Something Rhymes with Purple - Roots of Happiness

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

This weeks episode is an extra special one. Our very own Susie Dent has a wonderful new book out! We browse through 'Roots of Happiness', a joyous collection of 100 positive words and their origins which shows how wonderful language can be - and how you can use your words to make the world a happier place. 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:  Breviloquence: Brevity of speech Fuscous: Dusky shades of cplouring Nimbification: The process of cloud formation Gyles' poem this week was 'A Bestiary' by Kenneth Rexroth There are too many poems About cats. Beware of cat Lovers, they have a hidden Frustration somewhere and will Stick you with it if they can. 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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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. Hello. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. In case you are new to this, and welcome if you are, this is a podcast all about words and language. And I never quite know, Giles, how to describe the third bit.

I often say wordy witterings, is that right? Very good, wordy witterings it is. We are lexicographical people. We love language, we love words. And you know a great deal about the origins of words. And we just play with words and language. Once a week, we get together. In fact, sometimes it's a couple of times a week because we also have an additional kind of like a bonus episode where we go into the Something Rhymes with Purple club room, let our hair down a bit. But anyway, I'm thrilled to see you.

I tell you, I've come into my home studio, which is in the basement of my house in southwest London, and I need to go to the loo. But I'm not going to go to the loo because I remember when I was very young, when I was a student, I met a famous, to some notorious, British politician called Enoch Powell, who was a very clever man, controversial. He had been a minister in somebody's government. I think he was the Minister of Health. Anyway, he told me that when you're giving an after-dinner speech,

it's always best to be needing to go to the lavatory. It adds an edge to your speech, also ensures that you don't go on too long. So I'm obeying the Enoch Powell rule today. I tell you, I'm so excited about this week because two of the things that I find most interesting in life is, one is words and language, and the other is happiness. And what we're about to do is talk about your new book, which I'm going to say, because you wouldn't be allowed to, is just a complete delight. It's a joy, and it's an inspiration. And I think, well, it's fantastic. Well, I sent you a text the other day, didn't I? You did.

I had no idea that you had given a quote for this book, about this book, because I didn't ask you for it. Obviously, my publishers did. But that was so sweet of you to do that. So, thank you. Well, the publishers sent me a proof copy. And I was delighted to have the proof copy because I have children, but they're all grown up. But I also have grandchildren. Yeah.

And I thought this, if you're, as our listeners are, intrigued by words and language, this is a book for their children, their grandchildren, or indeed for young people, because we're very lucky that a lot of young people tune in because they're simply interested in words and language. Tell us what the title of the book is and tell us what your inspiration, why did you decide to write this particular book? Because it's really a bit different from what you've done before. It is. And I have written sort of children's books before about etymologies. I wrote a book called Weird Words, which was full of the kind of farty, belchy, windy, slimy things that kids tend to love. But as you know, Giles, I talk a lot about the lost positives of language and how we tend to

dwell on the negative. And a lovely editor called Phoebe at Puffin Books approached me and said, I think children need to know these words. Why don't we have a think about putting something together for children? So it was her inspiration. She sourced the most amazing illustrator called Harriet Hobday. And together we worked on a book that is called Roots of Happiness, A Hundred Words of Joy and Hope. And the idea is that we're going to discard all the words for

ugly stupid silly you know bad in every way and we're going to embrace the positive because as you and I have discussed there is clear evidence actually that having the vocabulary of emotions and being able to able to articulate how you feel gives you power over those emotions, but also that if you think happy thoughts, you will feel happier, which is quite extraordinary. So, it's the power of language, the power of words, and the power of having the vocabulary of emotions at heart, really. It's the power of positivity. Why I think this is an important book is there is no doubt in a gloomy world, we need to cheer cheer up and language can help us do that and you're giving people and it's not sure i mean it's a children's book but at the same time i

think if you are an adult or indeed if you're a very old person this is a book will delight you because the words in it will be new to children but they'll be some of the words will be very new to much older people as well some of them are quite new to me. Oh, yeah, some of them will be. So it's a mix of older words. So, you know, words that, as you say, people won't necessarily have heard of, like lovewender, which I really just adore. And it means a person who is both loving to others and is deeply loved in return,

which is a gorgeous idea. It's a circle of love, really. So that one is from Old English. And's the circle of love, really. So, that one is from Old English. And when you introduce a word like lovewender, do you then tell the reader, this is a lovely word, what it means? Do you tell them how old it is? Do you give a little bit of a context to it? Yes, it's chronological. So, the hundred words are in chronological order. So, what's the first word? What's the first word? That's a very good question. So, the very, very first word is good, believe it or not. So the very, very first word is good,

believe it or not. So it's one of the oldest words in English, and it's been positive right from the start, which isn't true of all words. Some words begin as positive ones and then, you know, take a dive. There are some, fewer of them actually, that begin bad and then end up being good. But this is one that has been good forever. It's one of the top thousand words that we use. And what I really love about it, actually, is just a little nerdy fact that I also put in the book, is that we've never used gooder or goodest for more good or most good, as you might expect. Instead, we use better better and best and this is replicated in so many other languages and we have no idea why as though good has to stand on its own one of the mysteries and if you're going to make it better than good you've got to change the word yes it's strange isn't it

how interesting it's good better best of course yeah good better best and you'll find that in um in latin in oh it just it's extraordinary how it's filtered through, or at least it has been that way in many, many other languages. So, that's the first, and as you will see there, that's a word that everybody will know about. The happy is in there as well. There's butterfly, there's lullaby, there's beautiful illustrations. But then there are words, as you say, that people won't have heard of, which I would love to bring back. Don't rush through these. I'm loving, I want to hear about happy. I mean, happy, happy, happy. This is such an important word. It is such an important word. I love the fact, as you know, that you can happy-fy

someone by making them happy. So, we've kind of lost that happy-fy bit. But happiness was actually once all about luck. So, that's what hap meant. It was sort of fate or chance, really. So you could read into that, I suppose, something quite deep that we are only happy by chance or that actually fate has blessed us in some way. And that idea of hap meaning chance or luck gave us perhaps, by chance, perhaps, and it gave us hapless, because if you're hapless, you are luckless. You know, fate does not shine kindly upon you, and so on and so on. And it also gave us happen, because when something happens, the idea was it happened to you by chance. So, it's a really important family. Give us some of the surprising words,

some you've introduced me to, like the word confelicity, which is one of your favourites, and I know that's in there. Yes, confelicity, joy in other people's happiness, which is beautiful and very selfless and gorgeous. And goes totally contrary to the famous Chinese proverb, there is no happiness so great as watching a good friend fall off the roof. Yes, I know. I know, that is very dark. So, that is sort of schadenfreude, isn't it? And I think confelicity is the sort of near opposite of that, really. But, you know, we only stick with schadenfreude and we stick with the German rendition of it. We don't really have an English equivalent for that. So words well opposite happy and happy fi is the word irrumpent which

just makes me smile because it pretty much describes what it is its meaning it appears around the season of spring most often when buds are irrumpent so it's essentially when things burst out so you could probably you know know, joy was irrompant. You might say a spot, this is a horrible image, was irrompant. That kind of thing. It's the idea of breaking forth, but usually to do with new growth, which is, you know, a lovely thought, really. And when joy has a baby, we all cry, let joy be unconfined.

And she then is irrompant as the baby comes forth. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's very nice. Do you know, I realise now that I was attacked when I was born by the midwife because I came out apparently already talking, already burbling. And the midwife hit me on the back, not to wind me, but I think to shut me up. Well, that's how I picture it anyway.

Go on. Well, we are recording on a day when very sadly, an actor that I saw back in my 20s on stage, Michael Gambon has died, which is really very sad news. And he was actually, his death was announced as Harry Potter actor, Michael Gambon dies. And I think it's probably for that that he is best known. And he was Dumbledore, wasn't he? He was Aldous Dumbledore in the film series. And Dumbledore is actually in my book because as we've talked about before, Dumbledore is a very old word for a bumblebee. And J.K. Rowling is said to have thought of Dumbledore as a character who walks around his office, head in a book, humming to himself. He was a great classical actor, best known in the early days. He appeared,

he was in the National Theatre Company that Laurence Olivier set up in the 19, back in the 1960s at the Old Vic, and really came to sort of become a movie star much later in life. He had a wicked sense of humor. So I hear, yeah. He once played Oscar Wilde in a television series. And he was asked by, I think it was the Birmingham Post, that, you know, did he understand the character of Oscar Wilde? And he said to the interview, oh, yes, I used to be homosexual myself.

And they said, oh, oh, you're no longer a homosexual. He said, no, no, I had to give it up. And the interviewer said naively, oh, why? And Michael Gambon replied, oh, because it made my eyes water. So he had a wicked sense of humor. Yeah, and then he repeated that on a Top Gear interview, which has been doing the rounds today.

And he also told, I don't know if it was the same hapless interviewer, that he had been a ballet dancer. And when asked why he stopped, he said he fell off the stage and threw a kettle drum. And this was all duly repeated in the article. Well, he was quite a risky proposition. I interviewed him for the Sunday Telegraph about 25 years ago. And we agreed, because I knew all these stories, we agreed to invent certain things.

And so I put in the interview that he had a new wife who was a princess, I think, from, what was it, the smallest country in West Africa. So that would be the Gambia. And he'd fallen in love. He'd done that would be the gambia and he'd fallen in love he'd done a tour of the gambia he'd met this girl and she was the daughter of the king of the gambia and he'd married her and they were very happy together they were planning to have lots of children anyway this appeared in the newspaper with his agreement and it was repeated elsewhere

so he spent he loved doing that but there was a reason why he did it, you know. He was very much of the view which he had got from an actor who was a mentor of his, Sir Ralph Richardson, that in life, and indeed Sir Ralph, I think, called him the Great Gambon. That was the nickname for him. The Great Gambon was that, in fact, you should know less about actors. If you knew about their loved lives, their private lives, their hobbies, etc., when you saw them on stage, you were thinking about that. I think that's very true.

You know, the character that they were playing. So he deliberately didn't give proper interviews, obfuscated about the truth about him, in order to, you know, people not to know who he really was. I think I might try this. I think it's an excellent idea. I saw him as Galileo in Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo, where he was absolutely astonishing. And I also saw him, now, you will remember this because I'm not going to remember.

It was the play in which there was a lot of nudity and it was Howard. Romans in Britain, was it? No. Was it that controversial play? No. He was in that. A lot of nudity i will have to look this up because i think the director or the writer was howard had howard and howard brenton so i had

howard brenton or there was a director called howard davis i think it might have been howard brenton possibly i will i will look it up and come back to you anyway once again astonishing but very very um provocative indeed yeah well that got you to dumb Well, that got you to Dumbledore. That got me to Dumbledore in the book. Yeah, we've gone off at a tangent, but that's what we do, isn't it? Yeah. I've also got, and I'm going to show you the illustration here. I appreciate that our listeners can't see,

but it will just give you a measure of how beautifully Harriet has illustrated these. This is the word smuse, S-M-E-U-S-E. these. This is the word smuse, S-M-E-U-S-E. And a smuse is essentially a tiny little opening that you will find in a hedge or at the bottom of a fence. And it's essentially a little opening that allows for the passage of animals. Smeuse, S-M-E-U-S-E, is that the right spelling? Yes. And it is a tiny opening that allows the passage of animals such as rabbit and hares. And you might not even know that you're looking at one if you see a tiny hole in a hedge. And it's a blend of meuse, M-E-U-S-E, which was a hiding place, and then smoot, which was a small hole or an opening. So, yeah, it's just little things like that, which I just thought were beautiful.

And I think dormice might use smuses. So that's a beautiful picture in my head. Very much so. Give us another one. I'm loving these. Oh, good. Well, there's another one that you will probably recognise, which is a suspire, which comes from a really important family. Suspire is to breathe out with a sigh. I like to think a sigh of contentment, but behind that word is the Latin spurare, meaning to breathe, and that gave us inspire. It gave us perspire. It gave us expire.

And it gave us conspire as well, because when you conspire with someone and form a conspiracy, you are huddled together and breathing very closely. But suspire, really, like, now, one of your all-time favourite words is in there, Giles, gonguzla. Oh, i love it this is somebody who is looking at water calm looking at still water is that right well it can be still water but it originated as sort of uh in kind of amongst the canal communities really and barge communities so it was people who would sit idly on a river bank or on the banks of a canal and watch the activity on the water. So the best kind of thing when you're not actually having to make any effort at all, but you're watching other people make the

effort for you. Good. Among the words I wasn't familiar with was yakamos or is it yakamoks? Well, I don't really speak Turkish, but I think it's yakamos. If any Turkish listener or speaker, please do let us know. But this is gorgeous as well. So the ocean has given us some very beautiful words. I put in spindrift in there, which is the salty tang of the ocean that you can just about taste when you get nearby. It's kind of whipped up by the wind from the waves. I love that. And yakamosh is essentially the glittering flashes of light that bounce off the sea under the night sky.

So, look at a sea at night time, if the moon is shining down upon it, or the stars, you will see those little tiny sparkles or scintilla, and yeah, that's yakamosh. So, a number of these words aren't English in origin, but are they words that are now used in English? I mean, for example, one of the words you've got, and I don't know how to pronounce this, is C-W-T-C-H, which I assume is a Welsh word. It is a Welsh word. Cwtch, this one is. And it's regularly number one in the list of favourite Welsh words. And indeed, native Welsh speakers do put it right up there because it just is more than a hug, a kut. It's an embrace that says that you are home.

It is an embrace of comfort. It's an embrace of joy. It is just, there's no single word that really translates it. And hug definitely doesn't do it, but it's absolutely beautiful. So kut is always up there together with hiraith, which is the longing for home. So there's this real sense of homefulness about these words. Where are you on the hugging stakes? I had a very happy encounter today with Jay Blades,

the presenter of The Repair Shop. He's a lovely man. But the point I was going to make is Jay Blades and I, we know each other, we gave each other a hug. And then he was with somebody else, and I think she was expecting me to give her a hug as well. But I don't feel you can hug people unless you really know them. What's your take on this?

Have we done an episode on etiquette? Because we really ought to. Because we are so bad in this country at knowing whether to hug, side kiss, full on kiss. I mean, obviously, full on kisses, as we have discovered, are, you know, really quite dicey. They are fraught with consequences and they need to be fully consensual. But we just don't know what to do. We bang ears with someone. We try and fist bump them and end up shaking their hands.

Yet other cultures have really got it sussed. I can't believe that we are so bad at this. And I include myself. I cannot. I just can't give someone a kiss on the cheek without making some stupid noise and I think this should be part and parcel of an etiquette course but let's do an episode on etiquette I think I would love that and we'll begin by telling people what the word etiquette means because it's a French word isn't it is it is it to do with a ticket or is it to do

with a folder it's a ticket no it's French ticket. So it's the codes of conduct that were once expected of people visiting the royal court. And it's believed that they actually did have a little, a ticket in the sense of a sheet of paper that told them exactly what they could do and couldn't do. So the idea is that it is a sheet of rules of behavior. Very good. Well, one of the rules is we have to take a break in the middle of our podcast, which we like to do because we're grateful to the advertisers because they make the whole thing possible. I'm going to go to the loo, and you are going to have a sip of tea, and then we're going to talk some more about your brilliant book

and also, actually, the people who have been in touch with us this week with some of their queries and questions. Go and join the lizard. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy a room upgrade.

Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws. Like Fresh Promise. Produce is carefully selected and checked for freshness. And if it's not fresh, it's free. Yes, you heard that right. From the crispest lettuce to the juiciest apples, Loblaws is committed to fresh so you get the best fruits and veggies. Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. This is Something Rhymes with Purple, and this week we're celebrating a new book by Susie Dent called Roots of Happiness. It's beautifully illustrated.

Is it actually published by Puffin Books? They're part of the Penguin stable, aren't they? They are. And it's a celebration of words that inspire and delight because they're words that aren't necessarily fun words, but a touch on... Well, how do you describe the words that you've included? Well, some of them just make me smile, like butterfly or lullaby. Some of them have just

beautiful stories behind them. So, I like the idea of a text. So, people wouldn't say, well, text is a word that makes you happy. But for me, there is beauty in the metaphor behind a text because as you know, it is linked to textiles and it's all about how we weave our words. Even when we dash them out on our mobile phones, we are weaving our words as we weave our clothes. So, I love that. Another one that makes us smile here, I've got amazeballs in here, which I don't think any adult can say and look cool, but totes amazeballs, just makes me laugh. YOLO is in there as well. And that's an invented word, isn't it?

It is, but all words are invented, aren't they? And many of them are mashups, portmanteaus, blends, whatever you want to call them. You and I have cats, so cats don't tend to do this, but any dog owner who's listening will know all about groking. Remember to grok, G-R-O-A-Kk that is to look longingly at someone else's food so I put that one in there that is as I always say it's me with a plate of chips there is kvelling kvelling is a great word from Yiddish and essentially to kvel is to boast about the achievements of your children your grandchildren or someone close to you but it's not quite as annoying as boasting because you are actually taking pride in the

achievements of others. But caveling can be deeply embarrassing for the person who's been cavelled about. The cavelly, shall we say. But again, a nice word and example of how we take things from lots of other cultures. And so on and so on. It's conquer because I think conquer for me immediately rustles up no pun intended ideas of autumn leaves and just childhood memories for me and again a beautiful illustration from Harriet so it's quite personal from that point of view but also I hope we'll give an overview of how we've always had positive words and we just don't use them enough well people who get this book either given to them or buy it for themselves, are in for a treat.

It is indeed a book full of happiness. And it's created by my friend and co-host, Susie Dent. And it's a joy. Everybody should have that this Christmas. Now, it's true. Who has been in touch? We've had people communicate with us. And they do so by writing to us at Purple People at SomethingRhymes.com.

And sometimes when they've sent us an email, we then say, oh, well, leave us a voice note and we can actually hear their voices. So who's been in touch this week? Do you know? Yes, our first voice note comes from Patrick. Hi there, Susie and Giles. Just a quick one. Why is the first episode of any new series normally called the pilot episode? Many thanks and keep up the great podcast. Patrick from Sunderland. Great question. Well, it's all about leading the way, really, and kick-starting something. So I'll give you a potted history of the word pilot itself. So, it emerged in English in the early 16th century, so around 1510,

and it meant one who steers a ship. And if you take it all the way back, it began with the Greek pedon, meaning a steering oar. So, it was a rudder, if you like, in a ship used for steering. And then by the 19th century, it began to be used figuratively. So the first extended sense of someone steering was somebody who controls a balloon. And it went from there, obviously, to mean one who flies an aeroplane. I suppose that's not figurative, actually. Those are still quite physical applications. But then serving as a prototype came along. So someone who leads the way with some kind of model that others will follow, which is why we have a pilot episode. It is the steering, the guiding episode.

If people like it, then it will lead to more. It'll be the, well, in some ways, I suppose, the trailblazer, but it all goes back to that idea of steering. And anyone, if they were wondering when I was talking about ped on the Greek for an oar, that actually, if you take it back far enough, is related to ped meaning a foot, as in pedestrian and all that kind of thing. Very good indeed. I have to tell you, I've made more pilots in my time than I've made programs. I'm the go-to person when they make, oh, deary me, but never mind. I think that's always the way and you get so excited don't you i i haven't done as many as you but you get so invested in it and think everyone surely

will love the idea of this even if they don't like me and um yeah this just disillusion and despair is usually the result but just turn to roots of happiness and hopefully you'll find some antidote the program that you do every day in the UK, and international listeners may not have seen it, but it's called Countdown. It's a words and numbers game. And I first became involved in Countdown when I was sent up to Leeds,

where the programme used to be made in those days, to make a pilot of a children's version of Countdown. So that's how I first got involved. You didn't know this? And they saw me, they saw the children's version of Countdown. Ah. So that's how I first got involved. You didn't know this? And they saw me, they saw the children's version of Countdown. They said, no, thank you very much. But they invited me to stay to help out in Dictionary Corner. So that's how...

Amazing. So there are incidental benefits to making pilots. Okay. Yes. Next letter here comes from somebody called Jenny McDougall. And she writes, Hello, Giles and Susie. I'm an avid listener to your podcast from Wanaka, New Zealand. I wonder if I pronounced that correctly.

Wanaka. Wanaka, New Zealand. Wanaka. Excellent. I think so. What does avid mean, by the way? Where does that come from? Avid means keen, doesn't it? Avid, greedy, yes. So avidulous means somewhat greedy, so it goes back to a classical word meaning greedy. She's, therefore, a greedy listener to our podcast, and she's fascinated with the plethora of words, meanings, and derivations. If only I could remember them all and use them.

Well, I agree with that, Jenny. Anyway, this is what she writes. The other day, I met up with a friend who I hadn't seen for a while. She asked me what I'd been up to, and out of my mouth came the words, I've been gadding about. And I immediately wondered where that expression comes from. I remember my mother using it quite frequently, and even using it as an adjective, as in, you're quite a gadabout. What do you think?

Thank you for the entertainment and education you share with us all. Well, thank you, Jenny, for getting in touch. And my gadabout friend will now tell you how long she's been gadding about, finding out about gadding about. One of my favourite uses of gad is actually a dialect word, gadwadik, which is a merry jaunt. So, I'm often a gadwadik, which I love. So, it's probably, we think, formed from an old English word, gadling, which meant companion, but then took on the meaning of someone who was a bit of a wanderer, even a vagabond, which goes back to the Latin vagus,

meaning wanderer, wandering. So, the idea is that you flit from one place to another. So, it went from someone who might do that with you to the act itself. And that's a Germanic word, ultimately. There is another view, which is quite funny but there's not much evidence to support it and that is that if you are gadding about you were rushing about like an animal stung by a gadfly and yes gadflies are really nasty businesses aren't they they bite livestock but they include horseflies that's a gadfly and that actually goes back to an old northward meaning a goad or a spike. So that's the other theory, but I think it's more likely to be the sort of the vagabond or the wanderer.

Good. Excellent questions. And, of course, brilliant answers from Susie. If you want to get in touch, it's purplepeople at somethingrhymes.com. Now, Susie, I want three words from you that are intriguing words that might appear in your next book. Who knows? What have you chosen for us this week? Well, the first one you have been striving for throughout the podcast, because as you told us at the beginning, I know you literally jumped out of a cab to get to this podcast

in time, and you are slightly in need of... Relief. Relief is what it's called. That's one of my favourite euphemisms would be visiting the donut and granny's greenhouse that is what you need to do so you have achieved brevi eloquence which is brevity of speech today brevi meaning brief and then eloquence obviously behind loquacious eloquence etc is talking so brevity of speech very impressed you also used the word obfuscate in relation to Michael Gambon earlier. And so I was going to offer fuscus, which sounds horrible, but it simply means dusky. So dusky shades of colouring. And famously in Oxford, possibly in Cambridge, but certainly in Oxford, candidates on their way to an exam will wear sub-fusque. on their way to an exam will wear sub-fusk.

They will wear dark colours beneath the darkness, usually black, to be fair. But fuscus is a word with a surprisingly lovely meaning. And in my book is also the word nefelibata. Oh, my goodness. This is an example of... How do you spell that? One from another. It's N-E-F.

This isn't the word that I'm going to give you, actually, but nefelibata, N-E-F-E-L-I-B-A-T-A. And it's essentially a daydreamer, but its literal translation from Portuguese is a cloud walker, which I think is a beautiful image. So I'm offering you nimbification. And nimbification is nothing to do with the nimby that doesn't want anything near them,

not in my backyard, the acronym gave us nimby, but rather to do with Nimbus, cumulonimbus, etc. It is the process of cloud formation, Nimbification. Well, thank you for those three. And you're right, I'm going to give you a very short poem, because in short order, I'm going to be disappearing to the loo, lavatory, toilet. That's what I'm going to be doing in just a moment. But before I do, I've got a lovely, I thought, let me look into my book of cat poems by some of the world's greatest poets. And I thought, no, I'm not going to do a poem in praise of cats because, well, that's to be expected. Cats give us a lovely feeling, don't they, Susie? We love our cats.

They do. But not everybody... Just don't talk to our producer, Richie, about them because he told me the most awful story before we came on air and then laughed about it, which is to do with his poor little cat being accidentally shut in for five days in a bedroom when they went on holiday. So just don't mention this to Richie, will you? I'm only telling you. Well, let me tell you this poem. It's quite relevant.

It's by Kenneth Rexroth, and it goes like this. Cat. There are too many poems about cats. Beware of cat lovers. They have a hidden frustration somewhere and will stick you with it if they can. That's the end of the poem. And I'm on my way now.

I'll let you, Susie, do the credits, and I'll see you in a moment. But I'm going to the loo now. Goodbye. Okay, thank you. Don't take the microphone with you. Thank you so much for listening to us today and indulging, we hope,

in a little bit of happyfication. Please keep following us on Apple Podcasts, etc., wherever you get your podcasts, and please do recommend us to friends and family. And Del's mentioned there is a Purple Plus Club, should you fancy it, where you can listen ad-free and get some extra bonus episodes.

Well, there can't be extra and bonus, that's tautological. Some bonus episodes on words and language. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production. It was produced by Naya Dio with additional production from Naomi Oyiku, Hannah Newton, Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, and, well, I've trailed him already. He is lovely, really, and I think he does love his cat.

It's Richie.