a Petri dish. Yes. Is that named after Mr. or Mrs. Petri? Yes. Again, a hare.

European scientists, as you mentioned earlier were really at the forefront of all of this so julius petri was a german bacteriologist and he gave us the petri dish that's another eponym i loved those two we have the crucible as well do you remember those a crucible yes um now that's a very old word isn't it yes yes so in chemistry it's the ceramic usually ceramic but it can be metal i think as well container in which substances could be melted or you can put them i think over the bunsen burner and subject them to really high temperatures yes really old because you can trace it right back to the latin crux meaning a cross which of course gave us crucial you know the centre point of a cross,

excruciating, because that's got the idea of the crucifix on it, and so on. So it's got a lot of very, very important siblings, the crucible. And this is fascinating. So the original crucibles were nightlights that could be hung in front of a crucifix. Isn't that fascinating? And this explains why Arthur Miller's famous play is called The Crucible, about the witch hunting in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. The play was written in the 1950s and it was sort of echoing the McCarthy witch hunting of communists and left-wing people in America and it was called the crucible and now I'm understanding it's not because it's a crucible this vessel it's because it's to do with a crucifix yes but there is a slight hint if you

look at the etymological note in the Oxfam English dictionary that some of these lamps that were put in front of a crucifix may have had crossed wicks, which would give different, like four flames, because they were kind of crossed over. So that too might explain the sort of cross bit and the crux. While we're talking about all these old words, what about mortar and pestle? I remember playing with them when I went to the dentist as a child, because you had fillings and there was some little metallic stuff that went around in the mortar. Is that the bowl and the pestle was the thing you beat it with? Yes, that's right. It's the receptacle. Yeah. And where do they come from, the mortar and pestle? Okay. So in Latin, in classical Latin, which means it was used by the Romans, you've got

mortarium, which was, again, it was the cup the Romans. You've got mortarium which was again it was the cup-shaped receptacle in which ingredients would be crushed or ground so it was used in medicines as well as cooking but it's related to a mortar gun because it's the sort of dumpy shape of the smooth bore gun for firing shells or bombs. Apparently, its dumpy shape reminded people of this cup-shaped receptacle. So that's where we get it from. And the mortar that builders use for bonding bricks, really old, back to the 1200s, probably got its name from the same mortar because the ingredients are kind of ground up. And pestle? Pestle is, again, it goes back to the Latin pistillum, and it simply goes back to a verb meaning to pound.

Very good. Nice and simple. Look, we've got so many questions we've got to answer from listeners. But before we do, and I'm sure people will have science questions they want to send us, are there any words that will surprise me coming from the world of science, particularly the world of chemistry, that have slipped into our language that I'm using all the time without realising they have these scientific roots? Well, I mentioned alcohol. I think that's quite an interesting one. So alcohol, when it was first borrowed into English in the mid-16th century, it was still in that realm of alchemy. So it was any solid substance that was refined into fine powder by a process called sublimation.

And this sense of kind of purity, I suppose, was then extended to fluids. And then you had the alcohol of wine. And the alcohol of wine was the purest essence of wine that you could obtain by distillation. So it's also linked, believe it or not, to coal. You would never use coal on your eyes, Giles, but women listening might know about coal, K-O-H-L, which is like eyeliner, really. And it's a kind of black, again, it's linked to the same idea. The al in Arabic is the, so you've got al, coal, for this substance that was refined into the finest powder.

And that also produced a substance that ancient ladies who wanted to make up their eyes found quite useful in accentuating the eye line. So they used this substance, this powder, for makeup. So that's one. I think pharmacy is quite interesting as well, because that takes us back almost to the Ides of March, really, because that's notorious, obviously, is the date which saw Caesar's downfall. But it was also the annual date, the 15th of March, for a New Year festival that was dedicated to the Roman goddess of renewal and the returning year, because March was when the Roman year began. They kind of forgot the winter. And that festival involved the expulsion of an old man or a criminal in a ritual that was designed to purify or cleanse society.

The origins of this lay in an ancient Greek ceremony known as Pharmakos. And the Pharmakos itself was the scapegoat. Now the scapegoat itself, just to tell you where that comes from, that was actually originally an escape goat. It was the goat that wasn't sacrificed. One of two that were chosen to bear the ills of society. One was sacrificed and the other had, figuratively speaking, the ills and sins of society borne upon its back and then it was sent off into the desert. So I'm not sure it was a happy fate for that goat. But scapegoat is a shortening of escape goat. But anyway, the pharmacos, this kind of ritual of purification, that's at the heart of pharmacy and pharmaceutical because

the sacrifice was said to represent a remedy for the ills of society. And of course, the pharmaceuticals that we take today are thought to be or are remedies for our ailills of society. And of course, the pharmaceuticals that we take today are thought to be or are remedies for our ailments and illnesses. So what a history that word's had. Oh, it's amazing. You know so much. And that takes me to our first letter, because we've touched on science. We've only touched the surface of it. And I think we'll have to come back to it. And I may have to go to night school before we do. Me too. So that I don't appear to be as humiliatingly ignorant as I've obviously shown myself to be today. But there we are. We are as we are. And if you want to get in touch with us with any scientific questions, or indeed to point us in the right direction where we've got things wrong, do please get in

touch. It's purple at something else dot com. And someone has been in touch to say that they received your book, Susie, Word Perfect, as a Christmas present. And it's been their favorite present. And the person who says this is Charlotte Asherton. She's a linguistic student, and she's written in to ask this question. And I hope you've got the answer to it. I was wondering about the expression, roger that, when someone means to agree and get on the job. Why is it roger that's used? Rings a bell with roger over and out, but what's the origin of all that? Absolutely. Well, before Romeo came along in the NATO phonetic alphabet, someone called roger was

there for a while. So it was R for Roger. And apparently in the early days of communications, particularly in the military, I guess, people were saying R for message received. It stood for received, but R could sometimes be misheard or not picked up in communication. So it was extended to Roger. So, you know, today we could be saying Romeo over and out, but we tend to say Roger that. And it goes back to that early version of the US phonetic alphabet. And when was Romeo replaced by Roger? I think probably around the 60s. So I think Roger was alive and well in the 40s.

Excellent. Excellent. Any other letters? Do we have time for another letter? Let's do just one more. Here we are. Libby Caldicott has got in touch to say, Let's do just one more. Here we are. Libby Caldicott has got in touch to say,

I'm really curious how the words apostate and apostle appear to be from the same root, but have opposite meanings. Can you help me, please? Well, first of all, explain to us what apostate and apostle mean, Susie. Yeah, so apostle really means a follower, really, or also a vigorous advocate or supporter of a particular policy. So, you know, most people, I suppose, will think of the 12 chief disciples of Jesus, but it has extended its meaning. It was originally an important early Christian missionary. And then, as I say, it's either an advocate or a supporter of a particular policy. And it goes back to the Greek apostolos meaning a messenger so it is somebody who carries a message to others hence its use to mean a missionary a while ago I'm one of your apostles yeah I follow you and I spread

the word uh what does apostate mean then apostate is a person who renounces a political belief or principle. So it's almost the complete opposite, which is, I think, you know, hence the question, because they seem very, very different. And indeed they are. So etymologically, actually, they are a little far apart. So we've got Greek apostolos, which gave us apostle, but the apostate actually goes back also to Greek, but apostates, which meant a deserter or a runaway slave. So it was somebody who runs away and hence turns away from a principle or a belief. So two very different things. Okay, just one more then, because this is more Greek mythology creeping into the show. Naomi Grom has asked, does the word typhoon come from typhon?

That's capital T-Y-P-H-O-N, a terrifying half-beast, half-serpent, storm-bringing giant. Goodness, I hadn't heard of the typhon. Is that the origin of typhoon? Well, yeah, not actually the direct origin. But what you find quite often is that one word that has come in from a completely different direction and has no bearing on the origin of a particular word, then influences it. So quite often, the shape or the pronunciation of this word will change because another contender has kind of come on the block, and it seems quite similar. So we move in that direction. So I'll start with typhoon, the tropical storm. That actually brings together two sources. One is Arabic or Persian tufan,

which might well go back to the Greek tufan meaning a whirlwind but also a Chinese word taifun which means a big wind and these two words were picked up by first of all the Portuguese in the Indian oceans they would have heard the Arabic tufan and merchants and sailors in the Chinaas would have encountered the Taifun from Chinese, the big winds. And those two kind of combined to be, we called it a Tufan as well for a while. Taifun, he was the person who attempted to overthrow Zeus for the supremacy of the cosmos, cataclysmic battle. So you can see this idea of something huge and superhuman. The name of that may well have influenced that word tufan that I

mentioned. So it may well have had some bearing on the way that we eventually came to, you know, to spell our word typhoon, which was closer to that original. So yes, probably has had some influence on it, but wasn't the ultimate etymology, if that makes sense. You're brilliant, Susie Dent. And if people want to ask you a question, indeed, just get in touch with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. Both Susie and I are on Twitter as well. Have you got for us your trio? Three words that you feel you'd like to share with us?

Yes. One for you, Giles. Oh, yes. Go on. One for you, because I remember when we spoke at the beginning of last year's lockdown, you were going to be very busily scribbling away and you're quite prolific with your writing and you're incredibly dedicated in the way that you produce books. Have you got

another one planned for this year? I have. Next week, when we next meet, I may tell you a little bit about it. Yes, I'm hard at work already. Me too. Okay. So we are scribacious. And scribacious means fond of writing. Good. Scribacious. I like that one. So it's S-C-R-I-B-A-C-I-O-U-S. Somebody who is fond of writing.

I mean, I'm busy writing. I'm not necessarily fond of it, but I'm doing it. Yes. There are moments where you think, oh, I can't believe I actually wrote that. It's quite good. Yes. Most of the time it's, oh, I've got to go with that again. Another thousand words have to be done today. Scriacious lovely word anything else yes yes you mentioned that actually rather like science you kind of gave up on musical instruments as well well today you might like a

bit of a twinkle and to twang any day i fancy a twinkle the twinkle is to play idly on a musical instrument oh i love it to twinkle I love it. To twankle. I love it. Twankling. Oh, that very word. Sounds like a character could have been played by Charles Hortry in a carry-on film. Mr. Twankle. I love it.

Mr. Twankle. It's good, isn't it? And one more for you. It kind of describes, I suppose, what we will be doing if we are scrabacious. We will indulge in a bit of lucubration, not to be confused with lubrication, lucubration, which is L-U-C-U-B-R-A-T-I-O-N. And it's study or work that is done into the night.

Ah, and how's that shaped? What's, how's it become lucubration? Lucubration. So I'll give you the exact meaning of it in the OED, which I'm looking up now. And it says, yes, the action of lucubrating. So it's give you the exact meaning of it in the OED, which I'm looking up now. And it says, yes, the action of lucubrating. So it's nocturnal study or meditation. And if you remember, L-U-C, as in the name Lucy, often means light. And so the idea was that you were working by

artificial light. So yeah, from the Latin lucubrare. Very good. So if you're sitting there late into the night, the candle burning, it's an act of lucubration. Lucubrating, yes. Yes, we scubacious people, having finished an early evening of twangling, have put down the zither and are doing a little bit of a late night lucubration. That's brilliant. That's what we'll be doing. I've got a short poem for you today.

And because we were talking about science, I thought, what do I know about science? And I know so little. But Einstein's name has come up during today's podcast. And you mentioned the Ides of March too. Well, the eve of the Ides of March is the 14th of March. And I happen to know that the 14th of March is Einstein's birthday. The great Albert Einstein was born on the 14th of March is Einstein's birthday. The great Albert Einstein was born on the 14th of March, shares a birthday, as it happens, with Pam Ayres, the poet. Oh, we love Pam. We love Pam Ayres, and also shares a birthday with my wife, Michelle, which is how I'm aware

of what an insignificant date this is. And the 14th of March is also the birthday of the actor Michael Caine. Not a lot of people know that. I love Michael Caine too. They know that now. So here is a poem written by Tom Stoppard called The 14th of March. And it's about Einstein's birthday. And it's very short and it goes like this. 14th of March.

Einstein born, quite unprepared for E to equal MC squared. Brilliant. That's excellent. And that's our lot for this week. That is our lot. Thank you so much for listening. As Giles said, please do get in touch with us. We love to read everything that you send us, which we genuinely do.

Purple at somethingelse.com is the address. Something Rides with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Harriet Wells, with additional production from Lawrence Bassett, Steve Ackerman, Ella McLeod, Jay Beale, and, well, he's back, Giles. Yes, indeed. The man called Gully,

who also has a nickname around the office now, we call him Typhoon, because he is the big wind. That made me laugh. Fancy a twinkle? Cut.