Something Rhymes with Purple - Sprogs

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Susie and Gyles are getting you to use your loafs this week, as they glide through the fun and ferocious etymology behing the unique language of RAF slang. Together they'll decode the hidden stories and linguistic roots behind the expressions that echo through the Royal Air Force, bringing you closer to the fascinating evolution of words in the military context. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] 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:  Lunting – To go for a walk and smoke a pipe. Beef-witted –16th century word for 'stupid'. Behoove: To be necessary or appropriate Gyles' poem this week was 'For Johnny' by John Pudney Do not despair For Johnny-head-in-air; He sleeps as sound As Johnny underground. Fetch out no shroud For Johnny-in-the-cloud; And keep your tears For him in after years. Better by far For Johnny-the-bright-star, To keep your head, And see his children fed. A 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

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

losses and real talk with special guests from the Athletes Village and around the world you'll never have a fear of missing any Olympic action from Paris. Listen to Olympic FOMO wherever you get your podcasts. Make your nights unforgettable

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 event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit

amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. This, as our regular, very loyal listeners will know, is a podcast about words and language, either words in the news or words from the past that we think might happily be resurrected. And we always choose a theme every week, which gives us a basis for our wordy witterings. And with me, as ever, is Giles Brandreth looking at me from a Zoom screen. We rarely get together these days, but still happy to see you, Giles. I'm excited to see you. I'm relieved to see you because I've spent an hour and eight minutes on the telephone this morning

trying to transfer from my debit account some money to my credit account because my credit card kept saying yesterday declined declined declined oh and yes and i was in maryland high street opposite daunce bookshop do you know the bookshop i do it's a lovely bookshop with a wonderful gallery inside there. Anyway, I treated myself to a coffee and a pain au chocolat, which is what you do when you've been on the low carb diet for a while. You think, oh, no, I can't take any longer. You go in and you don't just have one pain au chocolat. You then order a second pain au chocolat. No, you don't have five. Exactly.

And it's in Marylebone High Street. So it's really quite expensive. So I'm having a cup of tea, two of these Pau Chocolat, and then I say, the bill, please. And the bill comes along, and it's quite a lot of money. It's £13 or something. But I think, well, it's been great fun. I shouldn't have done it, but anyway. So I then produce my card, and it won't go the beep. It doesn't work.

So it says, put it in the machine. I put it in the machine. I put in the code, and I think, have I forgotten the code? Because it says declined. I think, I'm sure that's the code. I've been using this code for years. I think, well, maybe it's another code. I put it in the machine. I put in the code. And I think, have I forgotten the code? Because it says declined. I think, I'm sure that's the code. I've been using this code for years. I think, well, maybe it's another code. So I try the other code.

Declined, declined. And so the fellow's looking at me very, very dubiously indeed. So I say, well, what are we going to do? He said, well, you pay cash. I said, I don't have cash. I said, when I live, there's no longer a cash machine. There's no longer a bank. There's no longer a cash machine. Who has cash these days? No, who has cash? Indeed. But I have to say, I was reduced to going across the road.

And by happy chance, coming out of daunts was somebody I knew. And I borrowed 20 pounds in cash from him. And I then ran back into the thing. I'd left them my watch, my wallet, my mobile phone as guarantee for these. So the point is there's a price to pay for greed. If you are on a low-carb diet, do not go into a coffee shop in Marylebone High Street and order two pounds chocolat. God does not approve and therefore declines your credit card. So it turned out that what had happened was I was over my limit. I didn't know there was a limit on my credit card.

But anyway, I was over the limit. And anyway, so getting through this this morning was a nightmare because I had to phone a certain number and then the line was poor. I had to phone the number all over again. What you need to get is an online banking app where you can literally see your debit balance, your bank balance and your credit card balance. And you can just immediately transfer some funds from one to the other within five seconds. Thank you for telling me this. This is what

everybody has told me, including each of my three children. And I think most of my seven grandchildren have told me exactly the same thing. But I tell you this, in the presence of witnesses last week, I tried to put this app onto my mobile phone and it kept rejecting me. It kept saying that the password that I was putting in, first of all, it said it wasn't a suitable password. I then got a suitable password. I then had to repeat the password in the second line. It then said the second line did not tally with the first line. Oh, OK. I did this several times and it still wouldn't tally. So the point is I have tried to get a

banking app on my phone and have not succeeded in doing it. I said to the bank manager, because I'm lucky enough actually to have a real bank manager in person, in the flesh there, would you please do it for me? She said, no, I'm not allowed to do it. I said, what do you mean you're not allowed to do it? She said, no, you have to do it yourself. I said, well, I'll do it in front of your eyes. So I did it. It still didn't work. So it's very, very frustrating.

It is bizarre. It is bizarre. So the banking gods are not on my side. Lots to say, but probably not in front of the purple people, but lots to say as to how you can make your password tally. But anyway, we'll go into that another time. Okay, and now we will move on to the theme of the day. Top hole. Barry Jerry pranked his kite. I'm remembering now a Monty Python sketch from years ago that I did love, where they did a sort of spoof of RAF types. And Michael Palin, I think it was, wearing a kind of moustache that they used to wear in wartime films about the Second World War, RAF types. And Michael Palin, I think it was, wearing a kind of moustache that they used to

wear in wartime films about the Second World War. RAF types. And they used this funny kind of slang. And they did a sort of satire on it. And I've got vague memories of that at the back of my head. Is that the theme for today? RAF slang? Yes, we're going to talk about RAF slang. And actually, you've reminded me of, well, not just Monty Python, but also there are some brilliant sketches, if you don't know them, by Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong. Oh, yes. When they were a comedy duo and they are in the RAF, only they speak as a sort of modern teenager might. And it's just, but with a very posh accent and they talk about it's a shizzle and it's just brilliant.

Anyway, I recommend that too. But yes, we're going to talk about one of those tribal slangs, which is completely opaque to the outsider, but which is extremely important to those within it because, not within the code, but within the tribe, because it's unifying, as we always say, but it's also incredibly pragmatic very often. And as so often in the military and also in the, you know, medical services, it is very dark. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

Now, the Royal Air Force is what we're talking about, the RAF, which was founded when? I think it was called something else during the First World War. And then it was founded either during the First World War or just after the First World War, when aeroplanes came along and meant to mean something special. So this is RAF slang. And is it different from naval slang and army slang? And why is it different? It is different because very often, well, first of all,

they are intensely sort of united, I suppose, would be the positive way of putting it. It's really important for them to have distinct lexicons and distinct vocabularies. And very often they take the mickey out of each other as well and they do that quite often through language you will find some crossovers and we'll come to this subject a little bit later when it comes to food if you go to the canteen or whatever very often the food will be called all sorts of strange things and and there are quite often you know real similarities between the different armed forces

but most of the time they are very specific. Good. Well, I mean, I think probably the only bit of RAF slang that I use on a regular basis is the word pranged. Is that an RAF slang? You know, I pranged the car. I feel that has an RAF slang feel to it, but maybe I'm wrong. I know that's actually a really interesting one. And I think possibly, and of course, the purple people will correct me on one, because they are very often right at the heart of these things, and they will know. But originally, a prang in the RAF was, of course, to crash land, you know, an aircraft. And it's very much an onomatopoeic word. So it's based as what we call it, it's echoic. So it kind of represents the sound. But yeah, its very first meanings, as recorded at the moment in the Oxford English Dictionary, are within the RAF. Good. And the vocabulary we're going to talk about,

does it date from the First World War, the Second World War, or the whole of the 20th century? That one is the 1940s, and that seems to be one of the really productive decades, which of course then suggests that the Second World War... I mean, we've talked before, Giles, about how all wars, surprisingly for their destruction, are quite productive of new vocabulary, which seems strange. So language gets generated and regenerated when everything else is sort of obviously being destroyed, which is quite a strange conundrum. But, you know, when new phenomena come along along it's important to name them whether it's

weaponry whether it's you know tactics military tactics etc which of course develop and evolve as much as the weaponry and so it's inevitable that you need to fill a gap there but very often as well because perhaps at more than any other time you need that kind of community spirit language then becomes this sort of bond, this kind of collective vocabulary that people can dip into and then feel part of a really important group. Very good. And also appearance seems to make a difference too. When I picture these people,

you mentioned Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong, I can picture them. I think they did wear these moustaches, didn't they? Did you ever have one of those? No, I've never had a moustache, but my father, when he was in the army during the Second World War, he had a moustache. And I think he was allowed to have a moustache when he became an officer. I think he joined as a private, but then he became an officer. And then they were allowed to have a moustache. And I think that may apply in the RAF as well. I know, I think I'm right in saying it's

only the Royal Navy where you're allowed to have a full beard. I don't think you're allowed a full beard. Maybe you are today, but certainly in wartime, the Second World War, you couldn't have a full beard if you were in either the army or the Air Force. I may have got that wrong. People can correct me on that. But the officers were allowed to wear moustaches. I'm not sure that the men, people who weren't officers, were allowed to. It's curious. But this is all part of the sort of ritual and the camaraderie and etc. of being a kind of united force, having your own rules and regulations within the group,

within the tribe, as you call them. Absolutely. And obviously within the tribe, there are different positions. So every member of the personnel will have a different name. So new recruits are sprogs, just as people call their young kids sprogs. That comes from an obsolete word, sprag, meaning a young boy. RAF are called Oggies, not related to the Oggie, Oggie, Oggie, Oi, Oi, Oi, that is behind the story of the Cornish pasty. We have a duty dog, which is an orderly officer, a fang farrier, which is one of my favourites. That's the RAF dentist, which is quite good. You have a nugget, a pilot on their first tour. Blunties. Now, Blunties are non-flying personnel. And the reason they're called Blunties

is that they're not at the sharp end of action. So they're all quite clever. A hog dangler is a dog handler. So that's just a bit of backslide there where they've transposed the beginnings of the words. Brain on a chain is an RAF police dog. And the implication, I guess, is that they're more intelligent than their handlers. So there's a lot of self-mockery going on here, as you can see. The god botherer is the chaplain. The ginger beer is rhyming slang for an engineer. A sky pilot. I

think we may have talked about this before, actually, when we were talking about military personnel. But can you guess what a sky pilot is well no no it's a strange one isn't it it's a chaplain oh but of course up in the sky near to god how amusing a sky pilot that is funny go on and a tiffy is a typhoon or at least it was a typhoon jet fighter and a zobbit is a commissioned officer especially one perhaps that is slightly self-important and that may come from an arabic word dabbit meaning an officer and there are lots more there's a scuffer there's a shiny an administrative employee who wears shiny trousers maybe because they've been sitting down so long and again it's a bit of a jive at their inaction so to speak so. So lots and lots of different names. And they're really,

you know, they're really important. They are all part of this code. Well, I'm now able to give you some updated information about the question of beards and moustaches, because it appears what I was telling you would have been true of my father's generation, the Second World War, but it's all changed in the RAF. In 2019, they changed the rules so that it became possible. They updated their guidelines around facial hair. So you can actually grow beards for the first time in the service's history. So up until 2019, beards were foreboden. But now, all RAF personnel are permitted to grow a full set beard, beard and moustache.

But they must make a request to their commanding officer in writing prior to any growth of facial hair. So now you know. Yeah, I mean, for religious reasons, it might be quite important. So lots of kind of cultural factors, aren't there? Absolutely. Feeding into that. And that apparently is the real reason they thought about it, too, because also they want to increase. It was a recruitment issue. And drive it for inclusivity in university is really important.

We've talked about other expressions that began in the RAF, many of them actually from the 1940s. We've talked about gone for a Burton numerous times. Yes. And that's getting the suit, isn't it? Your demob suit from Burton the tailors. No, that's the full Monty oh that's the full why do i can why do i bring burton the tailors into it because the full monty was the full montague burton uh the tailors so the full monty was a pair of trousers a jacket and a spare pair of trousers or according to another theory a waistcoat as well as a jacket and trousers and as you say they made all the demob hoops suits so if you went for the full monty you got the whole the whole set but gone for a person we think is a reference to burton upon trent which was home to a lot of ale

manufacturers including famously burton's ale and it's just a sort of rather dark metaphor for going into the drink and crashing into the sea. We have, oh, I mean, so many. We have going pear-shaped. That is found in RAF slang, and it's a reference to the shape of an aircraft that has crashed nose first, which is, you know, again, you can see the darkness here, can't you? Pushing the envelope is not so dark but that is all about aeronautics and the idea of actually going beyond the current limits of performance of um of a plane so you're pushing the envelope and the envelope is the sort of flight path if you like so that one also began in the RAF I mean there are there are just so many um and you know how we always try to ascribe a nautical origin to everything well in, you can also look at the RAF and the other military forces and think, wow, actually, that one came from there too.

Did you just tell me what going pear-shaped? Why is it going pear-shaped? I did. You did mention that, but why pear-shaped as opposed to banana-shaped or orange shape at all because it's the shape that the that the aircraft makes as it's kind of it it's it's the action of the plane and the path that it traces as it dives headfirst into the sea apparently that's interesting because i mean i i i heard what you said but i didn't quite understand why it was a pear shape does it well yeah let's see the first records here in the oed tapering towards the top and rounded at the bottom um uh to go because you'd think it would be it's an upside i mean i can see it's an upside down pair because it ends when it goes in it goes the point goes into the water

it doesn't actually say in the oed it just simply says to go pear shaped go awry originally orif slang the nose started to go down yeah i think we'd have to get purple people who have been in the raf sadly i can't ask my dad but just exactly why that yeah you know why it refers to my my father my father-in-law my late father-in-law was also in the raf we can't ask him either so going pear-shaped give us some more going pear-shaped um well boffin is always a nice one because you know there's been quite a campaign recently by you know people who do work in stem subjects whether it's um engineers whether it's scientists etc who resent understandably i think being called boffins by the press by the tabloids particularly they will

talk about boffins but I was asked about this quite recently and although I can see that it might be reductive and just sort of imply that they're nerds kind of pouring over sort of dusty volumes but like lexicographers actually I do think the tabloids do use it as quite an affectionate moniker it's not meant disparagingly at all and it's very much part of tabloid ease and that kind of tradition so I can definitely see both sides with that one but the curious thing is that we don't know where boffin itself came from so it was used by the RAF in the second world war for a research scientist one of the backroom boys and then passed into more general use again in the 1940s so there is a theory as

always when we don't know the answer a lot of people come up with theories that it may derive from a torpedo bomber the blackburn baffin which was named after a navigator called william baffin who discovered baffin bay yes in the north atlantic so that's one theory but honestly if you look it up in most dictionaries, it will say origin unknown. Very good. So should I tell you a little bit about the equipment? Some of the slang terms for the equipment that's used within the RAF. I mean, I think most people will know about G-pants. No. Oh, okay. So it's to...

I've never heard of G-pants. I've heard of the G-string. I've heard of the G-spot. I've heard of G-whiz, but I have not heard of G-pants. Okay. Well, you know, the G force is essentially what will make you very, very sick if you're going up and joining. So the red arrows on their amazing aerobatic manoeuvres. And G-pants are nylon trousers that are, they wrap around the legs and the and the body and they fill automatically with compressed air in high g maneuvers and this is to prevent the pooling of blood in the lower extremities and to literally stop you going unconscious i think outside the raf

they're known as speed jeans but they're called g pants within the raf there is a bat decoder and that is a document carried on all fight operations and that's the key or code code unlocker to current airborne communication codes that's called the bat decoder shreddies male underwear uh not sure i suppose this is equipment uh desert lily and a desert lily is a urinal made from a tin can lovely um and of course the thunderbox is a kind of chemical toilet which they will all be very used to um using well some of these are quite old i mean i remember they are the thunderbox appearing in novels by evil in war written about the war years yeah the thunderbox must date back at least to the 1940s, if not before. No, absolutely.

A lot of them are very old. And do you know what? I was talking to, you know, when I wrote my book on tribal slang, this was quite a while ago now. So I imagine that like all slang, it's probably moved on since then, although I suspect there will be some enduring terms. Dobi was always laundry and washing from Hindi, and dobi dust is washing powder.

And then, of course, NATO standard is the usual response to how do you want your tea or coffee? So it means with milk and sugar, which is good. But explain the NATO standard. I mean, why is that the response? Oh, well, I don't know. I mean, that must be just like, oh, well, that's how everybody has it. I wonder if there's some kind of acronym thing in there. I can't see the sort of milk and sugar bit. Yeah, I don't know. Any

purple person who has used this? It's NATO as in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Yeah, it must be. NATO standard. So maybe that's what everybody used to have. I don't know. But there will be a purple person that knows for sure. They will be. Because, I mean, how old is NATO? I imagine NATO dates from the 1950s, 1960s. Yeah, I mean, remember, all of these, as we said,

will quite possibly have been around for a while. I'll see if NATO standard is in. I doubt it will be in the OED. It's a funny expression. No, it's not there. How do you want your tea if NATO standard is in. I doubt it will be in the OED because it's a funny expression. No, it's not there. How do you want your tea, NATO standard? And putting on this ridiculous voice that when they're doing it, you know. Right.

What else do we have? Once you're up in the air, quite often if they're talking about a cloudless sky, they will talk about it being gininnas, as clear as gin. Oh, I like that. Yeah, and I think submariners actually use that as well. So they remove any oil from periscope lenses with gin until they were gin clear. They have goo, which is bad weather that dramatically reduces visibility, which makes them be in the soup. They have angels. is visibility which makes them be in the soup they have angels so an angels refers followed by a number refers to plane's altitude and it's measured in um 1 000 feet so angels 12

means you're flying at 12 000 feet i always think that's quite that's quite beautiful that is nice if you do a bat turn uh you do a tight high g change of direction and that is because of the batmobile maneuver and the old batman tv programs where they do a rapid kind of 180 degree turn so yeah i could go on and on and on because honestly it is it is almost um endless but it it is just extremely colorful and means everything to those within the areaF. Great, well done. And are you telling me that most of these expressions that you shared with us when you were doing your research, you actually found that contemporary members of the RAF, officers, men, women, serving, are using these phrases as part of their everyday discourse? I think so. These are the ones that I

was given and they weren't necessarily by people who had been within the force, you know, the veterans. They were, you know, fairly young people that i spoke to but again the purple people because they are happily they are in so many different places in so many different professions they will be able to tell us i mean one other example was wallop for uh for beer and you'll find this in all three uh services actually actually and it was originally used in pub slang essentially probably because it gives you a kick although wallop was then later also a term for weak beer one that didn't give you a kick which if you remember also gave us cods wallop because Hiram Codd developed these glass stoppered bottles that would keep fizz

of you keep the fizz of soft drinks and Hiram Codd's wallop or cheap beer i.e. not the strong stuff then became a byword for nonsense because it wasn't the real thing so um so that's done an interesting turn and that i may be that it's preserved a very different meaning in the RAF i'm not sure but i would absolutely love to hear more. So any purple people who can dip into the lexicon of the RAF and give us some new ones or tell us what's not being used anymore, I'd really welcome that. And I would welcome further intelligence on facial hair in the armed forces. What I do know is the new RAF regulations, they do allow you to have neat beards,

neat moustaches and neat heads of hair, but they don't allow hair coloring. So don't think you can come to work, chaps, with bright orange hair. It's just not on. Okay. Cheerio. Pip pip. Let's take a break, everybody, and then see what our lovely correspondents, the purple people around the world, have got to tell us, okay? Smashing job so far. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. You might know me as the creator and host of the How to Fail podcast. But I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made. How to Write a Book is for anyone who wants to get their story out there. Fronted by a best-selling author, a super agent and a powerhouse publisher, this 12-week masterclass will take you right through from developing an idea to nailing the plot.

If you want to get all episodes at once and completely ad-free, subscribe now. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. This is Something Rides With Purple and people want to get in touch with us. subscribe now. Listen now wherever from around the world. Who's been in touch this week? Yes. Would you have the email from Niccolo in front of you? I do. Grazie mille, Niccolo. And where does Niccolo come from? Do you know? Should I read it to you? Yes, please read it to us. Niccolo writes, Dear Susie and Giles, thanks lots for this wonderful podcast, which is following me weekly around the world. I discovered it while I was in Taiwan. It followed me to Germany and back home to Italy. I really love it. My question is, release, relax, let and leave all share a common sense of setting something free or loose. Is it possible that all these words share the same root, L-E? There's L-E in release, relax, let, leave. As an ancient Greek undergraduate student, I know that lipia, if I'm pronouncing this correctly, lipia, to leave, has the same root. I cannot wait to listen to your next episode.

Well, many thanks. Grazie mille, says Niccolo. I didn't pronounce the ancient Greek very well, but is there any connection between these words and let, leave, leave? Certainly semantically when it comes to meanings, yes, but not so much etymologically as far as we can see. So I'll start with release. And that is actually a variant of a word from the Latin relaxare. So it's a sibling of relax. And to relaxare for the Romans was to loosen or stretch out and laxare which

of course gave us lax means to loosen so that does fit Nicolaus' bill it is all about loosening and releasing then you have relieve and that actually goes back to a different Latin root relevare in which the levare gave us levitation and levity and that kind of thing, because it's all about lifting up or raising up. So the idea is that you are lifting someone's or lightening someone's load, if that makes sense. Then we have let, and that one is a Germanic actually word. It's been around obviously since Old old English lots of what we call cognates or relatives in other languages but we think the ancient root of that is indeed an le root meaning to let go or slacken but it isn't we think the same ancient root as release and relieve and

Nicola obviously all the work will still go on I'll finish with leave because that's a really nice one. So leave in the sense of the noun rather than leaving a place as a verb. So you're giving somebody liberty or license to do something. That actually goes back to an ancient root meaning to love, which is quite lovely. So it's the idea really of giving approval because you are happy about it or because you love someone asking for it, which is quite an unlikely coupling, I always think. So as far as we know, all distinct. But, you know, if you were to draw a family tree, I suspect they would be close to each other, if not coming from exactly the same line. Well, that was pretty comprehensive. Well done, Susie Dent. You tell us who the next letter

comes from. Please share it with us. Okay. So this is from Thomas. Dear Susie and Giles, I was listening to the wonderful Angelique Kidjo being interviewed. Is that what she's called? Kidjo? Is that how you pronounce it? Yes, it is. Being interviewed on BBC Radio 4's This Cultural Life. She described her younger self as a tomboy, which got me thinking. Tom is a masculine name used for masculine things, such as a tomcat, and boy is also a masculine, but a tomboy is feminine, so it seems more appropriate for a young woman tom-tomming from the top of a tree, engaging in some tomfoolery, and generally behaving like any other Tom, Dick or Harry, to be called a tom girl or perhaps a boy Jane. Can Susie get to the bottom of this?

And no doubt, Giles has a customary tale or two about having met Angelique Kidule. Have you, Giles? Yes, please. Indeed. Should I go first? Oh, of course. I mean, my gosh.

Tell you what the thing I know most about Angelique Kidule is that she originates her family from what is now called Benin, but it was French Dahomey. And her birthday was the 14th of July. I think she was born back in 1960. But she is, I mean, some people describe her as Africa's premier diva. In fact, I think Time magazine called her that. She is an extraordinary, an electric performer. as Africa's premier diva. In fact, I think Time magazine called her that. She is an extraordinary, an electric performer.

And I encountered her when, after she performed at the Tokyo Olympic Games, she did this sort of opening song. She was in Paris briefly. And I can't pretend we had a close encounter, but we were in the same room. And there were no more than 300 other people in the room at the same time so i have seen it still count across it does it does count i think it does count and she's performed with all sorts of people from you know bono to sting to i mean she's just one of the greats so yes okay so should i answer answer the question

it is a bit of a strange one it has to be said a tomboy, the term originated in the mid-16th century to mean a rude, boisterous boy. So it was masculine to begin with. But then it quickly developed to mean, and I'll give you the dictionary definition, a wild, romping girl, a girl who acts like a spirited boy. So that's recorded just 40 years later in the 1590s. And then as so often, you know, kind of implications of immorality or promiscuity crept in, and this happens so much with the vocabulary of women, I said it could mean strumpet, a bold or immodest woman.

So Tom Girl, which you might think would be the more logical name, really, for a girl who behaves in a boyish fashion, that came along later as a riff on Tom Boy. So obviously people had the same idea, really, as Thomas did. And just thought, surely that can't be right. So Tom Girl is first recorded in, I think, the late 19th century. And it was actually in the name of a character called Miss Tom Girl Thomas. So it's always been a Tom boy. And I have to say that English is never completely logical. In fact, sometimes it just goes off in its very eccentric way. And this is a really good example of it. But

I'm with Thomas, it should be a Tom girl. do you did you tell us just then when tomboy is first used in English yes the mid-16th century 1550s as early as that because I used to think it was uh came from Tom Sawyer and it was behaving in a tomboyish way because in Victorian times Tom Tom Sawyer became this hugely famous, world-famous character. And I know a lot of girls wanted to be like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And I thought it might have been that. But it goes right back to the 16th century. My goodness. That's amazing.

But it doesn't really make much sense, which I totally get. But thank you, Thomas, for that. And indeed, Nicola as well. Now, do you know what, Giles? We are quickly coming up for our 250th episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, which is extraordinary. And so... What is that called? What is the 250th called?

It's a quarter of a thousand, isn't it? Yeah. A quarter of a millennium. Yeah. It's amazing. It is amazing. 250th. Wow.

So for our anniversary, we would like to make it all about the purple people, we decided, didn't we? So we're going to have a correspondence episode, which i have to say is one of my absolute favorite things so if you have any etymological queries or questions no matter how big or small please write and voice note them all over to our email address and that is purple people at something rhymes.com and as always we'll try to get to as many as possible. I have to say here that this is Susie's decision that it should be the people's voice. I wanted

another episode on rude words because we haven't had one for almost 250 episodes and I wanted an episode on really amusing unusual rude words. Not words that are rude because they're disgusting and people hate them or shouldn't be using them, but novelty rude words. So that will be coming up eventually,

but not immediately. The 250th episode will be you, the purple people, asking your questions. And then a little bit later on, there'll be some rudery from me. Immediately, have you got a trio of intriguing words to delight us with this week, Susie? I do. So the first one, it kind of fits in with the Monty Python sketch or the Armstrong and Miller sketch, because very often, certainly in the latter, Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller are smoking pipes.

And so I thought I would talk about going lunting. And lunting, or to lunt, centuries ago, meant to go for a walk and smoke a pipe at the same time. Amazing that there is a verb specifically for that. I love it. I'm going lunting. After lunch, I'm going lunting. I love it.

I can picture it. There's something quite reassuring. I'm sure smoking pipes is not good for you, but there's something quite reassuring about sort of walking through the Bracken with your Labrador at your knees, smoking your pipe. Yes, go on. So I think the next two might be familiar, actually, to some of the purple people and to you, Giles, to be beef-witted. It's just so evocative, I think. If you are beef-witted,

or at least if you were in the 16th century, you're just extremely stupid. Don't be so beef-witted, which I think is quite interesting. I think the idea is that you've just gratified your stomach so much that actually you're just a bit stupefied because you're so full. Or maybe, forgive me, maybe because beef, you know,

a huge animal is sort of so thick. Oh, but they're not. Could that be it? Cows are absolutely not thick. I appreciate that. And we know pigs are super intelligent but just the visual thing maybe i don't know maybe oh you think it is because you're sort of sated with food i think shakes they may have used this actually i'll go and i'll go and double check to see how he used and if he gives us a clue because he often does and then the third

one is i just like behoove and to behooveove you is to be necessary or appropriate to you. So, you know, that behaviour does not behoove you, Giles, for example, or behoove. Behoove. I would have said behoove. I thought it was spelt B-E-H-O-V-E. Yeah, it is. But it can also, at least it was once spelt with double O, which I kind of think looks sweeter. But behoove or behoove, I think it's they're all they're all of course inflections of behave but I just just love the idea of it and I think we should reintroduce it into our conversation I say behove you say behoove let's call the whole thing off right you always have a lovely poem for us and I'm sure today is no exception well I have got a lovely poem this week because of course I was thinking about the Royal Air Force.

And immediately one poem came into my mind. And it's a poem I've known all my life, really. There was a famous film made during the war, the end of the Second World War. That was a very popular film. And the film was called The Way to the Stars. And there were many films made during the war, propaganda films, and after the war, films celebrating the achievements of the Allies during the war. And I think in this film, I think it was the voice of Michael Redgrave that read the film.

But I have heard recordings of people like Laurence Olivier reading this particular poem. It's called For Johnny. It's about an RAF pilot, and it's written by a man called John Pudney, who was a well-known poet. He'd been commissioned into the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer, and during the war, he was a member of the Air Ministry's Creative Writers Unit. And he published various articles and a lot of poetry during the war, including this poem that became very popular. And it's simply called For Johnny.

Do not despair, for Johnny head in air, he sleeps as sound as Johnny underground. Fetch out no shroud for Johnny in the cloud, and keep your tears for him in After Years. Better by far for Johnny the Bright Star to keep your head and see his children fed. There you are. A poem for one of the many extraordinary young men, and they mostly were very young men indeed, who lost their lives during the second world war particularly during the battle of britain amazing so it's a short moving poem that moved people hugely at the time of the second world war and i think still packs a punch today i agree i absolutely agree and we hope that you do too thank you as always for following us and

listening to us here and following us on social media as well. Just a reminder, there is the Purple Plus Club. I do notice sometimes in the comments, actually, Giles, people are a bit sad about the subscription, the Purple Plus Club, thinking that it is, you know, it excludes them. But I would just say it is very much a bonus club. We have a lot of fun in it, but it doesn't affect the main episodes, which are a lot longer. And, you know, they are still we hope worth it what it gives you is ad free listening which some people like i of course like the ads that's because sometimes well i make ads and i find them quite intriguing and on television i often think the ads are better than the programs

oh interesting i think it's when you when you certainly when you're looking at youtube or something like that when you literally see the same one every two minutes anyway i know it can be quite irritating can't it yeah and you try and press the thing that says skip ads and it doesn't no no definitely not on there but anyway that's a different discussion the one here today is coming to an end and something rhymes with purple is a sony music entertainment production was produced by nayo dio with additional production from Naomi Oyiku, Sophie King, Hannah Newton, Chris Skinner, Poppy Thompson

and the invisible genius himself, Richie. And he's got a full beard. He's got a full beard. Do you remember that hairy blighter the dickie bird had feathered back? The fellow we used to call Gully. Where's he gone? I think he's gone for a burton. Yes.