Something Rhymes with Purple - San Fran’s Disco

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

We are on the 4th leg of our North America road trip where we are visiting Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Susie and Gyles will take us to the meadows of Las Vegas and the snowy capped mountains of Nevada before we hit the casinos and Gyles reveals he has a booking at a church in Las Vegas ready and waiting for him. We’ll continue on to Queen Calafia’s California to visit San Francisco where we’ll etymologically encounter the Pelicans of Alcatraz before our final destination where we meet the angels of Los Angeles and we discover how the Lumière brothers gave light to Hollywood.  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Logodaedaly - ingenious use of words  Scrofulous - morally corrupt  Sipid - of pleasing taste, flavour or character Gyles' poem this week was 'An Attempt At Unrhymed Verse' by 'Wendy Cope' People tell you all the time, Poems do not have to rhyme. It's often better if they don't And I'm determined this one won't. Oh dear. Never mind, I'll start again. Busy, busy with my pen...cil. I can do it if I try-- Easy, peasy, pudding and gherkins. Writing verse is so much fun, Cheering as the summer weather, Makes you feel alert and bright, 'Specially when you get it more or less the way you want it. A Somethin’ Else & 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

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a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. My name is Giles Brandreth and I'm speaking to you from London, England, with my co-host and friend Susie Dent, who is in Oxford, England. How are you today, Susie? I'm fine, thank you very much, Giles. It is very dreek outside, I have to say. There's

no other word for it. Dreek is a Scottish word? Yes. Yeah, a Scottish word meaning sort of wet, gloomy and overcast and altogether a bit bleh. It's a bit bleak. Well, I'm going to be taking you to the Sunshine State in a moment. We're going over to America. We're going in search of sunshine and in search of words, language that we find interesting, amusing, arresting, controversial,

and the origins of some of those words. If you're new to our podcast, a warm welcome. We call it Something Rhymes with Purple because when we started it almost 200 episodes ago, I thought nothing rhymed with purple. I thought purple was a word like silver or orange for which there was no rhyme. But in fact, there are several words, Susie told me, that rhyme with purple, one of which the first one you came up with was herple, I think. Herple, to walk with a limp. Kerple, which is part of a horse's rump. And something does rhyme with silver, I think. Purple, to walk with a limp. Kerple, which is part of a horse's rump. And something does rhyme with silver, Giles.

Do you remember Milva, which is somebody who shares a strong interest in a particular topic, especially words and wordplay. So we should have called it something rhymes with silver, really, because it would have been more appropriate. Well, and mentioning wordplay,

we must come up with an episode soon where we play some word games, because I love word games and word puzzles. And I know you very sweetly have been taking part in my new daily anagram game, Full Rainbow. People can go online, just fullrainbow.co.uk. And it's a daily seven-letter anagram. Some people do it instantly. And other people, like our brilliant producer Harriet,

just find that unless the letters are written in a circle, she can't unravel the anagram quickly and is often stumped and ends up with a rainbow instead of a rainbow. It is quite tricky. Have you always been good at anagrams? No, not at all. I think it's definitely a muscle in the brain that you need to exercise regularly. And I still have days on countdown where, you know, that particular muscle is barely tensing. I just can't, I can't get very muchagrams, rearrange the letters into the Latin phrase, Ars Magna, the great art, playing with letters. Anyway, that's for another day. We're not playing games today. We're going to America. And we've been on a bit of a trip.

This is the fourth leg of our journey across America. Why do we call it a leg, by the way? Why is it, I suppose, because you're legging it, you're moving on it. Is that why it's called a leg? No, not really. It's actually developed from a nautical use of the term. So in the early 17th century, a leg was a short rope. And crucially, it branched out into two parts. It could be more parts, but it's usually two. So they look like two limbs. So it was part of the rigging on board a ship. And then, of course, because he used the ship for transport,

it was transferred over to cars. That is quite extraordinary. We're on the fourth leg of this journey. We are. Across the United States of America. And today we're going to be visiting Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco with due humility because we know there are purple people, as we call our regular listeners, living in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, who will know much more about it than we do.

And if you are one of those and want to contribute, please do get in touch with us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. And that's something without a G. Shall we begin in Las Vegas? Have you been to Las Vegas? I went to Las Vegas. I'm sure I've told you this story, when I was, I think, about 12 or 13 on a family trip to the West Coast. And because I was so young, I had to sit, or we had to sit, on a particular side of the restaurant. So there was an invisible line in the restaurants.

On one side, there were slot machines, and on the other, there weren't. And because of gambling laws, we had to sit in the other there weren't and because of gambling laws we had to sit in the bit that weren't but going to the loo and this is the bit I remember telling you there were slot machines in the loo so there were people playing in the loo that's how focused it is um I remember there was a prison outbreak and it was about 40 degrees and the hotel was freezing as a result of the air conditioning so those are my my memories which excuse me you've just thrown in a prison outbreak. Yes. Well, I remember the sirens.

Goodness. Yes. Well, again, the purple people will know, but there's a prison on the outskirts and I think there had been an outbreak. So those are the sort of memories, but, you know, they're a little bit blurry now. We did go to San Francisco, which I adored. Very brief trip to LA, but yeah, at the time I wasn't a word maven as such or as much as I am now. So the language is new. Word maven, M-A-V-E-N? Yes. Meaning what?

A maven is a real sort of enthusiast or expert, really. And it comes from a Hebrew word meaning a person with understanding or a teacher. And it doesn't need to be a female? Not at all. So a maven is an enthusiast and somebody who understands. Well, you certainly understand words and language. Las Vegas is regarded, I suppose, as the gambling capital of the world. It's located in the arid, is it Mojave?

Is that how you pronounce the name of the desert? Yes, I think so, because it's from Spanish. And basically, I think the spelling Mojave as well with an H comes from modern English and both are used today. But the Mojave tribal nation officially uses the J form. And it's a shortened form of a word in their native language, actually, which means beside the water. That's nice.

And this is in the state of Nevada. It's in the southern corner of Nevada. Is there anything to tell us about the name Nevada? Yes. So we have snowy mountains, really, Sierra Nevada. So Sierra is a range of mountains. That's from Spanish, again. And Nevada means snowy.

So it's related to Nivius um over here which means describes a snowy landscape uh so it's snowy mountains very good just to go back to las vegas itself basically it means the meadows and it's it's a nod to the wild grasses which grow in the desert soil with you know plenty of water how lovely las vegas in the Mojave Desert in Nevada. Is it near where the Grand Canyon is? Is that where you, if you go to see the Grand Canyon, do you go to Nevada? I do have a story about the Grand Canyon, which, because I did go down during this holiday in a light aircraft, which would terrify me today. But I honestly, I mean, what a trip, trip of a lifetime to go really sort of far down and experience the jeopardy of sort of you against these massive rocks.

And I fell asleep. I slept the entire way through. So, yes, that makes me very sad. But Canyon is part of a very big family that derives from the Latin canna, C-A-N-N-A, meaning a tube or a groove. And you will find it in canal. You'll find it in a cannula that you might have inserted in hospital. You will find it in cannelloni, which are tubes of pasta. You'll find it in sugar cane, which have sort of hollow tubes. So part of a big family there.

Gosh. Well, I mean, the history of Las Vegas is actually very much tied up with the development of the gambling industry in America. And, of course, it's played a real part in the shaping of modern American entertainment. Because you now go to Las Vegas and there along the strip you do see some of the world's most famous and celebrated entertainers. And that's been going back to the 1930s. Have we done actually an episode on gambling? I can't, we've done 199.

This is 199th episode. Have we ever done one on the casinos? No, we've done poker before, I know. But I think we should do gambling actually because there's a very big vocabulary inevitably and they're very specific to each game as well. So it'd be a nice one to return to. Are you a gambler?

No, not remotely. It doesn't get my juices going whatsoever. Do you gamble? No, I don't really. I mean, I don't know, maybe once every couple of years on Wimbledon or something, but I then forget that I placed it because I'm obviously positive I'm not going to win and I never do. I do the national lottery though. I do do that. On a regular basis? Well, I have just literally one ticket a week on a direct debit thing. And I've had it for ages.

Never won anything more than a free lucky dip. But think, of course, that the day I stop, this is the thing, isn't it? This is the thing that pulls you in. The day I stop will be the day that those numbers come up and I will have missed a fortune. You are hooked. You are a gambling... No, not hooked. This is, I'm sorry. This is a pound a week. The tab I stop will be the day that those numbers come up and I will have missed a fortune. You are hooked. You are a gambling addict. No, I'm not hooked. This is a pound a week.

I'm sorry, the tabloids were wrong. It's Susie Dent, secret gambling addict. You have a standing order placing money every week of your life. I did, in the first week of the lottery, I did it because I was an MP at the time it was introduced and I think I'd been on the committee overseeing the legislation. So I felt obliged to take part. Are you going to tell me that you won something? I did I won something. So did I. Do you know what I don't know quite how this worked but so many people tell exactly the same story it was a promise the same with me I won 10 pounds the very first lottery I think that's the only time I've won. How does this happen? Well do you think it was done specially they thought let's give a lot of money away this week.

But it can't because statistically, well, it's random for a start. But I've come across loads of people who want something. How intriguing. We need a statistician. The word gamble itself, where does that come from? Yes. So at the heart of gamble is game, really. So you just have to remember that it comes from a very old word meaning gaming,

which makes perfect sense. And of course, you gamble in a casino. And of course, completely associated with gambling now, but originally it was just a public room. It actually goes back to a little house from the Latin casa, meaning a cottage. So it's a little house, but it was a public room and it was used for dancing and it was used for music. So it's a little house, but it was a public room and it was used for dancing and it was used for music. So it's actually linked to chalet as well. But of course, then the sort of gambling aspect of it completely took over. You mentioning a little house reminds me that I still have a wedding booking at something called, I think, the Little Church on the something, where I believe Elvis Presley got married once.

I don't know how many times he was married, but there is a place where Elvis Presley got married once. I don't know how many times he was married, but there is a place where Elvis Presley got married. It's called the little church of the something or other. And I must dig this. The little house on the prairie? Well, no, this is the little church on the strip. Okay. But it's like a little, I mean, I've seen the pictures of it. One of my daughters, when she was getting married for the first time, a few years ago now, wanted to get married in, she was torn about where she should get married.

One day it was going to be St. Paul's Cathedral. The next day it was going to be the little church, anyway, this little church in Las Vegas. So I got online and I made a booking. And you had to pay a deposit, which I did. And then she changed her mind about the wedding and about everything. Exactly. The point is I couldn't get my money back. They said it's open at any time for the rest of your life,

for you or your wife, if you wish to get married again. I said, well, it's not actually for us. It's for my daughter. She said, we don't mind who it's for. You just come. It's here at all times for you. And apparently there are pictures of Elvis looking. And I think when you arrive, there are Elvis lookalikes who greet you.

You've given us Gamble. You've given us Casino. I think it's time to move on to San Francisco. Should we go there next or to L.A.? Where do you want to go next? Let's go to San Francisco. Ah, I love San Francisco. Yeah.

The hills. There's a great line from Oscar Wilde. I think it's from the picture of Dorian Gray. It's an odd thing, Lord Henry Wooten once remarked, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world. That's Oscar Wilde being amusing in 1888. I think that's about when the picture of Dorian Gray was written.

It would have changed a great deal since then. There are trams in San Francisco. What's the origin of the name San Francisco? So San Francisco is simply Spanish for St. Francis, patron saint, obviously patron saint of animals and the environment as well, and presumably then very sort of bound up in the mythology in the history of San Francisco, which is in California. And California is actually first mentioned in a map of 1562. And it's a bit of an etymological mystery, because not everyone

can quite work out where it comes from. Most historians believe it came from a novel, actually, a 16th century novel, which was really popular at the time of the Spanish exploration of Mexico. And it describes this fictional island called California, which was ruled by Queen Calafia, which was east of the Indies. And so we think it may have come from that. So actually it'd been based on an eponym, if that makes sense. It does make sense. Older purple people may remember two very witty, clever men called Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. Do these names mean anything to you, Susie? Yes, they do. They were scriptwriters and they wrote shows, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, and then became famous on the radio and later on television doing programs like My

Word on the radio. Frank Muir did Call My Bluff on television. They were very amusing. They were both very tall. One had a moustache, one, the other had glasses. And I was very lucky. I was, I met them in fact first when I was a schoolboy in the 1950s, but I was lucky to work with both of them. And on the program My Word, they were always challenged with a phrase that they had to incorporate into a story. Oh, yeah. And I remember the episode where I left my heart in San Francisco was the phrase.

And it was either Frank Muir or Dennis Norton who told a long and complicated story about a nurse from the sanatorium who was called Frances, known as Fran for short. And the sanatorium who was called Francis, known as Fran for short, and the sanatorium was known as the San. People always abbreviated it as the San. Anyway, this nurse,

she had a late-night discotheque, known as a disco, in the sanatorium, and this fellow went to a party that she was giving and taking his harp. Yes, he took his harp to the party. No asked him to play so he left it behind and in fact he ended up leaving his harp in san fran's disco oh no so these these stories were very elaborate stories ending up in awful punning lines like that one oh i used to have email correspondence with Dennis Norton. He was such a lovely, kind man. He used to come on Countdown Fair a bit

and would regularly send me word items in the news and that kind of thing. He was a real gent, but I never met Frank Muir. He lived to a great old age. Frank Muir was a very sweet person and was very kind to me. And I knew him and his wife, Polly, and they sort of befriended me when I was still at university.

And in fact, he gave me, Frank Muir, gave me my first job, proper job on television. So they were good people. So we go south from San Francisco through California. Where is Alcatraz? That's off the coast there. I should know because I've been. Yes, Alcatraz has got quite a history hasn't it

it's an island where there's a prison it is an island and it's offshore from san francisco and it was developed in the mid-19th century for a what had a lighthouse and a military prison and in the 30s 1930s it was converted into a federal prison. And that was because the sea is incredibly cold around it and also have very strong currents. So it made escape nearly impossible. And it's one of the most notorious ever, isn't it? But it closed in the 60s and is now a tourist attraction, which is probably why you and I went to see it.

And it's so named from the pelicans. It comes from the Spanish for pelicans because of the pelican used to inhabit the island. We're leaving Alcatraz. We're going further south down California to stop in Los Angeles. Yeah. Los Angeles. Are these the angels?

Is that why it's called Los Angeles? These are the angels, yes. And I think at some point there was a debate as to whether it should be Los Angeles as opposed to Los Angeles. And I think it's sort of gone back and forth, but Los Angeles is now definitely the most common. And in the 1770s, I think a Franciscan friar built or directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel. Sorry, my Spanish is not particularly good, but that was the first mission in the area. And then the town around it was called the town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels.

So that's where it comes from. I don't really know Los Angeles at all. Do you? I know it quite well. Let's maybe have a break and then I can take you on a tour of Los Angeles and go even further south to La Jolla. Because my mother spent the last 20 years of her life living in California, down in La Jolla, beautiful part of the world. I ought to mention, actually, because we haven't, we're talking about the entertainment industry being in Las Vegas, there's an entertainment

industry in London. And we like to think we are part of it in Covent Garden because we've been doing shows at the Fortune Theatre, the heart of Covent Garden. And we are, our next one, I don't know if it's our last one, but anyway, the next one in my diary is on Sunday, the 19th of February at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden. Charming little theatre. And we do a live show there on a Sunday afternoon and purple people come along. It's Susie and me on stage. We're live. We're there in person. People can contribute for tickets and information. You simply go to something rhymes with purple. That's all one word. Dot com. Something rhymes with purple. Or you can follow us on social media

at something rhymes on Twitter and Facebook and something rhymes with on Instagram. Let's take a quick break. 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 your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx.

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That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. This is Something Rhymes with Purple and do please be sure, thank you for being here today, but to be with us on the 31st of January. That's next week. It will be our 200th episode. Can you imagine it? 200 episodes, Susie Dent.

It's astonishing. I mean, I remember so many times sitting in my little front room with Lawrence, our wonderful producer at the time getting very cross about the crackling of my open fire because it interfered with the noise and we quite liked it didn't we um and all that and then sitting in my kitchen all those days and and then during lockdown obviously you know talking to each other remotely it's um yeah it's sort of marked out quite a lot of you you know, the history of the last couple of years, really. Totally. And what for me is different between a podcast and a formal radio production is the intimacy, the informality, the fact that it's just you and me getting together and stumbling and fumbling our way through the world of words.

Anyway, that's next week, our 200th birthday. Do please join us today. We're travelling across America. We're traveling across America. We're in California now. Los Angeles, I love for all sorts of reasons. Family reasons, because of my mother living in California, knowing Los Angeles well, eventually ending up in La Jolla. But also because I have friends who live in Hollywood, including British friends. My good friend, Martin Jarvis, and his brilliant wife, the actress Rosalind Ayres,

they live in Hollywood. But Hollywood, Hollywood was always, it's called Hollywood. That's now a generic term, meaning rather like Fleet Street means journalism. Hollywood means cinema. What's the origin of that? Cinema or Hollywood itself? Hollywood itself. I think it was named by a woman who donated land to help the development of Hollywood. And she just said, I chose it because it sounds nice and because I'm superstitious and Holly brings good luck which is quite nice isn't it but she named it just as a district of Los Angeles she named it as a district but I think even then there were plans to well I don't actually know I'm not sure about them well purple people will know this but I'm not sure how soon the motion picture industry was mooted i think it really came into its own in

well it started to be formed there in the early 1900s sort of the 1912 1913 but i'm not sure how much that was sort of you know involved in the kind of original drawing up of the d's etc gosh well hollywood we see is the home of the silver screen which i know we talked about in our 1920s episode hooch so do go to that for the glitz and glamour of 1920s hollywood but you're going to tell me about the word cinema cinema yes so cinema shows moving pictures and it's all about movement really because it comes from a greek verb kinane move, which of course gave us kinetic as well. And it was used by the French brothers Auguste and Louis-Jean Lumière, and they formed the word cinématographe for their invention of a machine or an apparatus that showed moving pictures, and that was patented in the late

19th century. I love your French accent. It's very, very, very affecting. Can I say that? You do that charmingly. It's almost beyond belief to me that the Lumiere brothers were so called. It's like Chief Justice being called Lord Judge. Nominative determinism, remember? Yeah, Lumiere.

To be called Lumiere and to be in the world, to give light to the moving pictures is extraordinary. Yeah. Thatiere. To be called Lumiere and to be in the world, to give light to the moving pictures is extraordinary. Yeah. That's fantastic. One of my most remembered experiences, and I've been very lucky to see in person some great performers, but one of the greatest performances I saw was in the 1960s at the Hollywood Bowl, Barbara Streisand.

Oh, lucky you. Yeah, young and in her prime. Fantastic. Off the coast of Los Angeles, people go surfing. Tell me about the world of surfing. Have you ever been surfing? I haven't. Honestly, for so long, I have wanted to take surfing lessons from my brother-in-law,

who is the most brilliant surfer. And you know what happens as you get older, you get more and more sort of timid, don't you? Though I have tried surfing, not hugely successfully. I just find it quite difficult to keep my balance. How about you? I can imagine you with your board striding out to the waves. Can you? You obviously have a very vivid imagination. I assure you I've never been surfing. My balance is appalling, though I'm trying to work on it now, simply to walk down the road.

But the idea of being on a surfing board does not appeal to me at all. I don't mind a little gentle swimming. That I have swum. Yes, I can see you doing that, with a little flowery hat. I'm remembering now, swimming in Loseles at the seaside and falling in love with a girl she might be listening and if she is do get in touch i say do get in touch she was about 17 and i was 18 at the time so perhaps don't get in touch now because we're not 17 and 18 anymore she was called kim de la rosa my goodness and the mother remember that was called rusty de la Rosa. Oh my goodness. I don't even remember that.

And the mother was called Rusty de la Rosa. Isn't that extraordinary? I have not thought... That is amazing that you can remember this. Do you know everything we've ever remembered is in the head. It just needs something to take it to the top. I have not thought about those two people in possibly, well, certainly more than half a century.

That is incredible. While we're on surfing by the way i know a lot a lot a lot of purple people will be hopefully nodding along with me or just saying this is very obvious but best surfing film ever is point break have you ever seen it no with patrick swayze and keanu reeves it is astonishing movie it's very good i recommend it heartily is there any surfing language we ought to know about oh my goodness there's a whole surfing language that we can i don't know skim the surface of a dream of a wave which of course is what you want it can be gnarly it could be beast chocker rad sick this is where we get sick from as a positive adjective and from surfer slang harsh killer

cooking smoking going off insane and of course, totally awesome or radical, dude. Forgive me, are these phrases that genuinely begin in the world of surfing and end up in our general discourse? A lot of them do, yes. Or sort of Californian, sort of, you know, cool speak. And so they then, you know, come over to us eventually. Like always, there are sort of slightly mocking epithets for people who aren't particularly good on their board, which would be me. So a barney is a complete beginner. That's fine. A froube is a surfer who doesn't catch a wave for the entire time they're in the water. A paddle puss is someone who stays in the water close to the beach.

That would be me as well. A beach leech is a surfer who always turns up without a board and asks to borrow somebody else's. And possibly this would be me too. A shooby is someone who buys all the gear, including a board, but never actually goes in the water. And finally, I mean, a waxhead is a real surfing enthusiast and a hot dog apparently is a really cool and expert one. But one that I particularly like was a really cool and expert one but one that i particularly like was a melvin and we never know who the original melvin was but it was a surfer whose shorts have ridden up the bottom very noticeably oh dear i don't like the idea of a

melvin keep my i'm averting my gaze oh this is wonderful the world oh my goodness i i mean we don't have time to talk about all the moves as well so you grab your weti which is a wetsuit and your leggy which is the leash that attaches to the board. And then you drop in if you catch a wave, you hit the lip, you shoot the curl, you take the back door if you enter the barrel of a wave behind its peak. Shaka Khan is ripping really hard. You do a fakie. I mean, a lot of these are also on skateboards as well. So there's a lot of parallels between the two. And then you've got taking dirty lickings if you have a wipeout. Tombstoning, which is when after a really bad wipeout,

the top half of the board sticks out of the water. I mean, honestly, we could go on and on. It's just a wonderful, wonderful lexicon, which, as I say, is kind of seeped into mainstream slang. I want you to send me a copy of that lexicon because I think one could write a song, a surfing song using all those words and phrases. There's some wonderful words and phrases there. There are. Anyway, look, if people are in California listening to this or indeed in Nevada and want to put us right, or if there are surfers there

who want to give us more about the language of surfing, do get in touch with us. We love to hear from you, your point of view, and put us right where we go wrong. And if you've got questions for Susie to answer or attempt to answer, she will give it a go. We are purple at somethingelse.com. Who has been in touch with us this week? Have we had any nice voice notes? I think we have, yes. We have Jonathan Thomas who got in touch about an intriguing word in English. Hello. Our family were recovering from COVID at home over Christmas and enjoying a crossword puzzle where the answer to one clue was dudgeon. We were delighted to be reacquainted with this little used word, and all agreed how it always seems to be used in

conjunction with hi, as in hi dudgeon. What is the origin of dudgeon, and how could we use it in the present day? And if we did use it, must it always be with its friend hi thank you for your help and the wonderful podcast jonathan tracer and abigail thomas i love the thomas family and i think it's a really intriguing question tell us about dudgeon why it's usually hi dudgeon yes i'm going to absolutely disappoint you here jonathan and Giles, because we don't know where dudgeon comes from. It's unknown, listed as unknown in every dictionary that I consult. What I suppose we do know is that it's a linguistic fossil, really. Do you remember we talked about this? Because it exists really only in the phrase in high dudgeon today. So

dudgeon has always meant indignation or umbrage, if you like. And remember umbrage comes from the Latin umbra meaning shade. So to throw umbrage was the original version of throwing shade. But there is another kind of dudgeon, which is a wood used to make knife handles. And I think we've talked about this before, but we don't think it's linked to being in high dudgeon. It is normally high these days, Jonathan, but you can use it simply as in a dudgeon, in a state or fit of indignation, or as an adjective too, meaning indignant or resentful. But I'm afraid as to where it comes from, we just don't know. First recorded in the 16th century.

It's a mystery. Well, there you are. There's some things in life that are a mystery. There are so many questions that come up regularly that you are constantly being asked. Yes. So we're going to have this new thing, Susie's Big Hitters, because what we want to do is,

hey, we've got a long list of them, and we need to make a dent in your big hitters. So this is the moment in the podcast where, as we approach our 200th episode, we're going to dip into the Susie-saurus. Why do we butter someone up? Well, the most obvious explanation for the metaphor is that butter is sort of smooth and slightly unctuous.

And if you want to be obsequious and fawning, then it's a little bit like spreading butter, you know, just sort of being incredibly sort of oily and all of that. So if you smear butter on bread, you make it smoother and toaster and you might try and make yourself the same. But there is an intriguing second possibility. And that is that it goes back to India centuries and centuries ago, where people were said to have hurled balls of ghee Second possibility, and that is that it goes back to India centuries and centuries ago,

where people were said to have hurled balls of ghee. And ghee, if you know from Indian cooking, is clarified butter. And they would throw these at the statues of their gods. And they believed that doing this would put them in good stead with the gods and result in general good fortune. So that is a lovely possibility. Hasn't been discounted at all, unlike so many wonderful word myths. So yeah, I'm sticking with that one. Good. Thank you for that. And thank you in anticipation for the three words you're going to introduce us to now. Three words that you find intriguing that we may not be familiar with. What have you got for us this week? Well, the first one is a slightly intriguing one, really, but particularly appropriate to

something Rhymes with Purple. And that's Logo, which you'll know means words, Daedaly. So this is D-A-E-D-A-L-Y. And it's the ingenious use of words. So it's sort of cunning, if you like. Now, Daedalus was the person who designed the labyrinth for the Minotaur of Crete. I'd say Daedalus. Oh, if you say Daedalus. Yes, Daedalus is absolutely fine. Daedalus, Daedalus, either either. And a logo, okay, let's say Daedalist is someone very skilled in their use of words. So I like this one. So yeah, whether or not, as I say, with any of these, you use them is entirely up to you. But it's just sometimes I think nice to know that these exist. And my second one is to do with the disease scrofula, which is such a horrible sounding word. Now, Samuel Johnson suffered from scrofula. It actually disfigured him in later life and I think involves the

lymphatic glands scrofula. And essentially it was tuberculosis really. And there was a belief, wasn't there, that a touch of royalty could cure the scrofula? Yes, it's the king's evil. And I think that Dr. Johnston, when he was a boy, came to London in the hope of encountering Queen Anne and being touched by her to cure the scrofula. And that was it yeah the king's evil or the queen queen's evil absolutely right anyway entirely well not entirely unrelated to this but a sort of quite a big step on is the adjective scrofulous which means not disfigured

by scrofulous it used to mean but somebody who is morally corrupt so it's always cast a sort of pretty horrible shadow which is is, you know, not particularly nice, but useful to know that it exists if anybody needed it. And I'm just going to go for a lost positive for my last one, which is sippid. We always talk about something being insippid and it's lacking in taste and bland. Sippid means of pleasing taste, flavour or character. Oh, I think it's a lovely word. I'm going to bring that into my vocabulary.

That's very sipid. I'm having soup at lunch today. Are you? And I shall say to my wife, oh, it's very sipid, the soup. Don't you agree? Excellent. And I hope it will be sipid.

Lovely. Good, I hope so too. What about a poem for us today? I've been thinking about what poem to read next week because it's our 200th. And so I've been looking at lots of poems about poetry. I'm thinking maybe that's what I should do. And I came across this very amusing poem by Wendy Cope, which is an attempt at unrhymed verse.

People tell you all the time, poems do not have to rhyme. It's often better if they don't. do not have to rhyme. It's often better if they don't, and I'm determined this one won't. Oh dear. Never mind, I'll start again. Busy, busy with my pen. So. I can do it if I try. Easy peasy pudding and gherkins. Writing verse is so much fun. Cheering as the summer weather makes you feel alert and bright especially when you get it more or less the way you want it that's amazing isn't it that's very good yeah she's great well you're brilliant

and it's brilliant as always having your company Susie Dent so likewise if people like the show do please continue to follow us anywhere you like Apple Podcasts Spotify

Stitcher Amazon Music whatever you get your podcasts and do please continue to follow us anywhere you like, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, whatever you get your podcasts, and do recommend us to friends and family. And, oh, for more purple, why not consider the Purple Plus Club, where we kick off our shoes, put on our slippers, and you get ad-free listening and exclusive bonus episodes on words and language.

Yes, it's where we really slouch. A podcast as opposed to a radio programme is where we slouch a bit. This one we're fully reclining. But it's a lot of fun and it would be lovely if you would join us. Something Rides With Purple is a Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment production

produced by Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale, Teddy Riley and the person who never butters us up at all, because he's not usually here. No, but in fairness, he's not vaguely scrofulous. In fact, in a good mood, he's quite sippid. It's Gully!