Something Rhymes with Purple - Rizz

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Have you ever spotted a beige flag in your situationship? Are you a die hard Swiftie? Do you think you've got plenty of Rizz? If you don't know what we're on about, Purple People, then you need to get with the times! This week, Susie & Gyles reveal the Oxford English Dictionary's 'Word of the Year 2023' and all the other words that didn't quite make the top spot. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Pang Wangle: A cheeriness in spite of minor discomforts. Egrote: To pretend to be sick. Sonntagsleerung: A German medical term from the early 20th century for “the depression one feels on Sunday before the week begins”.  Gyles' poem this week was 'Look in the Mirror' by Carol Mugano Look in the mirror, What do you see? A beautiful person, Or just me? Don't blame the mirror, It's all in your mind, Take control of your thinking, And this time Be kind. A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  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

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amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, Other conditions apply. Hello. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast about words and language and people, the people who speak language, which is all of us, obviously. If you're a new listener, welcome. If you are one of our loyal listeners on our 251st episode, which is what this will be, thank you so much for sticking with us. And I for me and for giles who is sitting opposite me virtually on my screen hi giles hello i love sitting opposite you virtually occasionally we do actually meet up and i have to say i know nowadays one isn't supposed to make personal remarks but i have it's either it's the filter or you really are looking very well you You're looking really beautiful, if I may say so, Susie. That's very sweet of you.

I think it's the soft light here, actually. It's charming. Anyway, it's doing wonders. You've got little pink cheeks and a gorgeous face. There's no filter on my screen, but there's definitely soft lighting. So I'm going to stick with this from now on. It reminds me, actually, one of my very first dates when I was at university was someone that I had liked for a very, very long time.

One of my very first dates when I was at university was someone that I had liked for a very, very long time. And we went to this restaurant where, you know, I was hoping for soft, muted, romantic lighting. And it had that sort of ceiling strip lighting. And after about five minutes, he leant over to me and he said, I can see straight through your ears. So that was that was great. We did go out with each other for quite a while after i paid you a compliment it is traditional to return the compliment of course not in any sense compulsory um so let's move on you never change though seriously you don't you just don't ever and you were you were making allusion to the fact that you're earlier on before we actually

started recording that if you took your headphones off you were scared that you're earlier on before we actually started recording that if you took your headphones off, you were scared that you might lose 10 hairs from your precious collection on your head. You've actually had a haircut, haven't you? I have. I've had my hair trimmed, a new year trimming of hair. Speaking of new year, I don't think we talked about last year, all the special words that come up every year. And you know all about them. That I thought would be a good theme for today. Explain what we're going to talk about. Yes. Well, we are going to focus today on words of the year. And I say that with a capital W and a capital Y because every year, as I think many of our listeners will be aware, dictionary publishers tend to have this sort of giant parlor game in which they try to beat each other when it

comes to announcing their word of the year. So they look back over the previous 12 years and they select a year that for them has acquired 12 months particular resonance. And then it becomes this sort of whole, it's not a charade actually, because I think it's a really useful exercise, but there are a lot of dictionary publishers and so we end up with a lot of different words of the year. I'm usually involved with The Choice by Oxford, Oxford University Press, Oxford's Word of the Year. And they did something very interesting in 2023, which I really liked actually, which is instead of having a committee of lexicographers analyse the evidence and then decide themselves there and then which word for them deserves to be the word of the year,

they actually decided to include the public's view, which was entirely appropriate because, as we always say on Purple Giles, we always say that English evolves by democracy. There is no authority, there is no academy. It is up to us how it evolves. It will evolve as we wish it to. Some of us may not like some of its changes, but it is all about the majority view. Anyway, the choice of word of the year traditionally has been the only time really that I can think of that there is real subjectivity involved. Even with the compiling of entries in a dictionary, we are going off evidence. We are recording evidence and then defining a word based on that evidence. But when it comes to choosing the word of the year,

there was a sort of element of, well, which do we think, you know, captures most the essence of the year? So there was that kind of personal choice. But by putting it out to the public, it became much more of a democratic gesture, more than a gesture, exercise. And it was really interesting what came back. And then after the public voted on a short list of eight, I think it was, the electrographers looked again at the evidence and they did take the final view, but it was very much informed by what the public felt was a worthy winner. What did you choose in the end? Well, I was only a member of the public that had a single vote. The word that won, and there was a lot of coverage of this actually, because it was quite an interesting one, was Riz. So 2023 was the era of Riz. Now, Riz really is, I suppose, what It used to be. It's a successor to It. If

you think of film stars like Clara Bow, who was an It girl, one of the first It girls that there was. Somebody who has this sort of je ne sais quoi, X factor, something that makes them stand apart from the crowd. And Riz, it may be a shortening of charisma, not completely sure about that, but that is pretty much what it defines. It is that kind of sex appeal and it's predominantly sex appeal online. So it is particularly on dating sites or on social media. If somebody has a RIS, they have that certain something that might make you go after them. It peaked, this word, in June 2023, who I think spoke for Tom Holland, the actor. I don't know if you know Tom Holland, brilliant actor.

Indeed. Yeah. And he spoke for many of us when he says, I have no riz whatsoever, or I have limited riz, he said. And that really sent it into the stratosphere. And you can always tell if a word is taking off and really embedding itself in the language by how often it's riffed upon and how many different offshoots and different parts of speech it generates. So it can be used as a verb, as in, let's riz things up, which is a bit like zhuzhing

up, really. Or if you riz someone up, you're are seducing them or chatting them up. You can probably be a rizzer by now. Something maybe riztastic. Who knows? I think it's definitely got a future. And it seemed because of the people generating it, which was young people online, it seemed to really reflect the way that new words are coming about.

And it doesn't need to have been invented in 2023, because as I understand it, the first sort of main use of it was in 2021, where there was an American YouTuber who began talking about it, about Riz. Definitely. Kai Sennett was one of the first to use it. And it's really important to note, actually, that it really took off within black vernacular English. So it was really popularized by that community. They really drove it forward, as they do with many linguistic changes.

Now, he said, I think it's a little bit of a controversial figure, but he said he hadn't thought of charisma necessarily when he talked about it. For him, it was the equivalent of another slang term, which means pretty much the same thing, game. So that was how he viewed it. And then it took off in lots of different arenas. Because it's now seen as something good. You know, have you got Riz? I mean, have you got this style, this charm, this charisma? But I think when he was using it, he talked about W, Riz, and L, Riz. So there was winning Riz, and there was losing Riz. So you could either be, you know, up, up, up, oh, you've got the right kind of Riz, or you could be, oh, down, down, down, you've gotogatory uses of riz i think there is definitely a gender element to it in that it is mostly men who believe that they have riz and are rizzing up women that's my impression but certainly in more mainstream use if you have riz it is seen as being a positive

thing and actually because i did a lot of interviews about oxford's word of the year it was it was interesting hearing radio presenters particularly ask each other whether they thought they had riz and that kind of thing so it has been used in quite a sort of general way from that point of view i was very excited because we discussed this on a program i do on itv in the uk called this morning at the time that you were telling us it was going to be the word of the year and people then began describing me on the program was very thrilled they were sending me up the UK called This Morning at the time that you were telling us it was going to be the word of the year. And people then began describing me on the program. I was very thrilled.

They were sending me up, of course, as a Riz-a, if not a Riz-god. But then somebody said, what you really need is to have unspoken Riz. Oh, yes. That's, I think that's very true. Well, unspoken Riz is that sort of innate charm. So you don't need to talk about it. You don't need to be sort of loud and big. You just have that sort of X factor, that je ne sais quoi, really.

As I say, I think it's the successor in the way that it's being used now to the it girls. Wasn't Tara Palmer Tompkinson called an it girl for a while? Oh, she was described as an it girl for a while in the 1990s yes yeah i mean it dates really from the 1930s and 40s wasn't it wasn't it the original it girl yeah that little that little something extra yes yeah uh so yeah it's it's a really it was an interesting choice and as i say i think interesting not just because the word itself but also of the spaces in which new words are being generated and the people who are generating these words.

Was that the word you voted for? Were there others in the shortlist that you might have voted for? The one that I actually really liked, just because it's very useful, I don't particularly like it as a word. I don't think it's particularly nice, was parasocial. Have you heard of this? It's been around for a while. So parasocial essentially means having a false sense of intimacy towards a celebrity. So it's feeling as though you know the celebrity, you know, in question. And I think,

you know, particularly during the pandemic, when we were, you know, a lot of people were on their screens watching influencers, watching other people play out their lives on screen. I think it sort of characterizes something that most of us will be familiar with. You know, you might be walking down the street, you see somebody who's been in EastEnders or whatever, you feel as if you know them. So it is that kind of false sense of ownership almost. So it is that kind of false sense of ownership almost. And as I say, it's not a particularly nice word in itself, but it does really fill a gap, I think. And it has been around for a while, but for me, it was just very, very useful. Can I ask you about some of the ones I heard about but didn't really understand?

I didn't understand what beige flag was all about. Yes. I'm just not entirely sure I know exactly what a beige flag is but i can tell you my understanding of it because again this is one of many items on oxford's list short list which are to do with dating and relationships and i think again maybe post-pandemic we were re-analyzing our relationships in some in some way but uh yeah so a beige flag is neither a red flag nor something completely benign it is something that you notice about another person particularly in a dating context which is characteristic of them it may be that they sing ridiculously silly songs in the shower it may be that they scrupulously alphabetize all their books um their shelves, something. Would you just think,

oh, okay, it may become a red flag, but at the moment it's neither one thing nor the other. Oh, a red flag is something that means this relationship can't go any further. Somebody who gazes at me and talks about my ears and seeing through them at the beginning of a red flag. But something milder might be a beige beige flag i notice how he uses his cut to yes in that slightly irritating way of putting his forefinger over the top end of the knife it could easily could easily be something like that it could be someone who just when they're eating doesn't look up for a second they literally just look at their food and nothing else until they're finished it could be something like that that could be a red flag for somebody it could be a beige flag for another one but i mentioned all the um in all the dating

terms there's also a situation ship have you heard of this situation ship no okay so a situation ship it is a relationship with somebody that is not quite committed. It's not yet defined. It may blossom into something firmer if you've got enough ways, but it's not quite there yet. So you're not completely sure where you are. It could be a convenient relationship that you have with somebody. Well, it sounds as if there's a beige flag already fluttering above any situationship, because you may just be with somebody in a work situation where you are thrown together on a regular basis and it could be going somewhere but it isn't yet going somewhere so we're not in a relationship in a situation it's

a bit of a strange one you like that's quite a useful word yeah and that was one of the three big finalists i mean the one i did understand was swifty well when it comes to the people's vote that one came top i I think, because everybody really recognised it because Taylor Swift and her tour had been in the news so much. So a Swifty is a diehard member of the vast fandom that exists for Taylor Swift. And the Taylor Swift tribe, and I don't use that word disparagingly actually they are really united unified interesting group linguistically because they have their own tribal lexicon they speak to each other in this shorthand that is just there for insiders and it's it's wonderful the way it's kind of

evolved it's a real example of group lingo that is designed to mark the insiders and keep outsiders out. Very good. There was another one in the sort of final three, which was prompt, and I didn't understand that at all. No. So this is an example of a word that is obviously been harnessed for different purposes. Again, it's very much how English evolves. you have to remember that only one percent roughly of all so-called new words are actually brand new mint new grabbed out of the ether and invented from scratch most of them are older words that have repurposed or parts of existing words that are kind of thrown together in a new sort of mash-up the portmanteau idea and a prompt was on the list for oxford because it was all to do with ai because a prompt

is the instruction that you give an ai algorithm in order to generate the response that you need so it was all about the question and the content that you want the question you give to your ai algorithm and the information that you want back and actually actually, AI was itself Collins, I think it was Collins word of the year, abbreviation of the year, whatever, they thought it was big enough to justify that. And, you know, clearly, it's going to be big. And I wouldn't, sorry, can you hear my cat attacking the sofa behind me? Well, I can hear it. I love it. I love the sound. She's shredded it to bits. So, yeah, so AI might well be on our radar again because, you know, I think it's very likely that some of the new words of the future will not be

generated by humans. When I heard, that's extraordinary, when I heard that Swifty was up there, I, being of my generation, didn't associate it with Taylor Swift. Oh, no. Having a quick one. No. No, I meant to drink no i meant to drink i meant to drink that's you back in your early days with the guy i meant to drink having a swifty at the pub together with the original that's why it's very good i was thinking of tom swift is are you familiar with tom swift is that a cocktail no it could be a cocktail as well. No, I'm interested you don't know about Tom Swifty. Tom Swifty was a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it's attributed.

So if you said, I'm freezing, I'm freezing. Tom said, icily. OK. Oh, we talked about these. I'd forgotten it was called that. Don't ask me why I was at the mausoleum. Tom said said cryptically pass the shellfish said tom crabby go to the back of the ship said tom sternly you got it

i forgot what i needed at the shops said tom listlessly and it was a game that i began playing in the 1960s when i first went to amer. Yeah. And I think the name Tom Swifty comes from a series of kids' books in the United States. But they were really brilliant. I mean, one of the ones I first learned was I Love Hot Dogs, said Tom with relish. Oh, brilliant.

It's good, isn't it? Yeah, I love that one. Another Martini Would Be Fine, said Tom dryly. Yeah, you get it. Bah, yeah you get it said tom sheepishly so those are what tom swift is are i like those different things but no it's very different this is taylor swifties and as i say a very firm favorite amongst the people voting for word of the year and it's really interesting you know because if you look back over words of the year. And it's really interesting, you know, because if you look back over words of the year from the past, even, you know, the recent past, if you look at 2004, we had chaff,

which had exploded out of nowhere, even though it was a good century and a half old. That was a worthy winner. We've had squeezed middle, we've had credit crunch, we've had carbon footprint, and they are all distillations of preoccupations of the time. So if you go all the way back, you know, to the 20th century, say, you only have to hear the words demob or bebop or hula hoop or ladet or glasnost. And you will instantly picture, won't you, the time that they were born in. And that's how powerful words can be. They bottle history.

That's fantastic. That's the power of language. Look, let's take a quick break because so many people have been writing to us. We want to hear from them. So stay tuned. Meanwhile, I'll give you one of my favorite Swifties. I have a split personality, said Tom, being frank. Clever, eh?

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Easy. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Non-investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. And the Purple people are the heart of this particular podcast, because if it wasn't for you listening, we wouldn't be here.

But also, if it wasn't for you writing to us and getting in touch, we would have much less to talk about. And we've had a marvellous voice note this week from the central coast of New South Wales in Australia. Let's listen to this message. Hi, Susie and Giles. I've only recently learned of your podcast thanks to a friend at work. She has a beautiful accent, so very much like yours, Susie. I'm wondering how the phrase cutting it fine or cutting it close came to be. Are you able to advise, please?

Thanks so much for a wonderfully entertaining and educational podcast. Cheers. Sue from the central coast of New South Wales, Australia. able to advise, please? Thanks so much for a wonderfully entertaining and educational podcast. Cheers, Sue from the central coast of New South Wales, Australia. Well, I like the sound of Sue's voice very much. I like her accent. Do you know, she gave us a little note to go with that. She said, the cicadas and kookaburras decided to chime in as I started recording totally unplanned. Well, we loved it, Sue. We absolutely loved that. We love all that. We like hearing Sue's cat making noise in the background, we loved it, Sue. We absolutely loved that. We love all that. Like we like hearing Susie's cat making noise

in the background, even if it's destroying the country. She's looking up at me guiltily now. I love your voice, Susie. I love your voice. I mean, this is, I know this is not our first date and I'm not commenting on your ears,

but your voice to me is just perfect. Oh, thank you. If there are any voiceover producers listening, then I'm very interested. I may make a little compliment and she's commercialising it already. She's trying to monetise her compliments. I mean, honestly, woman. That's my resolution for 2024.

OK. So what's the answer to Sue's question? Well, it's a really good question and it involves a non-literal sense of cut, obviously. I say obviously though i mean there is the theory that cutting it fine may have something to do with tailors who are sort of making very precise uh movements with their scissors and if they sort of go wrong then they are actually sort of taking a risk and damaging the whole garment so some people say that's where cutting it fine comes from but to cut it is used in lots of different ways and figuratively within

English, meaning to meet expectations or to come up to a certain level. So when we talk about cutting the mustard, we're obviously not talking about slicing condiments. We are using mustard here in the sense of something hot and good, and you are cutting it because you are coming up to that expectation. When we cut a fine figure, we are coming up to a level that is considered fine and good. But when we're cutting it fine, the idea again is a sort of treading a particular line or coming up to a particular line. It's quite hard to define it without using the word cutting itself. So it's one of those tricky etymologies and a word that has many, many different permutations and a long entry in the OED. But it is all about cutting something, as I say, by coming up to a certain standard or a degree of something. So when we cut it fine,

we are treading a very, very narrow line. Does that make sense? It makes sense to me. Okay, hopefully to Sue. Are you familiar, Susie, with the idea, the concept of cutting someone, i.e. ignoring them or cutting them out of your life and cutting them dead? Yes, cutting them off, same thing. But that is more, I suppose, about excising, isn't it? Where I think cutting it fine is not so much. And do you know what happens when somebody, you've heard, he cut me in the street. You've heard that expression?

Or a cutting remark, yes. Well, quite different from a cutting remark. A cutting remark is an unkind remark, which cuts you and makes you bleed. But to cut someone, and I discovered this some years ago, when somebody cut me literally in the street. They did what is the traditional way of cutting someone. This came about because I published a, I was a member of parliament in the 1990s, and I was a member of the government's whips office. And I

keep a diary. And after I was no longer in government and was no longer an MP, I published this diary under the title Breaking the Code. And I called it that because I knew I was breaking the whips code by describing how the workings of the government whips office operated. In fact, the book, I mentioned it because the book is being republished this spring. So I was thinking about it. And I was remembering this incident, because some of my former colleagues were appalled that I should publish this book. Times have changed, and now people feel differently, and their view is that we perhaps need more open government, and if the government whips are actually being paid for by the taxpayer, it's reasonable to know how they operate. And indeed, other whips have since published their memoirs or diaries. But anyway,

at the time, it was considered very bad form. And somebody, I was walking through Westminster not long after the publication of this book, when somebody cut me. And what this involved was them seeing me in the street, walking straight up to me, right up to, so they were almost, our noses were touching. They walked straight up to me, and then they turned abruptly to the side and walked away so it's a very deliberate quite aggressive act yes so they come straight up to you and then they turn oh and they walk wow yeah exactly very powerful yeah i thought my gosh that's what being cut means okay and i certainly did it did in fact on the on the day it cut me really really hurt you i'm sure yeah well that was designed and i'm not complaining about it because i did break the code and maybe i deserved it in the time in the long run i don't

think any feelings uh were hurt in the long run but it was an interesting experience for me to have i can imagine and yeah not not very pleasant at all um well thank you to that for suit and thank you particularly for the kookaburras um so please come back and give us some more have we got time for one more we have we oh good is there somebody in there pjs or they called pj pj golding has been in touch hi susie and giles i love the show for me it's a form of word-based therapy i was wondering if you could comment on the origin of any of the following phrases at sixes and sevens something which is sometimes heard in rugby commentary and it's usually if the defending team is struggling does this have its origin in sports

or is it perhaps from something else another one is state of the art this has always struck me as an odd phrase for something which is considered very modern or high tech i wonder when this was first used many thanks pj golding from buckinghamshire well some really good questions there so should i start with state of the art start with the second one that is also sometimes speaking of cutting does it's talking about cutting edge is not all the leading edge so it's the highest level of development and it originally which was around the beginning of the 20th century referred to science as opposed to the fine arts um or that kind of thing and it was really the state of the art the art in question was technology it was the best or latest available technology. And nowadays, I think state of the art is a bit of a throwaway, a bit of hyperbole that I'm not sure any of us will particularly take seriously.

But when it first began to appear, it was something really quite special. It was something that was going to play a very significant role because it was right at the edge of new developments, ultimately increased to every field, not just science, but every field where technology or indeed art in its broadest sense has a significant role. So there's that one. And Sixes and Sevens, well, Giles, I think you will have heard a story about Sixes and Sevens because it's one of the sort of, you know, big etymological popular stories really about where it comes from. And it's a nice one. So the earliest records that we have of it are in the 14th century. So it's pretty old. And those refer to a game called Hazard. And it's where actually we get the idea of a hazard now it originally meant

chance and in this game which was played with two uh set on five and six it's a bit of an anglo-french mashup to set on five and six was to gamble on the dice coming up with the numbers five and six the two highest numbers on on each die so, you know, that was a real gamble. So to set on sank and cease was to risk your chances. Now that doesn't explain how it came to mean confusion and disorder, but that is how it developed over time. The idea of taking your chances and so, you know, inviting danger and then sort of messiness, I suppose. But there is the reason I think you probably have heard about this over the years is that there is a very popular story that involves a dispute between two of the great livery companies of London, the Merchant Tailors and the Skinners.

And the argument was over which of them would be ranked sixth and which of them would be ranked seventh. I should just say Ceton, Sank and Seas, five and six eventually did morph to six and seven. Obviously, you can't get seven on a single die. So it became a bit illogical. But going back to this dispute between the livery companies, the reason they fought with each other is that they'd both been chartered within just a few days of each other. And so to decide which of them should go first in processions, you know, grand ceremonies, etc., they submitted the matter to the judgment of the mayor. And his decision at the time, it is said, is that they should take it in turns to swap positions in official ceremonies.

So one year would be six and one year they would be in seven, which, of course, could lead to some confusion. And the idea behind this story is that it came to mean a bit of a commotion or fuss. It's a lovely story, but as I so often say, the evidence suggests the dicing origins are more likely, but it's very possible that tales of this dispute, which I think was real, actually really popularised it and cemented it in English and possibly then did also change the five and six of the original expression to six and seven. Have you ever been to a livery company, to one of their... I have, yeah. I've spoken at some of those. They are really impressive, aren't they? They're wonderfully impressive. And there's some modern ones because many,

well, a number were bombed during the Second World War when the City of London was bombed. But some of these livery companies go back hundreds of years, and they take great pride in the number that they are, whether they're one, two, three, or number 162, 63, 64. So the higher up the ranking you are, that really does make a difference

if you are a livery man or a livery woman in the City of London. It really counts for something. Yeah, I get that. So thank you, PJ. Two good questions. OK, well, people, if people want to write to us, please do send us any questions that you So thank you, PJ. Two good questions. Okay. Well, people,

if people want to write to us, please do send us any questions that you've got. We love to hear from you. And Susie knows, has all the answers. And if she hasn't got the answers. I will look them up if I don't. You will look them up. I will. If she hasn't got the answer, rest assured, I'll invent one. Susie, have you got a trio of fun words to introduce us to? I do. And I'm going to kick off with a word or an expression that I discovered the other day. I had no idea it existed and I found it in an issue of Atlantic Monthly from the beginning of the 20th century. And it's pangwangle. Can I interrupt you before you even begin by saying the moment i knew that i because i get a briefing on what your word is going to be yeah and i thought to myself i think this is a word

that was coined by edward lear oh it sounds like it it sounds like it a pang wangle but obviously you can tell us what it really is well edward lear was in the middle of the 19th century yeah and you're giving us the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah. But carry on. And the US. So pangwangle, and you can spell it wangle with an H or without, it's just got such a lovely meaning. It's staying cheery in spite of minor discomforts. So there may be hiccups and bumps on the road, but you pangwangle it.

You just stay resolutely cheerful and optimistic, which I think is just lovely. So I'd never heard that one before and immediately put that one in the trio. We're past the point, I think, where ergophobia, which is a fear of work or returning to work, really set in after the holidays. But just in case you are still feeling it, to egrote, E-G-R-O-T-E, is to pretend to be sick. To egrote. Oh, they're just egroting. They're having a duvet day, which I quite like. And speaking of going back to work, I often tweet on a Sunday evening, a word that you'll be familiar with now, Giles, thanks to this podcast, Mubble Fubbles. So Mubble Fubbles, centuries ago, was a sort of bout of the blues,

which is perfect for the Sunday evening. Well, German actually has a very specific word for the depression one feels on a Sunday before the week begins. And it is Sonntagslehrung, Sunday emptiness. And if anyone's wondering about the spelling, if you look on the programme notes for each episode, you will find the trio there and that will give you the right spelling but yeah i think we will feel that sometimes well those are three good words do you have a lovely bit of verse for us well i've got three short poems for you very short well the first one i wasn't going to do but since you we we talked about pang wangling it's come to mind on the top of the crumpety tree, the quangle wangle sat. But his face you could not see on account of his beaver hat.

For his hat was 102 feet wide with ribbons and bibbons on every side and bells and buttons and loops and lace so that nobody ever could see the face of the quangle wangle quee. So that is Edward Lear. And that wasn't the poem that I planned to read you. Quite a long poem, so I won't give you the whole of it. But if people enjoy nonsense and words like pangwangle, go back to Edward Lear. You'll find it, well, everywhere, because Edward Lear was a great Victorian poet and artist. I'm going to read you two short poems. And the first of which is called Look in the Mirror.

And we were talking about playing each other compliments. And I was saying how depressed I was when I looked in the mirror, seeing how little hair I've got left. And this is a short poem by Carol Magano from her collection, The Pattern of Poetry. And I like this. It's called Look in the Mirror. Look in the mirror, What do you see? A beautiful person or an ugly me? Don't blame the mirror. It's all in your mind.

Take control of your thinking. And this time, be kind. That's nice, isn't it? And the one short one to end with, and this is good advice, I think. The poem is called Angry. It's only four lines, but I like it. When someone makes you angry, write your feelings in a letter. You never need to post it. Once it's written, you'll feel better. Very true.

I've used that in the past myself. It does work. And you can revisit it and you can edit it and you can just get it all out that way. It's a really good idea. Good. Well, there we are. That's it for this week. It's been fun. Our 251st episode, done and dusted. So if you enjoyed the show, do keep following us wherever you are, you know, Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, Amazon, Amazon Music, wherever you get your podcasts. And the real thing is, if you like what we do,

please recommend us to friends and family. You can follow us on X, as it's now called, at Something Rhymes. And at Something Rhymes With, we add an extra word somehow when we're on Instagram. And of course, we have the Purple Plus Club for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus episodes. So that's something to look forward to, too.

It's fun. Something rhymes with purple. Who makes this? We love it. It was produced by Naya Deo with additional production from Olly Wilson, Charlie Murrell, Chris Skinner, Poppy Thompson. And he's out there somewhere. I think he's doing the school run, actually.

It's Richie.