Something Rhymes with Purple - Walloping

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

In today’s ‘mane’ episode, there’s no horsing around as we take gallop through the etymological equine world.  Susie explains what the name Duncan and donkeys might have in common, why we might have ‘walloped’ instead of ‘galloped’, how ponies are linked to chickens and why we need to take a trip to Canterbury to uncover the origin of the canter. Gyles serenade us with a stallion of a song before - of course – treating us to a rather decadent name drop about the Italian jockey, Frankie Dettori. Susie also shares a few stories of her own pony, Tic-Tac as she takes us on a hack down memory lane. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Bayard: All the self-confidence of ignorance Attercop: A Spider Grimthorpe: To restore (an ancient building) with lavish expenditure with no taste. Gyles' poem this week is from the book “Words From The Wild” by Mark Graham   Photographers are so serious And often quite uptight  I love to pop up in their zoom  It gives them such a fright  Best of all the close ups though  Above them in a tree  When as they focus on my face  I sprinkle them with wee  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

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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with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main We'll see you next time. Amex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is where Susie Dent and I gather once a week to talk about words, language, and particularly the origin of words.

We're riding high this week, perhaps literally riding high. I'm riding high because, Susie, guess who I met this week? A wonderful lady called Jo Fairley, who many years ago, with her husband, founded a company called Green and Black's Chocolate. Oh, yes, I've heard of Jo Fairley just because, you know, her name has stuck with me just because I adore that chocolate. Well, she's a brilliant person.

She's a great entrepreneur. She was a journalist. She was the editor of Honey magazine, which I worked for a long, long time ago and a remarkable and interesting individual. But the best thing I know about her is that she is a purple person. Oh, how amazing. Wasn't that fantastic? I said to her, oh, I love your chocolate. And she said to me, I love Susie Dent. And I don't mind you either. I really am a purple person. That's fantastic news. Well, hello, Joe, if you're listening, and thank you for the chocolate. Yeah.

Hello, everybody all over the world, because we have listeners literally all over the world. Though I've been thinking this past week about horse riding, which used to, when I was a child, simply be called riding. But now people say horse riding. That's because the other day we had in the United Kingdom the Cheltenham Festival, which is where horse racing goes on. And I come from a family where one of my sisters was fanatical about horses and riding horses. And I know a long time ago in episode 30, which is an episode called Hadaway, we looked at some of the language of horse racing and some of the phrases that have come to us into the language from sport. So let's have a little test and see if anyone can remember, as you will know the answer, because you gave us the answer the first time around, Susie. To win hands down.

That has a horse racing connection, doesn't it, as a phrase? It does. Yes. Shall I give you the answer? Give me the answer straight away. If at home you think I know this because I've been listening since episode 30, feel pleased with yourself. Yes, to win hands down is essentially to have such a big lead in a horse race that you can afford to let the horse's head drop a bit, loosen the reins, and your hands are consequently down. So you're winning with your hands down at

sort of a leisurely pace. Now, I remember when we first discussed this, I assumed the hands connection was to do with the height of horses because, curiously, horses are measured in hands. Yes, but I suppose no more curious than measuring our height in feet. Oh, hands and feet. It's the same sort of thing. Is that the idea? Calculations were so often done by parts of the body.

So if you think about in the number world, we talk about digits and a digitus was a finger, of course. And we talk about dates as well when we're calculating time and a date goes back again, ultimately to dactylis, which again, were the sort of the fingers. So lots and lots of connections to very simple basic measurements. and lots of connections to very simple basic measurements. A mile was a mila or a thousand paces by a Roman soldier. So if you look back in the history of calculation, it's all actually quite simple. Have you ever ridden a horse? I did used to go horse riding and it was my Saturday pursuit at a local pony club. And I used to sometimes go and muck out the horses and, you know, I had my own little groom

tack box which was lovely and had all the you know the curry comb and the brushes etc in them but I used to unfortunately ride a little pony it was a bit like a farewell pony if anyone's old enough to remember the farewell ponies I used to do quite tubby and squat and Tic Tac my little pony loved rolling in the sawdust so no sooner had I climbed aboard that he would decide to start to roll. And I had to get off as quickly as I could. So it was all a bit risky. I want to unpick some of that already. Norman Thelwell was a cartoonist who created these wonderful,

often they were, mostly they were girls, young girls riding horses. Often the horses were rather stout and the girls were sort of being thrown about on top of them. They were delightful cartoons. I knew him. In fact, I've got a Thelwell cartoon that he kindly gave me many, many years ago. You mentioned tack. We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that because I think we're going to talk about so cabaret horse riding today, aren't we?

We have one more test for the purple people. How about looking a gift horse in the mouth? Do you remember this, Giles? Oh, I remember the phrase, to look a gift horse in the mouth. What's it about? Well, say you had an amazing opportunity come your way and you were thinking, not sure. I would say to you, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. In other words, don't just give up on a very easy opportunity. It's very obvious that you should be doing this. So don't look a gift horse

in the mouth actually has more or less a literal beginning because horses were once gifts by courtiers, sometimes to monarchs, et cetera, and vice versa. And you can tell a horse's age, if you're very clever and probably a vet, by looking into its mouth and looking at the shape of the teeth, because as a horse ages, I think the teeth project forward a little bit and also the sort of recession of the gum. So you can tell the age of a horse by looking into its mouth if you are qualified. And it would be extremely rude to be gifted a horse and then to start assessing its value by looking into its mouth and seeing how old it was. So it really once was just be grateful for what you have, essentially. And also that

idea of the gum recession, of course, in an older horse will make the teeth look longer. And that is why we talk about being long in the tooth. Gosh, I don't look this gift horse in the mouth. I just accept the fact that I've got the world's leading lexicographer here about to explain everything to me. So let's dive into the equine. Is it equine or equinine world? Equine. Equine, yes. That simply goes back to the Latin equus, meaning a horse. Ah, and of course, the title of a well-known play, Equus. Yes, absolutely. Equus means horse.

It does. Equine means to do with horses. Yeah, equine or equestrian, they both go back to the same root. And equine, equestrian, that is Latin for horse. And horse, what is horse? Where does that come from? Horse is, gosh, it's interesting. It's an ancient word and it probably always did designate that animal, but it's got relatives in most Northern European languages. So we're not completely sure because we're talking about a sort of reconstructed language. It's that old, but it may share the same root as

carere in Latin, which meant to run, which of course also gave us course, as in a race course. It gave us courier. It gave us lots and lots of different words in English, but we think that's probably its family. But I think it always meant the animal that we think of today. Well, really, we've got our horses there. What's the difference between a horse and a pony? I mean, I know a pony is smaller. Is there an actual definition of when a pony ceases to be a pony and becomes a horse? That's a really good question, actually. I'm going to look up as I always do. So, pony here, it says a horse of a small breed, especially one below 15 hands. Very good. So, that's that. And then we'll get on to

foals and various things later. I have occasionally ridden on a horse. And when I was small, I was obviously on a pony. And as I got a bit bigger, I was put onto a horse by my sister. And I found it terrifying. I was so high up. It seemed to be a long way to the ground. I didn't really much enjoy it. Though I did once go pony trekking in Iceland. And I found that quite exhilarating. I'd forgotten about that. Anyway, we've dipped our toe into these equine idioms. Let's have a look at a few more. Saddle. I mean, I'm saddled with something. I'm saddled with you, but I like being saddled with you. What is the origin of the word saddle? And then why are we saddled with things?

I suppose we're saddled with things to start with that figurative application, because it's almost like we've got something sitting on us. You know, we're sort of, we're stuck with it. It's tied to us in some way, girthed to us in some way, I suppose. And saddle itself goes back to the old English word saddle, which is linked to a German saddle. And ultimately it's probably all about sitting. Sitting. And were you taught because to be lady like and ride side saddle? No, I never rode side saddle. I can't imagine that's very comfy for the horse either. But no, I was always astride. No, I don't know if it's comfy. I imagine it would twist your back a bit, wouldn't it? Anyway. Yes. So that saddle, saddled with, it's obvious. Giving somebody free

rein, is that connected with the horse world? Well, yes. I mean, I suppose it's linked in a way to that idea of winning hands down. If you give a horse free reign, you loosen the reins, which I always think is a really nice thing to do. There's nothing worse, I always think, than seeing someone ride with the horse's neck pulled right up and it's foaming at its bit. I think that's just horrible. But horses themselves, I just find the most magnificent creatures in the world. And I think some of them at least enjoy racing. Yeah, that's always what people say, isn't it? They might well do. But I've met quite a few jockeys in my time.

I'm famous for doing some name dropping. Have I told you about my day with Frankie Dottori before now? I think I probably have. Oh, is this to do with he just drank champagne? Yes, it is. He bathed in champagne. It was extraordinary. It was in his kitchen.

We were in his kitchen and there was a wall that was like a refrigerator, glass-fronted, but a wall just of champagne bottles. That was on one side of the room. The other side of the room, he pressed a button and a wall disappeared. And behind the wall that disappeared was a long, narrow swimming pool. And in this swimming pool was a saddle, a mechanical saddle that he sat on and it exercised him. It went up and down the pool with him riding this saddle. So that's how he lost weight. So he seemed to live entirely on champagne and in the swimming pool. Quite bizarre. I conflated the two. I thought the swimming pool was full of champagne, but that would be the next one. I mean, he has won so many races because he gets the bit between the teeth. And what is the bit?

And you've told us about the teeth, which reveal the age of the horse, but what is a bit and why is it so called? Yeah, do you know, this is why I love this podcast, because I never once considered why a horse's bit might be related to a bit of cheese. But actually, the both senses do go back to the same idea of a mouthful and then a small amount. So the mouthful obviously then explains the horse's sense. So a bit between the teeth, it's that bit of, oh, I don't know, the bar that kind of fits between a horse's teeth, which is attached to the reins. Again, it all sounds very cruel, doesn't it? But that mouthful then translated into a little bit of something. So if you have a bit of cheese, you are having a small mouthful. Very good. I like that. And well,

let's talk about tack. You mentioned tack before. That's another piece of kit to do with horse riding. What is the tack? The tack is short for tackle, simply. So tackle, as in, you know, might talk about a ship's tackle. We're not talking about necessarily tackling a problem as a verb, but in a noun sense, this is all about equipment, essentially. And in fact, when you do tackle something, is all about equipment, essentially. And in fact, when you do tackle something, you take hold of it and you probably do then apply to a specific task just as that equipment might. But originally, tackle was a ship's equipment rather than a horse. But there's so many accoutrements that go with them. Did I hear right that your pony was called, this is years before TikTok, Tic Tac? Tic Tac. Yes, like the sweets.

Oh, it's like the sweets. Yes, it was very sweet. Did you spell the tac T-A-C or T-A-C-K? No, Tic Tac like the sweets. And I think I just felt deeply envious of my sister who wore this beautiful piebald stallion, and we can talk about colours a bit later, but called Nevada. So it's this kind of wonderful, royal kind of creature. And I was on this little squat pony looking up or looking down because he was about to roll. But

anyway, they were beautiful animals. My sister who loved horses, I mean, her life was horses. I remember the 1950s when I was a very little boy, she had real horses that she would groom, but she also had toy horses, which had real or seemed to be like real hair. Hobby horses? No, they were, she didn't ride them. They were model horses. They were about 12 inches high, a foot high, and she really cared for them. But it was quite distressing to her because I, at that stage, was going to the French Lycée in London. It's a school that's now called the Lycée Francais Charles de Gaulle. But in my day, it was simply called the Lycée Francais de Londres. And as I recall, on a Wednesday,

we used to have horse for lunch. Because in those days, I don't know if it still happens, horse was quite a popular dish in France. And you could go to butchers that were horse butchers. And rather, as you go to a barber shop today, you still see outside the barber shop, the barber's pole that I know you've told us about in other episodes. Outside the horse butcher, there was a horse's head as a kind of symbol. And on Wednesdays, it was a dreadful lunch because we had a horse first and then we had dates. And I didn't know which I disliked.

Actually, the horse was not unpleasant to eat. The dates were awful. I don't know. Do the French still eat? Well, if there are any purple listeners in France, please let us know if the French still eat horse. And I don't know quite why we consider it unacceptable. The French consider it acceptable. Well, there was that big scandal, wasn't there, when there was frozen horse meat found in burgers as opposed to beef. Do you remember? That was the huge scandal. I do a few years ago. It does ring a bell. Yeah. Let's be more elegant. Let's think

about the movement of horses. I know we talked about cantering before, and I got a faint folk memory. This is to do with going to Canterbury. It's to do with pilgrims taking the pilgrim's way to Canterbury. Is that right? Absolutely right. And you only have to think of Chaucer to know that these pilgrims would sort of converse along the way. They would go at a leisurely pace that became known as the Canterbury Trot. And canter is a shortening of Canterbury Trot. Canterbury Trot. Going back. Oh, that's wonderful. Well, you mentioned Trot. Let's deal with that now. Trot.

Yes. Nothing too interesting there. It simply goes back to an old English word, which was ultimately Germanic, meaning exactly the same thing. But... Which means what? What does it actually mean? Oh, it's a trot. Yeah. I think it kind of looks slightly ungainly, particularly the rising trot. The rising trot,

it's just quite difficult to perfect. It's when the horse rider stands up in the stirrups. I think when the horse's haunch comes up. But it's a faster pace than a walk. The horse lifts each pair of legs diagonally, alternately. That's what the trot involves really. But yeah, trotari, I think if there was there in medieval Latin as well, but ultimately it goes back to a

German word. Gallop is quite an interesting one because galloping was first known as walloping, believe it or not. And obviously we still have wallop to mean different things, but that was its first incarnation and the first meaning of wallop was to gallop. So they're all related. And it seems that something really gratifying, really, about the way that wallop sounds, that people have used it in very sort of lively ways and often to describe high speed. So we could be walloping rather than galloping these days. But it's interesting. We say wallop and we don't say gollop.

We say gallop. Yes. And we don't say wallop. That's from the French. I think French did have wallopy, but they certainly had gallopy. So I think we're copying the French pronunciation with gallop. When it comes to speed, the trot is the slowest, gallop is faster, canter is the fastest. Is that right? No, canter is faster than the trot and then gallop is full speed ahead. Gallop is full stream ahead. Yes. While we're on trot, I must sing my song to you.

Okay. Gig and pony, gig and pony, trotting along the way. Lady riding in a brand new hat. Isn't it a lovely day? Do you recognize that? No. Before your time, or maybe not totally before your time, there was a version done of Beatrix Potter's stories turned into a musical version by David Croft, the man who later went on to create Dad's Army and all these wonderful television sitcoms. And anyway, as a child, I had that little record of that one. And so it stayed in my head. Gig and pony, gig and pony. Was it used in an act? This is what's ringing bells in it.

Oh, maybe it was. But with a completely different... Cyril Ornadel. Cyril Ornadel is the name of the composer. oh maybe it was but with the completely different cyril ornadel cyril ornadel is the name of the composer isn't it funny i haven't said it in years these things are lurking in the back of your mind you know what i'm thinking of love and marriage love and marriage goes together like austin carey that was the theme tune wasn't it well no i think it's a slightly different tune but it's the same idea okay sorry i don't know your one well two words you've got to give us the origin of there before we come on to hack.

Stirrups. You mentioned stirrups. Oh, yes. So stirrup is quite interesting. So it goes back to an old English word, stye, meaning to climb, believe it or not. And then the rup is a version of rope. So the stirrup's obviously attached to the saddle, maybe originally with rope, I'm not sure, but it was to climb by use of a rope, really, because you put your foot in the stirrup and use it to climb into the saddle in the song the pony is pulling a gig which is a sort of small carriage so many words for carriages and they come up on countdown and the show i work on all the time fiacra and all that we don't actually know where the gig comes from weirdly we think it may possibly go back to any kind of device that

world was called a gig so you have a whirly gig don't you and there was for a while a use of the word gig to mean a flighty girl so slightly sexist word for any girl who's thought to be quite sort of dizzy and giddy so it may be related to that but we're not completely sure and we've never found out where if you're gigging if you in a band, we just don't know where that comes from. Oh, so your last gig, meaning your last performance, when your last book to perform, nobody knows how that links? We don't know. 1920s is as much as we know for that, but the work still goes on. I wonder if it is to do with the Medigo round, possibly. We all feel like we're

on one, don't we? Well, we do, but we don't regard this as hack work. I know we've touched on before, but people do go for a hack with their horses, don't they? Why do they do that? Okay, so obviously there's lots and lots of different senses of hack. So to hack can mean to sort of slice or chop into pieces. You will still have haché in French, meaning minced. So that goes back to ancient times. But hack as in a horse, so first of all, a horse for everyday riding was a hack. So when you go out on a hack, you're going out for an everyday ride. But it essentially was one that was hired out a lot because it was multi-purpose it was seen as i mean i hate to talk about horses as objects but i guess that's how it was you know in the olden days and consequently

it became very tired and overworked and it's a shortening of hackney hackney being in east london where these horses were once pastured that gave us the hackney carriage which was originally a horse-drawn vehicle that was available for hire that That's why London's taxis are called hackney carriages. And this idea of tiredness and being overworked also gave us the journalistic hack. Someone who just spends a lot of time trudging out stories is the idea, although they themselves use that as a kind of modest label for themselves. But it also gave us hackneyed, something that's overused and unoriginal. So there's such a big thread there amazing thread would it link us to hacking as well having a hacking cough oh i think that maybe

there's such a rough or heavy blows possibly i imagine hacking cough that's interesting i'd not thought about that one before i love it when i give something you haven't thought about before it's so unusual yes no i like that so i think if you're coughing or hacking away, I guess it's that idea of just really rough, quick chopping of your voice or your vocal cords in some way. We'll be talking more horse sense in a moment. But before we have our break, we must remind people that we're back on stage. And our next show is at the Ambassador's Theatre, where we've not been before, in London's West End. Tickets go on sale this week, Sunday the 16th of April in the afternoon. It's a Sunday matinee. And have you chosen a theme for the show, Susie? It's actually a favourite subject of mine, and I'm writing a

book about it, which is quite exciting. It's untranslatables. It's those words from other languages that we simply cannot find an equivalent for in English. And yet they say so much. So I'm really hoping given that we've got a global audience for the podcast, I'm really hoping we'll get some lovely, lovely local words and sayings. And feel free to fly in for this. Every show is different. It really is because we're led by the audience in the theatre on the night and our last shows have been sold out, which is fantastic. Do come along. It's great for us. It's a great privilege to meet the purple people we're at the ambassadors theater in the west end 16th of april next for tickets information go to something rhymes with purple.com or you know

follow us on social media and find out more we'll have more horse sense after our break bumble knows it's hard to start conversations hey no too basic hi there still no what about hello handsome who knew you could give yourself the ick that's why bumble is changing how you start conversations you can now make the first move or not with opening moves you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. XTRE XTRE,

your favorite anime is getting a new season. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. And I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. Every week, you can listen in while we break down the latest pop culture news and dish on what new releases we can't get enough of. We're covering the latest in film, video games, music, manga, and obviously, anime. Get the latest on The Anime Effect.

So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Susie, I mentioned Horse Sense. What's the origin of that phrase? No, I have never ever thought about it. So rather than look it up in the sort of current dictionary, because, you know, that will simply tell us that it's common sense. I am going to tell you the first mention of it in the Oxford English Dictionary. I suspect that this is actually very old. And I love the idea that, you know, we've gone from the hackney, this poor, tired, jaded, overworked horse to one that is kind of robust and shrewd. Here we go. 19th century,

strong common sense. And yes, I don't quite know why horses have been credited with this, but I like the idea of it. Well, they're strong and they're reliable, aren't they? They are. You know, horse sense, just on all fours. Rumble gumption, as it was called. What was it called? Rumble gumption. I like that. Yes.

I know that a male dog is a dog and a female dog is actually a bitch, though people refer to dogs generally, meaning both male and female. When it comes to horses, can you use the word horse to describe a female horse? Well, we talk about a mare, don't we, which is simply a Germanic word. Again, nothing massively interesting to say there. But just a reminder that the mare of a nightmare was not a horse, actually. It goes back to a different word, meaning a sort of demon that would visit you at night and lay on your chest oppressively, if you remember that. So the mare, you say,

dismiss it as though it's not very interesting. Is it to do with motherhood? Is that the word for madre or no? No, it's again, it's simply a Germanic word that, you know, I say not very interesting because it's always meant the same thing. So it doesn't really have an etymology that we can unpack. A filly is a female horse who's too young to be called a mare. Who decides when you're old? Now you're old enough to be called a mare now, my little you're old? Now, you're old enough to be called a mare now,

my little filly. I mean, that's funny. It's like adolescence for horses, female horses. Yeah, I'm guessing that the age probably varies, but that word is Viking and it's related to the word foal. Again, one that's sort of quite little. A stallion is the male horse. Isn't it interesting that a sort of stallion has that kind of all those sort of male attributes of virility and strength and things. It kind of shows you just exactly what the archetypes have been for centuries. That's another Germanic word and it's a relative of stall. And I can tell you that... Relative of what? Stall, as in, and again, ancient root this one, but it also gave us a stall as in the stall in which a horse is kept.

And you mentioned pony before, but believe it or not, pony is a relative of poultry because they have the same starting point. So the Latin poulos meant a young animal, but was applied specifically to both young horses and young chickens. And if you're French, you will know, if you know French, you'll know that a poulain is a foal and a poule or poulet is a chicken. So they're related. Poulain, poulet. Yeah. Are donkeys types of horses? I never know this.

So if you go back far enough, a donkey used to be an ass. So that was how it was seen. It's one of the great etymological mysteries, really. And we'll go back to that. The dictionary defines it as a domesticated hoofed mammal, i.e. an ungulate, of the horse family with long ears and a braying call. And then it also gives an ass. And if I look up ass, it is also an animal of the horse family, but it has typically

smaller than a horse, has longer ears and a braying call, which obviously that pretty much sums up a donkey, doesn't it? So donkeys and asses are types of horse. Excellent. In a way, they were part of the same family. And originally a donkey would have been pronounced like monkey. So it was a donkey, which means that some etymologists think that it might come from either the colour dun, which is a sort of brown colour, obviously, or from the man's name, Duncan, because we have such a tradition of naming birds and animals after people, as in using first names to describe them. Goodness. So a dun-coloured horse could be the same dun as the beginning of donkey? Yes, possibly. A donkey, originally.

And that could come from the name Duncan, which is an ancient name. I think of it as a Scottish name. Yeah, I think it is probably a really old name. But, you know, I've mentioned so many times that we use names like Robin Redbreast and Magpie, Magshot for Margaret, etc. So it's not uncommon for us to do this. My sister had a chestnut pony. I suppose it's simply called as a colour because it's the same colour as a chestnut. The same colour as the chestnut. Yeah, absolutely. Chestnut is such a beautiful, it's just got that sheen really. Chestnut, if you remember, nothing to do with chest, goes back to a Greek word, castania, which meant the same thing. And it also gave us the castanets, which were made from, either made from chestnut wood or were shaped like chestnuts. Oh, you know so much. You know about the word piebald? I think of some horses being piebald. That's a variety of colours, isn't it? Yeah, well, we've just mentioned a magpie and actually the pie is relevant here because the magpie has a black and white plumage. So I think of piebald as being black and white and the bald

bit doesn't mean no hair in the sense that we use it today, but it actually means streaked with white. It's an old use of that word. If you're listening to this and you're intrigued by the world of horses and the language of the world of horses and feel we haven't touched on things we should have done, please do feel free to get in touch with us. Also, if you happen to be from a French cultural background and want to give us your favourite recipe for cheval haché, we are... Oh no, we are not interested. Yeah, well, come on. You may not be interested. It could be tastier than you know. We have to reach out. We're inclusive. We don't mind. We may be veggies and vegans, but there are people out there still

tucking into horse, kangaroo, you name it. Anyway, you can get in touch and tell us. I'm making very rude gestures, facial gestures over Zoom at this point. Get in touch with us at purple at something else.com. Who has been in touch this week, Susie? That's my favourite bit. Well, Katie Bass, I think it's Bass or Bass, Katie will tell us, has a brilliant question. Hi, Susie and Giles. My partner and I were discussing the word uncanny. Please could you tell us the origins of this word?

It doesn't seem to be the opposite of the word canny, as in shrewd. Do they have the same root? Best wishes, Katie. This is a great question, particularly because I've often mentioned the uncanny podcast, just to give a hat tip to one that I love, which is a great one about spooks and ghouls and ghosts. And it's a great one to listen to at night time. But essentially, canny is a Scots word.

I think most people would recognise that. So if someone is canny, they are shrewd and cautious, but also clever and nice and pleasant. It's got a whole range, a whole smorgasbord of positive meanings. Uncanny means not nice or pleasant, really, but it's always had these overtones of the occult. And originally, it implied something that was positivelytones of the occult. And originally, it implied something that was positively evil. But in the 19th century, it left Scotland and it developed our modern meaning of being mysterious or weird or strange. There's also the sort of, at its heart, I like to think canny has got knowledge behind it. And of course, if something is uncanny we can't actually

grasp it with our mind intriguing well done our next inquiry comes from john gow john hi suzy and giles my name is john originally from northumberland but now living in the mountains of andalusia in southern spain love the podcast and you both regularly accompany me and my dog Pancho on our hikes through the wilderness. There's a phrase that I used to hear a lot in Northumberland but I get strange looks when I use it elsewhere. It is fit as a lop, meaning someone who is in robust good health. I presume it's a colloquial term for fit as a flea but any light you can shine on it would be fantastic. Muchas gracias, John. Well, yes, John says he presumes it's a colloquial term for being as fit as a flea. And I guess if you're fit as a flea, that makes much more sense than fit as a fiddle,

because no one quite knows. I mean, maybe it's to do with the way that a fiddler plays very, very quickly. But you can imagine the fleas kind of jumping about. And so you'd have to be very fit to achieve that level of energy. But originally, if you go back over a millennium, a lop was a spider. And it actually goes back to the Vikings and their language of Old Norse, hloppa, which meant to leap. And so over time, you don't really imagine spiders leaping. Any arachnophobe would positively balk at the idea of that.

So the flea came into the picture because it's a much more familiar comparison. And so if you are as fit as a lop, then you are leaping about athletically, just like a flea. Very ingenious there. Good. Well, if you have a query for Susie, do let us know. You just get in touch with us. It's purple at something else dot com. I've got a query for you, Susie. What are your three words this week? Well, we've been talking horses, haven't we? And we mentioned the word bay, bay-coloured. So, one of my favourite insults, actually, is going to be my first one. It's a bayard, B-A-Y-A-R-D, originally a French word. And actually, Bayard was a bay-coloured horse in medieval

romance. And in some of the stories, this horse was blind. So, Bayard eventually acquired this metaphorical meaning of blind recklessness, or as they wonderfully defined it in the dictionary, a Bayard is someone who has all the self-confidence of ignorance. It's just brilliant. I love it. A bayard. A bayard. I've just mentioned a spider and the lop. There was another word for a spider very, very long time ago, an attacop. A-double-T-E-R-C-O-P, which actually, and again, apologies to anyone who's scared of spiders, it means poison head. But through a process in English called metonymy, where one thing comes to represent

something bigger. So you focus on one specific part of a subject and it becomes the sort of overall designator for that whole thing. It explains why we have a cob web, because, you know, literally that would be a web made by the head, but actually it refers back to the spider because an atticop became a word for a spider itself, atticop. And the third one, Giles, is a grimthorpe. Any idea what a grimthorpe is? Oh, I don't know. It's a character in a film starring Norman Wisdom. That was... Oh, really? No, I think it was...

It sounds like it, doesn't it? It does sound like it. Grimthorpe, grimthorpe, Mr. Grimthorpe. I've got that quite wrong, but it does sound like a northern word, grimthorpe, Mr. Grimthorpe. I've got that quite wrong, but it does sound like a northern word, Grimthorpe. Well, it was the name of Sir Edmund Beckett, who was the first Lord Grimthorpe. We're talking 19th century here. And his restoration of St. Albans Cathedral apparently aroused huge criticism and controversy. And as a result, to Grimthorpe a building is to restore it with lavish expenditure, but no taste. Isn't that brilliant? That's a very useful word.

It is, isn't it? I think King Charles would like that one. He definitely would. To grimthorpe? Yeah. Well, there you are. And what are those words called that are named after people? They are...

Eponyms. Eponyms. Yes. So he has become grimthorpe. Lord Grimthorpe has become an eponym. He did, although very rarely used, but I think we should bring it back into... These words you introduced us to are very rarely used. And I have to say, Jo Fairley and I, the chocolate person and I, talking about you, she went to see your show, by the way,

and loved your show. Oh, did she? Oh, amazing. Really thought you were fantastic. But she said, apart from scurry funge, she really can't remember any of the words, you know. Maybe we should come up with a range of chocolate, Joe, that has one of these obsolete words on it. Oh, words that are good enough to eat. Yes. Yes. Yes, words good enough to eat. I love that. Do you have a poem for us today? I've got a poem. And we were being playful earlier when I was talking about enjoying cheval haché. I don't eat meat. I certainly don't eat horse meat. But there are people who do. We accept that. And even there are people who mention spiders. I know there are parts of the world where a chocolate, spiders dunked in chocolate, apparently considered a delicacy. Oh, great. That's not my style. I love animals. I love wild animals. And I know I've read a poem before from a little book called Words from the Wild by Mark Graham. And there's one poem in this.

It's about monkeys, wild monkeys. And it makes me smile. See if it makes you smile. Because obviously, this is a book about wild animals that you can now go and see on safari. Don't shoot them, except with your camera. But even the photographers can be a bit irritating to the monkeys now and again. This is a poem as though it were written by a monkey. Photographers are serious and often quite uptight. I love to pop up in their zoom and give them such a fright. Best of all, the close-ups, though, above them in a tree,

when, as they focus on my face, I sprinkle them with wee. The perfect revenge. Yeah, ultimately. Well, if you want to get in touch, you know where to get in touch with us. If you enjoyed the show, please follow us on Apple Podcasts,

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the Purple Plus Club, where you can listen ad-free and tune in to exclusive bonus episodes on the subjects that we love. As always, Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment production.

It was produced by Harriet Wells and Naya Dio with additional production from Chris Skinner, Ollie Wilson, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale, and he's back, Giles.

I'm not sure quite what he's done today. Well, no, he's done a lot. He's pressed the button that said start and he's about to press the button that says stop. It's Gully.