Something Rhymes with Purple - Spatchcock

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Recorded live at the Fortune Theatre on Sunday 20th November 2022.  Tis’ that peculiar time between Christmas and New Year when we might find ourselves overindulging and spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Therefore, Susie and Gyles are here to make you feel that little bit more informed about the methods of cooking that have come to create that mince pie you might be eating whilst you get your Purple fix this week.  We’ll discover what stews, steamed baths and typhoid have in common, why getting the wrong end of the stick is mucky business and why receiving a roasting when you fail to complete your roster of duties is more appropriate than you think. Susie and Gyles challenge the audience to teach them how to poach an egg and they discover -  thanks to audience member and Purple Person, Professor Hansen - why the loser gets a wooden spoon.    We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail] If you’ve ever thought ‘There must be a word for that?’, then now is your chance to ask Susie and Gyles! To celebrate the 200th Episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, Susie and Gyles are challenging the Purple People to submit the linguistic gaps they want filling. Please email [e-mail] with the subject line, ‘Is there a word for?’ Please submit entries by the 31st December. We currently have 20% off at the SRwP official merchandise store, just head to: https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Ferntickle: a freckle (15th century: A freckle on the skin, resembling the seed of fern’) Bodkin: a small dagger. Mentioned in Chaucer’s, ‘The Reeve’s Tale’ Kickshaw: an elaborate but disappointing meal, from the French ‘quelque chose’. Gyles reads ‘Don't Worry if Your Job Is Small’ by Anonymous Don't worry if your job is small, And your rewards are few. Remember that the mighty oak, Was once a nut like you. A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Something else. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. As if you couldn't tell, this is one of our live shows. And we're thrilled to be back at the Fortune Theatre in London, in Covent Garden, one of the most beautiful, intimate theatres in the land. It's where Woman in Black is showing on weeknights, but on a Sunday afternoon, we have a two o'clock matinee. We've got a residency here up until April. No, February. I just live for the future. up until April. No, February. I just live for the future. I was torn between April Fool's Day and Valentine's Day. And always for me, Valentine's Day seems like April Fool's Day. That's why I got confused. Anyway, this is where we come once a month and meet purple people and

people who are new to purple and have a fun time. And we do a different topic every time we do one of these live shows. And we have questions and answers instead of our correspondence. So that's the nature of the beast. And we have lovely people who come every time. So thank you so much to those of you who've come again. This is the voice of Susie Dent, a leading lexicographer. And she's been my friend since we first met on the wonderful Word Game Countdown. And we've been friends ever since. And we just meet up once a week to create a podcast all about words and language and Susie usually chooses the theme and what's the theme

you've chosen for our conversation today? I have chosen a topic that is very close to your heart, I know it's one of your passions, cooking and you know a lot about this don't you Giles? People who are here in the audience can see I'm doing a sort of faking a yawn. I'm not good, not a good cook. And I'm less interested in food as the years go by. But you tweet regularly about what you're about to eat. Because I'm amused by the look of it. OK.

If it's an amazing plate of something, I do that terrible thing. I photograph it and send it out on Instagram or Twitter. My signature dish is a fish finger sandwich, which I love. I'm very keen to bake beans on toast, though I've recently discovered the toast may not be necessary because I'm on a low-carb diet. So I just have the baked beans. And I put them out of the tin in the microwave.

But who needs them hot? So I like baked beans that are cold. And I've now discovered, yeah, yes. Oh, no, I couldn't do that. Open the tin and now there's a little ring pull. Open the ring pull and then use the fork and eat them straight from the tin. That's my idea of cooking. Right. Okay, well, we're going to get on really well today. No, but I'm fascinated by the world of cooking. I'm amazed by the way cookery has become almost a sort of cult thing.

I'm hoping you've met many proper chefs in your time. There will be name dropping during the course of this show because both my wife and I, when we were very lucky, in 1969, we were students together at Oxford University and we were befriended by the most famous cook in the land in those days, a lovely lady called Fanny Craddock. Was she at university with you? No, she was not. She was even older than us. We were 19 or 20. She was then, I suppose,

in her 50s or even 60s. And if you don't know Fanny Craddock, difficult to describe. She was then, I suppose, in her 50s or even 60s. And if you don't know Fanny Craddock, difficult to describe. She was a television chef. She was robust. Very blunt. Well, I really describe her as a curious cross between Mary Berry and Jeremy Clarkson. But she was a great populariser of good food. She and her husband, Johnny, he was an expert on wine. They did a column in the Daily Telegraph for many years under the name Beauvivre, and then she began appearing on television. Famously, Johnny is the person who at the end of one program said, and I do hope your doughnuts turn out like fannies.

Turn out like fannies. He wore a monocle. I'll tell you more stories about them later. They were a lovely couple. And in some ways, they've had a bit of a bad press. But they popularised good cooking. She was quite sharp-tongued, wasn't she? She was.

But it was done to be amusing. OK. Anyway, so we knew Fanny Craddock, but we knew Keith Floyd. We know Raymond Blanc, but I don't know much about the language of cooking. Okay. Actually, shall we start? I mean, with the word cook and cooking, what's the origin of those words? Okay, well, it comes from an old English word, cook, which was the early form of cook, essentially.

Forgive me, cook is the earlier form of cook. I'm not surprised. Well, it's spelt C-O-C. And that goes back... As in cook, cook. Cook. That goes back to the Latin cocus, which also goes concoct.

Because you think about concocting something, you're kind of cooking it together. And cook and cooking. So how do nouns also become verbs? Because you are a cook who cooks. Where did that come along? Well, usually quite soon after one or the other appears. But we tend to think of verbing, you know, changing our nouns into verbs as being quite modern and quite American. Or like meddling. I loathe that. I don't know what you know. Meddling at an Olympics. At an Olympics. Oh, look who's meddling. Yes,

we've talked about verbing before, haven't we? Solutioning was the one that I couldn't stand. Let's solution a problem. But more often than not, and you'll be familiar with this refrain from me, if you look it up in the dictionary as a verb that we lay at the feet of supersizing America. We had it in British English centuries ago. And Shakespeare loved to verb. I mean, he played around with parts of speech all the time. So it's just one of the major processes of evolution, really, that we change part of speech and so it moves on in that way.

So cook originally comes from the Latin and cooking comes from cook. Cook. Cook. Cook. Cook. Okay. Let's talk about different kinds of cooking when we are cooking. I mean, I like a roast. I still like, I'm now a veggie. Me too, but all the trimmings, I'm very happy with that. I love the trimmings. Yes. I get very sad actually if I ever go out for, if I'm ever invited to Sunday lunch or if I'm ever at a meal where a roast is served. Because I'm veggie, obviously I don't get it. Where actually all I want to say is, I don't care, just give me everything but the meat. Is it the same with you? Oh, I love that. We go to a pub near us, we live in South West London in Barnes.

We go to a pub called the Red Lion, where on Sundays they always do a roast. And because we're veggies, we still have it all. And we have an enormous Yorkshire pudding, lashings of gravy and cabbage. Do you just check it's not done with goose fat or whatever? Yeah, well... No, you just... I thought that might be the answer. OK, well, shall we talk about roasting then?

Actually, a goose fat potato. People who are here can actually see me salivating. Okay. So roasting is Germanic because as we say so often on Purple, English at heart is a Germanic language, despite everything that came from French via Latin from Greek. And there's a huge percentage of that, too. But at its heart, thanks to the Angles and the Saxons, it is a Germanic language. I don't think I've really absorbed that. I mean, I always thought it was, as it were, Latin and Greek. Yep.

And then a bit of French and Anglo-Saxon. But you're saying it's the Anglo-Saxon but the German. At its heart, it's Germanic. So Old English was very much based on Germanic vocabulary. And that means words coming from Germany or...? Well, Germanic, no, because Germanic nations obviously had very different boundaries originally. So the Angles obviously gave us our name, England, Angleland.

And the Saxons gave us Sussex, South Sussex. Wessex was West Sussex, And those were named after the Saxons, who, if you remember, were named after their weapon of choice, which was a sword, the sax. This is the joy of this programme. You live and learn. Then, unfortunately, you die and forget it all. In the interim, to enjoy something rhymes with purple. So, roast is a Germanic word. Yes. Now, would you think that there was a link between roasting something and a roster of duties? Not necessarily. What is the link?

No, there is a link. Because essentially, let's go back to a Dutch word from that Germanic family, rooster, which is spelt like our rooster as in the bird, but it meant a list. But first of all, it meant a gridiron because of the appearance of that list. It looked like a series of kind of grills. So it looks back to one of the earliest meanings of roasting, which was essentially

grilling something. And it was used as opposed to baking, which was cooked in an oven. A roast was cooked on an open fire. So the roster that you see, telling you what hour you're going to turn up at work, that sort of thing, is based on the idea of the grill, the lines across a grill. Yeah. How amazing. So roast and roster.

And indeed, are they not an anagram of each other? Roast and roster? Yes, yes, they are an anagram. No, no, no, because it's roster E-R. Roster is R-O-S-T-E-R. Oh. You know, reality is somewhat def's Roster E-R. What? Roster is R-O-S-T-E-R. He hasn't done that for a while. You know, reality is somewhat deflating at times, isn't it? Sorry.

What a shame. I'm sorry. Oh, yes. So Roster is spelled R-O-S-T-E-R. Yes. And Roast is spelled R-O-A-S-T. Yes. Okay.

You mentioned grill. Where does that come from? As in a grill? Griller, French. This is a French word. So it originally probably goes back to the Romans, but it came to us from French. We give someone a grilling because it's like exposing them to intense heat, you know, by our interrogation. So a lot of cooking metaphors, I'm sure we'll

cover lots of them. Hold on. So the grill, when you're grilling something, that the origin, what came first was the grill through which you looked. If you are an enclosed order of nuns, peering through grills of the outside world, the passing monks. It's the grill that gives you... Yes. I actually don't know what came first. It's a very good point. I don't know whether that physical grill, as in a railing,

came before the grill with which you cook food. I suspect that they probably emerged around the same time. But I can check it because I have the OEDs. Should we check that? Because it'd be useful to know that when you're making small talk. Well, as we do. I don't know if you ever watch a programme called First Dates.

I never find them having an interesting conversation like we have. Whereas I think if I was on a first date with Susie, I would say, should we have the grill? Oh, tell me more. And then, you know, we'd see that we were on the same wavelength. We would love it. Anyway, grill.

It seems, I wonder if that's spelled with an E. I should know this. Grill? The grill with which you look through. Oh, I'm looking through a grill. That's, yeah. Some people in the audience seem to think it is G-R-I-L-L-E. Yes, exactly.

So it's spelled with an E or you can spell it. So it gives us both. And the cooking sense came first. There you are. So you cooked with a grill before you looked through a grill. Now we know. But this is very good.

Can I say, if I were meeting you for the first time, I would say that you are beautiful, exquisite, lovely, gorgeous, divine. And then you'd say you swallowed a thesaurus.

You got the punchline before i did oh dearie me i'm sorry we know each other too well we do we do we do have you ever spatchcocked anything she cuts to the chase doesn't she dearie me our opening word was you know cook comes from cock let's go on from there we're now getting the spatchcock. Tell me about a spatchcock. Okay, well, it's a slightly strange thing, isn't it? So you and I don't eat meat, so you probably don't see this very often, but it's when you split open a whole chicken or a turkey and then grill it.

So it makes it easier to grill because I think this is right. It has a flat surface. And so you might say spatch cock that chicken to your you know resident chef but essentially it comes from a sort of slightly strange phrase from Ireland actually dispatch the cock um essentially um and that's when they needed to whip up a very simple dinner they'd say let's dispatch that cock now I don't know if it actually meant killing the poor animal in the process, but that is essentially what they were doing. Well, let's go and eat the animal live. It must have meant that. As in that sense of dispatch. Anyway, and that was then shortened to spatchcock.

And there's also spitchcock, apparently, which is to split an eel lengthways and fry it. It was Victoria Wood, wasn't it, who defined Coco Vin as love in a lorry. Oh, yeah. What about poaching an egg? Imagine you're quite good at that, are you? I have to say, a poached egg is, for me, a well-poached egg is perhaps the best thing in the world. I know. Life's still not mastered it. It's very difficult to do.

You know, the real chefs, they just boil up some water and they poach the egg somehow without any appliance. My father used to have a special kind of poaching machine, which we inherited, but it never seemed to work for us. The albumen, that's the white bit, always got stuck inside, even if you put a little bit of butter. And we got a plastic thing recently where you put the egg inside the plastic and it bobbles about. Yeah.

Have you got a good secret? No, no, I just don't. Does anybody here have a good secret? Of how to poach an egg? Or maybe you could... Something to do with the vinegar. I think if you put the right amount of vinegar in the water... Yeah, I know.

If you have got a fantastic way of cooking, please do come up to us in the break. I love a poacher. You mentioned albumen. That's quite nice because that is linked to albion, which was an old term for Britain. And it was all to do with the Latin albus, meaning white. So Britain was called Albion because of the white cliffs of Dover. And the Albion of an egg is an egg white. It's also linked to album because originally an album in Roman times

was this blank bit of white marble upon which public announcements were inscribed. What is amazing is there's nobody feeding this to her in the air. She knows this. And she doesn't know what we're going to talk about. You are extraordinary. So poaching, is it to do with a pocket? It is, absolutely right. Poche is French for pocket. Yes. And that poche is also behind the poke of don't buy a pig in a poke. In other words, don't buy a pig in a sack at a fair that you can't actually see. So poke was another word for a posh or pocket. Yeah.

I mean, everybody's favourite meal is breakfast, isn't it? Yeah. What is your favourite breakfast? I quite like a good veggie fry-up, I have to say. But I also love porridge. Really? Yeah, porridge is what I have every day. You don't like porridge? No. Oh. I love the TV series, but I also love porridge. Porridge is what I have every day. You don't like porridge? No.

I love the TV series, but I don't... No, I think poached egg. Actually, poached egg on brown toast. That's what you have. It's not what I have, it's what I dream about. What do you have? What we're having at the moment, what we had for breakfast this morning, Michelle and I, we had, she had a pear,

I had an apple, and I cut it into the apple into little squares because I'm trying to contain my weight. And I had some cheese to have the protein. Okay, that's good. What about sautéing, sautéed things, sautéed mushrooms? Yes, sauté is to jump in French, isn't it? Exactly, exactly right. That's what it is. It makes things jump in the pan and also often you shake the pan so that the ingredients jump up and down. So it's all about jumping. Sautéing. Yep.

Poaching. Oh, stewing. Stewing. Now, stew is really interesting because the very first meaning of stew was to sit in a hot steam bath. And it was normally a public bath where people would come. Much of you imagine a Roman bath where people would come much if you imagine a Roman bath where people would come strip off wash perform their ablutions and chat to other people and it was so hot that obviously at some point there was this slightly jokey idea that a set of

meat or some meat and fish in some hot water and some vegetables would look like people sitting in a steam bath. So that's where it came from. And it's from the Latin stufare, which meant to steam. And that also, believe it or not, gave us typhoid because of the incredibly hot temperatures that typhoid patients had because stufare came from the Greek tuphos, T-U-P-H-O-S. So it's all connected, typhoid, steam baths, and vegetable stews. Isn't that weird? There's actually at these steam baths were also public loos. And some people say that in Roman loos, which were next to the steam baths, they used sticks with loo roll or whatever equivalent was, at the end of them. And the expression used,

get the wrong end of the stick, was when you accidentally, I know, picked up the wrong end. So that's one theory. You didn't know what you were going to get this afternoon, did you? Innocently, they paid their money, they came in for a thought, they had a nice cosy afternoon

with that lovely girl Susie from Countdown, and they're being exposed to all this sort of thing. I know, it's horrible. Did you know, in 1947, among the many wonderful things that happened that year, including, I think, degrees being awarded to women from Cambridge University for the first time. Amazing. Only that many, that recently. Isn't that extraordinary?

But the first soft toilet paper was introduced to britain so did harold's in 1940 remember bump short for bum fodder which was lural is that the origin of bump yeah something throw away well let's get back to cooking okay but also you've just just reminded me about the wooden spoon i thought you can just bring in the wooden spoon because if i can't quite remember the full story of this, but students, particularly at Cambridge, but also Oxford, I think, those who got the lower degree

were given a wooden spoon instead of a certificate. Oh, that's humiliating. I know. What is the symbolism of the wooden spoon? I'm not completely sure. So I'll come back to that in a future ep. That is quite interesting. But yeah, that's where we get the wooden spoon from.

Oh, blanching. I know about blanching, but I do remember Fanny Craddock. In fact, I think there were vessels called blanch bowls. Oh, really? I've only ever had blanched almonds, I think. That's the only experience. Blanch, I assume, has to do with being white. It is. Blanchir.

But when we blanch, if we've had a shock, we go white. So I assume with almonds, I can get that. If you blanch them,'ve had a shock we we go white so i assume with almonds i can get that if you blanch them they go particularly white so maybe when food is cooked very very quickly at high heat just to the um is it just to the boiling point possibly i think that's when things go go white so that's the idea you scald it yes at boiling point yeah and for a sort of moment and then it sort of uh put it in cold water that's what blanching oh hence the bowl that's what the blanching bowl is for and then you put it in cold water don't you so you really heat it and then put it in cold water. That's what blanching... Oh, hence the bowl. That's what the blanching bowl is for. And then you put it in cold water, don't you?

So you really heat it and then put it in cold water. Have we talked about frying? Frying tonight? Frying tonight, no. We don't know where fry comes from. We don't know. It's just got lots of, you know, quite similar words in different languages,

which suggests it comes from that Indo-European ancient language that we have had to reconstruct. Explain what you just said, Indo-European ancient language. So Proto-Indo-European is essentially the sort of mother language of many, of all the Indo-European languages. And we don't have any extant records of it, but there are, it takes something like this to fry.

If there are similar words in its descendants, you can then try and reconstruct what the original was. So Proto-Indo-European is entirely reconstructed. We've guessed at that original word, that Uwe word, because of all the similar things in the family tree. And what is to fry? To fry is to cook in fat? To fry is to cook in fat, usually in a pan, a frying pan, obviously.

And we now have air fryers, don't we, which is a big thing at the moment. No. People talking about it. I've heard Airbnb. What's an air fry? I think you can cook pretty much anything in an air fry. But now that fuel is so expensive, it's actually really, I mean, I haven't got one, but it's a really economical way of cooking, I think.

Look, before we have our break, we've got a couple more words to do all about cookery. We've done cooking, roast, grilling, fry. Didn't know much about that. Sautéing, jumping about. Poaching, I like that one. Stewing, yes. Blanch. Basting, that's a good one.

Basting is a really odd one because it's related to lambast somebody. And if you lambast somebody, you are essentially giving them a grilling or a basting, aren't you? You're kind of scolding them in some way. So you can see how all these culinary metaphors kind of gather force. And the earliest sense of lambast was not, though, to expose them to heat. It was to beat or thrash them.

And it seems to come from that idea of basting meaning to thrash. And I suppose the idea of basting something is then, I mean, I can't quite get the sense of the progression. It's a bit of an esprimological mystery why when you baste something, when you essentially sort of, am I right with basting? It's kind of marinating, isn't it?

If you're basting something. No, I thought basting, you take the turkey and you have a brush, like a shaving brush, and you dip it into something and you... Isn't that basically... Yes, that's what I mean by marinating. Because for me, marinating is kind of brushing it.

Yes, you're applying a sauce or a flavouring. Yes, so it's not the sort of leaving something, but it's the applying of something. But when you lambast somebody, I suppose... What does lamb mean? I suppose the lamb is an old dialect word meaning, again, to beat. It's an old dialect word meaning, again, to beat. So it's quite strange that we can have beating and thrashing and then doing whatever we're doing when we're basting meat.

Anyway, a bit of a mystery. It's an odd one. Flambe goes back to the French for singed, which makes sense. Lovely. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll see you in 20 minutes. Thank you for being here. Lovely. gentlemen, we'll see you in 20 minutes. Thank you for being here. Lovely.

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. We're still on the stage at the Fortune Theater in the West End of London. I wanted to ask, we were talking all about cookery, the world of cookery, Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. We're still on the stage at the Fortune Theatre in the West End of London. I wanted to ask, we were talking all about cookery, the world of cookery,

the phrase cooking the books. Has that got a culinary connection? It's just quite a simple metaphor if you unpick it, because it really means that the ingredients of the books are modified, altered in some way to the benefit of the cook. So when you cook the books, you are altering them in a way to the benefit of the cook. So when you cook the books, you are altering them in a way that benefits you. Very good.

Yeah. Lots of people had ideas about how to poach an egg. Oh, yes. Principally, somebody said, really, all you need is a truly fresh egg. Really fresh. I mean, literally laid that day, crack it open into the pan and it works. Yeah.

You don't do anything more. James from Crawley says that the water should be just below boiling and then you put in a splash of vinegar. Swirl it about, crack your egg into a small mug, pour the egg in below the waterline. How do you do that below the waterline? Do you have to just press it in? You open it and then you lure it in.

Yeah, yeah. You burn your fingers by cracking it underneath it. And then wait three-ish minutes. Can I also give a shout out to Anson? And can we get the microphone to Anson? Where are you? Because Anson is going to tell us about the wooden spoon because he teaches at Cambridge.

If it's possible to get the house lights up and then the microphone to Anson. Hello. Oh, brilliant. There you are. Yes. So the original maths tripos, which is a maths course at Cambridge University, ranked all the students from number

one all the way down to the bottom. The top student was called a senior wrangler. The first class students were called the wranglers. Then you had the second class students who were called the senior optimates. And then you had the junior optimates and then after that you had people who didn't receive honours. Now the bottom person who received honours and just received honours was called the wooden spoon and the wooden spoon was a ceremonial spoon of about five feet and they used to lower it upon graduation so when your name was read out you received your spoon. Can you imagine what a humiliating ritual? Well, but how fantastic, a five-foot-long wooden spoon. No, I have seen a picture of that, actually.

But it's fantastic. And were people humiliated or rather sort of proud in an absurd way? I think it depends on the particular person. I suspect some of them were quite proud to just have passed with probably the minimum amount of work. It's quite nice to be able to pass and only just pass with the minimum amount of work. It's quite nice to be able to pass and only just pass with the minimum amount of work. This is Cambridge University, is it? Yes. No wonder it's being closed down. Thank you, Emerson. I'm joking, but I don't think you'd get away with that

wooden spoon thing now, would you? No, but thank you so much. Moving on to a question to the audience. Basically, thank you so much to everybody who came to offer their advice and their education. But this is Fran from Chalfont St Peter. Fran, you have a question for us, I think. Hi, thank you. Hello. We were talking about Nosy Parker before the performance and we wondered which Parker that is. Who does it refer to? Can you answer that? Nosy Parker. Yes. The interesting bit is that it was a person called Nosy, you've got that the wrong way around, who found it very difficult to find a place to park his car. He was known as the Nosy Parker.

Tell your story about getting here today. Ah, well, it's not very interesting. It was just very annoying. So I explained I had to drive because it was a bus replacement service today and I was circling it was just the stupidest thing ever to drive to London I was circling going round and round and round around must have been circling for about half an hour could not find anywhere to park and then I saw a car was just about to move and four quite elderly people were making their way into the car. And eventually they saw me waiting there and they said,

did you want to park in? I said, yes, thank you. And I was being quite patient, but I had three cabs behind me who were not so patient. Beep, beep, beep. But I thought, I'm going to stick this out. I have a show to do. So we sat there for 10 minutes.

Big backlog behind me. The car finally moves out. They were on a double yellow line. So I had to then move on. I was so frustrated. What is the origin of the expression nosy parker? Okay, well, lots and lots of stories as to who the original nosy parker was, Fran. But the Oxford Dictionary, I just checked this to see, either a fictitious individual whose story has become lost, but I know the Countdown Dictionary, which is the current dictionary,

says that it probably was a voyeuristic park keeper. So the parker, the idea of somebody who is a park keeper and likes to sort of, you know, snoop on amorous couples. That's what they think. So yeah, I'm so sorry about this, but you can take your pick. Well, I don't like that definition. No. There we are. No, I agree.

But 1890, so fairly recently. Gosh, 1890. There'll be nosy parkers since then. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the next question comes from? Okay, so the next question.

Give us your name, where you come from, et cetera. I'm Stephen from Hampton Court, southwest london steven from hampton court the hampton court area so while washing my daughter's hair we had a good laugh about the word shampoo and how it's just got that semi-rude word just tacked onto the end of it and we wonder where oh i wonder where that that poo comes from etymologically speaking and if it's found anywhere else in any other words in the 1950s there was a wonderful joke shop at the top of the Tottenham Court Road and I used to go there regularly to spend my pocket money and I remember buying sham poo there and it was plastic dog poo that you would take home yeah exactly and you'd leave and and oh, it so infuriated my mother

because it fooled her, it always fooled her. If we didn't have a dog, but I left. It's extraordinary. So, but that's a little joke you're having with your daughter because, you know, people like her as a naughty world, don't they? Is that right? Yes.

Okay, so originally, if you were to give anyone a shampoo, it would have been someone else probably, and you would have been giving them a massage, because it comes from a Hindi word meaning to massage, which has no relationship with poo whatsoever. podcast, if we have a foreign word, we often just mangle it because we can't pronounce it. And so we, if we have a word that sounds vaguely like it, we will use that instead. But actually in the French, in French, I love the way they try and mask the poo bit because they call it shampooing. Shampooing is shampooing, which is great and sounds much more glamorous, but it comes from a Hindi word meaning to massage. So originally it was using lots of wonderful scented ointments and things and eventually it settled on the hair wash. Excellent. Now the next question is going to come from Christopher

who comes from South London. Christopher, are you upstairs, downstairs? Hello. Hello. I'm here. I was reading again Trollope's Barchester Towers the other week and came across the word sesquipedalian. Oh, yeah.

Which I had to look up, which means a bit long-winded. But I wondered where it came from. Yeah. Sesquipedalian. Yeah, sesquipedalian is one of those words where it kind of almost bears itself out. It's sort of self-referential because to be sesquipedalian is to overuse long words. And sesquipedalia, I think, is the overuse of long

words. And of course, it's ridiculously long. I think it comes from the Latin for words that are six and a half feet long. I think that's the idea. And the ped bit there is in pedicure, the idea in the ped bit there is in pedicure pedometer etc so it's a kind of joke in itself and you'll often find little jokes hidden in some of our words so for example tandem as well the bicycle tandem that comes from the latin at length and obviously some schoolboy learning latin thought that would be quite fun to call this bicycle tandem length. So quite often you find these little jokes, but I often find words that are, like a palindrome is not a palindrome and someone with a lisp cannot say lisp. I mean, I think there are some sort of quite cruel things

in our words sometimes. But anyway, it's a great question. And I do commend you for reading Anthony Trollope. Anyone who hasn't tried Anthony Trollope, give it a go. Thank you so much for your questions. If people have got questions of any kind, they just, and we haven't answered them today, you can email us. It's purple at somethingelse.com.

And the something is spelt without a G. Every week, Susie also gives us three words that she particularly enjoys. They may be archaic words. They may be current words. But they're not ones usually that we're familiar with, but you want us to be. What have you got for us this week? Yes. So how this works is I will choose a real word that definitely means something, but you probably won't have heard of it. You might have heard of the first one,

but what we've asked our audience to do is to come up with their own definitions, you know, devise their own definitions. And the first one that I suspect some people might have heard of in their childhood is a fern tickle. And so fern tickle, the first suggestion that we have here is from Michelle Hunter from, is it Carrickfergus? It is. How do you pronounce it, Carrickfergus? A fern tickle is an intimate romp in the forest.

Oh, I like that. That is brilliant. Absolutely. Peter from Kensal Green says it's an inappropriate but exciting interaction with a daytime TV presenter. Cool burn. These are brilliant. This is Eddie, also from Carrick Fergus. The feeling on your posterior from vegetation when relieving yourself alfresco

oh my goodness these are all brilliant um okay so we're gonna you're marking you're judging aren't you i'm gauging the audience reaction and the prize will go to the most sustained audience reaction okay so do you need a reminder? No, I'm good at that. So the real definition of a fern tickle, I love this, is a freckle. And the definition that's given in the dictionary is that a freckle on the skin resembling the seed of a fern because it's just so tiny. Freckle itself was the legacy of the Vikings, actually. They gave us the word freckle from Old Norse. But anyway, that's a fern tickle, which I love. So thank you for those definitions. They were brilliant.

Right. The second one, Giles, was a bodkin. Bodkin. Well, I'm familiar with the word because of Hamlet's great soliloquy. Yeah. So you know what this one is. A bear bodkin. Yep.

So Gwyn from London suggests alternatively that it's an affectionate term for a six-pack. Oh, that's rather nice. A bodkin. I like the look of his bodkin. Now, I don't know the reference for this one, but I suspect others will. Duncan from Biggin Hill says it's a member of the 1970s TV character

Bod's family. Bod's kin. Well, that's quite clever. Who was Bod? Well, he was a character in the 1970s. I don't remember Bod. Bod's family. Do you remember Bod?

Okay, I don't remember Bod. They're older than you, clearly. I don't remember Bod. Bod's family. Do you remember Bod? Okay, I don't remember Bod. They're older than you, clearly. I don't remember Bod. What was the series called? Oh, Bod. Was it a children's series? It was a children's series. Okay.

With a little character that walked around like that. Bod's kin. Okay, well, I like that. And finally, Stephen from Hampton Court says that bodkin is a napkin for covering your bod at a naturist resort. Oh, that's lovely. Actually, a quick note, you won't suffer from burn tickle, will you? No, you won't.

So you can tell me what it is then, Giles. It's a small dagger. It's something you stab someone with. Exactly. Chaucer was the first to use it in the Reeve's Tale, a bodkin. And also, did you know about Baldrick? You know brilliant Baldrick from Blackadder? I do.

Do you know what a Baldrick is? Remind me. It's also, it's a sash that you kind of wear across your shoulder down here, but it contains a weapon. So that is your Baldrick. So that was taken from the OED. Okay, so the third word. Thank you very much to everyone for the bodkin deaths.

Kickshaw. A kickshaw. So Stephen from Barnes says this is an Edwardian theatre critic. Oh, this is very clever. A kickshaw. You see? George Bernard Shaw began writing his plays in Victorian times. Somebody liked to kick him. And he was, exactly. So if you had a kickshaw, you didn't like his plays.

That's very clever. Very clever. Ian from Sutton says a kickshaw is a chinese cart with a flat battery that's good too isn't that good yes instead of a ritual and andrew from oxford says that a kick oh andrew do you know about arbaquina no okay um andrew from oxford says that a kickshaw is a German or German penalty takers. Kickshaw. Kickshaw, because they're very good, essentially. They're kickshaw. Yeah, it took me a while, but I love that one. Fantastic. Okay, so the real definition is quite interesting because we were just talking earlier in our correspondence section with Shampoo of how we struggle with foreign words. Can't quite

get our tongue around them, so we opt for the closest equivalent. Kikshor was a really bad pronunciation of quelque chose in French, believe it or not. And it was used quite contemptuously for a really elaborate meal that looks kind of French and sophisticated, but it's ultimately really disappointing. Quelque chose.

Yeah, quelque chose. Kikshor. Kekershoes. Kekershoes. Kekershoes. Language is totally gripping. Yeah. But of all those definitions, the one that got the warmest laugh, they were all much appreciated by us and by all of us, the prize, which is going to be, I think, a Something Rhymes With Purple T-shirt.

Yay! It's going to Eddie from Carrickfergus. Yay! Yay! It's going to Eddie from Carrickfergus. Yay! So, Eddie, can I just remind you, you said that a fern tickle was the feeling on your bum from vegetation when relieving yourself of fresca. Brilliant. Very, very good.

Brilliant. I've got a poem for Eddie, because we always end with a poem, but because we've run out of time, this is going to be a very short poem. Eddie, don't worry if your job is small and your awards are few. Remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you. That's our lot from this live episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. We continue with our monthly sessions here at the Fortune Theatre. Check our websites, check us online, look for us,

and you'll find out how you can book tickets at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden. We're here in December. 18th of December. Guess what we're talking about. What? Underwear. Underwear! Or underpinnings. Undergarments. Inth of December. Guess what we're talking about. What? Underwear. Underwear. Or underpinnings.

Undergarments. Inexpressibles. All those wonderful words that Victoria said. Or will you wear some amusing drawers? You won't know about them. Do come to the live shows.

And there were some people, I know there's a lady here who's been to the last three. Three times, yeah. Three times. With her family. Thank you so much for coming. And actually lots of people

have come several times. Thank you. We'll get it right. And you will. So should we do the closing credits now? We shall. Yes, you can do this bit. If you did love the show, please follow us on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we would love it if you would recommend us to your friends too. On social media, we are on at somethingrhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at somethingrhymes on Twitter and Facebook, or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And as you said, Giles, the email to get in touch about anything, just is purple at somethingelse.com. That's it. That's it. Is there more to say? Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Harriet Wells, who's here today with us, alongside Sam Hodges, who's there in the wings, Andrew Quick from Tilted for the live shows, and additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Teddy Riley, and Visibility Poor.

Gully. Thank you.