Something Rhymes with Purple - Schuss

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Pop your dirtiest salopettes on and join us as we race both on-piste and off-piste through the exciting language of winter sports. Separate your luge from your skeleton, your skates from your skis, and find out who put the bob in bobsleigh. Elsewhere Gyles interrogates Susie on the “ask gap” and they’re in danger of melting the ice with a long chat about psychometric tests and dating profiles.  A Somethin’ Else production.  We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them into [e-mail]  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to sign up to Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  If you would like to see Gyles and Susie LIVE and in person on our Something Rhymes With Purple UK Tour then please go to https://www.tiltedco.com/somethingrhymeswithpurple for tickets and more information.  Susie’s Trio: Sesquihoral – lasting an hour and a half Pauciloquent – a person of few words Dunduckity – dull and indeterminate of colour  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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with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main We'll see you next time. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast about words and language and, well, hopefully fun with both, as well as a few tidbits, more than a few tidbits, from my co-host, Giles Brandreth, who is sitting opposite me via Zoom, I'm afraid, but very much in life.

I can never do this. I can never do this. Very much alive. Very kind of you. Very much alive. Just about alive. OK, let's go with it. We're keeping that one in. Hello, Giles. How are you? I'm in very good form. I've got a question for you. I've got this new feature that I'm noticing words and phrases that I read about in the newspaper and that I want to ask you about.

And I came across one this week that I had not come across before. The ask gap. Have you heard about the ask gap? Do you know what it is? I have no idea. The ask gap is apparently the difference in the salary earned by people who ask for and receive a higher amount and those who do not. The ask gap. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, isn't that intriguing? It's a new phrase. So there are people who boldly, you know, the beginning of the new year, they think, actually, I deserve more. And they go in and they ask for it and they get it. And other more tentative people, like I would be, don't ask for it and don't it. And other more tentative people like I would be, don't ask for it and don't get it. It's so funny, isn't it? It's part of our, I suppose, our kind of traditional British sort of humility and self-effacingness is just that we don't want to go there. And yet time and time again, and this is in life, not just in salaries, you see that the people who actually do have the confidence to say this is me I'm worth it this

is what I'm going to get actually do succeed and yeah it doesn't have to be as brisk as that but it definitely is you know if you expect something you're probably more likely to get it yeah the ask a gap okay well time will tell whether that goes into the dictionary it sounds also like a bit of a kind of psychometric test of some kind. Did you know that in dating now, that actually now in your bio, you can put your psychometric profile according to, say, Myers-Briggs or any other of those tests? Because people are beginning to think that that actually means more from a dating perspective than actually just a photograph that has probably been photoshopped a hundred times over. I quite like that idea. just a photograph that has probably been photoshopped a hundred times over. I quite like that idea.

Explain to me briefly psychometric tests and that test you mentioned. I'm sort of familiar with it, but remind us. Have you ever done a Myers-Briggs test? No. Oh, okay. This is because you haven't worked in an office for quite a long time. I've never worked for anybody. The only time I've ever been employed was when I was a member of parliament. And then happily, thousands of people voted for me. And then after I'd given

them my all, my everything, they got blood from me, they kicked me out. So, but there was no psychometric testing involved of any kind. So what does it mean? Well, it's all about establishing your personality type. Okay. So if you were to look on Tinder, which I know you're not going to do, Giles, and I have to say I haven't either, but you might, for example, find that the prospective date that you're looking at is an ENTP. And that's a personality type that features in Myers-Briggs. And ENTP stands for extroverted, intuitive, thinking thinking and perceptive okay so it means you are both reflective but also an extrovert and then there are other ones like an intj which is introverted intuitive thinking and judging and i think there are 15 16 categories that you can um that you can seek out

if you want to and i mean personally i think that the dictionary the historical dictionary has far better terms to describe you know various people so you might find i don't know astruthius and that's somebody who is ostrich like and just creates every problem with you know problem what problem forgive me that that word you just quoted yes sorry not in anstruthius it means ostrlike. Or you might have a microlipid, and a microlipid is somebody who gets worked up about utterly trivial things. And so, you know, there are quite a few, as I say, historical terms that I think sound just a little bit more romantic and meaningful than an ENTP. But that is what you will find on dating apps at the moment.

But psychometric tests, I remember doing that when I worked at OUP. And I think predictably I came out as an introvert, but with a few extrovert qualities. But I kind of think that would be all of us, wouldn't it? Gosh, how the world has changed since I was a boy. I mean, I didn't know what good sense of humor meant. And that's one of the things that used to appear when people used to advertise before these dating apps came along in newspapers. And you'd put, you know, looking for somebody with a good sense of humour. I mean, when I was young and green in judgement in my dating days, none of this occurred. No. What a strange world people now live in.

I don't know where, I wouldn't know where to begin. No, I wouldn't either. But I do think most people, or a lot of people, are finding their partners through dating. So, yeah, the dating app vocabulary is actually quite interesting. And it seemed to work. It seems to work. But that's not what we're talking about at all today. We're not talking about things hotting up. We're actually talking about things cooling down because the Winter Olympics kick off next week on the 4th of Feb. So we thought we would talk about the language of the Winter Olympics.

So we thought we would talk about the language of the Winter Olympics. Now anyone who happily came to our live podcast in Birmingham just before Christmas might recognise some of the content on this because we did talk about the Winter Olympics with you then and we were expecting to be recording a live podcast then but unfortunately for all sorts of Covid reasons the tech didn't quite stand up to the challenge. Some of us, we didn't come away with our recordings. So forgive us if this sounds a bit familiar to you, but hopefully you will still find it interesting. And of course, thank you so much for coming along to Birmingham that day. Yes. Well, let's dive straight into the Winter Olympics and Olympic events of different kinds.

I mean, are you somebody, I mean, do you do winter sports, Susie? I don't, no. I've got on a pair of water skis. I've never got on a pair of snow skis. I am, I remember one of my trios last week was Clumperton, meaning a clown. That is me on skis. I just know it would all go horribly wrong. And people often ask whether I have been asked on reality TV shows,

the British kind, like I'm a celebrity or various things I've not generally asked on to those things but I have I think been approached about Dancing on Ice and also The Jump both of which involve winter sports so Dancing on Ice obviously ice skating and The Jump was an extremely lethal but compelling series on Channel 4 here about ski jumping. And I responded, Giles, that, oh, no, sorry, I've never skied. And they came back and said, that's OK. So if you've ever seen the height of the ski jumps that are required on that programme, and for me to go on it without even actually setting foot on a pair of skis,

I mean, I just, it would have been disastrous. How about you? As a little boy, I did go skiing. I did go ice skating. My parents took me ice skating every week to an ice skating rink somewhere near sort of Bayswater. It was somewhere in Bayswater, the ice skating rink. And I remember I had double blades on my skates,

parallel blades, to make it easier because I was a very little boy. Well, then you don't fall over. It's like riding a tricycle. It's like having the ramps up when you go ten pin bowling. You just have it. It can't go off. That's what I need. I usually hold on to one of those penguins that are reserved for three-year-olds. Well, I still fell over even with the double. So let's begin. Well, actually, can we begin with skiing? What's the origin of the word skiing? Where do skis come from?

It's some Nordic word, I imagine. Yes, we ought to actually maybe talk about also the number of words that come from skiing too, because even though you've done it a bit, I've never done it. I think they are still quite fascinating. Well, ski, yes, definitely Scandinavian. It comes from the Norwegian word exactly, you know, that, but ultimately from the Vikings. So in Old Norse, the Vikings language, a skio was a snowshoe. So it was a bit of cleft wood that was used for, you know, floating across the snow. So yes, predictably Scandinavian, that one.

Good. So that's what a ski is. And so all the derivations skiing all follow on from that. Yes. So slalom, that's also from Norwegian for exactly the same thing. You'll find a mogul as well, which skiers will know. That's the kind of mound of snow that is a bit of an obstacle or obstruction. And that goes actually back to the German mogul, meaning a mound or a hill or a hillock, if you like. Nothing to do with the media mogul or the movie mogul. That's the use of mogul with a capital M, and that was a member of a dynasty of Mongolian origin that ruled in India from the 16th to the 19th century,

so not connected. As in the mogul empire. Exactly. So is a luge a move in skiing? I think a luge is actually something you move along on. It goes back to the French for a sleigh. Oh, it's like a sled or a sleigh. Yeah. So that one's French, actually. You can see we've gathered our snow vocabulary from countries that do actually have a lot of snow. Although not enough from Scotland, because there's, as we said before, a vast

lexicon in Scotland for different types of snow. But it doesn't feature so much in the Winter Olympics in terms of vocabulary. Sledge and sled, what is the difference between the two? Are they the same thing? I think they are pretty much the same thing. In fact, if I look this up now, I think that one might be a shortening of the other. Yes. So the first mention of sled is from 1388 and actually a translation of the Bible when it is a drag used for the transport of heavy goods, in which case it means exactly the same as sledge. And are all related they came to us via different languages but probably germanic or dutch um for pretty much you know something that's mounted on runners or instead of wheels that is used for traveling over snow or ice and a sleigh yeah is that what santa

pulls along it's gorgeous we don't really use it a sleigh is is that what Santa pulls along? A sleigh is gorgeous. We don't really use it. A sleigh is specifically, and this comes from the US and Canada, a sledge used for passengers. So whilst we might enjoy sledging down a hill, it's not really something that's used formally for transport. Whereas a sledge, usually drawn by one or more horses, is a vehicle for passengers. That's how it's intended. And then obviously slaves are used for goods as well, particularly in the case of Santa. My son once took part in the Cresta Run.

Oh, yeah. Which is a terrifying, and he brought back a video of it. It's a terrifying thing. They get into a little kind of bobsleigh and go down, well, the Cresta Run at an incredible speed. He was in the army at the time. It was terrifying. Bobsleigh, what's the origin of that? This is one that I absolutely love to watch. So I will be watching this from next week, the bobsleigh. I just think it's fascinating.

It's because the crew of a bobsleigh bobs back and forth at the beginning to increase their starting speed. You know, you sort of see that going back and forth and just before they let loose and that's why it's called the bobsleigh goodness well other olympic events bobsleighing i think is one the luge is one yeah there's something called the skeleton i'm not sure what that involves do you know yeah so the skeleton this is the one where unlike the bobsleigh and the luge the races go down the track head first again so lethal looking it's terrifying to watch i just get

really sweaty palms watching this but fascinating and skeleton i think so cool because it's a lighter and slightly bonier version if you like of a sleigh so it's just the bare bones of a sleigh which obviously the more you pare it down the faster you go good skating where do we get i suppose you're skating on thin literally skating on thin ice or we can come on to the expressions derived from all this but skating there's speed skating there's figure skating but where does the word skate come from yeah so skating is in ice skates rather than the fish that came to us from the dutch but ultimately from old french where an echasse is a stilt so i suppose it is almost you know, floating around or gliding around on very, very short stilts.

So, yes, as you say, lots of different phrases attached. So to get one's skates on, to hurry up, that was military slang. And that goes all the way back to the late 19th century. What else do we have? We have breaking the ice, don't we? Which is what ice boats do when they go and literally break the ice for others to follow. You mentioned the skate as the fish. Yeah.

Is the skate that is the fish anything to do with the skate? No, that's a very, very different origin. I think that one, I'm going to look it up, but I think that's Viking, yes. So skater, we simply took that almost as is from the Vikings in Old Norse. So there's a fish called a skater in Old Norse. And you still find that in Norwegian and Icelandic. It's still called that. Gosh.

Yeah. How interesting. You end up with the same word, skate. One comes from the French, échasse, which gives us the skate as in skating on ice. And the other, skater, comes from this Nordic word for the fish. And what it does show, and I often talk about this on the podcast, is how we tend to switch or kind of change, I suppose, foreign words in order to become more familiar to us, to familiarise ourselves. We kind of appropriate them and make them into something that quite often we already have in English, which means that we have lots and lots of homonyms and with completely different origins, which is quite interesting, if not confusing for learners, obviously.

We're talking about skiing. The only part of skiing that I would find interesting would be the après-skiing. Après-ski is a phrase everyone uses. Obviously, après means after in French. So après-ski is the enjoyment, the entertainment after skiing. But what is the origin? Is it a 20th century phrase? It has a kind of 1920s feel to it.

It does, isn't it? It's just that sense of not just in the chalet, but just, I don't know, hanging out with a glass of Apfelsaft or something stronger. So the first reference in the OED is from 1954. This is from a publication called Your Ski Holiday. And someone says, there is always a queue of Britons to read an english newspaper during the hours of apres-ski so there you go and then 1959 the guardian talks about the allurement for apres-ski of a fluffy wool cuddle skirt i like the idea of a cuddle skirt well so do i so it's 1950s not 1920s apres-ski is quite a modern phenomenon. What about beast and off-beast? Because they're phrases that have moved into another world as well.

You're on the beast and you're off the beast. Where does that come from? Beast was originally a trail or a track that you would find a horse had made in the ground or from there the track of a race course for a training ground. And then that's exactly what it is. It's a slope really in skiing, isn't it? It's the marked prescribed trail of compacted snow used as a ski run. And then to go off piste is to go off that prescribed route, which of course found its way into business jargon.

Let's go off piste. Crevasse. Yes. I don't know about you, but for someone who, I love hill climbing, but I would be absolutely terrified to try mountaineering, you know, with the crampons and all the equipment. And yet I'm utterly fascinated by films and books about mountaineering. So just, I don't quite know what it is, but for me, it's just got such a pull. My dad, equally, his bookshelves were full of journals and travelogues from mountaineers and adventurers. So maybe that's where I've got it from. But crevasse simply goes back to the old French for the same thing. It's a kind of gap

in a rock, for example, and crevasse meant exactly the same in old French. You mentioned there the cuddle skirt. There are lots of words for the costumes that people wear when they're doing winter sports. Salopette salopette this is quite interesting so salopettes are those trousers with a really high waist and shoulder straps and they're padded they're often quite thermal and they're worn for skiing and it's strangely it's related to a french word meaning dirty so why would you wear salopettes to get dirty well the idea was that a salopette became a word used for a bib on a baby and of course when a baby eats it would get the bib dirty so why would you wear salopettes to get dirty well the idea was that a salopette became a word used for a bib on a baby and of course when a baby eats it would get the bib very dirty

indeed and i guess if you fall down a lot when you're skiing you will also get dirty and your salopettes will you know protect you from that but a bit of a strange journey that one oh yes to shus or a shus that's going downhill at speed in a straight line on a mountain this is what james bond does in the opening sequence of uh i don't quite remember which film it was when he's doing that amazing ski run but schuss goes back to the german a schuss is a shot because you go like a shot it's related to schießen which is to shoot you're brilliant knowing all this i know some of it you look up, but nonetheless. What I do know is that snow, it's one of those words that snow itself has taken us into all sorts of areas. Give us some of the phrases that have moved into

everyday currency from snow as an origin. Well, actually, I'm not sure many of them have really moved into general language. It's just that there are so many words for snow that we don't really acknowledge, I think, and possibly because it's not a frequent enough phenomenon for us. But it is in Scotland. And I mentioned that the Scots have this fantastic word hoard for things related to snow. I mean, one that possibly has crept into the language through a trademark, through a brand name, is Nivea. And Nivea was, or Niveus in Latin, meant snow white. And of course, that's the colour of the face cream, and that is why it was called Nivea. But otherwise, we don't really talk about Niveus or

Ningweed, which is another beautiful word for a snowy or snowy white landscape. But going back to Scots, you will find, for example, the verb fiefel, which means to swirl of snow. A flindrican is a very light snow shower. If you want to talk about a single flake of snow that might herald more to come, that's a flother or a figurine. And then snowing itself is variously described as neistering, driffling, skifting. Melted snow is snorbrue. Unbrach is the beginning of a thaw. I mean, it goes on and on.

Possibly, though, my absolute favourite, which is English dialect rather than Scots dialect, and that's crump, to crump. And to crump is to crunch across compacted snow. You know, there is an unmistakable, unique sound to walking across crunchy snow. And that is crumping. You will find that in the

dialect dictionary. And I absolutely love that one. It's fantastic. You mentioned there Nivea, and it brought back suddenly to me one of my few recollections of being a child on the ski slopes. There was a huge Nivea ball wherever I was. I must have been only three or four, but I can picture this thing. It was a plastic ball, blue like the jar, but with the word Nivea written on it in white. And it was bigger than me, this ball. And I remember rolling with this ball in the snow. Isn't it funny how

things come back? I wonder do they still have Nivea balls on the slopes? I don't think they do. I can't picture them. But it brings the two together very nicely indeed. I'm glad that we didn't call it Candida or anything to do with yeast and that kind of thing because Candid and Candidate as you know go back to Candidus meaning also white in Latin. I'm glad that we stuck with the nivius. Did you ever like playing with snow when you were a girl? Oh, snowball fights. Throwing snowballs and making, do you ever make a snowman or snow person as the man would now be called? Oh, all the time.

All the time. And required viewing for us every Christmas time is the snowman, which is just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And now there's the snowman and the Snow Dog, isn't there a sequel to that? Just an absolutely beautiful story. So yes, oh no, I long for snow every single year. And unfortunately, down in Oxfordshire, we don't really get it very often. And we certainly don't in London either, do you? No, we get very, very rarely, very rarely. I mean, I love that. I love actually when snow begins to fall and it's falling lightly walking in the streets of london with the snow beginning to come down and it just sort of

pitter-pattering on your face i tell you what we do get is lots of graupel or graupel which is a type of hail that hits you so hard it actually stings like mad we have quite a lot of hail storms i wonder if they've kind of you know taken over taken over. In fact, I think grapple might be the soft kind. I'm talking about the really hard kind that just leaves a mark on your face. That is not fun at all. some sort of drug isn't cocaine i think yeah exactly yes you're you're wise to say i think this is not a world and actually truly it's not a world in which either of us have ever dabbled we've led pretty innocent lives haven't we we have i'm just looking up here to see when it first entered the dictionary to mean that um snow i we didn't even mention where snow comes from and that is a germanic word schnee in german is still the word for snow okay i'm going right down in cookery snow means a dish or confection that is used by whipping the white of eggs to a creamy consistency

here we go cocaine occasionally heroin or morphine just to kind of complete the journey 1914 comes from a glossary of criminal slang where it is defined as snow because of the extremely flocculent, i.e. flaky, nature of cocaine when pulverized. So there you go. There you do go. And there we go into our break. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? 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. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill. I had friends in organized crime. Sofia Vergara. Why do you want to be comfortable? Julie Bowen.

I used to be the crier. And Aubrey Anderson-Emmons. I was so down bad for the middle of Miranda when I was like eight. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. This is Something Rhymes with Purple, and the purple people are all over the world. People who listen to the podcast and kindly send in queries and comments, and they do that by communicating with us at this email address, purple at something else dot com.

That's something spelt without a G, but all one word. Purple at something else dot com. Jonathan Taylor has been in touch. He has been in touch. And Jonathan's query relates to the origin of the word fine, which can mean exquisite, as in something rhymes with purple is a very fine podcast. Adequate, don't worry, it's fine. A penalty, a speeding fine. Or thin, putting a fine edge on steel.

Also, I presume it relates to refine, as in oil or gold or sugar. Thank you for giving us a little levity during lockdown, says Jonathan, who's in County Wicklow in Ireland. Good, well. Good question. A fine question, if I may say so. And so what is the range of answers? Okay, so it can mean it's something's fine, it's all right, it can mean very good, it can mean a penalty, it can mean thin.

He's absolutely right. Are they linked? And the answer is yes, they are. So in around the mid-13th century, you will find fine being first recorded to mean free of impurities so unblemished refined really in the way that we would use it today and also of high quality because it is pure and that goes back to the french fin meaning perfected or of highest quality now that goes back to the latin finis finire, to finish, meaning a boundary, a limit, a border, or an end. And because it is the sort of end, you can see it as the kind of peak, if you like, the zenith, the acme, the height of something.

And in Latin, you will also find finis boni, meaning the highest good, or finis boni, the highest good. Like the culmination. Exactly. So fin means the end in French, doesn't itis boni, the highest good. Like the culmination. Exactly. So fin means the end in French, doesn't it? Le fin, the end. Exactly. How interesting. And that gives us fine as well.

That gives us fine for high quality and choice. Yes. So that also gives us expertly fashioned or skillfully made. So a fine knife, for example. And then because it's probably delicate because it's so pure, that also gives us the idea of a fine knife, for example, and then because it's probably delicate, because it's so pure, that also gives us the idea of a fine distinction. So something that's quite sort of subtle and nuanced, if you like. So the only one that we're left with now, or I should just say that this idea of skillful or delicate or intricate also gave us fine arts. So fine arts are the ones that

kind of appeal to the mind and the imagination so that's the idea of admiring something and approving it a fine print is the really sort of small type close set kind but the penalty one is the one that seems a bit odd why would you get a speeding fine what has that got to do with approval and admiration because it's the opposite really isn't it um in terms of the response that it elicits but that is again all to do with that Latin finis the end because once you pay the fine it is settled so it is a payment in settlement of something which brings it to an end brilliant can I say that was a fine tour de force thank you and now finis and we move on to a query from Nick Tanner, whose name I completely love, because both his name itself could lead to a whole program. Nick being, I imagine, an abbreviation for Nicholas.

We also think of Nick as in nicking something. The Nick is a phrase meaning the prison. And a Tanner, well, a Tanner is a person who tans leather, but also aanner used to be in the old days, I think, a slang word for sixpence. Oh, yeah, yeah. Am I right? Yes, you are right. A tanner was sixpence? You absolutely are right.

Do you know anything about nick and tanner, why we get nick and why we get tanner? A nick really was something that was made on a tally stick. So do you remember people would keep score by literally scoring a mark into a stick so that way they could tally onto this tally stick they could tally up their credits in a or what they owed in a tavern or what their score was in a particular game etc and a nick was the notch that they made so it was quite a narrow notch which is why you get the idea of a nick of time in the nick of time so in a sort of really. So in a sort of really small, precise moment, just in time. And it's where you get the idea of you nicked your finger with a knife, for example. And to nick something, to take it, I think is slightly different. And I'm not

sure that we know where that one comes from. I'm going to have to look this one up so bear with me and i will see if the dictionary helps us with this one um okay so it says census relating to stealing or taking to trick cheat or defraud but it doesn't really explain why maybe it came from gambling and the idea of perhaps dishonest gambling to then the idea of stealing something i'm not completely sure you can actually leave that one with me, but it's fascinating. We'll come back to that because we might do a whole episode on prisons because you're going,

you're sent down to the nick. Is that the police station? Yes, the police station. Prison is the clink, isn't it? And various other things. But yes, we certainly can. Tanner, by the way, goes back to an old English verb

that meant simply to tan and it was all about tanning leather tanning hides converting them into leather by by tanning them and the calling a sixpence a tanner in the old days when we had pre-decimal when we had pounds shillings pence and um okay the dictionary says origin uncertain so we're not sure about this, but it's recorded from 1811. Tanner meaning a sixpence. Very good. Yeah.

It's funny when it comes to money, actually, because there are so many slang terms for money, whether it's a monkey or a pony, et cetera, or a Commodore, we've talked about before. And quite often we have no idea why, where they came from. Tanner seems to be one of them. Well, if you have the answer, it's purple at something else. Anyway, Nick Tanner got in touch and already we've talked about his name. Let's now talk about his letter. Hello to you both. As a long-term listener, I often find myself pondering on the etymology of words while on my way to work or in the wee small hours. Then totally forget what I was thinking about when I am finally in a position to ask. However, one question has such with me. Tight.

to ask. However, one question has such with me. Tight. I understand that sleep tight refers to rope mattress supports and close people are tight. But why does my dad, who spent many years in the Navy, refer to drunk people as tight? Also, are miserly people tight merely because of the comparison to a duck's anatomy? Or there another reason yours in anticipation nick tight gosh okay so i would say that uh sleep tight although a lot of people think it does go back to the sort of ropes with which people would once tighten mattresses there is no proof of that so sleep tight is i think simply the idea that you are it of, I don't know, snug and cozy and that your sleep is sort of uninterrupted. I think it's just simply a figurative use. Lovely as that proposed etymology is. Tight, as in miserly, I think is a riff on being tight-fisted. In other words, your fist is

shut so tightly that you're not going to open it up with any money inside. Now, the drunken thing. I had a lovely time yesterday speaking with Jonathan Green, who I mention often, who is the master of Green's Dictionary of Slang, which is essentially the OED of slang, and it's free to use online, Green's Dictionary of Slang. And obviously, he talks about the use of tight to mean drunk. And I emailed him and I just said, why though? I can't quite get it. It must be obvious, but I'm missing it somehow. And he said, I don't know either. So we had quite a big discussion about why to be drunk is to be tight. Now I reckon it's because you are so full of alcohol that you're almost as like your skin is really tight. If you think of

tight as a tick, that's quite often the metaphor or the simile that's used when you are very drunk. And that's the reference to a tick that's full of blood. It's kind of gorged on blood. And so its body is very sort of tight, if you like. That's my reading of it. Jonathan also pointed out that screwed, also in his dictionary, means drunk or slightly tipsy now that at the same time meant beaten up so he was wondering if you were if you were so drunk you kind of fell over and you know hurt yourself in the process or were hurt by someone else I think maybe if you're screwed again it's the idea of being screwed tight and you were so full of alcohol

so soused if you like that everything is kind of screwed shut inside your body but to be honest we don't know is the answer we do know that tights first use for drunk dates back to 1820s and it's i think my tight ones were a set of pretty blades as ever met over some flowing pothouse can but honest answer is nick we're not completely sure but as i say my guess is that you've had a skinful if you like your skin is really tight i love the fact the fact that so often we have to say we don't know, we're not entirely sure. The origins of some words remain a mystery, which is why it is so fascinating for us. You have three special words every week, Susie Dent. What is your trio this week? Well, you know, I like the old markers of time, which have drifted away

somewhat. So, you know, I love overmorrow for the day after tomorrow, which is just beautiful. Now, there is a word meaning lasting an hour and a half. So if you were setting an hour and a half for your Zoom meeting, you can call it sesquihoral. So that's S-E-S-Q-U-I-H-O-R-A-L. And it means nothing more than lasting an hour and a half, which I quite like. Very neat. There is a good word for someone who is prone to speaking little. So who is quite taciturn. Probably when they do speak, they say something quite momentous.

But they are pauciliquent. P-A-U-C-I-L-O-Q-U-E-N-T. So that means a person of few words, or is the adjective to describe them, porcelaquent. And I just love the sound of this one. If someone has bought a kind of, a piece of clothing that's just a bit,

in terms of colour, a bit dull and indeterminate, there's a lovely word for it, which really brightens it up, dunduckety. Dunduckety. It means dull, indeterminate colour of a dull and indeterminate colour. Oh, it's dunduckety. It's good it means dull indeterminate color of adult and oh it's dunduckety it's good isn't it i like that wonderful can i ask you something honestly do you ever use

these words in day-to-day conversations i mean you're encouraging us to use them uh yes i well i might it's that's always the question that i'm asked where i just think okay because a lot of people will say these are just sesquipedalian words that just, you know, they're too long and people will think that you're just being pretentious. But I might, as you know, Giles, the more people use words, the more they will get out there. And I think when they're really useful, like I think Dundukadu is actually quite useful. And I think sesquihural could be quite useful too. And overmorrow, definitely. Then I will use them. But obviously I wouldn't just say it to someone I'd just met because they would think I'm a

complete idiot. Well, they wouldn't think that. Or show off. Or very clever. No, I think they'd think I was very pretentious. So I'm really looking forward to sitting next to Stephen Fry in Dictionary Corner on Countdown quite soon. Stephen Fry, I think most people will know across the world, really.

And I reckon I can use these words with him. Oh, yes, you certainly can. Yes. And he will enjoy using them back to you. Exactly. And I can use them with you as well, I think, without apology. But yeah, I have to say, not all my friends would appreciate them. You can say anything to me without apology.

I've got a poem for you this week. And of course, because we've been on the slopes, we've been talking about snow and winter sports. because we've been on the slopes. We've been talking about snow and winter sports. A famous poem about snow by Francis Thompson, 1859 to 1907. It's To a Snowflake. And I learned this poem when I was a boy at school. We used to do choral speech. A group of us, you know, 10, 12 children would learn a poem all together. And then the teacher would get us to do it like a choir. Some of the words we'd speak all together. Some of the words would be spoken by just one person. And with this to a snowflake, it worked brilliantly. And in fact, I'm encouraging people to start doing this again with my Poetry Together project, which we must

talk about another day. If people want to know more about it, you just go to poetrytogether.com and find out more. But anyway, To a Snowflake. When I first learned it, it was with a group of other children. I'm just going to do it on my own now, but it's a lovely poem dedicated to a snowflake. What heart could have thought you? Past our divisal, O filigree petal, Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what paradisal, Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, Wrought you,

From Argentine vapour? God was my shaper, Passing surmisel, He hammered, he wrought me, from curled silver vapour to lust of his mind. Thou couldst not have thought me, so purely, so palely, tinily, surely, mightily, fraily, insculpt and embossed with his hammer of wind and his graver of frost. That is beautiful. Hammer of wind. I love that.

I also love all the adverbs because I love a good adverb. That is really exquisite. There was a word there that I wanted to ask you about. Argentine vapour means silver, doesn't it? Argentine is silver. Passing surmisel to surmise something, I suppose, it means beyond looking at it. Yeah. There are words there.

In sculpt is a kind of means in sculpted, doesn't it? Like sculpted. Yes. To end means to sort of put into that form, if you like. But you mentioned silver and Argentine. I think Argentina, it comes from the Latin Argentum. And I think it's because the first voyages made by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors just saw either kind of silvery land on the horizon, or they collected lots of silver objects from the tribes along the river. So I think there is a story there too. Lovely. Some of the words that you love, I know you include in your many books. What's the most recent book that you've done? Word Perfect. Word Perfect. And who book that you've done? Word Perfect.

Word Perfect. And who publishes that? That's John Murray. I recommend Word Perfect. And if people want to read any of the poems that I like, they're not all, I mean, I choose poems from all over the place, but there's an anthology of poems that I've done, of poems that are fun to learn by heart,

called Dancing by the Light of the Moon. Yeah, it's beautiful. And that's now out as a Penguin paperback. Excellent. That's our lot for this week, isn't it? It certainly is. We love to hear from you, no matter what the subject,

if it's anything to do with words or people that Jarza has met, of course, then please do email us. It's purple at something else dot com. And please feel free to recommend us also to friends and family if you have enjoyed us, because we would love the Purple family

to grow this year. Yes, that's our ambition for 2022. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale and today, well, we've had a bit of help from Josh Gibbs but most of it has come from Gully. Gully and he's not just poor, silly, quaint, He just never says anything at all. That's because he's sweeping down the luge in his bobsleigh.

Ah, the old sallow pet.