Something Rhymes with Purple - Thimble

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Discover how Tailors and Tagliatelle pasta are connected, why a large nail gave its name to the technique of ‘tacking’ and the treacherous origin story of the sewing machine. It’s going to be a *Singer* of an episode today as Susie and Gyles stitch, hem and thread their way through the world of sewing where all is not as it seams…  We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail] 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:  Expropriate: To get rid of or no longer own. Chimney-corner: The place of idlers Nuncheon: Food eaten between meals Gyles' poem this week was 'Hands off our horns' by 'Mark Graham ' I know my horn is impressive But it’s not a magic cure For poor performance in the sack Of that I’m really sure I recommend viagra If suffering from these ails You’re stupid if you buy my horn  Just bite your bloody nails A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Something else. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast all about words and language, particularly about the origin of words, and mainly about the English language. Though, as we discover week by week, more and more, English is the most international language you can imagine. As I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson said, it is a mighty river into which so many tributaries have flowed. Anyway, I do this with my linguistic partner, Susie Dent.

Is that a good way to describe you, Susie Dent? Are we partners? Is that what we are? We are partners. We are podpanions, aren't we? Podpanions, I like that. I like to think. Have you come across this new word, a partner? A partner? Do you know about the word a partner?

With an A at the beginning? Yes. Do you know about an a partner? No. Well, an a partner is apparently somebody who is your partner, but you don't live with them. You live apart from them. Oh, I should have guessed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a couple who get on better living apart.

And I've known married couples do this, where they live in the same house, but one of them lives upstairs and one of them lives downstairs, or they have houses living side by side. There are other people, one lives in the country, one lives in town, and they meet now and again, but they don't live together all the time. And apparently that's a partner. Did you know that? I didn't know that, but I do know. I'm glad.

Well, tell me. We've talked about this before when we were talking about knitting. And I was saying I could do a little bit of knitting. I wasn't very good. I have lots of friends who do wonderful knitting and who create the fabulous knitwear. Well, I think it's fabulous that I sometimes wear it on TV. But do you have a craft that is your hobby? I don't have a craft.

So let me confess, at school, our cookery lessons alternated with our needlework lessons. And I was called a fusspot by Sister Mary, my cookery teacher. And my needlework teacher could barely look at me because I was, I mean, I did discover how to tack and how to sew on a shirt button and that kind of thing. But beyond that, I'm afraid it was right up there with my pottery skills. If you remember, I was the only person whose pottery pig exploded in the kiln. So I don't have a very good track record. And I have been asked to go on the Great British Sewing Bee. And I know I would be a laughingstock of the nation. So yeah, that's my very full answer to are you any good at sewing? It's a very important skill to have, though, if you can have it. Let's talk a little bit about the language of sewing, snitching, snitching, sewing,

stitching, needlecraft. The word to sew, it must be a very old word because sewing has been going on since people, well, since we imagine since they made loincloths since people first wore clothes since they first wore clothes first of all let's just say that we did cover some of the vocabulary of sewing in our knitting episode which you got very excited about Giles having met Tom Daley the diver who is a superior knitter so for anybody who wants to hear a bit more of that, the episode is called Lanolin. So sew is an ancient, ancient word. You'll find it in glossaries from the 8th century, meaning to fasten or attach pieces of textile material. Ultimately, I would take you through so many

different languages back to an ancient route that looks fairly similar, but there's nothing remarkable to say except that it is ancient, which highlights the importance of, as you say, fabric, clothing, keeping warm, etc. So, you know, came to us from Germanic invaders, but ultimately very, very ancient and goes back to that Proto-Indo-European that I talk about all the time. Is there a connection between the fundamental thing of sowing, because we need it for clothing, and sowing, as in sowing seeds, because we need that, we need crops to eat. Are the two words, to sow, as in to do needlecraft, S-E-W,

and to sow, as in sowing seeds, S-O-W, are they in any way connected? sowing seeds, S-O-W, are they in any way connected? No, except very similar roots. So again, we would look to lots and lots of different languages, but the Latin serere meant to sow seeds. It's linked to seed itself. So it's actually got lots of, I mentioned cognates, in Germanic languages, Slavonic languages, Dutch, German, you name it. But Latin also had a very similar word. So no, they're not actually related, but as you say, both very fundamental. And why has one ended up, they're both pronounced the same way in English, to so and to so. Why has one ended up with an E and one with an O? For distinction purposes and also the way that they looked as they travelled their way

through these different languages. But yeah, homophone, as you say, but thankfully spelled differently. Okay. So that's to sew. Where does sewing lead us? It leads us, I suppose, eventually towards the sewing machine.

Yes. Gosh, it's what I have to say. I read a wonderful article in the Smithsonian Magazine written by Jimmy Stamp, who tells about the trials and tribulations of so many different inventors who tried to perfect this machine but couldn't make it commercially viable. Some of them were basically rounded upon by tailors who thought

they were going to lose their livelihood. And many of them ended up in the poorhouse. But really, sewing machines are synonymous, aren't they, with Singer. And Singer was somebody really who came in and swept up, I would say. So Isaac Singer was a machinist originally. Now, he'd invented his own sewing machine, but it did build on prototypes from before. And they all focused on this eye-pointed needle. And actually actually Singer, thanks to the people who had gone before, many of whom, as I say, died destitute and sort of, you know, really come unstuck. But he inspired the country's first patent pool in the US because there were so many manufacturers who were using the designs of particularly someone called Elias Howe.

They were taken to court for using this and eventually they settled by paying royalties. But Singer did not do badly for himself at all because the world barely remembers any of the people that went before. And as I say, Singer sewing machines is largely for many of us what we first grew up with. I mean, this is why there was these patents and this war over it, is everybody who is an inventor wants to create something that every home in the world must have. And that's why, you know, whoever invented the telephone or the mobile phone or something that everybody has got to have, if you could invent a new kind of umbrella that really worked, your fortune would be made. And so that's why there

was this battle to create the ultimate. And Singer really won. And what you're telling me is created a pool of patent holders. Yes. And what happened? He distributed the royalties amongst them. How did this work? Yes. So there was basically Elias Howe earned millions from the patent rights and royalties. But yes, this pool, because they were all using the same technology, which was the needle, as I say, that was the key thing,

this eye-pointed needle. It basically meant they all pooled their royalties and these were then sent on to Howe, as I understand it. But yeah, incredible, really. But every single person who tried had such trials and tribulations that it's amazing it ever actually got perfected.

We're supposed to be talking about words and language, and you've mentioned a couple of words there that I want to hear more about, which is eye and needle. I don't understand quite how your, the eye is the, it looks like an eye, I imagine that's why it's called an eye, the eye of a needle. That's the slit through which you put the thread. Yes. An eye-pointed needle, what does that mean? Well, I think the eye of a needle, as you say, is the hole where the thread goes through.

And on machine sewing needles, the eye is located at the point. So it's at the end rather than, you know, as it goes into the cloth, rather than at the other end, which is what we do when we have hand sewing needles. Does that make sense? That does make total sense. Yeah. Very good. So this change, I mean, people then didn't need to go to the tailor to have their work done.

You could do it at home and you could do it much more quickly at home. Instead of being a seamstress just with your own needle and thread, the machine enabled you to do everything much more quickly. Yes. And we haven't actually talked about the etymology of tailor. That goes back to the Latin taillare. In French, you have tailleur as well, T-A-I-L-L-E-U-R, which means your size when it comes to clothing.

But it's all about cutting, which is why tagliatelle and a tailor are actually unlikely cousins because tagliatelle is cut past it because it looks like a long ribbon that's been cut. By a tailor. Tagliatelle, very good. I mentioned seamstress. That obviously is relating to seam, I suppose. Where do seam and how do we get seamstress from seam for somebody who does this needlework? Yes. So a seam line where two pieces of fabric are obviously sewn together. Most of these, I have to say, etymologically speaking, are not particularly interesting because most of them are Germanic and look very similar in their

original Germanic languages. It's the same for stitching. It's the same for tacking, which is what I learned at school etc so not hugely interesting um but a seamstress was yes a woman who sews especially one who earns her living by sewing as opposed as I often say a spinster who was a woman who had to rely on her own income from spinning to earn a living what about what is a male seamstress called? A tailor, I guess. Ah. Yeah. Hem, old English again from Germanic, and the border on a piece of cloth. Thread, it sort of bucks the trend, really.

It is a Germanic word, and it's distantly related to a throw. But obviously, the threads of life take us back to the three goddesses, the fates of Greek and Roman mythology, who presided over our birth and our life. And each person was thought of as a spindle and the three fates. Can you remember the names of the three fates? I certainly can't. I'm not familiar with the three fates at all. Are you not? Well, these were the goddesses who were thought to spin the thread of human destiny. So gorgeous metaphor. Cl clotho was the spinner oh come on clotho clotho the clown i'm not i mean i've heard of the muses but the three fakes yes so the three

clotho it means she who spins somebody's spinning you a yarn here clotho what's the other one other ones are called so clotho is she who spins uh then you have lachesis who measured the thread how do you spell that l-a-c-h-e-s-i-s and that means something to do with sort of receiving by fate that one so um a little bit more complex and then you had atropos which means cutting you're laughing here hello atropos hello atropos, which means cutting. You're laughing here. Hello, atropos. Hello, atropos. How's clotho today? And that means cutting the thread.

So that's when you die. I think it's a beautiful metaphor for all your teasing. Well, so they're the three. The three fates are the three threads of life. Clotho that gets you going. Is that right? Yes. Lachesis that keeps you going and a

tropos when you drop off the perch exactly and they were all spinning the thread so uh yeah and i also didn't didn't explain tacking now tacking i don't know if you've ever tacked a garment but essentially it's the sort of rough and rudimentary part it's a long stitch that's used to fasten fabrics together temporarily so it's what you do before you sew it properly but mine no matter what always looks like tacking and that's from the use of tack meaning to fasten lightly and it probably goes back to an old french word meaning a large nail or a clasp so the idea again of attaching something but in a rather functional way and nothing to do with the nautical sense of tacking, which is when you change course by going in and out of the wind.

That's to do with the tack that ropes aboard ship. I think it's time to take a break. And then when we come back, I'll just quickly tell you about a thimble. I've got lots of lovely thimbles. A stitch in time saves nine. You can tell me about that too, because the world of sewing

has entered the world of language in so many different ways. Let's take a quick break. I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And this is Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. We are a new show breaking down the anime news, views and shows you care about each and every week.

I can't think of a better studio to bring something like this to life. Yeah, I agree. We're covering all the classics. If I don't know a lot about Godzilla, which I do, but I'm trying to pretend that I don't. Hold it in. And our current faves.

Luffy must have his do. Tune in every week for the latest anime updates and possibly a few debates. I remember, what was that? Say what you're going to say and I'll circle back. You can listen to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me.

I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill, who had limited prospects outside of acting. The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime. And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, how do you want to be comfortable? Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. Well, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. I used to be the crier.

Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. This is what our producer likes to call the post-break experience. That means it's part two. That's a lovely turn of phrase, isn't it? Tell me about the origin of the thimble.

It's such a wonderful word. I love thimbles. We've got bits of my mother's sewing basket at home, and that includes a number of thimbles in her sewing basket. Yes, they're beautiful, aren't they? They are. And necessary, too. I always go for the thimble in the Monopoly set as well. There's something very sweet about a thimble. It's old English and actually goes back to thumb because the thumb is from the Latin tumere meaning to swell because it's a fat or swollen finger. And thimble comes from thumb in the same way that handle comes from hand. So a thimble is

something you wear over your thumb, i.e. your fat or swollen finger. Ah, that's the origin of the thimble. I always remember Dudley Moore being celebrated because he was a small person, but considered attractive when he went to Hollywood. They said he was the original sex thimble. I love that. That's excellent. Now, I mentioned the phrase, a stitch in time saves nine. I suppose that's obvious really what it means. It means if you stitch earlier, when you need to do the stitching, it'll save you later having to do more stitching. Yes, exactly right. So, dealing promptly with a problem now avoids the need for really complicated and possibly expensive solutions later on. And in the OED, the first record as a proverb is 1710. But you know what, I think it probably goes back long before then because so many proverbs are part of the sort of oral tradition, much like our local dialect, that it probably was around before then.

And this is from, as I say, 1710. Sometimes a small job to your plough or cart, a stitch or two in your harness or a nail or two in a horse's shoe is required in an instant when your whole team lose their time too whilst you send abroad. But a stitch in time saves nine. Very good. Always nine. Yeah. If you don't do it, you're hanging by a thin thread. That's another one expression. Again, it's obvious.

The thread gets thinner and thinner. Yes. There is a word for hanging by a thread. Filipendulus. Goodness. Yes. Fili being an alternative word for thread. And pendulus.

Pendulus for hanging. Filipendulus. Filipendulus. Yes. Very good. Lovely. It's time to move to our correspondence. Pendulous for hanging. Thrilly pendulous. Thrilly pendulous. Yes. Very good. It's time to move to our correspondence. My favourite part, actually, very often of our episodes,

and a lot of the purple people have said that they love this bit too. And do you remember, I've sort of started to introduce a section whereby I try to tackle some of the most common questions that I'm asked by many, many people. So I don't credit everyone because I would be bound to leave people out. But crocodile tears is another one that baffles people very often. And I'm asked very often about this. Do you know the story of crocodile tears? No, I don't. Okay. So crocodile tears are fake tears, aren't they? Yeah. Essentially. And it goes back to the

observation from centuries ago that crocodiles and alligators, when eating their prey, would cry. And there were other accounts which said that they would actually cry and their prey would come closer. And then, of course, they would be gobbled up. Now, it's not as daft as you might think because naturalists have confirmed that these creatures actually, when they eat, their tear glands are set off. It's something to do with the mechanism for eating and the sort of blowing that they do at the same time. It actually does activate their tear glands. So they do actually quite often shed tears, but obviously these are not of the real kind. But you have to go back to travel logs from centuries past to get the origin of this and um crocodile

one of my favorite etymologies because it just really shows how little people knew about you know exotic animals at the time understandably crocodile goes back to the greek meaning pebble worm because it was a worm-like creature that used to spask in the sun on the pebbles aside a river i know or whatever but it's just a funny one a pebble worm so that's crocodile tears to bask in the sun on the pebbles. Oh. A cider river. I know. Or whatever. It's just a funny one, a pebble worm. So that's crocodile tears. Well, people have been in touch too. I love the fact that purple people are all over the world.

I think this first letter comes from Kendall Hall, who's in Australia, who says, Hi, here in Australia, we use the term rat bag as an endearing term for a slightly naughty child. Oh, that's interesting. We were wondering what the origin of this might be. I don't think we call in this country naughty children rat bags, do we? No, I think it's more a term of insult over here, a bit like scumbag, isn't it?

A rat bag. Definitely not affectionate. But actually, if you look in the dictionary dictionary it will tell you that it was originally Australian and later British and also prevalent in New Zealand as well and it's described as originally what we would use it here as in Britain a disagreeable, disreputable or contemptible person or occasionally a thing. Also in Australian a wayward or eccentric person a crank but then it did slowly dilute in its power and it came to be used in a weakened sense exactly as Kendall says as a mild term of reproof or affectionate form of address and I'm afraid etymologically nothing too interesting to say because the insult really grew out of the fact that you were comparing somebody to a rat or a rodent.

Unfortunately, rats have never had a good rap in English. And the bag bit is essentially used as a kind of, you know, a vessel or a receptacle or a thing containing these qualities. So fairly straightforward, but interesting to see that it's actually lost its power and is now a bit like scallywag, actually used slightly humorously charlie west

on twitter has been in touch and you can communicate with us on twitter but the best way to get right to us really is simply at purple at something else dot com something without a g charlie west says um what the hex what's forgive me says what's the beck in beck and call? Yes, it's a really good question. And it's not something I think I'd ever considered before. But, you know, remember, I've talked about sort of linguistic fossils before. So do you remember we've got spick and span? You know, what's the spick and span?

What's the fro in to and fro? What's a do in much ado, et cetera. So these are kind of linguistic fossils that aren't really used in any other expression. They're preserved in a specific usage. And beck is actually an original version of beckon. So it's short for beckon, but it was used in exactly the same way. So if someone's beckoning you, you again are calling upon them to do something. So if you're their beckon call, you basically have to do everything that they ask you to do. Very good. Okay. I'm beckoning you now to give us your three words of the week, unusual words that you think are interesting that you'd like to share with us. Where do they come from? Okay. Are you a hoarder, Giles? Yes. I'm afraid I am a hoarder. I try to keep everything

and my wife tries to get rid of everything. As I must have told you before, she has told me often that before she phones the undertaker, she will be calling the people from the skip company and everything, all my old books, all my old papers, all my old knitwear will be going on the skip before I'm taken to the creme no okay well what she wants to do is expropriate uh in other words it's to get rid of so we know to appropriate which is what you do you appropriate things left right and center somebody who wants to get rid of them and this might be uh some people's resolution for 2023 is to expropriate stuff that you've been hoarding to get rid of or no longer own um just interesting i think in that it's a quite obvious antonym to something that we use all the create stuff that you've been hoarding to get rid of or no longer own. Just interesting, I think,

in that it's a quite obvious antonym to something that we use all the time, but this one we don't. Do you have lots of books that you don't ever plan to read and still want to keep? I want to keep them. I do plan to read them at some point. I don't think there's anything that I've got that I don't want to dip into. Well, I just like having the books on. I mean, I've got thousands and thousands of books. Some of them I do intend to look at again, but lots of them I like to know they're there, even if I've never opened them. I still want them. But my wife wants to expropriate the lot. Okay. I'm sure there's a happy medium. Well, I don't know that there is, honestly. Being a partner, possibly. Possibly that is the answer. I think's possibly possibly that is the answer i think

she would well discuss that at the next relate meeting come on to your next word please okay so after you've expropriated you might be puffed out and dumb fungled being used up and exhausted so you would want to sit in chimney corner and i love chimney corner it's a very old metaphor meaning the place of idlers uh so you know if I think it would be good for all of us to take some time out in chimney corner this year. And finally, a sweet one that we probably have mentioned on the podcast before, nuncheon. And a nuncheon is simply food eaten between meals, but it just sounds lovely. Often a labourer's snack, having some nuncheon as you stop work for a little bit, it just makes me smile um so I can

tell you just add to the the thread that always fascinated you did it come before luncheon uh I think it did so nuncheon was originally actually a drink taken in the afternoon as well as a snack 1300 and it probably it was from noon and then an old word, shench, meaning a cup full of liquor. But actually, because we knew punchen and trunchen, we decided that we would go with the in at the end of it. And luncheon is from the 16th century. And yeah, so luncheon came first. Luncheon predates luncheon. You see, this is why people tune in from across the world.

They're discovering things on Something Rhymes with Purple they never knew before today. Oh, it's fantastic. So lunch comes before luncheon and luncheon comes before either of them. Yes. Oh, that's fantastic. It's sweet, isn't it?

What about a poem for us? Yes, I've been sent a lovely book of poems by my friend Mark Graham. People who follow me on Twitter may know that most days I post a little four to six line poem by my friend Mark Graham on a topical subject. And he has published recently a collection of poems illustrated by children from South African schools. And it's in aid of a very good cause. It's called Words from the Wild, and it's poems about wild animals of different kinds. And your mentioning crocodile and crocodile tears made me think that my grandmother had a crocodile handbag, I'm ashamed to say, made of real crocodile skin, which people used to do. And this book of poems is full of

charming poems, and they're ones really to celebrating wild animals and celebrating the world of conservation. And this is a poem called Hands Off Our Horns. Because you know, just as there were people who used to wear caddy crocodile handbags and wear fur coats, there are parts of the world where people think that the horns of rhinoceroses and other creatures are aphrodisiacs. And this poem is called Hands Off Our Horns. I know my horn's impressive, but it's not a magic cure for poor performance in the sack of that, I'm really sure. I recommend Viagra if suffering from these ails. You're stupid if you buy my horn.

Just bite your bloody nails. Like it. It's a good little poem, isn't it? Fully, fully agree with that sentiment, yes. We endorse that. We do. It's a well done mark, Graham. Bound trophy hunting.

Excellent. Thank you so much for listening to us today and for following us and finding us quite a lot of you on social media as well. So at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes with on Instagram. And we also have the Purple Plus Club, which will give you ad-free listening

and some bonus episodes on words and language. If you fancy joining us, we would be delighted. And you can join us in person, can't you? Because we're back at the Fortune Theatre in London's Covent Garden. So you can find us there. We are on Sunday the 19th of February. We will be there.

And just to remind you, each show is different, obviously, because they are recordings of The Real Podcast. So we would love to meet you. And just to remind reminder as well, that in two weeks time on the 31st of January will be our 200th episode. So love you to join us for that. Is that a bicentennial?

Is that what it's called? It is a bicentennial. And we will be discussing one of my favourite subjects, which is linguistic gaps. And so many of you have written in to say, why is there not a word for x y or z and i'm hoping that the purple people will help me come up with answers for those that uh perplex and confound me uh so please do join us for that we would absolutely love it but in the meantime

as always something rhymes with purple is there something else in sony music entertainment production produced by harriet wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Ollie Wilson, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale, Teddy, Riley, and have I forgotten anyone? Could it be Clotho? Oh no, not Clotho.

Gully, another clown.