Something Rhymes with Purple - Smuggins

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

This week we’re taking a little downtime and exploring the language behind some well-known hobbies and pastimes. Do you know your ‘aggie' from your ‘slag'? Your ‘taw' from your ‘duck'? Don’t worry, we haven’t lost our marbles but rather we’ll be playing with them. Plus we’ll be getting our binoculars out, having a little twitch, and attempting to finally 'grill' that ‘blocker'. And, if that wasn’t exhausting enough, we’re hitting the green to find out the meanings of ‘flub', ‘whiff', and ‘shank' on the golf course, hopefully avoiding an 'Arthur Scargill' and a 'fried egg' along the way… It’s tiring work taking it easy! As always Susie will be wowing us with her useful trio of words for the week, and we discover Gyles’ impressive history in the world of board games… and why his family might be responsible for the wild parakeets in West London… Susie’s trio: Shivviness - the feeling of discomfort when wearing new underwear Scuddling - to run with affected haste Razzle - to cook something until the outside of it burns, while the inside remains raw A Somethin’ Else production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello, I'm Giles Brandreth, and I'm here to welcome you to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, a podcast where we celebrate the joys, the challenges, the adventure that is the English language. And we meet up every week. I say we, it's me and my friend... Susie Dent. Susie Dent. And we've come again, Susie, to your home in Oxford. Yes, thank you for that.

We're here in your sitting room. I'm very pleased. I've had a good week. Have you had a good week? Yeah, I've had an okay week. I've been writing my book furiously because the deadline is upon me. Did I tell you what the first meaning of deadline was? I think I did.

Tell me again. It was a line around a prison beyond which any prisoner trying to escape would be shot. Wow. Dead. Yeah, so it's pretty gruesome. Is that how your publishers treat you? That's how it feels at the moment. That's what I've been doing.

Have you managed to avoid the coronavirus? So far. Because coming on the train here to Oxford, I have to tell you, there were people on the train behind their masks, looking anxious. I unfortunately sneezed, which was not a good thing to do under the circumstances. What is the origin of the word coronavirus? Because it is, I hadn't heard the word before Christmas, it's now gone global. Yes. Well, the thing about the coronavirus is we've had them for, I mean, it's just a whole family of viruses. The common cold is a coronavirus. So this is just a new subtype. So that probably should be quite reassuring. But you texted this question to me while on the train,

so I did a bit of prep. It apparently is called the coronavirus because it recalls the solar corona. So it's a characteristic appearance of these viruses. So if you look under an electron microscope, they look like they have a corona around them. And this one, this latest one is called COVID-19. It's just been named. So the co is corona, the vi is virus, and the d means disease so this is what these this describes the symptoms as it produces and the 19 stands for 2019 that's when it began yeah oh well that's good now i want to talk to you today about hobbies okay one of my hobbies definitely is going to the theatre yeah i go to the theatre certainly once a week, sometimes more than once a week. Very impressive. Since I last saw you, I went to see three short plays directed by Trevor Nunn by the famous Irish playwright who wrote mostly in French,

being, I've given you enough clues. Samuel Beckett. Samuel Beckett. And I saw some of his plays that were very much on my Beckett list because one of them was Crap's Last Tape. Yeah. Start with a K, right? And double P.

Absolutely. Beckett had a sort of group of actors that he worked with a great deal. And he wrote Crap's Last Tape with one particular actor in mind called Patrick McGee, wonderful Irish actor who I was lucky enough to work with when I was in my 20s. He was an extraordinary phenomenon. Was he in The Avengers? Have I got completely the wrong person? That, yes.

That's Patrick McNee. Oh, thank you. But the same sort of, their family's heralded from the Emerald Isle. Pat McGee was a very different gather all to thing. He was a formidable. No bowler hat and umbrella. He was no bowler hat, no umbrella, no.

He was quite rough and formidable. Steed, that's who he was, isn't he? That's right. Anyway, Pat McGee first appeared in Craps Last Tape, and he was originally known as the McGee monologue. It became Craps Last Tape because there's this character called Crap in it who has got a tape recorder, and he's listening to a tape of himself in the past.

And it's quite dark and moving and funny at times. And there was another Irish actor who took the play to New York and told me that he was thrilled by the reviews that he got in New York, one of which he treasured because of the headline. The headline read, At last, the crap we've all been waiting for. Excellent. What are your hobbies?

Well, I don't know, it's hard because I know you have loads of them and I can't possibly compete with all your wonderful, quite different ones, shall we say. So I love cycling. So cycling is my go-to if I just want to get away, switch my phone off, just be at one with my head. Although I say that, I just suspend all my kind of worries

when I'm out on my bike and there's some beautiful cycle routes around me. So yeah, I'd say that's my top hobby. Good. It's important to have passions in life that take you away from your work. Something that sustains you, keeps you going, that just grips you. Going to the theatre is one of mine. Reading books is one of mine. Yeah, mine too. I love books. I'm currently reading, believe it or not, the diaries of Harold Macmillan. And what's fascinating is that even when he was Prime Minister, he was able to read at least a book a week. And earlier days, when he was the Minister in Charge of Housing, Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was reading 100 books a year, two a week, and big books, big Victorian history books, novels by Trollope.

He really found it a wonderful way of clearing his head, escaping the world. So reading is good. But I'm also a great collector. I know. So this is what I was referring to, really, because you collect teddy bears famously. And later, I want to play a little quiz with you about what we call people who collect things. OK. The names of people who collect different things.

Yeah, there are hundreds of those. But I know you've done some specialist work. When I was a child, I enjoyed jigsaws, I enjoyed hopscotch, and I enjoyed marbles. Oh, yeah, I used to love marbles. And there's a whole language to the world of people who play with marbles, isn't there? There is. They're called mibsters. Oh. And there's a whole language to the world of people who play with marbles, isn't there? There is. They're called Mibsters. Oh. And there is a marbles championship.

I remember talking to Chris Packham, the naturalist, and he went to the world championships. I think he might have been doing some journalism at the time. And he recalls being staggered because you would expect this to be quite a gentle community. But he was staggered by the blasting of horns around the car park. So the winners drove round and round the car park, blasting their horns because they'd won the championship. So it's very competitive. And they have a tribal lexicon, which is almost second to none.

It's really interesting. I mean, it's the same with conquerors, in fact. There's a whole lot of vocabulary attached to whether your conqueror's won one game, in which case it's a one-er, and then it becomes a two-er, and then a three-er, etc. There's the king. There's the kind of illegal pickling of a chess, of a conqueror. I can't quite remember what that's called, but in order to harden it. So every child's game, every children's game develops its own kind of language, which is absolutely fascinating. Give me some of the marbles lingo uh so first of all there's not one game there's there's many marbles

games apparently there's cherry pit boss out nine holes poison i think the most commonly used one today is called the ringer and they've all got their own rules as for different types of marbles there's the aggie that's made from agate. I had one of those. The alley, that's made from alabaster. Oh, I didn't have one of those. The tour, now the tour, T-A-W, is the large one that's used to knock out the smaller ones. And the duck is a smaller marble knocked by the tour. There's the tombola, which is also called a chini, I think, in Cheshire, which is a really large marble. There's a stonker, for another large

one, which you can understand. A deagle, which is one that's pinched from someone else's collection. In the 1800s, and you will occasionally hear this today, apparently, at the end of a game, if you shout smuggins, then you win the whole lot. Whoever shouts it first wins the whole lot. And there's also- That's a lot.

Just shouting smuggins, you suddenly win. That's at the end of the game. So I don't know if that's when it's a draw and then you have to shout that out. There's Fuluk, which is to shoot a marble by jerking the hand forward, which also reminds me of flirting, because the very first meaning of flirt was to flick your finger, rather sort of dismissively. And then it kind of moved to women who would kind of flirt with their fans.

So there's a whole fan language, whereas one quick flutter meant one thing and then another double flutter meant another thing. So it was incredibly complicated fan etiquette. Yes, apparently people used to indicate with their fans whether they were ready to have a little liaison or not. Yes, yes. That they would sit in the dress circle

and the gentleman in the stalls would wave up. And if you put your fan over the edge of the dress circle, spread out in a certain way, it indicated what you were up for. Oh, interesting. Okay. I don't know how I learnt that. Something my father told me.

I wouldn't possibly question that. And of course, marbles can be really beautiful as well. I used to collect them just for their appearance because they were just gorgeous with those lovely swirls. But there were quality marbles, weren't there? Yes. Cheap ones. Yes, so the ones that you can collect.

And the cheap ones were known, as I recall, as slags. Oh, okay. I think they were the ones that were simply, you know, mass-produced onyx marbles. Yeah, maybe a reference to the the mines oh as in a slag heap yeah exactly it's just kind of refuse yeah so you get the onion skin which is a kind of marble with all those beautiful layers uh layered colors and then you get oh you're right the slag is an onyx marble i'm just looking at my book here there's a peary are you featuring this in your book which book is this yeah this is dense modern tribes

so this is looking at various groups of people and the different vocabularies that they have. So it's fascinating. And, you know, it's the same with, did you ever used to play jacks? I used to love jacks. Oh, yes. I was quite good at jacks.

I think I loved them even more. You took a handful and threw them in the air and you had to pick up some more. Yes, you pick up one and the ball at the same time, then two, then three, and you progressed to ten. And you bounced the ball and picked up the jacks. Only one bounce. It and picked up the jacks. Only one bounce.

It's amazing how the word jack has been applied to so many different generic objects and people. Steeplejack, lumberjack, et cetera. So generic name for a person or a profession and then for different objects around the place as well. And then we have jackal, don't we, as well? Jackal? As in day off? No. As in fuck all, isn't it? Jackal? Oh, I didn't know

that expression. Maybe I made that up. It just sounds like it should be there. I was familiar with the expression jack off, but that's a different thing altogether. It certainly is. Help jack off his horse. So confusing. It depends where the punctuation goes. Oh, true. And you've written a whole book about that. That's why I know that one. Yes. Okay. So that's the world of marbles. Yes. That's the world of marbles. One of my hobbies is birdwatching. This week I visited yet again the wetlands centre near where I live in West London. Okay.

In Barnes. And it had been a heavy day. I felt it had been a heavy day. Silly old me. Anyway, I went there at about two o'clock in the afternoon when they feed the otters. And I went and walked up by where they feed the otters and the otters were being fed and there was a crane watching them. And all the troubles of the world disappeared. I just thought, and there was this little otter collecting grass to build his nest or her nest. And I thought, well, you know, life is going on.

So I meet there serious people who I know are known as twitchers. I don't know enough to be called a twitcher. Why are they called twitchers? And what is the language of the birdwatcher? Well, so twitcher apparently is one who travels around in search of rare birds, really, to add to their, what they call their life list. So they're the diehard. You know, these are the people who spend hours soaked in their cagoules, just waiting, primed for a glimpse of a shorelark. With huge binoculars and great cameras that the rest of us no longer have. Now we've got iPhones. Yes.

They're the people, yes. No, that's absolutely right. And the adrenaline is in the chase for them. And it's not a gentle pursuit, apparently. So there's real competition there. Apparently, European twitchers look on the British equivalents as the most bitterly competitive of the lot. That's what I've heard. And the birders are simply enthusiasts who seek out birds to kind of learn from them and gain as much intelligence as they can so they may not have a tick list as such or if they do it's more a kind of private affair rather than a competitive one i think you're a i think i'm a gentle birder too yes and they're the novices who are called dudes and they inadvertently announce themselves to the world because they've got very noisy maps and they've got fluorescent green anoraks basically they don't quite realise that this is all going to scare

the birds away. Yeah, famously, they say they don't know their white arse from their egret. And then you've got the togs and the greenies. Togs are the bird photographers and the greenies buy all the really expensive paraphernalia, but actually don't really know what they're doing. So that's, I mean, literally, that's kind of lexicon all to itself and the types of bird that you might get. And when you're doing your birding, are there words that describe what happens, what you're doing? Yes, lots. There's to dip out, that's to miss a bird that you've specifically gone to see.

And I'm guessing that the twitchers are the people who really feel the pain of dipping out. Gripped off is even worse because if you're gripped off, it's a bit like being mugged off, but it's when other birders or other... Moving on from jacked off to gripped off. It's where other people see the bird, but you don't. So that's like the worst possible outcome because everyone else can crow, excuse the pun, and you can't. Now there's a crippler, which it's not particularly a nice word, but it's a really rare and spectacular bird. So that's the kind of pinnacle of any twitch's career. And they are also referred to as megas.

There's the blocker. That's the bird that is always elusive. And if you unblock the blocker, you finally get to see the bird that you've just been aspiring to see all your life. Oh my goodness. And so it goes on. Stringy. i told you this is competitive amongst twitchers that's used of a fellow twitch's tick list when it's considered to be slightly suspect in other words have you really seen all these birds and there's a tarts tick as well so you have a tarts tick on your list that's for a really common sighting um that actually you pick up much later than everyone else. That's the

tart stick. And so it goes on. I mean, it's extraordinary. I used to have in the days when I collected jumpers. Yes. I collect a lot of things. How many of them do you still have, by the way? Oh, probably a thousand. Where do you get? I know your house is big. Well, when you come to my house. Yes. Because we're going to do one of the podcasts from there, I will take you into the basement. There's a basement. And we may even boldly tweet some photographs and you can then see where all this is stored. My wife has told me that the moment I die, before she phones The Undertaker, she will be calling the skip people and all of it's going to be thrown away. But I have got down there some jumpers with various birds on them.

And one of my favourites, I've got a range of parrots. I've got a lovely one with a cockatoo. Beautiful plumage. And I do remember wearing it once on TVAM in the 1980s. And Anne Diamond saying, well, it's a lovely parrot. And Nick Owen correcting her and saying, no, it's a cockatoo. Come on, Anne, you must have seen a cockatoo in your time. Oh, I'm just pointing here

so there's a feather here that uh we brought back from a walk the other day so this is beautiful it's a really beautiful fluorescent green different shades of green a bit of red in there i think it might be a parakeet what do you think it could be a parakeet they became prevalent in the 1950s right and then many escaped is that escaped. My father always used to claim that he had started it all because he used to have, my parents used to have a parrot called Mitu, which I think is Indian for parrot. And my father really couldn't stand the bird. It was my mother really wanted it. And the bird was allowed out of its cage because my mother didn't believe in having caged creatures. And it just flew around up there flat and making a mess everywhere and eating the bindings of all the books.

So one night, my father left the window deliberately open and the parakeet flew out. And he claimed that all the parakeets you now see in London are descendants. And this exactly could well be one of me too's descendants. It could be. It's a DNA check. Can I just end with one slightly risque word in the twitchers world? And that's a bird that has an indefinable set of characteristics. So an experienced twitcher or bird will just know by looking at this bird. And it's called its jizz.

I know, very strange. So there we are. Back to checking off. This is the theme. Maybe that's what we have to call this episodes yes um so if asked yeah how did you know that was a whatever they will say we knew it by their jeers and there's a terrible joke amongst birders that i was told when i was writing my books it involved two ladies in a new york hide trying in vain to identify sandpipers from afar and they ask an experienced birder for help who probably says oh that's what they are they identify sandpipers from afar. And they ask an experienced birder for help who probably says, oh, that's what they are.

They're sandpipers. And they're amazed. And when asked how he's so sure, he says that he checked out the bird's jizz. And they apparently say, well, young man, that sure must be a powerful telescope. That's a terrible, terrible joke. But on that terrible joke, should we take a break?

Yes. And then we can talk about golf when we come back. Okay, let's do that. 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.

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Welcome back to this episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, where Giles and I are talking about hobbies and the various lexicons that are attached to these hobbies, because every single one has this sometimes vast vocabulary all to itself. And if you probe that vocabulary just a little bit, it's absolutely fascinating. It tells you so much about the people indulging in this hobby. My father's passion in life was golf. My dad's too. Described by Mark Twain as a good walk

spoiled. Yes. And golf, of course, as we know, is the word flog backwards. It's not my game, but a lot of people adore it. And there is, tell us something about the language of golf. Well, first of all the origins of the word seem to be fairly ancient so this acronym that's been created for it which is gentlemen only ladies forbidden and of course that reflects the history because for far too long you know many clubs were for men only and women were not allowed to not only not step on the golf course but not step in to the clubhouse itself and that's tense i know but they're still you know debates have been raging on even in this century about this well on the etymological level that's completely

wrong but as i say you know women have been fighting for a level playing field or level playing green level golf course level green for a long time. So we think it goes back to an old Norse word, which means it probably came over with the Vikings, and their word, kolf, which was a stick or a club. So that makes perfect sense. And the first record is quite interesting in the Oxford English Dictionary, is from an edict that was issued by James II of Scotland, and he placed an immediate ban on golf and football, incidentally,

because he thought it was far too much of a distraction from military pursuits like archery and that kind of thing, which is what people should have been concentrating on. And there's so much history tied up with it. So it's said that Mary, Queen of Scots, was said to have a group of cadets, as they were, which gave us caddy ultimately, lift up her skirts whenever she prepared to tee off.

And huge controversy when she was accused of heartlessness, you'll know this probably, when she was seen playing a game of golf just hours after the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. I think that might be apocryphal, but certainly people at the time were fairly outraged by it. I imagine it was a fairly sensationalist gossip headline. So it's been a known sport for 400 to 500 years?

Many, many years, yes. And unlikely people like it. I was amazed to discover not long ago that Oscar Wilde, of all people, played golf. Wow. You don't picture him playing golf? No. Well, I can sort of imagine the sort of wonderful clothes that he might have worn. Yes, golfing outfit.

And of course, he was tall and he was strong. And striking. And are there interesting turns of phrase for the various things you do in golf? Well, yes, of course he was tall and he was strong. And striking. And are there interesting terms of phrase for the various things you do in golf? Well, yes, of course. And I'm so sorry to kind of stick to a theme on this one, but milking the grip. That's loosening and tightening your hand grip before taking a swing. This is so awful. Welcome to the jack-off episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. I have to say, golf on the radio is the most compelling sport to listen to. I listen to Five Live, BBC Radio Five Live, and the golfing team are just amazing.

And I genuinely get incredibly gripped by it. So, so many bad puns coming this way. Well, a flub is a poor shot. A whiff is a complete miss of the ball. A rainmaker, I think that you'll find that in various sports but that's a shot with a really high trajectory really while we're in the vulgar ones what about a shank a shank uh that's a miss hit where you don't hit the ball with the club face so you kind of it kind of comes off the wrong bit of the club you can you can tell i'm

not an experienced golfer this would be totally descriptive of any shot that i made the wrong bit of the club. You can tell I'm not an experienced golfer. This would be totally descriptive of any shot that I made. The wrong postcode, a shot that's well struck but travels in the wrong direction. There's a fried egg. That's a ball buried in a bunker, so you can only see the top half, which is quite descriptive. Oh, that's nice. I've hit a fried egg, you say.

Yes. Why do people shout, four? Four, ahead. Look ahead. Oh, four? Four, ahead, look ahead. Oh, look before you. Yeah, look before you. A simple one. Yeah. And then you have to tread very carefully with some of the slang terms that I discovered amongst golfers.

I say these slightly with my hands over my face. And Adolf Hitler describes two shots in the bunker. It's a bit grim, isn't it, that one? It's a bit grim. And Arthur Scargill, good strike, bad result. Oh, a period joke there. That's back to the wrong postcode. There is, what else have we got?

Well, again, these are all quite contentious. Oh, Glenn Miller, that's quite a nice one. Made it over the water. Oh, it's a bit sad as well, though. It is a bit sad. Because didn't he come down, poor man, in the aeroplane? Oh, okay. He didn't quite make it over the water.

Sorry, that's not a really nice one. I thought it might have been a song that he wrote. Forget that. Totally forget that. These are all very grim. But it's because you are young, you don't remember Glenn Miller. No, so tell me about Glenn Miller.

People like me belong to the Glenn Miller generation. But he is a musician, right? He was a musician. He was a band leader. I thought he wrote a song or made it over the water. There's a famous film that tells the story of his life with, I think, James Stewart playing Glenn Miller.

But he comes to a tragic end because the aeroplane which he's flying, I think, doesn't make it over the water. Oh, I'm so sorry. Or maybe it does make it over the water and then crash lands into a mountain. I apologise in that case. Okay. That's really not nice. Is there a word, a collective word for people who play golf?

Golfers. Yes. That's probably it. I know there are collective words for people who are collectors. Yeah. Because I am a collector of... Okay, you are. Teddy bears.

Of teddy bears. Collector of jumpers is known as a sweat. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. A sweat of jumper collectors. A collector of teddy bears. What's the word for that? I know.

Collector of teddy bears is an arctophile, isn't it? Yeah. And that's then related to the Arctic, above which the Great Bear constellation can be seen at certain times of the year. Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Yeah, so that's all linked. Okay, I'll do a little quiz.

And if you're listening to this, whatever you're listening, see if you get the answer before Susie does, okay? These are all people who collect things. I'm a sucrologist. Okay, I can guess that one. That's sugar packets. I collect those little sachets of sugar. I feel so sorry for you.

I began as a child doing this on the continent. I remember, yeah. We would go and they would have ones with flowers on, different flowers. They'd have clowns on, different faces of clowns. Oh, they sound quite pretty. Sugar, pure, white and deadly. Don't touch it. But I do collect the sachets.

And I don't feel guilty because I'm taking them out of temptation's way from other people. Are they in the basement? No. But when you come to the basement, I'll tell you. Well, I will throw this in very quickly now, because then we must get on with the quiz. And I know we don't want too many of my old stories. But I was a friend of a lovely actor called Richard Goulden, who famously played the part of Mole in Wind in the Willows, Toad of Toad Hall on stage for many years. He lived in Lower Sloane Street. And he was an old gentleman and I went to have lunch with him.

And he gave some lovely pea soup at lunch. And I said, oh, this is lovely soup. And he ran out. He was in his 80s. He ran out of there. Came running back, waving the Swiss Knorr packet of pea soup that he made out of. It was powdered soup. He said, I'm glad you like it.

And then after lunch, I promise you this is true, he took me into the kitchen and opened a cupboard where he had kept every empty Swiss Knorr packet from before the Second World War. Okay. Let me give you another one now. Deltiologist. I have no idea.

This is quite a well-known one. Deltiologist is a collector of postcards oh wow as you see i was trying to decode that yeah delti okay a philuminist that's matchbooks yeah yeah or matchboxes yeah matchbooks or matchboxes yeah uh this is quite a difficult one uh panna pictographists panna p-a-n-n-a p-I-C-T-A-G-R-A-F-I P-H-I-S-T-S I didn't know all these I had to look them up It's illustrated something

It is It's comic books How did you get that? Well Picta and then Graph is from the Greek to write So it's people who collect

like my children used to collect all the Marvel comics Yeah and then we gave them away and now apparently they're enormously valuable My dad gave away all our old annuals.

I was gutted. Yes. A vexillophile is somebody who's keen on... Flags. Oh, how did you know that? You just did. You're so clever.

Arenophiles. Okay, well, the word arena comes from sand because the arenas in the Roman amphitheatre were covered with sand to soak up

the gladiator's blood. Correct. So, anything to do with that to soak up the gladiator's blood. Correct. So anything to do with that? An arenophile is a sand enthusiast. Wow. And I've got a small collection of sand. Don't you know it's hard to believe? It began in 1955 when, as a little boy, I went to the Isle of Wight.

Yes. And in the Isle of Wight, they have lots of different types of sand. Yes. And you can collect them in little bottles little test tubes with the cork i do remember that so i've been collecting them wherever i go i've got sand from all over the world wow which is fantastic little test tubes you can see my i've got sand from cambodia sand from camber sands just a couple of more philatelists is well known. Yeah, stamps.

Yes. Numismatist, well known. Coins, yeah. Very good. Helixophile. Helix. Twisting something? Yeah, twisting. You're right.

You're clever. But what? What do you do when you twist? Ah, corkscrews. A corkscrew. I gave her a little visual clue then. I was pulling a cork out of the bottle. Just one more and then we'll stop.

Thalerists. F-A-L-E-R-I-S-T-S. No idea. I need to brush up on my classics. I can tell. I don't know. Somebody who collects medals. Ah, okay. So there were some of them you didn't know. Other things. Other epithets are available. Give me words that I don't know. Give me. Okay. Can I just say something? My big discovery of the day, I had no idea about this, is that you were world monopoly champion. You haven't mentioned that as your hobby. I mean, that's incredible. No, because one of my hobbies always has been playing games. I love playing games. I love card games. I love board games. As you know, I founded the National Scrabble Championship back in 1971. Still going. I'm now the president of the Association of British Scrabble Players.

But I took part in the World Monopoly Championships when I was the European Monopoly Champion. And another episode, keep this up your sleeve, ask me about it again, and I can tell you what happened when I got to New York to to take part in the world monopoly championships okay to be discussed i have a lovely email here to both of us from brenda matthews the subject is bless you she's been enjoying our podcast regarding taxis and thought we might be interested to know of a silk hanky printed with black ink engraved from plate engraved between 1832 and 1834 with Hackney, Coates and Cabriolet Fairs, Regulations and Acts of Parliament on it. She said it's owned by Museum of London, but not part of Brenda's own huge collection of hankies. And she's wondering, is there a name

for a collector of hankies? Well, if there is, Brenda, I don't know it. I think I have mentioned before on the podcast that my favourite word for a hanky is a, if there is, Brenda, I don't know it. I think I have mentioned before on the podcast that my favourite word for a hankie is a Victorian one, and that's a snottinger. Oh, lovely. They say, have you got your snottinger and your bumbashoot, which was their term for an umbrella? So we could call you a snottingologist. Snottingologist? That's too hard.

Or what about a sniffer, a snifferologist? Snifferologist, that's quite good. Because you use your hanky. Yeah, I love that. Anyway, Brenda, I think we're going to put this out to the purple people because they might well come back with something better than Giles or I can do. They will undoubtedly. But thank you for your email.

Purple people, if you want to communicate with us, it's purple at somethingelse.com. And another great email that's come in from, oh, I love this name, Darcy Overland. Oh, what a great name. Thank you, Darcy, for emailing in. And you have been listening to the Most Current Podcast, where we had the question about Canadian words. And you said that your province in Canada, Saskatchewan, is home to several words that sometimes cause confusion for other English speakers. And each region and province has their own dialect as well. So ones that you mentioned here, Darcy, and thank you for these.

Gotch and gitch. I love that. That's underwear. If you've got your gotch and gitch on. A bunny hug. A hooded sweatshirt. That's quite nice. Kitty corner.

We have that as well. That means diagonally. And we have kitty corner or catty corner as well. So that's quite an old English dialect word that might have travelled over. Why? Any idea why? The cater is, I think, related to the French cat. So four corners.

So kind of cater cornered means it's just kind of a diagonal. I think that's where it comes from. And gibbled, broken. That's not always polite, apparently, if you say something is gibbled. Darcy comes from Saskatoon, which is a type of bush. So thank you, Darcy. That's a fantastic email. It was a great email.

We've had communication, too, about my mistake the other day when we were doing the one about the crime and punishment. And I talked about how I'd been on a Blues and Twos mission with the police, how they'd driven me through London. I said it was something to do with the lights flashing. Oh, yes. Anyway, blues and twos, it's the blue lights are flashing. Yeah. And it's the two tone. Of the old sirens. Of the old sirens. So blues and twos, well, actually the new sirens, any old siren. So it's the blue lights flashing and two tones. And I was corrected by both Paul Winstanley and Andy Charlton. So do feel free to keep us on our toes to correct us when we get it wrong. Susie knows everything.

I know nothing. That's why we work so well together. That's entirely not true. If you want to throw in your two cents worth, it's purple at somethingelse.com. Time now for Susie's trio. What have you got? Well, Darcy just told us about gotch and gitch for underwear. It reminded me of a fantastic old word for the discomfort of wearing new underwear, and it's shivviness. And shiv was an old word for either a kind of loose bit of thread or more likely a kind of splinter. So if it kind of feels a little bit coarse down there, you've got a shivviness in your underwear.

Time to go commando. Well, yes. And that is something that we never have been able to find out the origin of. Oh, really? Yeah, because commandos, frankly, didn't ever go without underwear, as far as I know. But again, purple... What about the Scotch ones under their kilts? Well... far as I know. But again, purple. What about the Scotch ones under their kilts? Well, we can explore that. If you know the genuine origin of Go Commando for not wearing any underwear, please don't send us pictures, but do send us an email. What are the other words?

You know, the sort of person that you work with who kind of ambles along and then when people are watching and they're about to reach their destination, i.e. the office, for example, e.g. the office, they will suddenly hurry up as if they've been dashing there and just, you know, through no fault of their own, they're just running a bit late. They are scuttling. It's to run with affected haste when you're not really rushing. You're just doing it for, you know, you're being a bit of an eye servant, which is a word that I've had before. Somebody who only works hard under the gaze of their master. Yes. Finally, to razzle. I'm guilty of doing this quite a lot.

To razzle is to cook something until the outside burns and then the inside is still raw. Who knew there was a word for that in English dialect? I razzle things all the time, cakes particularly. This is the joy of the English dialect. I razzle things all the time, cakes particularly. This is the joy of the English language. And one of the fathers of the English language, and one day we're promising this, we're going to do a podcast from his London home, the great Dr Samuel Johnson. Yes. Born in Litchfield, but came to London and created really the first popular English dictionary. He was a man of courage and my quotation of the week comes from Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others. Oh, well that's so true. I love that. I've not actually heard that from him before. That's it. That's why you're with me.

You hear the unexpected here. You certainly do. Don't forget, please, to give us a nice review. Recommend us to a friend. We want the family of purple people to grow, grow, grow. And who do we thank for this? We give credit to people we've never known. But anyway, say this bit because we do always.

OK, Something Wrongs with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett, who we do know is sitting here with us today, with additional production from Steve Ackerman and Gully. Actually, we know them both. They're great. Smuggins!