Something Rhymes with Purple - Ultracrepidarian

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Put your best foot forward and join us as we march through the sole-ful language of shoes. There’s no loafing around as we find out what links your pumps to ocean liners, the beach snacks that lend their name to winklepickers, and the connection between the boot of your car and the boots on your feet. Plus there’s a rumour going round that Gyles wears socks with his crocs… or is that a load of old cobblers?    We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymes  With 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 via Apple Subscription, simply follow this link and enjoy a free 7 day trial: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823   Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:   Ultracrepidarian - a presumptuous critic who offers an opinion on matters far outside their sphere of knowledge  Estivate - to retire for the summer  Charente - a sudden burst of productive energy similar to a fit-of-the-clevers   Gyles' poem was Galoshes by Paul Jennings  A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.     Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts      To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple with me, Susie Dent, and my co-host, Giles Brander. This is where you will find wordy, witterings, a love of language and a few dropped names from time to time. From you, Giles, do you have any for us today? Plenty, because I've had a most wonderful 24 hours. Last night, for example, I was at a gathering of the Trollope Society. This is a group of people who celebrate the great Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope. And one of the vice

presidents of the society is the former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, who is very keen on the works of Anthony Trollope and was wearing, I noticed, very fine brogues, which is a clue of what we're going to be talking about today. And then this morning, I encountered a friend of mine, a wonderful actress called Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is a film star, television star. I've known her since we first did a radio show together about 20 years ago. And she was wearing the most delightful sneakers. I said, they're sneakers. She said, no, I the most delightful sneakers. I said, they're sneakers. She said, no, I think they're trainers. I said, well, they look a bit like gym shoes. She said, gym shoes, the price these were. Anyway, that all amused me because I know that we're

going to talk today, aren't we, about things that you put on your feet. Why is that? Somebody came up with this idea for us, didn't they? this was ben huntley from york uh who wrote in he's a self-confessed sneakerhead and he would love to know all about the origins behind the names of the things we wear on our feet and i should just say that i am just back as of five minutes ago from the wonderful guide dogs puppy breeding center and their program where i just literally had, I've spent four hours in the company of the most mischievous, adorable, cuddly, flippin'-aureus puppies. They were just so gorgeous, but they didn't half like my shoes. So I was wearing these plastic overshoes, because you have to be careful with infection control, but they got through those and then

onto my laces of my sneakers. So yeah she's quite relevant for me today plastic overshoes are they what i used to call galoshes i don't know these are things that if you go swimming and you are spectate well if you go to a swimming pool and are spectating rather than swimming to get into the changing rooms you have to put these blue monstrosities over your shoes. I think these ones that I was wearing today did get recycled. So they were environmentally friendly. But yeah, they chewed all the way through those, these little pesky Labradors and got to my laces, which are now intact. But who cares? They were absolutely lovely. But what do you what do you call you? Do you actually wear gym shoes, trainers, sannies, whatever you call them?

And there's so many names for them up and down the country. Guttys is another one, I think. Well, I want to hear about all these names. Now, I'm a very conventional person when it comes to shoes. I've got so many pairs of shoes because they always feel comfortable in the shop. And I buy them. And then I come home and put them on again. And I find I can't put them on again.

Or if I can get them on, they won't stay on. And the moment I start walking in them, they hurt. They have a pinch at the front or the side or the back. I walk down the street and my feet come out or this. The whole thing is a nightmare. I can't deal with shoelaces either because I seem incapable of tying shoelaces. I understand from somebody who knows about these things that the former British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, was like like me incapable of tying up his own shoes I do try to tie up my own shoes but they come undone almost easily say you and me both maybe it's yeah I mean we have this in common for sure and my double knot is really weird as well but I learned from my grandmother who taught me sort of back to front so she was kneeling in front of me and sort of

did it her way when so which means I'm doing it in reverse I think that's why it's gone slightly wrong I think my problem is I don't do a double knot I do a fairly loose knot so because I want to be able to undo them easily and then my wife explains we've got to do a double knot but if you do a double knot then when you get to take them off uh it takes hours to undo So I like slip-ons. But the point is, I've got shoes of every shape and size. The only ones I'm really liking at the moment are my Crocs. Yes, a little birdie told me that those have been on TV recently and are very smart. I mean, I know nothing about Crocs,

but I did an item on the ITV This Morning programme called This Morning, where I was talking about Crocs, and they very kindly let me take a pair away with me. And these are kind of shoes made of what feels like plastic. They're quite heavy, they're quite large. They're not necessarily very beautiful, but they're quite comfortable. So I'm a secret Croc wearer. So you wear them around the house, or do you actually wear them out? I can't imagine you wearing them out. I have worn them out, but then my wife says you're making yourself a laughing stock. She doesn't, I mean, honestly, but we're a laughing stock in the streets anyway, because

we've taken my wife and I to walking in single file. This is not, I mean, apparently a lot of older people do this because they can't stand one another. They've been together for so long that they walk separately in single file. That is not the reason we are doing it. We are doing it because my wife now insists that I walk ahead of her because a couple of years ago during lockdown, I was walking next to her and I tripped up. Yes, tripped her up. Exactly, on a bit of tree stump and fell on top of her and broke her wrist. Anyway, so she doesn't want me anywhere near her when we're out walking and she says one of the reasons is your shoes don't fit lift up your feet tie your shoelaces so shoes are a big big problem for me i want us to get to grips with everything to do please with

shoeing and well could we start with the word shoe shoe is a germanic word so it sounds very similar in german it's spelt differently s-c-h-u-h and it is a shoeic word, so it sounds very similar in German. It's spelt differently, S-C-H-U-H, and it is a shoe in German. And that is exactly where we took it from. So nothing mysterious about the shoes at all. with shoes that do actually have some bearing on how people see you. I think it'd be a good one for a bonus episode, actually. But shall I tell you why we have sneakers? Please, let's start with sneakers. Well, the idea seriously was originally that they were kind of soft-soled, what I call kind of winegum shoes, that people would be very quiet and stealthy in them. So a sneaker was originally a personal animal that sneaks, but the current sense of soft shoes worn for sports or casual occasions is the late 19th century. So they've been around for a while, still called sneakers

in the US, but over here primarily trainers. And this is a question from Ben, actually, I think he was wondering about this one. So you are telling me and Ben that the idea of the sneaker as a soft-soled shoe that you could sneak up on people in has been going around since late Victorian times? Well, yes, in the sense of shoes. I mean, obviously, they don't quite look as they would today. Well, how intriguing. I mean, I'm just picturing people like Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain in sneakers.

It's just an amusing idea. One can't imagine that. But the word meaning a shoe that you sneak up on people in goes back to late 19th century. Yeah. So the first entry, and I was just looking it up in the OED, actually, because you had me doubting myself. So yes, it's described in the OED as a soft-soled, noiseless slipper or shoe. And the first reference is 1895. And there's a lovely quote from 1900, which describes someone whose job on this earth was to put on a pair of pneumatic sneakers every morning and go out and investigate other people's affairs. In other words, this was really almost like a gumshoe, as you would say in America, you know, a private detective who would go around and sort of stealthily sneak up on people and observe what they were doing. So let's just exhaust the whole sneaker, gym shoe world. Gym shoes, which when I was at school, you wore for doing gym, gymnastics, that's what they're called, gym shoes.

We also call them plimsolls. I've heard of the plimsoll line. Is this something shoes. We also call them plimsolls. I've heard of the plimsoll line. Is this something to do with a person called plimsoll? Yes. So Samuel Plimsoll was the MP for Derby in the 1800s. And it was thanks to his efforts that the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 was introduced. And as for the plimsoll line, apparently in the 1970s, Philip Lace, who was an energetic sales representative, and he was employed by the Liverpool Rubber Company, suggested the name Plimsolls for the new canvas rubber shoes. I should just say, sorry, this was written in 1975, but he did this in 1876. And these were new rubber shoes or sand shoes that

were becoming really fashionable for wearing on beaches and their rubber band reminded him of the plimsoll line named after Samuel Plimsoll as I say which marked the limit of safety to which merchant ships could be loaded and plimsolls are watertight apparently as long as they're not immersed above the level of the water band very good there we are so that's the plimsoll, which is also the gym shoe, which can be the sneaker. Are there any other variations on that for this kind of sports shoe? So, yes, slangs and dialect.

Dialect particularly seem to like plimsolls, gym shoes, whatever you like to call them, pumps, I think I used to call them as well, which were very different to the pumps that women wear on their feet these days. But they are often called sannies, which are sand shoes. And there's also gutties. What are gutties? And I mean, I can see sand shoes making sannies. Where do gutties come from?

I think gutty goes back to gutter percher. Have you heard of that? So that was the type of rubber that was imported from Malay. And it was the gum of the percher tree. And because these were gummy type shoes, gym shoes, plimsolls, trainers, etc. That is what they were called gutties in certain parts of Britain. I'm suddenly thinking of something called an espadrille or espadrille, which is, is that a French word or Spanish word? They're sort of canvas shoes, aren't they, that you wear on the beach, like sannies? Yes, they go back to a Catalan word,

actually. And it ultimately goes back to the Catalan espato, which was a tough, really wiry grass found in the Mediterranean. It was used to make the original espadrilles. Now, espadrilles I associate today with those laces that wrap around your legs. I can't quite see right those, Charles. But you can get male versions that don't have those laces. I'm not going to get any of this. My feet are, you know, I mean, they're another country. We don't want to go there. Nobody wants to go near my feet. But I quite like the idea of a moccasin, which is a kind of slipper, isn't it? Soft leather slipper. Often worn by men these days without socks. That's the kind of trendy, trendy thing.

Like skinny trousers, skinny all the way down to the ankle, and then no socks, and then moccasins or leather shoes. And moccasin itself goes back to an Algonquian word. Now, this was one of the words borrowed by the early settlers to the US, including those who set sail on the Mayflower. And if you remember, they had to find words for all the new things that they encountered. So quite often they borrowed from the Native American indigenous languages around them. And Mackeson in Algonquin means simply shoe. Very good. So these are the soft, comfortable shoes. Let's get into more formal territory. I mentioned seeing Sir John Major,

the former British Prime Minister of the Trollope Society, which you do read, just as a going down a little sidetrack for a moment. Do you read the novels of Anthony Trollope? Have you read them?

We talked about this last time, didn't we? And I mentioned the palaces. Do you remember? Yes, I do. So we talked about this and you told me not to read those, but to concentrate not on his political ones, but on his more social novels.

I recommend every single, I've read every piece of fiction written by Anthony Trollope, because when I became a member of the Trollope Society, you paid a subscription and it paid for a reprint of all his work. And as they arrived, I read every single one. I was just saying a good way to get into him, I think, is probably the Barsitcher novels, which are more social. But I do recommend the Palliser novels. And there was a wonderful television series. And indeed, another of the vice presidents of the Trollope Society is the wonderful actress Susan Hampshire, who played Glencore Palliser in the famous TV series all those years ago. And she was at the do last night. Anyway, I love these literary societies. This was a gathering of the Trollope Society

meeting up with the Thackeray Society, who are based at the Reform Club and who celebrate William Makepeace Thackeray, the author of Vanity Fair. Have you read that great work? I have, but a very long time ago, and I'm thinking, I'm assuming that in Vanity Fair, do the gentlemen wear brogues? They might well wear brogues. Well, it depends how old the word

is. Certainly, that's the kind of shoe I think Sir John Major was wearing last night. Tell me about a brogue. I imagine you're in brogues as well, I have to say. I may have been in brogues. I was actually wearing, brogues, I think, probably have laces. I was wearing a slip-on shoe of some kind. Oh, yes, of course, we're back to laces. Sorry, I forgot about that. But tell me about a brogue. Describe a brogue to me and tell me what the word is. And also, you can speak in a broad brogue.

It's kind of accent, isn't it? Yeah. No, they are actually linked because the very first meaning of a brogue was a really kind of rough kind of shoe not particularly elegant and made of untanned hide and worn by people who lived in the wilder parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands so they were incredibly robust and then it moved on to this in the 16th century and then by the 1900s so a little while later it had evolved into another strong shoe for shooting and golf and fishing etc you know the sort of gentlemanly sports if you like and country excursions and

they have these kind of characteristic bands of sort of perforations in them you know there's little holes that are quite ornamental at the top you can get ladies brogues as well but the idea behind the brogue that is an accent and a particularly type particular type of sort of delivery if you like it was originally associated with people who would have worn those very strong possibly quite unsophisticated shoes that were worn by the inhabitants of Ireland and the Highlands so it was it was a kind of very thick accent if you like and I'm sure there's some sort of social commentary that is rather unkind that is, you know, involved in this too. Because you talk about a strong Scottish brogue, don't you? A strong Irish brogue, meaning

a strong accent. Nowadays, I think it's unjudgmental. I'm not sure it was at the beginning. I'm pleased it is. Let's stick with male shoes for a moment before we get on to what traditionally was worn by ladies. Men would wear, well, actually, anybody could wear boots, but a boot can sometimes be quite a, you can use the word boot for just being a shoe as well as for being a boot, which I think of as a bigger. Oh, yeah, you can have ankle boots.

Yeah. Or you can have Chelsea boots. I mean, there are all sorts of different boots but a boot again it's germanic originally and i think they were in their earliest days i think they were you know again quite robust a bit like the brogue robust and sturdy and sometimes they covered not just the foot but the lower part of the leg as well so they always extended above the ankle if you like yes we're not completely sure where it comes from, possibly medieval Latin,

in which case it would have come via French, possibly a Germanic influence. But certainly they've been with us, with that name since the 14th century. Goodness. The Wellington boot, of course, is named after, we know it's an eponym. It's named after the first Duke of Wellington,

Victor of the Battle of Waterloo, who I assume made it fashionable because he wore them. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. I think that's absolutely right. Although, as we know, because we've done our episode on eponyms, you know, things aren't always as direct as that. Sometimes people just thought, oh, I can imagine him or her wearing this. And so they extended the reference point a little bit. It doesn't necessarily mean that they were the, you know, the sort of pioneer of that particular thing.

Anyone who is in London and would like to see some boots actually worn by the Duke of Wellington, go to the Museum of London near the Barbican and there they have the Duke of Wellington's boots. I just throw that in since I happen to know it. It's the boot that you put on your foot. Putting a boot up the backside is kicking somebody. Anything to do with the boot of a car, which is something that happens in Britain.

But I think in America, the boot of a car is something else, isn't it? It's the trunk, isn't it? Yes. So the boot of a car was originally, if you think about horse-drawn carriages, it was a kind of side compartment where servants, etc, would store luggage, but they would also sit astride it or atop it and they would rest their boots on it. It eventually moved from the side to the back, but it certainly, we think, is connected to that idea of putting your boots on something. Not connected, though, to booting up your computer,

which is this always, I find surprising. That goes back to the very old phrase of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and it's the idea of getting into gear if you like literally if you're pulling up your bootstraps or metaphorically by sort of grinding into action and we think that's where booting up your computer comes from how extraordinary what about loafers do you ever wear loafers well I think got slip-ons I think that's what I like I mean I want loafers? Do you ever wear loafers? Well, I think that's what I like. I mean, I want loafers. I want shoes that can slip on. But when they slip on, they don't slip off.

That's my problem with loafers. I mean, shoes are impossible for me. And I don't like sockless shoes. I've been wearing socks with my Crocs. OK, I'm afraid no wonder that Michelle's had a word. So people wear their loafers without socks? Yes, they do if they're being trendy. And, you know, they're loafing because, you know, they're easy, just as you might loaf about.

But why are you loafing around? Because a loaf is a loaf of bread. What's the connection between a loafer shoes and a loaf of bread? Is there one? No, there's no connection with a loaf of bread, but there is a connection between the loafer shoes and a loaf of bread. Is there one? No, there's no connection with the loaf of bread, but there is a connection between the loafer shoes and loafing about. And that is the German Lunderleuther. And Lunderleuther was, it literally means land runner, if you like.

It was a tramp. It was a sort of vagabond, if you like, who literally wandered. That's where vagabond comes from as well. So loafers were you know obviously smarter than most tramps would wear most landloyfer would wear but it's the same idea of sort of shifting around and being a little bit lazy you know so much susie dent tell me this then the loafer is not connected with the loaf of bread but there is something called a cobbler

which i think is a type of loaf of bread that also is the name for someone who makes shoes. Am I right there? Yeah, there's a cob. I'm not sure if there's a cobbler, is there? There's a drink which is called a cobbler and there's also dessert, which is kind of fruit in a deep dish

with a cake-like crust on top, like you might have a plum cobbler. Also, cobblers are your testicles or, you know, in, I think, Australian English, it's the last sheep to be shorn. But I don't, I'm not sure if there is a word called cobbler. We've got near our house an artisan bakery. And I went in there the other day wearing my crocs and asked for a cobbler.

And I think they showed me the door. I didn't, I don don't know they gave me something but clearly I got it wrong oh maybe it's a cob the cob is a round round loaf of bread is that what you got I think that's it a cob is a round well thank you very much why is that why is a cob called a cob we don't know but the cob has had so many different meanings so it's had the bread meaning it's had a male swan it's a short-legged horse, ear of corn, and all of them have this sense

of being round and quite sturdy. But I don't think we absolutely know where it comes from. It might be related to the cop that is a head. So an old term in Old English for a spider was an atta cop, a poison head, because they were believed to be poisonous spiders. So it may be the idea that they're sort of slightly head-shaped.

Well, look, should we take a quick break and then come back and you can tell me what I've got to do to kick up my kitten heels? We're going to ladies' shoes next. Ladies' shoes. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no.

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through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. 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. I'm Giles Brandreth, and I have a lot of shoes that I'm going to get rid of because my idea, Susie Dent, is this. I'm going to try on all the dozens, I mean, I mean dozens of shoes, pairs of shoes in my house. Unless they are comfortable and I'm going to wear them, I'm going to get rid of them. I don't know if you can recycle them. I don't know if people want old shoes.

You can go to a charity shop, yes. You think they might? I'm sure if they're in good condition, definitely. I've had shoes from charity shops before and really lovely ones. Well, I'm useless when it comes to shoes, but my wife is very good with shoes. She's got a whole range of shoes. Stilettos, kitten heels, Mary Janes. Tell me about some of the ladies' shoes. Why do you call them ladies' shoes?

Okay, so I'm going to start with the kitten heel uh i don't know if michelle has any of these but those are the kind of they're not the court shoes as we might call them which is the sort of high heeled pumps i have lots of court shoes and i suppose the idea is not so much that you go courting in them to use the old sense of dating but that you would um use them on smart occasions. When you're going to court? When you're going to court. When you're attending court.

Courtesy. Well, I think it's more to do with sort of manners and the old sense of court rather than the judicial court. I'm going to look that up though. So I didn't refer... Forgive me, I meant the royal court when you were going to court to being attendant to become the king or queen.

You wore your court kit, which going to court to being attendant to become the king or queen you wore your court kit which would include court shoes which i picture having buckles and things oh okay so yes the first reference actually backs up your theory jars because it's from 1885 and it's called a queen anne court shoe so that does suggest a kind of you know shoes fit for royals anyway those are court shoes which i have but you can also have a type of shoe that was much loved by theresa may if you remember theresa may who was a former british prime minister she was well known for her fancy footwear including leopard skin kitten heels and there's an interesting theory about kitten heels which is that they were training heels introduced to young teenage girls who would get used to these. They were the kittens as opposed to the cats that wore the court shoes.

They were kind of trained in these before they moved on to full stilettos or court shoes. So that is the idea. I think it's just that they're small stilettos. They measure under two inches in height. And so they were just called something diminutive. That's my theory. But I like the idea that they were training heels as if any woman worth her salt has to wear heels, which of course is not the case these days. No, though I have worn heels when playing different roles in different musicals and I began with kitten heels and then found it was quite unnecessary. In fact, wearing high heels wasn't a challenge for me and I've got a I live in a house with several floors

and I would put the heels on in the morning and be running up and down the stairs with ease I can run I can skip I can dance in heels and I would open the front door to the postman when he arrived and he would your necklash wellashay. Well, not quite my necklashay. No, my jeans and my sweatshirt and then first my kitten heels and then my high heels. And they were, the show I was doing at the time, this was many years ago, was a show called Zip where we ended up with me appearing as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. So these were emerald slippers, as it were. These were gorgeous.

They clicked together and These were gorgeous. They clicked together and they were fantastic. How beautiful. Look, I'm showing you a pair of very high heels on our Zoom call at the moment. You see how high those are? They're lovely, aren't they? Do they belong to you? They do, but they're still in the box because I'm okay on carpets. I can walk quickly on carpets. As soon as there's a remotely slippery floor, I'm just terrified. So these would give you vertigo, these shoes. Would you please take a photograph of those?

Because we've now got our own dedicated websites and things, haven't we? On Instagram and Twitter and things. Oh, we do. We can put pictures of your elegant heels and your shoes. And I'll put pictures up of my Crocs. Okay, that sounds good. I mean those

ones that I've just showed you are almost Mary Jane shoes because they have a strap across them but they're not traditional. I mean these are really really high. Traditional Mary Jane shoes are not that high. Now Mary Jane apparently was a character in Buster Brown the comic strip and she was Buster's sister and the creator his own daughter apparently used to used to really love these kind of shoes and he was called Mary Jane not to be confused with Mary Jane used for cannabis because that's a riff on marijuana spelt almost marijuana what about winkle pickers I ruined my feet with winkle pickers when I used to wear those when I was little they're the ones with a really pointy toes. They're so cold, I imagine, because they're so pointed, you could pick out

a Winkle, you would get the meat out of a Winkle, could you? I mean, a Winkle is a kind of crustacean. Yeah, periwinkle snails they are, aren't they? They're popular seaside snack, as you say, and they're eaten out of the shell with a very pointy pin, but they don't half ruin your toes. When I was a child in the 1950s winkle pickers had a big vogue worn by teddy boys oh oh that sort of male version i have forgotten about those but i feel that they were a kind of pickup from something that had been in the high victorian era that there were people who wore very pointed shoes in that time okay i may have got that wrong anyway winkle pickers i remember those did we actually talk about pumps and why they're so called?

Yeah, this was a shoe without a heel, worn by men as well and servants of the court. And it comes to us from the French, but no one quite knows why they're called pump because, you know, obviously it's nothing to do with pumping water or anything worn by firefighters or anything to do with that. So no one quite knows. They think it might be.

I'm looking down here. Yeah, it says unknown. I mean, I'm trying to find some plausible etymology, but I can't. It is also described, as they say, as a man's slip-on patent leather shoe. Do you have patent leather? I used to dread patent leather. slip-on patent leather shoe. Do you have patent leather?

I used to dread patent leather. Brings back so many horrible memories for me because my first trips to shoe shops were to buy those patent leather party shoes that all little girls had to wear. And I absolutely hated them. Patent leather is that very shiny leather, isn't it? Yeah. There are patent leather men's shoes

that you were supposed to wear with black tie when you wear a dinner suit. It's that sort of glossy leather. Why is it it called patent did somebody patent it once upon a time yeah exactly um the process of making it was recognized by the patent office or the patent office we should say so that's the patent office and they gave us the patent shoes why do we say the patent office and we have patent shoes is there a reason for that yeah i think it's just so that we can distinguish which i just failed do. But it does make it easier when you, you know, when you describe them, just in case someone might be confused as to which one you're referring to. We also didn't talk about Crocs themselves and why they're called Crocs. You probably know this

if you're looking down at yours. Well, tell me, why are they called Crocs? Something to do with crocodiles? Crocodile skins crocodile skins oh that's the idea is it yes and and i with mine mine came with little widgets in them called it bits or something where you you poke through the holes you add little sort of symbols of different kinds yes i can't wait to see these um well the idea is that yes they sort of look like the amphibious skin of the crocodile and you can wear them inland or in water they. They are incredibly useful in water, it has to be said. We also haven't talked about sandals. Now, Giles, you just mentioned that you wear socks with your crocs, which makes me shudder a little bit.

Please, please, please don't tell me you wear sandals. And if you do, that you don't wear socks with them. Well, I don't if I'm somewhere warm. If I'm, you know, on the beach at Broadstairs, I will have naked feet. But I'm very bad with my feet. I want socks. But the socks I wear are a disaster. I don't know if we can do a whole episode on socks.

Hang on, hang on, Nate. Do you actually wear sandals with socks? I have done in my time. Oh, no. Yes, I have done in my time. Because otherwise it's uncomfortable. Your feet get sweaty and they stick to the, you know, the inside of the otherwise it's uncomfortable your feet get sweaty and they stick to the um you know the inside of the leather gets sweaty your feet get sweaty and you try to take

them off and it's all sticky and the whole point of sandals is that they are open to the air so the idea is that you don't wear socks so i would say if you've got to wear socks just don't wear sandals i can imagine you wearing flip-flops and socks yes and that's a real problem i found because the top of the sock, the big toe is connected to the toes in a sock. And you've got to get the ridge going where the little mark. So flip, flip. Now, I am right, am I not? The flip-flop is named after their inventor, the famous Frenchman.

Philippe Fallop. Is that right? No. He was also the person whose grandfather named the famous Frenchman. Philippe Fallop. Philippe Fallop. Is that right? No. He was also the person whose grandfather named the Fallopian tube. Philippe Fallop. He came from the same family. Have I got that right? Absolutely not, no. It's just because they flap and flop, but I love the idea of the Philippe Fallop. And we have talked about the rule of Ablap reduplication, remember, which explains why we don't say flop flip. It's all about sound. Speaking about sound,

and remember, which explains why we don't say flop flip. It's all about sound. Speaking about sound, the shoes have gone into the world of giving us lots of funny phrases. You know, I've talked about giving somebody the boot, meaning, you know, kicking them. I mean, if you give somebody the boot, you're getting rid of them, aren't you? Because it's like giving them a kick up the backside

with a boot, is that it? Is that what you mean? Yes, exactly, with your boot. But I think, you know what? I think we should dedicate a whole bonus episode to phrases because there are so many of them but i would do just want to remind you of a fantastic story that is related to um shoes and sandals so sandal itself goes back to the ancient greek sandalion uh so sandals have been around for ages and of course we imagine ancient greeks and swishing togas and sandals, don't we?

First use in the OED, though, is 1384 mentioned in the Bible. But do you remember me telling you about the word ultracrepidarian? I do. Okay. And do you remember what it means? Do I remind you? An ultracrepidarian is somebody who loves to hold forth on a subject they know absolutely nothing about. is somebody who loves to hold forth on a subject they know absolutely nothing about and the reason I love it is it goes back to a very old story about the Greek painter Apelles who loved when he was having an exhibition of his works he loved to kind of hide around the corner

and listen to what observers of his painters were saying uh You know, he was quite proud and presumably wanted to hear them gasp in awe and wonder. Only one day he heard a man criticise the sandals on the subject of this particular painting and then went on to criticise the leg and the shape of the leg and the angle and things. Now, Pelley's happened to know that this man was a cobbler, so he could accept the criticism of the sandals because he knew what he was talking about. But when this man started to criticise the leg, that was enough. So apparently he came out and he said, ne ultra crepidam. He said it in Greek. This is how it's recorded in Latin. Ne ultra crepidam means not beyond the soul. In other words, don't talk about anything other than shoes, which is what you know about as a cobbler, because this is not your area of expertise. And so ultra-crepidarium,

meaning beyond the soul, is someone who does exactly that. They just love to spout off on subjects they really don't know anything about. Isn't that great? I love that word. It is a word, and I'm afraid I am familiar with it because you've used it to me on a number of occasions and I felt it's been a little bit too near the knuckle. Oh I'm so sorry too near the sandal. We do have some lovely letters though from our purple people. Oh we're going to move on to the letters already. Look what do you think? Let's talk we're going to talk about these phrases then on our special bonus episodes and where do people get the bonus episodes if they want them they join the purple plus club and there's wherever they get this

podcast there are details in the program blurb underneath yeah great oh so that'll be fun so that the more of that and have we done a whole episode on bread i was thinking of all the names you know we're talking about cob i'd love to do an episode on bread and see if my local artisan baker cobb can come out. Do you know where cobblers comes from, by the way? If you say that's a load of cobblers, which is obviously what they thought you were speaking when you went in to ask for a cobbler. I may be wrong. Maybe there is a loaf called a cobbler.

But anyway, cobblers goes back to cobblers awls, A-W-L-S. It's rhyming slang. And an awl is a shoemaking tool. And cobblers awls was rhyming slang for balls. Very good. B's rhyming slang. And an awl is a shoemaking tool. And cobbler's awls was rhyming slang for balls. Very good. Well, the reason that we're talking about shoes is because somebody got in touch with us. It was Ben Huntley from York. And one of the things that he was asking about is why we call a fan of something, a something head, like sneaker head, petrol head, etc. That was his other question. So as we have now got to where people are getting in touch and asking their questions,

have you got an answer to that for him? Yeah, it's really used to designate a person who has the mind or head of the kind specified by the first element. So it's all about, you know, where their head is, if they're fairly obsessive about it. But it was actually first recorded in lots of insults as Blockhead, Hardhead, Hothead. Hothead, actually, you'll find in the OED as a surname. I love that there was a Richard Hothead, who probably had quite a fiery temper. Thickhead. And then we get on to the kind of hobby type things, such as Petrelhead and Sneakerhead, which is what Ben calls himself.

If people want to get in touch with us, it's very simple. You just email us. There's Petrelhead and Sneakerhead, which is what Ben calls himself. If people want to get in touch with us, it's very simple. You just email us. It's purple at somethingelse.com. And something is spelt without a G. Here is correspondence from... Lots of people. I think from multiple people.

If you're looking at the same one as me, which is about the word biennial. Oh, how amusing. I saw the word multiple and I thought, oh, what is the person's first name, surname? Or maybe it's an act called multiple, a group. Multiple have been in touch, you know, like the Spice Girls have communicated. Oh, speaking of the Spice Girls,

I went to see, if I told you about this, Abba. Oh, the holograms. Yeah. Oh, it's supposed to be amazing. The avatars, can I tell you, it's amazing. Yeah you it's amazing yeah the joy for us uh suzy is our podcast need never age or die no should we become holograms we can become i don't think they're quite holograms are they not i thought they were okay i think they call themselves avatars it's beyond belief you actually think they are there you think you can walk around them. It's not like something on a screen that it's phenomenal. I have to tell you, but that's by the by. So multiple have been in touch about biannual. Tell us about this.

Well, it's because in our recent episode on art, I was talking about how the first exhibition I saw really was at the Venice Biennale. And we have had a lot of people say a biannual event can confusingly mean both occurring twice a year and occurring every other year. And I think we mentioned at the time that it is slightly hazy. And many of the purple people, including Robert Bacon and Mary Scanlon and Emma Scott Smith, have been in touch to suggest a solution, which is that biannual should be occurring twice a year biannual should be occurring every other year which is very interesting because the two are often confused and biannual does mean occurring every two years so you have the rider cap for example in golf that is biannual whereas biannual does mean twice a year. But what is happening is that biannual is quite often then used to mean the first one,

and the two are becoming pretty synonymous. Well, we don't want them to. We want clarity with the language. So the Venice Biennale happens every other year. Yes. Is that correct? That's right. So think about that.

The Biennale, the Biennale, biannual is every other year. Biannual is twice in the same year. That's what we want to establish. You say there is confusion now, but thanks to something rhymes with purple, thanks to Susie Dent and her little helper, Giles, we are going to make sure that people in future use the words correctly.

Biennial means twice a year. Biennial means every other year.'s sorted what has jack hughes had to say dear giles and suzy i hope you're both well i'm continuing to enjoy my weekly dose of wordy fun with your fantastic podcast one of my favorite ingredients to use when cooking are spring onions otherwise known as scallions. I wondered what is the origin of scallion? Does it have any links to the words scallywag and rap scallion? I thought it perhaps made sense that the latter two words are used to refer to impish youngsters and spring onions are by right of their name onions that appear early on in the year. All the best for the week ahead.

Jack. He's given a lot of thought to this and I love it because I hadn't myself made all those connections. And I love the idea of a spring onion coming in the spring. I mean, I didn't even get that far, but actually the scallion bit, I'll start with that, is the same. It's particularly a spring onion, but it can be any long-necked onion with a small bulb. And actually, it is also, well, it's not an eponym, but a toponym this time, because it's based on the Latin Ascalonia sepa, which means onion of Ascalon. And Ascalon was a port in ancient Palestine. Did you know that?

I think I did. Okay. Well, I didn't know that. Not related then to the scallywag because that's much more um recent mid-19th century no one knows where scallywag comes from unfortunately it's such a i mean i think i would always associate scallywag with liverpool but more than that we don't actually know and then rapscallion was originally a rascallion, and we slightly changed the spelling. And I'm going to look that, if you can hear me tapping away in the OED.

That has meant a rogue or a rascal since 1582. And it was probably a riff on lots of other things like ruffian. There was a rampallion as well, all meaning someone who was fairly roguish. I love these really old words. Have you got three interesting words that may be really old to go along with rapscadian to tease us with this week? Yes, I love these. I feel like I'm slightly running out, actually,

because I've just realised that my first one is ultracrepidarian. So there you go. I'm going to give that one just because I love the story behind it. And just to remind you, an ultra-crepidarian is someone who loves to talk about things they actually don't know much about. That's the first one. The second one, we're in the midst of summer now, aren't we, Giles? And I don't know if you're a summer person.

I tend to be more of an autumn person, but if you find it just too hot or you go into a state of torpor during the incredibly hot and listless dog days of summer, then you can estivate, which is the summer equivalent of hibernating. And to estivate is to retire for the summer. Well, it's a good word.

You're just teasing me with so many other words. Maybe you should do a special summer issue because I want to talk about torpor and I want to talk about dog days and why are they so called? Why aren't they cat days? Anyway, so Estivate, I'm with you on Est And the fit of the clevers is when you suddenly notice the time and realise just how much you have left to do. And when you suddenly burst into a sort of scurry of activity, that's a fit of the clevers. And in French, it's known rather more elegantly, and it came into English as such, as a charrette. So a charrette is a sudden burst of activity in order to get things done. And it's spelled C-H-A-R-E-T-T-E. Charette, Charette, a Charette. Yes, in English, probably we would say Charette, Charette. Charette, a Charette. Well, speaking of sudden bursts of activity, we shall be bursting into action later in the year. Well, quite soon now,

because we're taking Something Rhymes with Purple back on stage. We are. At the end of September. And we're doing Something Rhymes with Purple back on stage. We are. At the end of September. And we're doing every show is quite different. And we want to meet as many purple people as possibly can come along. So we're starting a monthly residency at the Fortune Theatre in London, England on September the 25th. And there's a special homecoming gig for Susie in Oxford at the Oxford Playhouse on the 9th

of October. So if you want tickets, info, go to somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. That's all one word, somethingrhymeswithpurple.com. Or follow us on social media at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram to find out more. Which is exciting, isn't it? It is exciting. At one of our live shows, I realised, we got to the part of the show when I do a poem, that I didn't have a poem with me.

So I had to do one from my head. And the one I did is the one I'm going to do again right now, because it's a poem called Galoshes. And I've got the words in front of me now, so we get it right, because it's the only poem I can think of that is entirely devoted to shoes. You know what galoshes are, don't you? Yes, I do. I've never had a pair. Well, they're kind of overshoes. And they were very popular once upon a time. And this poem is called Galoshes. It's by Paul Jennings, who I was lucky enough to know. I am having

a rapprochement with galoshes. And some would say this heralds middle age. Yes, sneering, they would say, does he also wear pince-nez? Old Josses wore galoshes when women's hats were cloches. Ha! Woolen combinations are this dodderer's next stage. Well, let the people snigger, just because my feet look bigger. For colossal in galoshes, they are dry among the sploshes. A story that won't wash is this story that galoshes, so snug at slushy crossings, make a man a sloppy figure. Oh, crossly and still crossly. I bought shoes even costlier, which still quite new, let water through before I've crossed the street. There's nothing manly, I repeat, in always having cold,

wet feet. Galoshelessness is foolishness when sharply slants the sleet, and I utterly refuse the expression overshoes to make galoshes posher, I would scorn this feeble ruse. The word galosh is not strong, not weak. It comes from kalopus, the Greek, for cobblers last, and thus is classed with hero times antique. Come, muse, through slush and sleet dry-footed with me trip so that I may praise galoshes in a calopus calypso. Oh, when swishing buses splash, and the rush-hour masses clash, when it's marshy as molashes,

how galoshes cut a dash! It makes me quite impassioned when they're dubbed unsmart, old-fashioned, for such by gosh the bosh is that's talked about galoshes, some, since the very finest leather is outsmarted altogether by the classy, glossy polish of galoshes in such weather. That's not the whole poem.

I don't think I can give you the whole poem. If you want the rest of the poem, I'm going to try to learn it to perform at the Fortune Theatre. But it's a bit of a tongue twister, isn't it? It is. I'm very entertaining with it. Well, I hope you loved that as much as me. And if you love the show,

please continue to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, wherever you get your podcasts. And do please recommend us to friends and family. And we're on social media now as well, aren't we, Giles? Not just us, but the pod tours you mentioned. Because I do Twitter. I found us at Something Rhymes on Twitter.

So I'm doing my best to spread the word through there. Anyway, Something Rhymes with Burble is I'm doing my best to spread the word through there. Anyway, Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment production. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mistry, Jay Beal, and our very own Rapscallion. Golly. Yeah, I'd like to see him in Crocs.