Something Rhymes with Purple - Snakes, Ladders and a Live show!

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Show notes: Hello Purple People, Word Nerds and to all of you who joined us live last Thursday but are loyally listening again! In this, our 104th Episode, we are LIVE on our two year anniversary and what better way to celebrate than with all of you, watching and listening from all over the planet! Susie is cat-bombed, Gyles’ jumpers are extraordinary and a mystery man makes an appearance… You won’t be bored of the board game chat, Susie impresses with her poker face and a rather witty Purple Person on Twitter has an excellent suggestion for a game of Gyles Name-drop bingo! We also answer some excellent Purple Post: Natalie wants to know why you can log in, log in a book and if logs coming from trees have anything to do with it; Helen wonders whether a bread roll or bread cake is better; and they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but Craig’s guide dog Bruce may think that’s a terrible cliché, and just who are we calling old anyway? How well do you know Susie’s trio? Each week Susie gives us three magnificent words to bolster our vocabulary but how much attention are you paying? Here is one of those words and three possible definitions… The word is SEQUACIOUS… a) someone who squirrels things away for safe keeping b) someone who acts in a manner outside of the church’s teachings c) someone who follows a person or philosophy without independence of thought Congratulations to our live show trio trivia winners, Theresa, Ben and Petrina! Gyles unusual scrabble words for your next game: AA: Volcanic Lava Bambi: Born Again Middle-aged Biker Boo-bird: Someone who boos Our fabulous new range of merchandise is now live at https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple PLUS for this first week we are giving you 10% off all items if you use the code purple2021. So whether you’re buying a treat for yourself or a gift for a Purple loved one then now is the time to do it. 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. Something else. Hello and welcome to the live show. This is Something Rhymes with Purple.

I'm Giles Brandreth coming to you live from Southwest London. This is episode 104, so it's exactly our two year anniversary as we podcast weekly. And what better way than to celebrate with a live audience. You are there and we are here. As I say, I'm in London and here is Susie Dent. I'm trying to save my microphone from being attacked by, oh, she's now finally stepped down from the desk. So it was me and my rescue cat, Bo, for a little while. And she's going to take up residence behind me. We can see Bo in the background. You can.

This is evidence, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends across the globe, that this is truly happening live and in colour. Where are you, Susie? Just describe what room you're in, where you live, what's going on where you are. I'm in Oxford. I'm in England. I am in the same place that I have been recording throughout lockdown. So do you remember when we started this time last year and it was my oasis for such a long time? I was here and I've not really moved. And nor is the cat much, I have to say. How about you? Where are you? I'm in my basement bookroom bunker.

Yes, in the dungeon. I live in a Victorian house in southwest London. And I've done a lot of broadcasting from this house during the past year. Upstairs in the sitting room, I've been broadcasting Celebrity Gogglebox with my friend Maureen Lipman. She's been sitting at the far end of our socially distant sofa. And in the dining room, if I'm wanting to look grand, there's a lovely set of books in there. I sit in front of that when I'm appearing on something like

this morning or the one show. But this is where I feel coziest and safest. And this is where I come to chat to you. And I'll let you in on a little secret. This is, as you can see, it's a room full of books. And these aren't books that I read. These are books mostly that I've either written or edited. And you receive about 30 copies each time, don't you? Well, actually... And you either foist them upon friends or you...

I don't foist them upon friends. I flog them when I do live shows. You get 20 copies for free. I keep three here in the archive and the rest, I flog signing them. I keep them in the boot and sell them at the shows. But the joy of being down in the basement is that right across, just across the way here is the room in which I keep all my memorabilia. I may take the camera through later so you can see it. And I keep all my jumpers. And next door to that is the loo,

which is very helpful because the podcast, you're seeing this live, but normally when it goes out, they can't see us. So sometimes when Susie is giving one of her longer answers, a monologue, I'm able to slip out to take a comfort break because I'm older than Susie and I, and you may,

tonight, so if I have to do that tonight. Don't worry, I'll just keep talking. But they'll know I've gone. That's true. Because the chair will be missing. Just kind of slowly duck down and then kind of fall out. Slowly duck down and disappear.

Anyway, we're so excited to be here because we are where we have been the past year, but there are, and this is what is so thrilling for us, hundreds of you listening and watching us live. So hello to you, Susie, of course, and to Purple People looking into our rooms from all around the world. It's quite daunting. Susie, have you scurry funged in anticipation? Yes, I now use scurryfunging for Zoom backgrounds. So regular purple people will know that to scurryfunge,

this is a wonderful word from US dialect, is to madly dash about the house, frenetically tidying up, shoving stuff under sofas, into wardrobes, because visitors are about to arrive. So the purple people today are here. So yes, I have scurryfunged a bit. It looks fairly neat, I think, behind me. Although you can see where the cat's clawed the sofa. But still, it's a virtual space. I can't wait for theatres to reopen, as I'm sure you can't,

Giles. We were both supposed to be on stage at some point in the last 12 months. But when they do open, we are going to be taking purple to the road which is fantastic news so watch this space but not being fixed to the theatre does have one advantage and that means that we can be seen by people you know who are kind of together but apart if you like and there's a big fan of the show jordan grantham who is watching he's in vienna currently hi jordan and he says he hasn't seen his mom, Julia, since before the pandemic because she lives in Llandudno in Wales. But they're both avid listeners to the podcast. They're both here tonight, which is fantastic. And Jordan says that she would love a hello. So, for Julia in Llandudno, hello. And Jordan in Vienna. Have you heard,

Susie, of a great entertainer called Jack Buchanan? He was regarded by some as the English Fred Astaire. He was hugely debonair and elegant. He did a lot of shows with Jesse Matthews. And he was in a film called Good Night, Vienna. And when he was at the height of his fame, his Rolls Royce, he was driving through, I think it was Ilford. And he saw that Good Night, Vienna was on at the local cinema. So he stopped off and he got out of his Rolls Royce and he went up to the commissioner.

They used to be outside cinemas in those days. Smart commissioners, wedding uniform. And he said to this commissioner, said Jack Buchanan, this world famous British star. He said, I see you're showing Goodnight Vienna. Can I ask, how's it doing? And the commissioner said, well, Goodnight Vienna in Ilford is doing about as well as I imagine Goodnight Ilford would be doing in Vienna. Fantastic. So tonight we bring Vienna and Hlandudno together, which is exciting. And if you would like to shout out to anyone you know

who is watching, or if you have a question shout out to anyone you know who is watching, or if you have a question for Susie and me to answer towards the end of the show, or even during the show, then email us, please, at the usual address, purple at somethingelse.com, that's something without a G, or tweet us using the hashtag AskPurple. I'm ready to answer questions of any kind. This is just a little intimate chat. I mean, to be serious for a moment, for us, the real miracle of Something Rhymes With Purple for Susie and me has been discovering that we weren't alone in our enthusiasm for words and language. And over the last couple of years, getting these literally now more than

five million downloads and realising there were beautiful, brilliant people like all of you who've tuned in tonight, who actually care about language and have become our friends. And we have found that actually rather humbling as well as exciting, haven't we? Yeah, we really have. And I remember when we did our first live, live show in a theatre, we were actually genuinely very moved, weren't we, by the sort of number of people who were as passionate as we are. So thank you for that. And we're going to give actually our purple people a test, aren't we? To test them on how, I know I give a trio every week and I know some of them are very esoteric and obscure. I love them, but they are quite difficult to remember because you won't find them in sort of current vernacular, I suppose. So we're giving people a test today, I think. We certainly are. The idea is I'm going to give you

one of Susie's words. I mean, she's now given us, well, we've done 104 episodes. That's 312 different words you've given us. Well, one of them was sequacious. S-E-Q-U-A-C-I-O-U-S. Now, how well were you concentrating, purple people? So I'm going to give you three possible definitions. So you just have to say which one, if you can remember, this word means. You might know it already. It's been around for a long time.

So sequacious. Is it A, someone who squirrels things away for safekeeping? So, a bit of a hoarder. Is it someone who acts in a manner outside of the church's teachings? Or is it someone who follows a personal philosophy without any independence of thought? So, that is A, someone who squirrels things away for safekeeping b someone who acts in a manner outside of the church's teachings or c someone who follows a personal philosophy without any independence of thought that is sequacious and you can let us know a b or c by emailing again purple at something else dot com or tweet using the hashtag ask purple and

the winner chosen at random will will receive a Something Rhymes with Purple mug. Yay! Jazz hands with excitement. Jazz hands. And they can keep thinking on that because we're going to dive into the world of fun and games and specifically games because a lot of us have been playing board games

far more than usual. Card games, you name it. They have been pulled out of a dusty cupboard. In my case, I've rediscovered Boggle, Monopoly, Cluedo. But I have to say, Giles, if I'm ever asked, what's one thing that people don't know about you? I will often say this, and that is so many people say to me, oh, Susie, you would beat me hands down at Scrabble. And the honest answer is I wouldn't, Giles, because I'm rubbish at Scrabble. I don't really play it. It has a very different dictionary to countdown. So I feel like

if I'm going to immerse myself in the Scrabble dictionary, I'll actually get very confused. So I avoid Scrabble like the plague. And I remember Colin Murray thrashing me at Scrabble and putting the winning score on his fridge for two years. He was so proud of it. You see, my face has gone all glum and gloomy. I was a bit worried, yes. Because I knew you were coming up with that, because I know, because I've suggested we play Scrabble now and again.

I am a Scrabble enthusiast. Indeed, I'm even wearing my Scrabble jumper. Look at that. Look at that. Playing to win. Playing to win. Playing to win, it says in Scrabble tiles on my Scrabble jumper. I love Scrabble. I've loved it all my life.

People may not know it's an American game invented in the 1940s. It came to the United Kingdom in 1953. I was a little boy then. My parents got a Scrabble set, and through the 1950s, I played Scrabble. And then I went away to a boarding school, and I may have shared this with you before. The founder of the boarding school was a very old man who was by then nearly 100. He died aged 101. A man called John Badley, born 1863, died 1965, a contemporary and friend of Oscar Wilde. Indeed, he was the founder of this old man, Mr. Baddeley, of my school, and Oscar Wilde sent his elder son to

this school. Anyway, Mr. Baddeley lived in the school grounds, and I, on a Wednesday afternoon, was sent down to the school grounds on alternate Wednesdays to play Scrabble with him. On every other Wednesday, he played chess with a boy called Adam. I'll come on to chess in a moment. But he played Scrabble with me. So I learned, really, the skills of Scrabble with somebody who was a centenarian and who, in my view, cheated because he used all these words that were obsolete. They weren't in the dictionary any longer. He said they were current when I first learned them. And he'd learned them literally about 100 years before. So I became a devotee of Scrabble. And then when I

was in my early 20s, still at university, I was interested in prisons and did some prison visiting. And I saw some inmates of Bristol Prison playing Scrabble. And I thought, there'd just been a documentary on television about the Queen of the Royal Family, and they'd been seen playing Scrabble. I thought, isn't this extraordinary? Here's a game enjoyed by Her Majesty and those entertained at her pleasure. And I put an advertisement in the small ads column of the Times saying who would like to take part

in a national Scrabble competition? And hundreds of people replied, eventually thousands. And that's how 50 years ago, literally half a century ago, I founded the National Scrabble Championships. Excellent. That's all down to you. Indeed. I then became, eventually I became a director of Spears Games, who made Scrabble. Yay, this is my Spears Games jumper. Yay, I've got a jumper for every occasion.

Giles, do you get royalty from every single set of Scrabble sold? Wouldn't that be marvellous? But Spears Games, we, when I was the director of Spears Games, we sold Scrabble, and indeed all of Spears Games, in the 1990s to Mattel, one of the two big international

toy companies. My tickle, I have to tell you, was pretty tiny. But more than that, it's a pleasure. I love the game. And in the early days of Countdown, literally before you were born, when it began in the early 1980s with Richard Whiteley and Carol Vauderperson and people like myself and Ted Moulton, Kenneth Williams in Dictionary Dell, the early contestants, I found them because they were people who had taken part in the Scrabble Championships. That's how it all began. But you're right, the dictionary then

became different. But let's not talk about Scrabble. Let's talk about board games. Why, for a start, are they called board games? Is it because they bore people like you? No, it's different spelling, obviously. Sorry, this cat is currently attacking my feet. different spelling, obviously, sorry, this cat is currently attacking my feet. If I start to laugh, that's why. No, board, because a board quite simply was a table. So a cup board was a table for cups. And of course, we changed the pronunciation because we're fickle like that, and it became a cupboard. A sideboard would decide table, it still is really. And above the board, used in card games, gambling games, etc, means your hands are above the table. So still is really. And above the board used in card games, gambling games, etc. means your hands are above the table. So there's no sort of, you know, shenanigans going on underneath.

So board games, because they are simply played on a table. That's the origin of that. But something like a chess board, when chess was first played, must be one of the oldest games, was it played on a separate board or was it played on a table with markings on it? That's a really good question. Chess is fascinating linguistically because it's given us so many different terms. So chess itself came into English in around the 12th century, but it's got an ancient heritage that came to us from old French, but it's got an ancient heritage that came to us from old french a shek or its plural form was a chess but it probably goes all the way back to um sanskrit so really ancient language and even before then it may have become an in it begun in india in china around the 6th century a.d so we're

talking about an ancient game but the reason i love it is it's given english so many different things so take the word cheque. Cheque, again, came from that old French échec, and that goes back to the Persian shah, meaning a king. Which cheque is this? This is every single sense of cheque that you can possibly imagine. Including a cheque you write? Including the bank cheque.

So cheque was first used by chess players to announce that the opponent's king had been placed under attack. So checkmate goes back to the Persian meaning the king is dead. But check then, because of this idea of the king being under attack, it gradually broadened it in meaning to mean to stop or to restrain or to control something so you have a checkpoint today for example and then to examine the accuracy of in case you needed to control it and so you check your work over and that kind of thing and then a squared pattern is checked because of the appearance of a chessboard and we talked before in one of our episodes about how the chancellor of the exchequer

looks back to the sort of counters or the money counters essentially for kings and queens who would use a checkered tablecloth to move the kind of counters around that represented money so all of that really from that very ancient route that gave us chess so chess has borne so many different lovely meanings of Czech and various other things. So yeah, what an ancestry. Is there anything interesting to say about the pieces? I know very little about chess. I can't play chess. It's quite difficult for me. I find it difficult, but I have grandchildren who play it well. And I ought to be able to play it because I'm a great enthusiast for Lewis Carroll,

one of the people who is one of my favorite people and a great wordsmith, as you know, Lewis Carroll, real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. This is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Through the Looking Glass, which is based around a game of chess. And if you know how to play chess, you enjoy the book much more. But the various characters in the chess game, have they given anything to the language? Why is a pawn called a pawn, for example? Well, a pawn goes back to the idea, this sense of pawn,

to the idea of a foot soldier. So it's related to peon, P-E-O-N. And it's also that ultimately goes back to pez, meaning foot, as it gave us, pedestrian, and things like podiocide, which is putting your foot in it, albeit jokingly. Can you hear the cat in the corner here? Sorry. She's choosing the noisiest little bits to sit on this time. It's an envelope.

I only scurry-funged behind me. Having told people I'm adjacent to the loo, they probably can hear my wife flushing it out there. Darling, we are doing a live podcast. There are real people listening. Yes, you can show them their face later. OK, sorry. Carry on. But should we move on to other games from chess, like backgammon?

Do you ever play backgammon? I do play backgammon. And again, I don't think I'm very skilful because I play it rather slowly. And again, I don't think I'm very skillful because I play it rather slowly. I've been to the Middle East where they play it out of doors while, you know, smoking hookahs like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. And they sit there and they move the things. So, yes, what were you saying about backgammon? No, it's just the backgammon.

But I had to look this up. I did not know this. Backgammon. Lawrence, our producer, said this, but why gammon? And I was thinking that's a very good question. I have no idea. And it's simply a variation on game. So nothing to do with ham. And the back, apparently, because pieces sometimes are forced to go back.

So that is backgammon. But the reason I love it linguistically with my lexicographer's hat on is that it has also left this linguistic legacy, and that is leaving someone in the lurch. Because lurch actually goes back to an old version of a game that was pretty much like backgammon, and it was played in 16th century France. And it was played in 16th century France and it was called Lourche, L-O-U-R-C-H-E. And to Lourche or to Lurch was to leave your adversary trailing behind. I think having scored 61 before they scored 31. And so leaving someone in the Lurch meant to leave them so far behind that you left them in difficult circumstances. So yeah, so that goes back to an old game. We're not completely sure what it looked like, but we think it resembled backgammon.

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Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President.

And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on crunchyroll or on the crunchyroll youtube channel gosh because i know so little about this i'm putting on my poker face do you play poker i've attempted to play it to be honest my games are more like snap happy families i do play Wist and I enjoy that.

And Bridge. I went through a phase of playing quite a lot of Bridge with my wife and some friends. We used to play Bridge quite seriously. And Mahjong as well. Basically, we need to have another episode on games because we'll never get through them all. Well, let's do poker since I've mentioned poker. Okay, so poker again, a bit like chess, has been really productive in terms of the dictionary. In fact, more so, because you've got so many phrases

like poker face, you mentioned, upping the ante, a busted flush, an ace in the hole, an ace up one's sleeve, cashing in your chips. You've got the buck stops here, which is a really nice one. And the buck in question is, we think, the handle of a buckhorn knife that was placed in front of the player at a poker table, whose turn it was to deal. Is the name poker anything to do with the

metal instrument that one uses to poke the fire? No. So that's different. That's a very good question. No, that is a different sense of poker. That is a poker as in poking a fire. Yeah, exactly. And where does that poker come from? I think that's Germanic. So I think that came from our Germanic ancestors and then settled into Old English. And pig in a poke is a different thing?

Pig in a poke, the poke there is from the French poche, meaning a pocket. So it was a pig in a, not really a pocket, but like a bag. What does the expression mean, bagging a pig in a poke? Does it mean like you... You don't know what you're going to get. You don't know what you're going to get, yeah. So you will see something sort of wriggling inside this sack, and it might be a piglet,

or it might be a cat that sadly didn't really mean very much in those days. It was fairly worthless, hence you let the cat out of the bag before you concluded the sale if it jumped out. So that's the pig in the poke. Yeah, the poke there is a pocket. So poker, as in the card game, where does that word come from and why? We're not completely sure, but it might go back to German again this time. They've got something, pochspiel, which means a bragging game. So it was all about being sort of boastful if you like and

pochen as well could mean to kind of deceive which of course you do if you've got a poker face that's that's what it's all about and poker cans again I'm not a player but I understand they've got really interesting nicknames and perhaps some of our audience here tonight will know much more about poker hands but you've got the dead man's hand i've had to write this down it refers to two pairs of aces and eights and the dead man apparently was wild bill wild bill hickok who was shot during a poker game in 1876 and then there are some more contemporary nicknames with that which have a slightly more british feel i suppose harry potter uh would take me ages to work this one out this apparently refers to a hand containing a jack, a J, and a king, a K, after J.K. Rowling.

And Anna Kournikova is an ace and a king, I think. So there are various little nicknames like that, which are quite fun. So I think I need to get into poker. It sounds like it could be something else to, you know, keep us going. Maybe we should play when we next get together it's so long since you and i have actually met and it'd be quite strange actually being in person any other card things to tell us about riffling cards shuffling cards decks shuffling cards riffling cards yeah riffling's got a nice little um story to it as well i know i wish i could do that i'm

rubbish at shuffling but um riffling is actually related to riffraff it goes back to the french riffle which was to plunder and to sort of spoil if you like and then to carry off so it had sort of fairly grim beginnings because it could be plundering not just of booty but of plundering the bodies of the dead on the battlefield and taking away whatever they had with them and it came the there a french phrase which meant to spoil and to plunder and then to carry away and that came into english in the form of and it meant first of all the kind of scraps or the sort of little bits that were kind of obtained in plunder and then it shifted went downhill even further to mean the common people people of no special socialunder and then it shifted went downhill even further to mean the

common people people of no special social standing and then of course because we are inherently probably very classist it meant the kind of the dregs of society and the reason this is linked to riffling in the card shuffling sense is because the sort of the idea is the winner kind of originally would snatch up or carry off the winnings. And it only later kind of evolved to mean actually shuffling the cards. And then a raffle was another form of kind of gambling. And that is related to riffraff as well. So it's had a really circuitous journey.

And riffling through a dictionary or rifling through a dictionary, that's related to it as well, just kind of quickly flicking through. So they're all part of this kind of very strange family. Speaking of riffraff, rifling, what about dice games? Yes, dice games. We're more familiar with dice games, or at least with games that involve dice, I guess, because almost every board game involves a dice. A dice or a die. Which is correct. Like my dad. Well, die was the standard term for a single die.

And dice was plural. So how is die spelled then? D-I-E. And that is, that little cube is actually a die. One of those is a die. Yes, a single die and plural dice. And some people are absolute sticklers for that, whereas other people will just say, well, it's a dice, isn't it? And generally in standard English, you will find dictionary reflecting the usage

that dice is now pretty standard for either one or two. And they both go back to the Latin dare, meaning to give or that that is given. In other words, you roll the dice and you're given a score. Excuse me, why is mice the plural of mouse and dice isn't the singular of douse? It's very confusing. We'll have to do another episode about plurals.

It usually goes back to either the fact that we just never stick to our own rules. In fact, we don't have any rules. Or quite often, as in the case of moose, for example, or octopus, which is from Greek. So it's never octopi. It should be octopodes if you want the correct plural. We, you know, we hoovered them up from other languages

and we'd sometimes copied the plurals of other languages and sometimes we came up with our own and sometimes we were just lazy and stuck an S on. So why is a die called a die? So it should be casting the die as opposed to casting the dice. Well, it was the die is cast, wasn't it? Of course.

And is that, in fact, is to nothing to do with... That's the translation of the Caesar, Julius Caesar, whatever he said when he was crossing the Rubicon. So yes, the Latin datum, something given, is to nothing to do with... That's the translation of the Caesar, Julius Caesar, whatever he said when he was crossing the Rubicon. So, yes, the Latin datum, something given, something played. And that then gave us the old French, dé, D-E, and then we stuck an I in it. So, you know, you have to remember all the different languages that these kind of basic roots then extended through.

So that's die, and the plural is dice. Anything to tell us about dice games? Well, hazard's a nice one. The word hazard, what I love is all the kind of hidden stories of games behind everyday work. So hazard, you know, you'll probably see on sort of hazmat, we'll see hazard, danger ahead, etc. But hazard initially was a gambling game played with two dice and the chances again the the rules to these things always seem really arbitrary i'm sure they made sense to the people playing them at the time but again how many different languages this went through arabic spanish french but goes right back to persian and the turkish zar meaning a dice so hazard initially in the 16th century when it came into English

meant a chance or a risk if you like and of course being the pessimistic bunch that we are we've talked about this we've talked about the orphaned negatives and being gruntled and coothed and all of that stuff being lost in time and we only ever remember the negatives hazard meant a chance for an opportunity but ended up meaning a risk or a loss very good look we've let's let because we've got so many people wanting to communicate with us uh let's just talk about one more game one of my grandchildren said you're going to talk aren't you about snakes and ladders snakes and ladders i love snakes and ladders i love snakes and ladders couple of things back to square one probably goes back to snakes and ladders.

Oh, I thought it was to do with some American sport. There's that lovely story of how football matches were somehow sort of envisaged as being in kind of squares. So the pitch was divided into eight numbered squares. The Radio Times published this diagram of it and everyone could play along but actually the dates just don't fit and also the way we use back to square one doesn't quite fit either much more plausible is the fact that you fall down a snake and you go to square one but what's fascinating about snakes and ladders is that this too is ancient and it seems to have started many centuries ago in india where it was an instruction, it was a form of

moral education. So the ladders were all about kindness and faith and humility, and they would kind of take you up towards salvation, which was square 100. Whereas the snakes were the kind of, you know, as always, personification of evil, and you would slide down them, and that would be your downfall. So it was very much a kind of part of moral education and as i say 100 was the kind of the place where you wanted to end up because that was salvation and in america they call it chutes and ladders and a chute there must just be like a like a sort of little tube that you might get in a soft play center um but we we use snakes instead which is i think much more vivid. So that's

Snakes and Ladders. Now, the good news is that we have people from all over the world communicating with us tonight on this live edition of Something Rhymes with Purple. Amy Turner has been in touch, wanting a shout out to her mum. Though we're at different computers in different houses, it feels like we're on a night out together. Isn't that nice? Well, look, Amy and Mum, cheers. Here's to you. Well done. Also, Karen Coulter in London watching together but apart with Sayuri and Mariella in Winnipeg in Canada. Wow. So we all knew that Giles' jumper game would be played, apparently, tonight. Did you say happy 50th birthday to Graham Fish?

Oh, no, I didn't. He's watching tonight as part of his birthday present for his friends at school. Congratulations. Oh, happy birthday, Graham. And he's 50 and he's still at school. Well, no wonder. This is a very good educational podcast. Tune in every week. Oh, and look at this.

You'll love this, Giles. Can we please have a Something Rhymes with Purple jumper added to the merch line so we can all wear them? Now, I know what Giles is going to say at this point, because if there's ever an opportunity for a plug, Giles Brandreth is there. Giles, take it away. You can, in fact. If you go to Giles and George jumpers somewhere online, you can get one of my jumpers. The one that used to be worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, saying, I'm a luxury few can afford. And I do have an online shop, but we are going to have a whole new range of exciting online merchandise very soon. And maybe we should talk about a jumper

for that. That would be fun. That would be fun. We've got some correspondents as well, haven't we? Oh, we've got Alison Pope. Oh, Alison. What a a wonderful name alison pope do you think she's do you think she was related are people called pope because they were once upon a time papists do you think that's the origin of that name quite possibly i'm not an i'm not an anonymous i need to i need to get more into it i love you're not a what did you say i'm not sort of very good at onomastics we we had no mass say something you've got to say some of these words quite slowly i know it's because i'm doubting myself onomastics onomastics it sounded've got to say some of these words quite slowly, Susie. I know. It's because I'm doubting myself. Onomastics.

Onomastic. Because it sounded a bit rude to some of us. It did sound a bit like onanism. It's true. Alison Pope, watching with her 10-year-old son, Jack, tonight, alongside his nanny, who introduced the podcast in four months ago, and he loves it. Well, that's brilliant news, Jack. And thank you for sharing new words with nanny and your mum. And that is lovely news.

And we will be very careful to say the right things from now on. But we've got some correspondents, haven't we, Giles? Oh, yes. Look, Natalie Emden, who is from London and tuned in. Natalie, good that you're there, Natalie. Hi, both.

I was super excited about joining tonight and eagerly awaited my login details. But why do we log in? Oh, good question. Why do we log in or out of something? And why do we have log books Oh, good question. Why do we log in or out of something? And why do we have log books? I know paper comes from trees, but surely that's not the root. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Sorry about the terrible puns. We love a pun. I'm a punny person. Natalie Emden from

Lockdown London Town. What's the answer? Logging in, logging out. Logs, where do they come from? I love this. I think Jack will like this one as well. So this actually is all to do with a real log, believe it or not. So if you look up log in the dictionary or a log book, should we say, or a captain's log if you're in Star Trek, you will see. It says a book in which the particulars of a ship's voyage are entered daily from the log board. So the first record that we have of a log book is roughly 1689. So nothing to do with computers in those days and everything to do with the speed of a sailing ship that was entered into a log book.

But why the log? Because, as I say, a real log or a piece of heavy wood was involved so it was attached to a knotted rope you would throw it overboard and so by throwing it over you could gauge your speed by seeing how many knots went by for a set period of time this is why we measure nautical speed in knots by the way by the actual knots that are in that were in the rope or in the log line so the log line was allowed to run out for a fixed period of the time and then the way by the actual knots that are in that were in the rope or in the log line so the log line was allowed to run out for a fixed period of the time and then the speed of the ship was the length of the log line that passed over the stern during that time that was all entered in the log book just as computer systems keep a log of our access details to the system which is why we log

in but it is all to do with a piece of wood. Can I chip in with my log story? Very good pun, yes. I'd like to, because I always feel I have to drop a name or two. I don't know how I've got into the habit of doing this, but you drop words, I drop names. And I know nothing really about the Navy. But about 20 years ago, I wrote a biography of the Duke of Edinburgh. I want to explain to Jack that the Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of the Queen, Elizabeth II. He's Prince Philip.

He is Prince Philip, and he is an old gentleman. He is 99 years of age and will be 100 on the 10th of June. He's a remarkable person. During the Second World War, he was in the Navy, the British Navy. He was mentioned in dispatches. And I wrote a biography of him, as I say, a couple of decades ago. And he very kindly lent me his log books. And he explained to me what you've just been telling me about the origin of the log book and logging in the book, and also about the knots and all this nautical miles, and I learned all this from him. I then sent him the draft of my book, and he called me in,

and he said, this book you've written, I said, he said, this book, you say here I served in HMS Ramelies, and I said, well, you did, sir, I got it from the logbook. He said, I didn't serve on HMS Ramelies. I said, look, sir, excuse me. These are your logbooks. I'm returning them to you now. You served on HMS Ramelies. He said, if you learnt nothing, you don't serve on a ship, you serve in a ship. You don't live on your house. You live in your house. So you serve in a ship. That's really interesting. And that's why, for example, people talk now about, there's a famous line in Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest, about a diary,

where one of the characters says she always takes her diary with her on the journey because one must have something sensational to read in the train. And people often use the phrase on the train. I was on the train. But in fact, if you stop to think about it, you're not on the train, you're in the train. Yeah people often use the phrase on the train. I was on the train. But in fact, if you stop to think about it, you're not on the train, you're in the train. Yeah, it's all very confusing. It's another example of how idiosyncratic we are.

Just to say, Andrew Martin has said, if I'd known in advance, I'd have got my jazz celebrity name drop bingo board out. Oh, what a funny, that's terribly funny. For every name drop we should go, bing. Yeah. Yes. Love it. Love it. Prince Philip had to get in here somewhere. He did. funny that's terribly funny for every name drop we should go yeah yes love it love it prince philip

had to get in here somewhere we've got another letter from or email rather in from andy and joe in doncaster and separately from helen ward in leicester because they both asked the same question more or less so andy says i'm from derby where we say bread rolls or cobs my partner joanne is from sheffield just a few miles up north in sheffield where they say bread rolls or cobs. My partner Joanne is from Sheffield, just a few miles up north in Sheffield, where they say bread cakes. Obviously she is wrong, he says, but why the difference? We're not far apart. And Helen had the same problem when she moved from the southeast to Leicester about 10 years ago. Asking for a roll would earn you very strange looks in the bakers and they're wondering what's going on. What do you do you call a ham bappy butty type thing what would you call it i'd call it a sandwich

or ham i'd call it a ham but if it was a round thing i'd call it around i'd call it a roll i might call it a bap bacon bap bacon baps always we don't eat meat but still i popped up this morning on a television program called This Morning. And there I saw Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. And they were advertising, promoting, talking about a supersized, deep-fried chip butty. A deep-fried chip butty. I'm not sure about the deep-fried bit. Yes, a thousand calories in the chip.

Isn't that amazing? Anyway, yeah, isn't that amazing? Anyway, we do not encourage that. No. So what is, what is correct? What, what are these different bread terms? It's not really about correctness as ever, is it? It's all about usage. And dialect is just such a wonderful subject. And it tends to collect around certain themes. And we've probably mentioned this once or twice before it collects around the kind of earthy pithy direct kind of gossipy bits of life so you won't find any highfalutin stuff in local dialect it's all about being hungry being cold being gossipy being flat-footed having blisters having sweaty armpits you name it and bread rolls obviously the staple of life is another one where bread in particular just attracts so many different words and local

vocab has been found to change over a distance of as little as 25 miles so that's how quickly you might find definitely accent and possibly vocabulary changing as well which is fascinating so none of these are wrong at all. They're just, you know, there are so many. I've written some down here. Moggy cake, scuffler, balm cake, bat, Tommy, cob, rowey, stotty, bin lid in Liverpool, barra breath, there's just so many. And just to say cob, I love this one as well because it's got so many distinct meanings. So you can have a cob meaning a roll or a loaf of bread it can be a male swan a short-legged horse the central part of an ear of corn as well as the

cob and they what they all have in common is the underlying idea of being stout or rounded or sturdy and they probably go back to a very old english word meaning the top or the head of something so it's something as i say that's very round and that's why it's attached to a very old English word, meaning the top or the head of something. So it's something, as I say, that's very round. And that's why it's attached to a role. But I would just say to Andy, Joanne is definitely not wrong. And Joanne, I think you can give him a bop on the cop for that or the cop. I'm putting up a hand here. My role story coming up, combined with a bit of name dropping.

OK. And my role story coming up, combined with a bit of name dropping. Okay. 30 years ago, I was doing a corporate event for the music industry. And I was on with Billy Connolly, the great Billy Connolly. The people were getting pretty pixelated. And they didn't really want to hear us. But we were there trying to be, I was, I think,

supposed to be the master of ceremonies. He was the great cabaret and they were throwing rolls. And I thought, well, they'll throw a roll at me. And they did. I was doing my best, but they kept throwing the rolls to try and knock me off. But I thought I've got to introduce Billy Connolly because that's what they've come for. So I said, and here he is, the great Billy Connolly. And on he came. And they didn't just throw the rolls at Billy Connolly. They began dunking them into the wine. They kept throwing them. And on he went. They wouldn't stop. And so as well as dunking the rolls into the wine they began to put coins 50p pieces into the middle of the rolls that's appalling and one of them hit billy connolly right in the middle of his head yeah and he walked off and i heard him in the wings arguing with the booker and billy connolly was saying and i won't be using bad language because we have young people watching, but Billy Connolly was using some pretty fruity language to say he was going home.

And because he hadn't come here to have bread rolls thrown with coins in them, the booker said, look, no play, no pay. And Billy Connolly, understandably, said, up yours and fuck it off. But I'd heard the words no play, no pay. up yours and back it off. But I'd heard the words, no play, no pay. So I stood there and carried on regardless with the rolls and the wine and the coins coming towards me until they ran out of bread. So I got the last word. Wow. Because, you know, they used to throw peanuts in medieval times. So you've got the peanut gallery because people would kind of throw peanuts down from afar and those two could kind of cause quite a bit of damage we've got one one question

i've just seen from laura laverick asking why does flog mean to sell so we can slip this one into the into the q a and it's a really good question or i think off the top of my head, I think it goes back to either a Germanic word, possibly a Viking word, Old Norse, but I think Germanic, flogion, which meant pretty much the same thing, or it can be related to, possibly be related to flagellare in Latin, which meant to flagellate, i.e. to whip, and of course to flog someone is to whip, and when you're selling it, I guess you are, maybe the idea is, the horrible idea of flogging a dead horse. I don't know. But that's my guess.

And it's a very good question. I do know where the word comes from, but I'm not quite sure of the sense journey between whipping and selling. Another call out, please. Michael and Ella, shout out to Sonia Haddad, who is Michael's mum, watching from Northern Ireland. Oh, I love Northern Ireland I left my heart at Queen's University Belfast but that's another story

we haven't got time for it's been months since we've seen her and we miss her very much oh that's nice well I'll tell you who I miss and he sent in a question tonight as well

and this is Craig Roberts who's here with Bruce the guide dog Craig one of our earliest listeners ever Giles and we miss him from the countdown studio because we're not allowed an audience obviously at the moment but Bruce I give treats which I shouldn't do I don't think but hugs to Bruce every time I see him he's the most gorgeous dog so Bruce if you can hear me I miss you as well but Craig has got in touch to say what is the origin of the word cliche and Craig I think we

touched on this we did an episode called gutter snipes about journalism a while ago but even super fans clearly need reminders it goes back to we think a kind of a word that imitates the sound of mold striking metal because it was used in printer's jargon for a stereotype block. So it was apparently originally supposedly representing the sound of a matrix that was falling kind of downward upon a surface of molten metal on the point of cooling. And because it was a print or design that could be reproduced endlessly because it was a stereotype block. And of course, we gave a stereotype as well. It then was used for a kind of trite phrase or any kind of worn out expression.

That's a cliche, but it's all to do with printing. And Jack, if you just put your hand over your ears just for a minute, I can also say that printing, if you remember, Giles, also gave us the dog's bollocks or at least typographers did because it was their slang for the colon dash which they thought looked like that particular part of the dog's anatomy and then it flew below the radar for a little while and then reappeared as part of the whole bees knees kippers knickers elephants adenoids cats whiskers type formula for something that's the acme of excellence hopefully we are the dogs bees we want to be michaela past certainly is michaela says to combat the lockdown blues adele and i that's michaela are watching your show in our separate houses and messaging each other throughout

it feels almost like we are watching it together which I wish so badly that we could. Do you know, people do wish. People, people need people. But do you know what? You've got, we're swapping roles tonight, aren't we? This, we wanted to do a little bit of excitement. And this is as close as we get. We don't do cross-dressing, but we do do role reversal.

And we are going to do a bit of role reversal now because we're going to give the answer to well that challenge because you normally do a trio and you challenged us with the word sequacious at the beginning and gave three definitions okay and what were the what were the definitions what was the answer i think the definitions were sequacious so does it mean someone who squirrels something away does it mean somebody who is outside the kind of religious accepted order? Or is it somebody who slavishly follows another person without really thinking for themselves? And the winner, well, the right answer, first of all, is someone who does the latter. They follow a personal philosophy without really thinking at all of themselves

in a very slavish way. So that was C. And the winner of Something Rhymes with Purple Mug is... Two. We have two winners. We are going to run right and give two mugs. The winners are Petrina Blair, it's a lovely name, Petrina Blair,

and Teresa Huntley, who is watching with her son, Ben. Oh, well done. Congratulations. I wonder if we could squeeze an extra mug in for Ben. OK, so look, I'm going to do three unusual words for you. OK, and what I'm doing is some Scrabble words, unusual Scrabble words, because you said you're not familiar with the Scrabble dictionary. Not the little ones, because they wouldn't score on Countdown. Ah.

Well, they would, but, you know, not really. So a word like double A, which is a very useful Scrabble word, you wouldn't know. No. Give me a hardvark, though, and I'd be happy. Yeah. Double A is allowed in Scrabble. It's a volcanic lava, which is rather good, don't you think? Bambi is allowed in Scrabble. B-A-M-B-I. Okay.

What do you think it is, a Bambi? Anything to do with bimbo? It's an acronym. Oh, you're allowed acronyms in Scrabble. You are. That's what's extraordinary. Scrabble now includes all sorts of words that when we began the Scrabble Championships half a century ago wouldn't have been allowed because we began just using the Oxford English Dictionary.

But then we now have our own Scrabble Dictionary and we include all sorts of words. So what does Bambi mean? Born again, middle-aged biker. Oh, well, I thought it was mammal, like middle-aged man in Lycra. Okay, got you. That's the same sort of thing, but Bambi's the word. And I'll just give you one more. Okay.

A boo bird. What is a boo bird? Anything to do with the booby, the booby bird that was, I think, very slow-witted and easy to catch, which is why we have the booby prize. And that's interesting. Yes, but I don't know anything to do with that. The booby bird is quite dweebish. Do you know dweebish as a word?

That's a Scrabble word. It means quite stupid. Dweebish. Do you know dweebish as a word? That's a Scrabble word. It means quite stupid. Dweebish is allowed. A boo bird is in the Scrabble dictionary as someone who boos. But tonight, we are just cheering because the people are so brilliant and we're so grateful for them for taking part. Do you have a poem for me? I do. I have a really short poem, but it's always meant a lot to me. I think a lot of the purple people listening will know it. It's from Emily Dickinson. And it's very simple. It is, a word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

See, I get goosebumps even when I say it. I just think it's beautiful. Emily Dickinson, the most remarkable writer. She was in the 19th century. She was American, not at all known in her life. I think not many of her poems were published during her lifetime. But now she's reckoned one of the great poets of the world. Yeah. And that touches us.

And I have to say, we are genuinely touched, moved actually even to tears by the lovely people who tune in to listen to our podcast, Something Rhymes with Purple. You, from our point of view, have been the making of making these weekly excursions into the world of words. So thank you very much for being with us. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thank you for being with us, you know, many of you along all the way. And as always, something rhymes with purple. Is there something else? Oh, hold on.

You're right to say it's a something else production. We could not do this without all the people at something else. You know, you've got buttons. I'm not going to press my button because the only button I've got here says leave meeting. But have you got a button that could make our producer Lawrence appear so that people can see who actually is behind the show? Press a button, let's see if Lawrence appears. Oh, no.

No, but look who we've got. Who's this? Finally, the person that people wanted on their T-shirts. I would just say to all the purple people, Giles, when he saw Gully, this is Gully, when he saw Gully earlier tonight, he said, Gully, are you wearing a mask? And Gully said, no. He does look as if he is.

Open your mouth, Gully, so people can see it isn't a mask. When he shows his teeth, you can see. But otherwise, his beard is so thick. Look at that. Poor Gully. Now he's a real man. We love Gully. Yeah, 90% hair.

This is Gully. The best poker face in the business. And Gully, Yeah, 90% hair. This is Gully. The best poker face in the business. And Gully, we couldn't have done it without you. And quite often we say you're absent, but we know that you are there. So thank you to Lawrence and thank you to Gully and thank you to Ella and Harriet and Chris and Steve and to you,

Giles, as well, from me. And thank you to everyone. And to you, Susie Dent, you are the best. And look, I've got a jumper to go out on. It's got bobbles on it. And more than bobbles, it actually says where we've reached. you are the best. And look, I've got a jumper to go out on. It's got bobbles on it. And more than bobbles, it actually says where we've reached. There are the bobbles. And this tells us where we are. The end.