Something Rhymes with Purple - Vespa

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

We’re brushing off our entomological skills once again as we revisit the world of creepy crawlies. Find out why ants in your pants is a bad thing but the ant’s pants is quite good. We also swap nostalgic stories of VW Beetles and we find out about a very famous person who still gets butterflies in her stomach when performing. It all creates quite a buzz.  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. We currently have 20% off all our merchandise in our store.  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: Fustilarian – one who pursues worthless objects or aims Ploiter – to work half-heartedly Myrmidon – a slavish and ruthless follower of someone else 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

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skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Something else. Annex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast with wordy witterings about language. I witter and my co-host, Giles Brandreth, tells me about words.

Or is it the other way around, Giles? It is the other way around. Let's face it, honestly. Hello. Anyway, lovely to see you. The phrase Wittering, there's a place called Wittering, isn't there? There is. Isn't there West Wittering and East Wittering? And maybe there's Wittering Central. I don't know. I certainly would feel at home there. To Witter on. People always accusing me of Wittering on. I don't know if I've told you this, but I was sent to boarding school when I was quite young.

Yeah. And I always thought it was because my parents didn't like me. But I've only recently discovered from one of my sisters. I published a kind of childhood memoir called Odd Boy Out. And I sent a copy to my sister. And I sent a copy to my sister. She phoned me up and said to me, you know, you weren't sent away to boarding school because your parents didn't like your child. You were sent away to boarding school because you wouldn't stop talking. Tell me more. And she said, you just talked nonstop. And it was getting the parents down and it was getting us down.

I had three older sisters. And she said, we got together. And we pulled. We said, well, we contribute our, and we pooled, we said, we'll contribute our pocket money to pay for the school fees. So, he was sent away to give us some peace and quiet at home. So clearly, I've been wittering for a very long time.

Where does the word wittering come from? It's probably a variant on witter with an H, which in the 16th century meant to warble or twitter. Oh. So it's like the twittering of a bird. So much goes back to the twittering of birds.

Remember jargon as well. Jargon was originally the twittering of our feathered friends because obviously it means everything to them and nothing at all to anybody else. I love that, jargon. Oh, how interesting. A jargon is a language, as it were, exclusive. Was it originally exclusive to birds? Yes. how interesting. A jargon is a language, as it were, exclusive. Was it originally exclusive to birds? Yes.

How interesting. I somehow, when you mentioned the bird connection, assumed it was as in jar, night jar, a type of bird called a jar, J-A-R. Oh, interesting. Is that a connection there? Who knows? No, I don't think so, but I'm going to look it up now because that would be a lovely trail if it is true. A harsh, inharmonious sound or combination of sounds, as in that's jarring.

And a vibrational tremulous movement, so maybe it is about the song. With reference to bird and insects. Oh, a representation of the harsh, vibratory sound. So maybe it is all about jarring noises and not to do with jargoon. But maybe it is. You never know. You never know. That's the mystery. That's the wonder of the world of words and language. But we're not talking about birds today.

What are we talking about? Well, do you remember recently we talked in our podcast called Chenille, we talked about insects and we only really scratched the surface. So we thought, we've got the bug for bugs we're going to beetle through i'm blaming the producers for this beetle through the origins of some of our other friends six-legged friends good okay well we've mentioned bug being snug as a bug in a rug you'll like this because it was first mentioned in a play from 1769 that was staged by David Garrick, who was a celebrated Shakespearean actor, wasn't he?

Not only that, he was really the founder of reviving the big revivals of Shakespeare. He did the first Shakespeare celebrations in Stratford-upon-Avon. David Garrick, absolutely. And there's still a Garrick Theatre in the West End of London. There is a Garrick Club for people involved in the world of theatre, and lots of lawyers belong to it too, in Garrick Theatre in the West End of London. There is a Garrick Club for people involved in the world of theatre, and lots of lawyers belong to it too, in Garrick Street in London. Yes, he still

is a major figure to reckon with. Well, the way that he uses it in this play suggests very much that Snug as a Bug in a Rug was already around, because obviously the audience would have had to recognise it. And it goes like, if she has the mopuses, which was a slang word for money, I'll have her as snug as a bug in a rug. I'm not quite sure what the having means there, but we can glide on from there. And it was used by Benjamin Franklin, who used it to memorialise a pet squirrel.

And he says, here, Skug, lie snug as a bug in a rug. And Skug was the nickname for the squirrel i love so it's lovely isn't it it goes back a lot it is all born for its sound i'm absolutely sure snug itself uh has nautical origins so it was the trim neat design of a ship that made it seaworthy uh really incapable of riding out a storm and then it came to mean something that fitted closely but comfortably and now if you are snug you are kind of cocooned aren't you in a very cozy hideout and capable of riding out a storm. And then it came to mean something that fitted closely but comfortably. And now if you are snug, you are kind of cocooned, aren't you, in a very cosy hideout.

Two of my favourite words are snug and cosy. Two lovely little four-letter words that make you feel secure. I'm feeling snug. And part of a public house, the little room, used to be called The Snug. There was a TV series, there is a tv series called coronation street and when i began watching it many years ago when it began in the early 1960s there were three elderly or maybe was it four old ladies who spent time in the snug the back of the pub and i suppose it was called a snug because it was cozy it's gorgeous isn't it and i think bug is quite interesting in itself as well, because

originally it didn't mean the sort of insects, all the, you know, we talk about bed bugs and things, but it originally referred to a hobgoblin or even a scarecrow. So that was kind of how it started off. And then, yeah, particularly little insects that bite people and suck their blood. So the idea, I guess, is of something kind of mischievous and impish. Good. When I was a child, I loved the stories about two characters called Ant and Bee. Do you remember these little books? Did you do them with your daughters? Ant and Bee, wonderful characters. I can't remember who the author was. Was it Helen Bannerman? Anyway, I'll check that out. But Ant and Bee, they were delightful little storybooks. And of course, in this country, we have two characters called Ant and Deck, who are television presenters. Ant, as a word, has that been around a long time?

It has been around for a long time. So it's borrowing from Germanic, so you'll find it in Old English. And it came from a word that originally was spelt Emmet, A-E-M-E-T-E. And anyone who lives in Britain's Cornwall will recognise Emmet because there it's the equivalent of Devon's Grockle. And Emmet is a slang, slightly derogatory term for maybe affectionate, I'm not sure, for a tourist, because they run all over the place like ants. But yeah, so they're all related, as is feeling antsy, as though you've got ants in your pants. If you're feeling antsy, you've got, you're sort of a bit agitated and restless. And the ant's pants, this is in Australian English, can you guess what that might mean? The ant's pants? Oh, it's the ant's pants. No.

I have a... I can think of similar formulations like the cat's whiskers or the bee's knees. Oh, the bee's knees, the ant's pants. So that's what it means. The ant's pants is outstandingly good. Very good. I like that, the ant's pants. I like that too. Before people get in touch to say it wasn't Helen Bannerman,

she wrote quite different stories. The ant and bee stories, I've just checked this now, they were written by Angela Banner. So there was a little Angela Banner, which was the pseudonym of Angela Mary Madison, born 1923, died 2014. And she began writing these books to teach her son how to read. And the first volume was published in the UK in 1950,

which explains why in the early 1950s, my mother obviously used these to help me learn to read. And I just loved both Ant and Bee. They are delightful. I don't know if they're still in print. But if you are wanting to do some reading with your small children, if you're listening to this, I do recommend from my childhood the Ant and Bee stories. Lovely. Never mind Bee. What about the beetle? Oh, the Ant and Bee stories. Lovely. Never mind bee, what about the beetle?

Oh, the beetle. So the origin of the beetle, really, if you take it all the way back, is an ancestor that gave us bite as well. So not all beetles are biting. We need some good entomologists here amongst the purple people. But beetle is such a lovely, lovely name. I mean, it gave us the lovely little Volkswagen that was produced in the 1930s. And apparently that was so cool because someone described it in a motor magazine as looking like a beetle on stilts.

You can sort of see that. I'm not sure about the stilts bit, but you can sort of see the shape of the beetle, can't you? When I was a little boy, talking of the early 1950s, we had a beetle car. And there was a little bit at the back where I stood up. I mean, sometimes I sat in the front on my father's lap and he let me do the driving. No seatbelts. Oh, I see.

Oh, yes, I used to love doing that. Oh, I love doing that. No seatbelts. Indeed, I did totally the driving when he was lighting his cigarette. However fast we were going. But there was a thing at the back of the Beetle where you put the luggage. There was a kind of place where, as a small child, you could stand inside.

Oh, that's very cool. But I tell you what I would love more than a Beetle car. My dad also had a Beetle car that was bright green. He always chose cars that were really lovely, but then of a hideous colour. We had a bright yellow car as well for a while. But anyway, more than a Beetle, I would love a Vespa. That's my ultimate ambition, transport-wise, is to have a little vespa. And do you know where that comes from?

Now, I think that's going to be the word for wasp. Is it the Italian for wasp? Absolutely right. Yes. The ultimate origin of wasp and vespa, indeed, is a word that meant to weave, because wasps chew up wood into this kind of papery substance and then they weave it to construct their nests. And for some reason, Vespa takes me to wasps

and takes me to the French word for wasp, which is guep, G-U-E-P-E. And I've got a folk memory of the G-U being interchangeable with W in other languages so that you get, as it were, guichet in French gives you wicket. Yeah, I think it's all about us adapting foreign sounds to our English tongue. There's another example where an E acute in French with a T, étoile, for example, became ST for us because that was easier for us to pronounce it etoile became star and lots and

lots of examples of that um as well so very often we kept with those words for a while particularly after the normans came and we spoke in this hybrid of of english and and norman french and then eventually it moved so that it was more palatable to um our mouths rather than the french a wasp with a sting gives us waspish. Has that been around as an expression for a long time, to describe someone as a bit waspish? Yes, it has. Just before that, I should explain the link with a vespa,

which is that the little buzzing that you, you know, you just hear a vespa go past. I mean, it's part of its charm, isn't it? And it sounds a little bit like a rather gentle wasp I would say I remember talking to Chris Packham who is for those who don't know him outside Britain probably is one of our best and most loved naturalists essentially he presents programs called spring watch and autumn watch anyway he's incredible I remember asking him what his favorite creature of all was and he said the wasp because looking at those nests they are so intricate and they are so clever but obviously he didn't like the fact that adjectives like waspish etc um existed in english

and weren't particularly nice waspish was first recorded by shakespeare in the taming of the shrew if i be waspish best beware my my sting. But if you're feeling kind of quite petulant and quite spiteful, that I think had been around even before Shakespeare for 50 years or so. And as we always say, he kind of popularised a lot of words rather than invented them. Wasp also is an acronym, isn't it, in the United States? A wasp is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. How old is that as a word, as expression? Let me look that up because I'm not quite sure. I wonder if it's used anymore.

Yes, no, I mean, I don't know. It certainly was used 50 years ago when I was during my gap year. Oh, really? Going up to New England and I felt it was that sort of part of the world where really I would say upper class, American Protestant elite, that sort of thing where you find the really I would say upper class, American Protestant elite,

that sort of thing, where you find the WASPs. It was being used then, but whether it's used now, I really don't know. Some of our American listeners can tell us. The first reference to WASP as an acronym is 1943, when it's not actually meaning that. It means, or meant in the US, Women's Air Force Service Pilots. So it had a life before. And then the WASP, as you say, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, 1960s, 1962. Oh, well, there you go. So when I was there at the end of the 60s,

it was then, it was at its peak and maybe it's sort of fallen a bit away. Yeah, maybe. Anyway, WASPs, we have reservations reservations about wasps but we have few about butterflies oh butterflies it's just quite fitting i think that that the origin of the butterfly linguistically is a little bit elusive a little bit fluttery we know we've been using it for over a thousand years and we've been trying to work out where it comes from or that you know where its name comes from ever since some people still subscribe to an old wives tale that butterflies love to land on butter they like eating butter or attracted to the color of butter again entomologists out there amongst the purple people will put us right here but apparently they're attracted to butter

and that may have given them their name much more likely in my book is that it's because many common butterflies have pale yellow wings, just like butter. I always thought it was because it was a variant on flutter-by. Flutter-by, I know, because it gracefully flutters by. Is that not possible? I mean, they do flutter by. What is that, fluttering by, but a butterfly? No, it's gorgeous. It's been discounted by the OED that also, even less romantically, introduces the idea that butterfly poo is kind of yellow-coloured. So, yeah, you can take your pick. We're not completely sure where it came from.

But there's the butterfly effect, of course, as well, isn't there, in chaos theory? Explain that to me. I'm sort of a nerd. The butterfly flaps its wings and the world ends or something. How does the butterfly effect work? Oh, gosh. Well, I'm probably not the best person to talk about this, but I think it is referring to really complex systems whose behaviour is really sensitive to slight changes in conditions. So there's a smallest alteration can have strikingly huge consequences, such as a

butterfly flapping its wings. What do butterflies do with their wings? Flutter their wings. On one part is the globe and then having an enormous effect somewhere else. So in the 1970s, I think it was first described in relation to the weather and the notion that butterfly fluttering in, I don't know, Rio de Janeiro could change the weather in Chicago. And this is, you relate this to something called the chaos effect. And this is all, this is some particular school of thinking. Yes, it's a branch of maths. I mean, my wife thinks our life is the chaos theory,

but neither of us know what it means. Maybe we don't need to. I think your life is so it has to be so regimented because there's not a day goes by when you haven't got at least three engagements somewhere in the country so i imagine that you've got spreadsheets all over your walls would that i have i've got an old i've got an old-fashioned diary which i keep in pencil though so that i can rub things out but yes you yes got to keep busy yeah I was reading a bit of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy which was this sort of massive massive work expounding where

melancholy came from I think it was a thousand pages his book ran to he spent his life studying melancholy and Samuel Johnson also read it and said it was the only book that would get him out of bed in the morning. Anyway, one of the cures that both Samuel Johnson and Robert Burton advocated was indeed being busy. Well, one of the things I've been busy doing recently, and it takes us to our next butterfly expression, is I've been busy on Sundays sharing a stage with the great Dame Judi Dench. We've been doing a series of shows at the Gielgud Theatre in London on Sunday afternoons. I'm mentioning it. They're all sold out.

So I'm not advertising it. I'm just telling you about it retrospectively, where I chat to Dame Judi about her extraordinary career. And we were standing in the wings about to go on. I was going to go on to introduce her. And she said, have you got butterflies? And I said, have you got butterflies? And I said, have I got butterflies? I've certainly, I've got giant butterflies in my tummy. She said, so have I. And I said to her, good grief, you've been doing this since the 1950s. You know, you've been doing this for a very long time. And she said, oh.

It's nice to know that she still feels that way. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and then I thought, oh, I wonder, butterflies in one stomach. I suppose it is literally the sensation of sort of collywobbles, feeling, oh, no. Is that the origin of the phrase, butterflies? Yeah, that is absolutely, because it feels like little insect wings fluttering away. For me, it's much stronger than little butterfly wings, I have to say. But I love the fact that Judi Dench, after all this time and, you know, for such an amazing person that she still gets butterflies, it's brilliant. I told you my first encounter with Judi Dench as an actress, and she told me this is a true story. It was 1960. It was the original production that she was in by Franco Zeffirelli of Romeo and Juliet. And John Stride was the young Romeo, and she was a very young Juliet. And I went to see this. It was the first Shakespeare.

My parents took me to see it. It was a school's matinee. Did you say it was after the film? Oh, this is years before the film. Before the film? Okay. Yes, it was before his, Franco Zeffirelli's famous film.

Yes. I think it was the first time he'd done Shakespeare, certainly in this country. And it was a very realistic, naturalistic production. It was wonderful. I remember it vividly. Peggy Mount was the nurse, Alec McCowan was Mercutio,

John Stride, as I say, was Romeo, and the young Judi Dench was Juliet. I went to this school's matinee, parents with their children, Judi Dench's parents were there. And I remember her coming on for the first time as Juliet, wearing a kind of white nightie. And she ran towards the nurse, the nurse played by Peggy Mount. And her opening line was, where are my mother and my father, nurse? And from the third row of the stalls, a voice called out,

here we are, darling, Rosie. And it was Judi Dench's dad. No. Offering her reassurance. Oh, that's so lovely. And she said, you remember it right. It really did happen. Oh, how amazing. Did the audience laugh or was it not it right, it really did happen. Oh, how amazing.

Did the audience laugh or was it not audible to everybody? I think the audience did laugh on that occasion. Certainly, the audience roared when she retold the story. She told such amazing stories. She could be very naughty on stage. But anyway, the good news is that even the greats sometimes have butterflies in their stomachs. Time to take a break and we will be back after a Nats whisker.

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You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple, where we are delving into the world, not just of etymology, but of entomology too. And I mentioned a gnat's whisker just before the break. And Charles Gufford. I've never heard of such a thing. A cat's whisker I've heard of.

Cat's whisker is the expression. Gnat's whisker. What's a gnat's whisker? The cat's whiskers are a bit like the bee's knees, which we've already covered. But a gnat's whisker means the tiniest, tiniest margin, which is actually, interestingly, how a bee's knee also started. A bee's knee meant the sort of tiniest, tiniest thing before it became one of those formulas meaning the best of everything. But we have lots of phrases involving insects which are often quite curious some of them aren't busy as a bee there's a real buzz around here i've got bee in my bonnet we talked about bees in the first uh episode in chenille none of your bees wax

and all of that wouldn't hurt to fly you have the attention span of a gnat don't you i certainly do let's talk about something else. Not you. But, yeah, a gnat's whisker is, it's not in the OED. I've looked it up. Because it doesn't exist. Cat's whisker is the phrase. Gnat's whisker. I've never heard of it.

A gnat's whisker. Yeah, it definitely does. I'm hoping that our producers are nodding away. Why isn't it in the OED if it exists? Yes. Okay, I'm going to see if I can get it

in a standard dictionary here. Oh gosh, I hope the purple people are with me on this one. No, they're turning against you. Look, you are, by the purple people, you are as loved as Dame Judi Dench is

by the world at large. So if you say Nat's whisker is an old established phrase, so it is. Oh, well, look, I am looking up in the Cambridge English Dictionary and it is in Oh, well, look, I am looking up in the Cambridge English Dictionary

and it is in there. And that's whisker, meaning the smallest thing. Yeah. Cambridge believes in it, but Oxford hasn't heard of it yet. Okay. Tell us about its origin, how long it's been around. Well, I don't know because it's not in the OED, so I can't tell you, but I would imagine probably, I don't know, mid 1900s. I don't imagine it's been around much more than then. But we also do talk about being knee high to a grasshopper, don't we? And that's been around since the 18th century, 1742. Oh no, that's the first mention of knee high. 1814 is the first mention of being knee high, not to a grasshopper, but to a toad.

Then you could be knee high to a mosquito. Then you could be knee-high to a mosquito. Then you could be knee-high to a frog, a bumblybee, a splinter, duck in there as well. Finally, not until 1957 do we get to the grasshopper. Gosh, knee-high to a grasshopper. That is funny. And it means being quite short. Yes.

Somebody asked me the other day who was the tallest famous person I'd met. Richard Osman, surely. Oh, I suppose it must be Richard Osman, who is internationally known as a wonderful writer of charming detective stories. Yep, Thursday Murder Club. And nationally known as the host of some marvellous game shows. He is very tall. Normally, I would say, I used to say James Stewart, Jimmy Stewart,

great Hollywood star. But I think Richard Osman probably is taller than him. Richard Osman is almost seven feet. Yeah, he is hugely tall. I have to revise that name dropping line of mine. I've also met, I'm not heightist, I've also met Tom Cruise. Oh, have you seen the new movie? No, is it great great the new Top Gun oh you have to see it it's absolutely brilliant

it's so good because it just owns its cheesiness it's fab yeah I recommend it for anybody who wants some escapism what's interesting

is you talk in a way that Jane Austen would not have understood it owns its own cheesiness she'd have been completely confused she might have understood if you said it's fab

would she have understood it owns its own cheesiness, it's fab? Would Jane Austen have reached for her, well, her gun? I mean, would she have understood any of that? No. Well, she would have maybe understood fabulous to mean what we said in our last episode, which is about Aesop's fables, where it means something kind of absurd or whatever. But no, I don't think she would have understood the sense of it's great and certainly not the cheesy bit.

Anyway, but we are in the 21st century and I think it owns its own cheesiness. I think hopefully most purple people will know. It's a great line. Don't think I'm criticising you. Anyway, dropping like flies is another one. Yes. So we don't actually know where this comes from. I think at a beginning of the 20th century, it's first recorded, but there is a grim fairy tale, one of the brothers Grimm, which is a cautionary, speaking of fables, it's a fable of a child who thoughtlessly kills lots

and lots of flies. But it doesn't come directly from there. But I suppose insects have a very short life, don't they? So it's probably got quite a sort of standard meaning I would say but so so many insects have crept into our tight as a tick why would a tick be tight why would a newt be pissed for that reason yes tight as a tick it's the kind of it's the alliteration that works there isn't it it's blood isn't it it's tight with the blood its body is tight with the blood that it sucked from you. But pissed as a newt, I don't understand at all. No, it used to be pissed as a thrush, if you remember from our drinking episode, because in Roman times, they would see thrushes tottering around the vineyards, having feasted on the sort of fermented grapes and getting extremely drunk. So you would be drunk as a thrush. And now we just say Pistis

and Youge. I don't think it really has very much meaning. I can give you information about the height of James Stewart. Do you know even who I mean by James Stewart? Oh, I absolutely do. My mum loves Jimmy Stewart. Exactly. Well, I'm of your mother's generation. And he was such a huge movie star in every sense. And he was, irritatingly, I looked it up, it says he was 1.91 metres. I had to translate that. Basically six foot four. Oh, OK.

Not that tall in current climate. No, no. But when I met him, that seemed to me to be gigantic. And I think in his day, that probably was pretty magnificent. He was certainly a wonderful actor. Look, this is fantastic. You are fantastic with all these phrases and things. If people have got other expressions,

people want to side with me on the Nat's whisker issue, it's too late. I think Susie is probably right. But if you want to correspond with us, it's easy to do. You get in touch with us. It's simply... purpleatsomethingelse.com purpleatsomethingelse.com to correspond with us, it's easy to do. You get in touch with us. It's simply... Purple at something else dot com. Purple at something else dot com. Now, have people been in touch with us this week?

Oh, they're always in touch and we are very grateful for it. Yes. This is from, oh, what a name, Sky Caves. Hi, Susie, Giles. I hope you're both well. Big fan of the podcast. I'm hoping you can help me with an expression. I've heard the term sheep dipping used fan of the podcast. I'm hoping you can help me with an expression. I've heard the term sheep dipping used twice in the past month at work, and I've no idea what it means as a colloquialism. Both times it's been used in a kind of, well, we want to avoid sheep dipping context, and everyone else on the call has laughed and nodded along,

so I assume they know what it means, but I'm at a loss. I tried googling it, but just got lots of pictures of, well, sheep dipping. Really hoping you can shed some light. It's been bugging me ever since. My job, I might add, is nothing remotely farming related, and nor do I work for MI5, which is the only other thing that came up, oddly. With gratitude, Skye. Great name, Skye, and great inquiry too. Sheep dipping. Great name, Skye, and great inquiry too. Sheep dipping. Explore that. OK, well, hands up, I had no idea about this. And I often stick up for business jargon because it gets a very hard time.

Most people say it's meaningless, it's just, you know, just the BS bingo type thing where nobody really understands what they're saying. Sometimes, though, it can actually be really clever. And this one is clever, but obviously it's not established enough yet that people know what it means. But essentially, the idea is that you take some business leaders and in one short amount of time, you dip them into a vat of information and teach them all sorts of skills, supposedly, and then pull them out, shake them off and hope that all the lessons will have stuck. But they're never tested again. They're just left

there. They're sort of dipped once. And then if they remember it, great, but they're never sort of assessed afterwards. So most business people, I think, and business experts would say avoid sheep dipping, as Guy says, at all costs, because essentially it's just a quick dip, then you're out and it's not very effective. Excellent. There we are. There is the answer. Thank you very much, Skye. Somebody else has been in touch, and this is Shelley Raden, who is inquiring about something petering out.

Hi, Susie and Giles. I'm a big fan of the show. My seven-year-old son Zephyr also enjoys listening. Why do we say something peters out? Is this linked to real life Peter? I've been thinking about this phrase for a while and I wondered if you'd be able to shed some light on its meaning. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work. Kind regards, Shelley Radon. Such great names the purple people have. Yeah, do you think they're real names?

Or do you think they're real names? Yes. Or do you think they just send in these false names to get noticed? I wonder. What would yours be? Yes, I want a simpler name, actually. But I'd love to be called Skye, actually. Skye is gorgeous. It's a lovely, lovely name.

My wife's maiden name is Brown. And I think that's a very useful, straightforward, Skye Brown. Tonight it's Skye Brown. Here he is, everybody. Shelley isn't bad. And also, it has echoes of the poet Shelley. And both those names are useful in the modern age because they can be used quite comfortably, male, female, whatever you are. You're a Shelley. You're a Sky. I like it. Do you see what her seven-year-old son is called while we're talking about the names? Zephyr. Z-E-P-H-Y-R, which is the name for a wind, isn't it? A Zephyr wind.

Yeah, soft breeze. Also, I bet you this is why Shelley has called her son Zephyr. It's that delightful, gorgeous monkey in the Baba stories. It's called Zephyr. I love Baba and Zephyr. I heard you talking about Baba the Elephant

on Just a Minute the other day. We love your name, Zephia. Ah. I love Baba and Zephia. I heard you talking about Baba the Elephant on Just a Minute the other day. Oh. We love your name, Zephia. We love your mother's name. We love you as a family. And you're now going to have the definitive answer from the world's leading lexicographer of the origin of the phrase petering out. Oh, dear. And the answer is we don't know.

But there's more to say than that. So Shelley says, is it linked to a real life Peter? And that's not as absurd as it sounds, because as you know, lots of names are used in English generically to mean all sorts of things, particularly when it comes to animals. Parrot goes back to Pierre or Pierrot. Magpie goes back to Marguerite. Donkey goes back to Duncan. I mean, reet donkey goes back to duncan i mean lots of strange uses of names and a peter has variously meant a prison cell in australian slang a trunk or a safe as well as a man's penis sorry zephyr on that one um but those do not seem to be related to petering out now if you asked me i would always said it goes back to the petard that was a small

bomb. It was a wooden box filled with powder and it was used to make a hole in a wall. And if you're hoisted by your own petard, you are, everything backfires on you, essentially, literally. And that goes back to, we've talked about this, Giles, so many times, pété in French meaning to break a wind. So I would have said that petering out was a little bit like fizzling. And the first meaning of fizzling, I'm hoping Zephyr is enjoying

this. The first meaning of fizzle, if you remember, was to break wind quietly. So I would have said petering out is the same as fizzling out. And I'm going to stick with that. But if you look in the dictionary, I'm afraid it says origin unknown. Well, I think you've offered us a comprehensive trot around the course, and you've come off the fence yourself and given us what you think it is. Actually, I ought to mention here, if you'd like to connect with like-minded purple people around the world, there is the Something Rhymes with Purple Facebook group. And it's run by a longtime friend of the podcast, Craig, and his gorgeous guide dog, Bruce. Bruce. And the group is now 500 strong and growing quickly.

So please join the group. And if you've got questions for us, Susie is ever ready with the answers and I'm ever ready with the interruptions. It's purple at somethingelse.com. Susie, have you got a trio of interesting words for us this week? I do. So I'm not sure they're all particularly complementary these. In fact, the first one definitely isn't. And you will recognise this

one from Shakespeare, Giles. Fustilarian. Do you remember in Henry IV, away you scullion, you rampallion, you fustilarion. And it's essentially come into English properly to mean one who pursues worthless objects or aims. And that also links to my second word, which is one of the very big lexicon in English for working ineffectually, and that's to ploiter. And that's to work sort of half-heartedly and not achieve very much at all and my third one is a myrmidon m-y-r-m-i-d-o-n um does that ring any bells giles it does ring a bell myrmidon this is a word that occurs in literature it does in greek myth in fact in homer's iliad and the Myrmidons were

the kind of fanatically obedient followers of Achilles. And so Myrmidon means someone who will follow somebody else to the ends of the earth, even if they have to be quite ruthless in doing so. A Myrmidon. So a slavish and slightly ruthless follower of someone else. Very good. Three good words. Those are my three. How about your poem? Well, maybe I've got three good poems for you. They're very, very short. Because I own a lovely book called Ogden Nash's Zoo.

And given that we're in the world of insects again this week, I think I've already shared with you one of my favourites, which is simply a two-line poem called The Fly. The Lord in his wisdom made the fly and then forgot to tell us why. But there are longer, slightly longer poems by him in the world of insects. I think there is one about the ant. The ant has made himself illustrious, through constant industry, industrious. So what? Would you be calm and placid if you were full of formic acid? And just one last one here about the firefly.

And I like this because, well, it actually goes to a mystery about the firefly. The firefly's flame is something for which science has no name. I can think of nothing eerier than flying around with an unidentified glow on a person's posterior. But isn't that interesting? The firefly's flame is something for which science has no name. And I've checked it up or tried to look it up. And, you know, fireflies, they glow, they're light, they seem to be. There isn't actually apparently a technical term for that flame.

That luminescence, is that amazing? I'm not sure I've ever seen a firefly, have you? Yes, I think I have around dusk in the West Indies. I think I have. Gorgeous. Well, I really enjoyed that and I hope the purple people did as well. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for following us.

And please do, if you would like to, recommend us to friends. And please, even more importantly, get in touch. Keep getting in touch via purple at somethingelse.com. And as Giles says, do consider joining the Purple, not just the Purple Facebook club, but also the Purple Plus club, where you'll find some bonus episodes on words and language. 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...

Well, last time I saw him he had just a Nat's whisker. It must be a full-grown beer by now. He's knee-high to a praying mantis. It's gully.