Something Rhymes with Purple - The Purple People Eater

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

A highly enjoyable sift through the mountain of emails you’ve sent in over the last few weeks with some absolutely corking questions to answer. In this week’s footage we lurch from poaching to doughnuts (or should that be donuts?), we separate our vets from our vets, and we discover the meaning of ‘lief’. There are also musical interludes from hungry monsters, limericks, and a handsome trio of words to add to your arsenal.  A Somethin’ Else production.  We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them in to [e-mail]  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to join the Purple Plus Club on Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  Susie’s Trio Polylogise – to talk too much Witzelsucht – a feeble attempt at humour Siffilate – to speak in whispers 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. 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.

Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast all about words and language. And it's hosted by me, Giles Brandreth, and my friend, the world's leading lexicographer, she denies that title, but I think she deserves it, Susie Dent. Are you qualified as a lexicographer in the sense that you have, is there such a thing as a degree in lexicography? No, there isn't a degree in lexicography that I know of anyway, but I suppose I'm qualified through experience, but I don't have

any letters I can add to the end of my name saying lexicographer LX. That would be quite cool. LEX, wouldn't it? That's at the end of my name. But no, and actually it's quite interesting because at the moment, Oxford dictionaries are looking for people who can go and work for them over a summer placement. So a paid summer placement to kind of start delving into the world of lexicography. And of course, I highly recommend it.

And if they wanted, if someone listening to this suddenly thinks, oh, that sounds interesting, they just go to a website, they go to the Oxford University Press, where do they go to? Yes, I will retweet actually their link. But yes, if you look at Oxford University Press and then look for Oxford Dictionary's summer placement, hopefully you will get there. We're both on Twitter, by the way.

What is your call sign? What do they call it? Your handle on Twitter? It is at suzy underscore dent at suzy underscore dent and she does a word of the day on there which is always intriguing and i do a quote of the day on mine which is at giles b1 g y l e s b1 and i had to be giles b1 because there were people who had taken my name. Are you constantly disgruntled because people misspell your name? Is it one way you just think, oh, I have to do this again?

Why? It's a why. Can I tell you I'm gruntled that they even think about me? I'm gruntled at all times and charmed. And it's ridiculous. Two things to say about it. One, I'm always reminded of you reminding me that spelling or orthography, spelling, is a relatively recent innovation. And my name,

Giles, is an old family. Lots of people in my family have been called Giles over hundreds of years. And so sometimes in the olden days, it was spelled Giles with an I, sometimes Giles with a Y. There was no consistency in the spelling. I always, sometimes Giles with a Y. There was no consistency in the spelling. I always felt that Giles with a Y was a little bit pretentious, but that's the way it was. And so I'm sort of lumbered with it and I don't mind at all. And Susie is spelt S-U-S-I-E, not S-U-Z-I-E. Yes, S not S-U-Z, but again, I get lots of different permutations, S-U-Z-Y, but I don't really mind either. And my surname has got wrong quite often as well. So it's fine. What do they give you instead of dent? Dent would be quite easy. I've had a Christmas card addressed to Susie Dead before.

Oh no. Let's just leave it at that. That's a bit grim. Anyway, look, today we thought we'd take a dive into the mailbag. Oh yes. Which we love doing because it's fun to hear from you. And we do get lots of people communicating every week. And this is an opportunity to deal with more questions than we can in a normal episode. Thank you so much for sending them, by the way. And do keep them coming in.

If you want to be in touch, it's simply purple at somethingelse.com. Yes. And before we get to the questions, Giles, we had a couple of emails from Darren Verner and Ron Brown, who after hearing the flying saucer song, do you remember in our UFOs episode, they were inspired to send us a link as well. I have to say many of my lovely followers on Twitter to Sheb Woolley's 1958 hit,

and it's called the purple people eater. So I don't know if you remember this but let's take a listen to it but be warned it is really catchy it might well become an earworm earworm for both of us well i saw the thing coming out of the sky but a one long horn and one big eye i commenced to shaking in the city it looks like a purple people leader to me it was a one-eyed one horn flying purple people leader one-eyed one horn flying purple people one-eyed one horn flying purple people leader sure looks strange to me one eye really came down to earth and he lit in the tree. I said, Mr. Purple People Eater, don't eat me.

I heard him say in a voice so gruff, I wouldn't eat you cause you're so tough. It was a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater. One-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater. One-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater. Sure

looks strange to me. That is amazing. We must work at this They have good songs. That is amazing. We must work at this because we're going to do some more live podcasts later in the year. Yeah. And next year too, I think. And we have to come on to the stage, you and I, flicking our fingers, kicking up our legs and singing the Purple People Eater. We must. Okay. We must. We must work on it. by flicking our fingers kicking up our legs and singing the purple people eater we must okay we must work on it but just that reminds me of the itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot

bikini remember that they're just they're so catchy those songs i do perhaps we should both wear one of those as well that's going too far isn't it i definitely won't leave that to you yes i think it is but what a perfect song for the podcast and for our loyal purple people. And I saw that Ron Brown is based in Finland because, Giles, your and mine old friend Barry Cryer actually scored a number one in Finland with his cover of it. Did you know that?

I think I did know that. I think he liked to boast about it. I'm quite right too. It's such a catchy song. Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you, too. It's such a catchy song. Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you, Darren and Ron, for sending that in. And if you think that you think the Purple people will be interested in reading or listening to, please email us. It's quite simply purple at something else dot com, something without the G. OK, let's get on with the questions. Hello, Susie and Giles. i love your podcast and i've been listening

from the very start i was listening to a different podcast recently and the presenter mentioned the word footage as in something caught on video please can you tell me why it is called footage many thanks kelvin upland painting in devon oh i love that that devonian accent painting that was that's brilliant uh well thank you kelvin for writing in and jaz you probably know this one don't you i'm not suggesting you're old well i i don't know i imagine it's because in the old days it was film and film was as it were a length of film you had a certain number of feet with which to make your film actual length of film. Indeed, I remember in the early days, not like now when it's all digital, you can go on endlessly.

It was for a news report, it was three to one. And for a documentary, it was five to one, meaning you had three times the amount of footage than you might actually end up with on screen. So you couldn't really afford to make too many mistakes. That's so interesting. Well, now you're completely spot on so early 35 millimeters silent film was measured in feet and frames and we often talk about um cutting room floor don't we that will end up on the cutting room floor well the film was measured by length in cutting rooms and i think there were 16 frames in a foot of 35 millimeter film and that gave gave, can you believe it, one second of silent film.

And because of that, footage became this sort of, you know, natural unit of measure for film. And then it came to be used figuratively to describe moving image material of any kind, including, as you say now, digital. When I first started making television in the 1960s, it was all done on film. And you'd go to the edit, and you would

sit there with a machine, cutting up with a razor blade, actually cutting the film and then putting it together with the equivalent of sellotape. That's how it was done. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, I was going to say it's not that long ago, but I do realise now it is 50 or more years ago. Anyway, our next question is about lurchers and it comes from steve mansfield steve says we've had lurcher dogs for over 30 years but have never had a satisfactory explanation of why a hunting dog crossed with a greyhound should be called a lurcher i love lurchers i think they're absolutely beautiful and you know i love the etymology of dog names because there's always something to discover about the nature or the appearance

of the dogs themselves so Steve is from Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire thanks Steve well the short answer I can give Steve and you will know from your own lurcher dogs whether this is true but in the early 16th century lurch was a variant of lurk so the idea was that lurcher dogs would remain furtively in a place possibly kind of waiting for prey so I imagine that lurchers then were used for for hunting and certainly they were used for lamping which I really hate but I think Steve that's where it comes from certainly it it is a variation on lurks. So they're lurkers, really. So you can tell us whether that fits your wonderful dogs that you've had for such a long time. Should we go straight on to poaching? Let's go to poaching. And this is

a global podcast. And so we get people from around the world getting in touch. Here's Sophie Peterson. Kia ora, Susie and Giles, and a big hello from Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. Earlier today I was telling my dad about a chicken farm that I drive past every day and how atop the coop there always seems to be a cheeky seagull just waiting to poach an egg. If you'll pardon the pun. This got me thinking about the difference between poaching, i.e. eggs for breakfast, and poaching in terms of illegal hunting. I'm interested to know if there's any connection between the two.

Love the podcast. Thanks in advance. Well, thank you, Sophie. What a wonderful voice and what high energy. My goodness, I like the sound of Sophie. Well, you're poached eggs and poaching in terms of, you know, poaching ideas, poaching, well, poaching and illegal hunting. Is there a connection? Yeah, so poaching eggs and poaching game, they seem vastly different in terms of activities, don't they? But they're both probably connected to each other. And the link is an old French word, pocher, or pocher, which means to enclose in a bag. Now, we still use poche

for a pocket in French. And if you remember the old proverb, never buy a pig in a poke, the poke there is also related to the poche, a pocket. So in other words, or a bag, don't buy a pig in a bag that you can't see because when the bag is opened, a cat might pop out and you've let the cat out of the bag. So you've actually been sold a wrongen. Anyway, back to the poh uh posh meant to enclose in a bag and when you poach an egg if you think about it the white of the egg is forming a bit of a pocket isn't it or a bag for the yolk to cook in uh which is a lovely idea and you can see that if you're actually looking at an egg that is being poached and then the at the second poach to steal game that emerged a little bit later and the

connection there probably comes from the pocket or the bag that a poacher would use to stuff his ill-gotten gains into so it's the bag that is the it is the connection the push so that the two are connected how intriguing do you ever do you poach eggs uh i'm not very good at it i've got all sorts of different contraptions over the years to try you know and i've used the vinegar i've bought those little sort of plastic round things and i never quite manage it um but we use we used to have a successful egg poacher thing, a thingy, like a saucepan with a tray on top and then little sort of places, little circles for each of the eggs. We lost that. I don't know where it's gone. And we've now tried these little plastic containers and I've tried floating the eggs and it doesn't seem to.

So I love the idea of a poached egg, but I don't ever have them. No, I'm with you you but while we're on pockets and you know in bags if you pucker your cheeks for example or if you have puckered cheeks that's from the same source because the idea is that little gatherings in your cheeks are little pockets gosh the other day too we were talking about the codpiece and that was to do with a pocket as well wasn't it a bag a was a bag. A bag, yes. A bag. The cod was the bag and the bush is the pocket.

Well, thank you for asking that from Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. That's a long way away. That's probably our farthest away, our listener, isn't it? Do you think? Oh, we could be like the fantastic podcast that was Wittertainment where they always had a competition to see who was the furthest away and they had some fantastic contenders. So let's see if we can do that.

Yes, if you're listening in Papua New Guinea, please get in touch. Yes. We would love that. We would. Who's up next? Up next is Jeremy, now hopefully I pronounce this correctly, Jeremy Ison. Dear Susie, I came with my family to the live show at London's Cadogan Hall recently.

It was a highly enjoyable birthday outing for me. Afterwards, I was talking to Giles and asked him a question from my 12-year-old daughter Kate, but he didn't seem to know the answer. As you were not around, he suggested I write in. So, can you tell us why a doughnut sounds like it has nuts in it? Is it a misnomer or has the recipe changed over the years? Thank you and best wishes, Jeremy from New Malden. We go from New Zealand to New Malden. We cover the world.

This is a really intriguing question, isn't it, Susie? What's the answer? Well, it is, although it's an intriguing question. I'm not sure the answer is quite so intriguing or exciting. So I'm sorry, Jeremy and Katie, or Kate, because you might be expecting some fantastic old recipe for delicious nut doughnuts. But actually, it was simply because these ring-shaped pieces of sweet fried dough were much much smaller and they were shaped like nuts in other words they

were just tiny little nuts that you would see in the pan but nothing to do with the real nuts you know that we eat peanuts walnuts etc so it's as simple as that but actually there's one further thing to throw in here which is that in slang a nut or a donut was a source of pleasure or delight for a person which of course if you are a fan of donuts which most of us are it makes absolute sense and so if you said you were doing something for nuts you were doing it for fun, for amusement. And nuts and cheese, weirdly, was something that was intended to please somebody else. So nuts have always been used in that sense of something really delicious. So I like to think that that came to play too, when you had the doughnuts, the sort of little nut shaped pieces that were made of sweet fried

dough. But in America, of course, they spell doughnut, D-O-N-U-T. And that was, I suppose, like the sort of playful spelling that you might get with tonight, T-O-N-I-T-E, which used to really get on my nerves. But it's been made popular by so many people, brands such as Dunkin Donuts, for example, that it's become an accepted spelling. But I have to say, in America, the sort of standard version is still D-O-U-G-H. But I think that simplified American spelling is rather good. Do you? As a child, I could never work this out, why D-O-U-G-H is pronounced dough,

whereas enough, the same ending, O-U-G-H, you're pronouncing the off. We talked about that the other day, didn't we? The sort of strangeness and idiosyncrasy of English spelling, which is why I love it. But yeah, so dough itself, I think maybe, possibly, the O-U-G-H came from the fact that it was almost like a sort of baker's trough, really, because dough is all about kneading um goes back to an old English word meaning kneading but in Russia a similar word means a baker's trough so maybe we then sort of added the O-U-G-H to rhyme with that or possibly we were just following things like rough or enough as you say or laugh for example so you know lots of different theories but what we tend to do as

you know is we take a foreign word and then we make it look familiar by giving it the form or the sound of something we already know. And we've done that throughout history. So, yeah, I think that was to play there. There's a word, slough, and that means what a snake does when it sheds its skin, it sloughs its skin. Yes. And is that spelt S-L-O-U-G-H? That is. So the slough is the sort of outer skin. You're absolutely right. And it's usually kind of diseased skin or tissue or whatever. And that goes back to the slough that meant in Germanic, it meant a husk or a peel or a shell. And yet the place, there's a town in the UK called Slough, which is spelt slough. Isn't that curious? It is. It's the same word? Yes. And then we also have the Slough

of Despond. So a slough actually is a piece of soft or muddy ground, especially a hole in a road that's kind of filled with wet mud and makes it impassable. And is that spelt the same? Forgive me, the Slough of Despond, how is that spelt? The Slough of Despond, which came from John Bunyan, that is spelt exactly the same as in slough. And also the same as slough, though it's a different word with a different meaning. Oh, I love the English language. It's too ridiculous for words. If you love the English language as much as we do, and if you want to support the show, you can actually do so for a monthly subscription of $1.89 a month.

And that way you get all the episodes ad-free, and you get discount codes on our merchandise ranges, and access to the exclusive bonus episodes. And we've done episodes on Wurdle and Cheese, as well as someone doing we're doing a kind of A to Z of my favourite poets we began with W.H. Auden when we get round to Benjamin Zephaniah

I don't know, I'll be a very old person by then, so take your pick and to find out more and to start a seven day free trial, follow the links in the programme description should we take a quick break, Susie? Yes, let's take a break. And then, do you know what we're coming back to? Something that just sums you up, Giles, the word handsome.

Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4pm late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. 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. A 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. Handsome is as handsome does. That's an interesting phrase.

Are you familiar with that phrase? Vaguely, yes. So what does it mean? It's a proverb, isn't it is a problem i'm not sure quite what it means maybe it just means good all round it looks good and delivers good because sometimes people can be deceptively handsome and then they turn out to be cads what's the origin of cad cad okay so cad is a shortening of cadet um so that gave us caddy um as in the golfing caddy because they were sort of you know people who were in attendance if you like and cad also became associated with what were called kind of

the sort of low fellows who hung about oxford colleges to or in fact even public school colleges to give them anything necessary to help them i mean it was a real classist thing and then so at oxford it was applied to the town lads of the same description so it goes back to that distinction between town and gown whereas whereby those toffs if you like at oxford and cambridge and other illustrious universities would look down on people and because they were the hangers-on or the helpers, they became associated with kind of low morals. You know, we've done that throughout history. So, yeah, it's a sort of classist and slightly snarling term.

Well, the word we're going to discuss now is the word handsome. And we've already been to Devon and to Derbyshire, and we've been internationally, we've been to New Zealand. Let's go to the United States of America here. Hello, Giles and Susie. Ian here in Ohio, just having a morning cup of tea, and I was wondering where the word handsome comes from. Best, Ian. I like the sound of Ian Rice. I can see him with his cup of tea. Bless him. Thank you very much, Ian, for being in touch. Well, tell us all about the origin of the word handsome. For a start, it's spelt hand-some, isn't it? H-A-N-D-S-O-M-E. Yes, and that is because it meant easy to handle or easy to control.

So that was the idea, something that was sort of malleable or suitable if you like and if you remember that also gave us the word buxom or the same idea because to be buxom was to be sort of pliant and compliant and pleasing and agreeable and suitable it goes back to the German biegsam meaning bendable so something handsome was easy to handle and from, it meant something that was approved of or seemly or courteous or gracious. And then it was transferred to looks to somebody who was both gallant and also looked the part. So today, you'd say someone was handsome, it would mean they're very good looking. Yes. But actually, if you mean a handsome gesture, that could be considered a generous gesture, something that is admirable.

And fitting and elegant and stylish and all of that. And so the sort of attractive and pleasing in appearance thing did come about by Shakespeare's time. So in Othello, he talks about a very handsome man and he can be a handsome woman, of course, as well. So, yeah, that's how it started. So it is actually all to do with the hands, so to speak. So, yeah, that's how it started. So it is actually all to do with the hand, so to speak. I'm picturing Ian there in Ohio having his morning cup of tea. And he was wondering where the word handsome comes from.

And I don't know whether he caught sight of himself, because I think he probably is very handsome in a reflection on something on the table. Maybe he has a mirror to hand. And he thought, yeah, well, this is a great word. I wonder where it comes from. Anyway, the rest of it's actually a idio repulsive self-repelling. You are. I don't know where this comes from with you, Susie, because you are so self-deprecating in that respect. It is ridiculous. And it's a problem for people like me because I'm no longer allowed to tell you how beautiful you are because I risk being cancelled for

making sort of personal remarks. So I want you to know I'm thinking how beautiful you are because I risk being cancelled for making sort of personal remarks. So I want you to know I'm thinking how beautiful you are. Thank you. As I always did, but I'm no longer saying it because I know it's not acceptable. Well, that's very sweet of you. Thank you. I will absolutely take that. The next question comes from Patricia Petow. Do you think I pronounced that correctly, Giles? P-E-T-O-W, yeah. Hi, Susie and Giles. I very much enjoy your podcast. What is the etymology of the idiom, which I've heard on British TV programmes

that I watch through BritBox, who's he when he's at home? And this reminds me of all those sort of rhetorical questions like who's she, the cat's mother, all the things that our parents would say. And it's a good question, isn't it? Who's he the cat's mother all the things that our parents would say and it's a good question isn't it who's he when he's at home so I did a bit of research on this one because I didn't actually know the answer immediately Patricia and I looked as always in the Oxford English

Dictionary and it says that this is used in interrogative phrases i.e questions expressing frequently scornful doubt or a query about the identity of a person or thing so i think the idea is simply that if you're questioning the identity of someone you want to know who they are when they are at home because that is who they are when they will be at their real selves if you like um and that's that's the only only answer i can really give the oed doesn't really give a reason why. But the earliest example is 1845 from a novel. And who is Mr. Lucas when he's at home,

said Owen half sneeringly. So that's my best bet. It's just when you're at home, you are yourself. So the question is, who is she when she's at home? In other words, who is the real person? I see that Patricia, signs herself Patricia A. Pettau, which is a clue, makes us think she comes from North America, because people in the UK don't do that. And indeed, the very fact that she refers to the British TV programmes she watches through

the streaming service BritBox. I used to, as a child, love comedies written by Frank Muir and Dennis Norton, who wrote for radio and television. And they were television presenters as well. And I do remember overhearing them telling an account once of Frank Muir, who'd got rather indignant at not being recognised in a restaurant, and saying to his friend, Dennis Norton,

you know, and they didn't seem to know who I was. And Dennis Norton replied, well, who were you? Excellent. Limerick. Regular listeners will know that part and parcel of the show is not just the brilliant etymology provided by Susie and the trio of words, but usually I pop in a favourite poem.

And, well, Martin Jones is sending us a favourite poem of his. Hi, Susie and Giles. This is Martin from Dremouli in the Scottish Highlands. I was reflecting on the fact that only two words rhyme with purple, which reminded me that this was just enough for a limerick. So on that flimsy basis, and prompted by Susie's mention of the OED historical thesaurus, I came up with this ditty.

An efferous yark on the kerpal can cause one to swaver and herpal and render one's cheeks for mulcius weeks melanic and livid and purple. Keep up the good work. Oh, well done, Martin. Oh, so good. He's got so many interesting words in that limerick, and you may have to take us through them. An ephorus, yark on the kerpal. Ephorus, is that a word? E-double-F-E-R-O-U-S? It is. It means fierce or violent.

And a yark is a sort of lash with the whip. So not very nice for the poor horse or its kerpal, which, if you remember, is part of its rump. So it means a sort of you know a very fierce whip on the rump of a horse can cause you to swaver and herpal now herpal we know one of the rhymes for purple is to walk with a limp to swaver is to stagger or totter and render one's cheeks one's butt cheeks i imagined for multius weeks forweeks, for many weeks. Melanic, i.e. black, linked to melancholy, which means black bile, and melanoma, which means a sort of black tumour, if you like. Melanic and livid, you know, livid as in angry, but also livid as in purple and swollen.

And purple, so it's absolutely brilliant. Congratulations. I salute you. Well done. As you know, the limerick I like best is the very short one that's my favorite. There was a young man from Peru whose limerick stopped at line two. On we go to the next question. This one comes from Andrew Griffiths. Hello, Susie and Giles. My name is Andrew.

I've been binging your podcast since I discovered it a few months back. I split my time between Cusco, Peru and Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. I've tended to listen when I'm doing the dishes at the gym or perhaps on a long flight. So my question is, whenever I use the word vet in a conversation, I always feel the need to specify whether I mean veteran or veterinarian. But is there actually any connection between the two words? And if not, what is the origin of each? Thank you. Very good question. I've often wondered that. What is the answer?

The answer is that veteran comes to, or came to us by French from the Latin vetus or vetus, V-E-T-U-S, which means old. French from the Latin vetus or vetus, V-E-T-U-S, which means old. So that also gave us inveterate because inveterate is somebody longstanding, if you like. So this veteran is not, or this vet, if you like, is not related to the vet that is short for veterinarian, always difficult to say and to spell. That goes back to the Latin veterinarius, which comes in turn from veterinai, meaning cattle. So it was all about looking after your cattle, which were prized possessions, particularly in medieval times and indeed in Anglo-Saxon times. So very, very different. One meaning old, the other meaning cattle. That's intriguing. There we go. And another mark of our international audience, which is fantastic.

Well, again, the next one comes to us all the way from Arkansas. Dear Susie and Giles, greetings from Arkansas in the US. Love the podcast and you're the perfect people to ask about an unusual word, leaf, spelled L-I-E-F. I first came across this word in a Jane Austen novel. It was used in the phrase, I would as leaf, meaning I would rather, or as we might say around here, I would just as soon. I assumed it to be an older word that had fallen out of usage. I was therefore surprised to see it used by a character in a detective story written in the 1930s and set in 1930s California with the same spelling and usage. I recently read William Faulkner's novel Sanctuary, also written in the 1930s, and was again surprised to see a character in 1930s rural Mississippi, say, eyed as leaf. Can you shed any light on the origin of this word, or perhaps explain why it appears in such disparate works of literature? Is it still used in some regions? Many thanks, Corey Winters.

Wow, isn't that intriguing? He's clearly very well read, isn't he? And I know about leaf because it comes from one of the oldest and most prestigious, really, of families in English because it is related to leave. It is related to furlough, actually, as well, love and belief. It's wrapped up in all of those. And really, it goes back to a Germanic word, leof, L-E-O-F, meaning dear or pleasant. So if you say I would as leaf do something, you are saying I would as happily, as gladly, I would rather do something. So I would just as leaf, I don't know, the example given in the dictionary is eat a pin cushion. I would rather eat a pin cushion than go for lunch with you. I would just as leaf eat a pin cushion. So that kind of explains most of its uses but what i was

looking up in the oed is the dates because that is what cory is saying here is that actually you know it's got a really wide well a long chronology and he says he first came across it in a jane austen novel but he's seen it in the 1930s and so on so uh yeah it's actually was first used in addressing a person in the ninth century. So it's one of the oldest, oldest words that we have. And it's mentioned in Beowulf as well. And you will find in again, sort of 10th century, you will find leaf is me, especially in Scots, dearest to me, for example, and then in lots and lots of different constructions but actually it goes all the way to I think the latest mentioned here is 1883 so it doesn't seem to have made it into the 1900s so there's one here for 1891 but not much further so it seems to kind of stopped really but then

what Corey is saying is that he's seen it set in the 1930s. So Corey has done a bit of work for the Oxford English Dictionary, and I need to send in what he has found, because they don't seem to have anything beyond, as you say, the end of the 1800s, but a really, really important word in Anglo-Saxon society, and as I say, linked to belief and to love. It's intriguing to me that he came across it in the works of Jane Austen. And I marvel that Jane Austen was writing now well over 200 years ago, and yet she remains hugely popular.

People read Jane Austen and she's accessible. And I'm puzzling about what that is. I mean, it must be because she writes about the human condition rather than events, because, I mean, it must be because she writes about the human condition rather than events, because, I mean, she lived through the Napoleonic Wars and yet I think makes no reference to the events of the time in her novels at all. Of course, I think there are naval officers in the stories and two of her brothers became admirals. But her sphere is quite limited, didn't she? is quite limited, didn't she? I mean, she spoke of the little bit, two inches wide, of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush

as produces little effect after much labour. But in fact, the effect after much labour is still being felt by us more than 200 years later. No, it's not lovely. No, you're absolutely right. What are you reading at the moment?

Are you reading anything? You've got a book on your bedside? I don't have a bedside book on the go because I am absolutely knee deep in editing my own book. And so it would be, it sounds ridiculous, but I sort of feel like it's a busman's holiday to sort of keep looking at text. So by the time I get to bed, I am so ready for sleep. I'm so dormative that I don't actually lift a book to my eyes. I just conk out. How about you? Well, I'm always ready for sleep, but I always read a little bit before going to sleep.

And at the moment, I'm finding it difficult to go to sleep because I'm reading such a fascinating and brilliant book by an American journalist called Virginia Cowles. And this is a book that was published many years ago. It's been reissued by Faber and Faber. It's called Looking for Trouble. She was a journalist in the 1930s, 1940s that covered the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of the Second World War.

And the reason I'm finding the book so gripping is it's beautifully written. And it's a fascinating account of the Spanish Civil War, which I've always found very difficult to understand, and about the early years of the Second World War, but the echoes within this book of what is currently happening in the Ukraine are so powerful and interesting that I find it... So, anyway, I recommend to anybody this book, reissued by Faber and Faber. It's an old book by this journalist. She was born 1910, died 1983. I came across it because I happened to know her daughter and I'd heard of this journalist, Virginia Cowles, but I didn't really realise what she'd done. But I got this book out by chance and I literally cannot put it down.

Give us the title again. Looking for Trouble by Virginia Cowles. I really do recommend it. It's history, by Virginia Coles. I really do recommend it. It's history, but it's history that reminds us that sometimes history appallingly seems to repeat itself in certain ways. Anyway, cheer us up with three intriguing words. Okay, well, I'm not sure these are particularly cheery, but perhaps quite useful. The first is, well, we can't, I really can't get our purple people to talk enough because we love hearing from you. But should there be somebody in your lives who actually does talk too much, you can say that they are polylogising. Poly, P-O-L-Y-L-O-G-I-S-E. They are simply talking excessively to polylogise.

Then the second one. Now, this started off as a bit of a medical condition, but I think, think again it sort of fills a gap for some people in our lives witzel sucht from german means a feeble attempt at humor it's the kind of joke that only amuses you and no one else witzel sucht so it's w-i-t-z-e-L-S-U-C-H-T. A feeble attempt at humour. Witzelsucht. I feel I'm guilty of both of these. This is awful. I'm definitely apologiser and I'm afraid. Witzelsucht is my go-to form of humour.

What's the third one? It's all about name-dropping. Oh, no. No, no, I'm just joking. That's quite funny. It's syphilate. Syphilate. Nothing to do with syphilis.. That's quite funny. It's syphilate. Syphilate. Nothing to do with syphilis.

I'm relieved to hear that. To syphilate. This goes back to the French word, syphleur, a whisperer. So somebody who would be a prompter offstage, for example, giving cues. To syphilate is to speak in whispers. Oh, that's lovely.

So you can say, stop syphilating behind my back, for example. Yeah. Yes, indeed. But how irritating if one was a polylogizer, also syphilated. That would be really annoying. Oh, those are three fantastic words. I've written them down.

That's the only way I can remember your words, you know, because otherwise it's in one ear, out the other, I'm afraid. Unless you write it down and keep using it. Well, given that you have mentioned this polylogize, and I do realize I talk too much, I often wonder why my parents sent me away so young to boarding school. I used to think it was because they didn't like me. Now I think that because I think they did like me,

but I just did talk too much, and I think they needed some peace. So they sent me off to boarding school. I've chosen a very short poem this week because of having said so much. And it's appropriate to us, Susie, because it's about the pleasures of friendship. And it's written by a major female poet, Stevie Smith. The pleasures of friendship are exquisite. How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit. I go to my friend, we walk on the grass, and the hours and moments like minutes pass. That's lovely. That's gorgeous.

It's a nice short poem and says it all. The easy. I like it because it's about the easy pleasures of friendship. Yeah. No, I agree. And they're ones to hold on to, aren't they? Well, as always, we would love you to recommend us to friends and to keep getting in touch because these kind of episodes, I have to say, are some of my favourite because we love hearing from you. And the email, as Giles said, is purple at something else dot com. Yes, indeed. And if you fancy joining the Purple Plus Club for bonus episodes, etc.,

do investigate that. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale and best wishes to Phoebe Webb who emailed us just

to say that she allowed herself a smile when on a bus in Ireland she went past the river Gully! There we are. He always makes a splash. And runs quite deep.