Something Rhymes with Purple - Zwoddery

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

We’re nodding off talking about the language of sleep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Something Rhymes with Purple with me, Susie Dent, and my partner in crime, Giles Randress. Hello. It's exciting to be with you again, Susie. I was thinking today,

having had quite a restless night, I was thinking I must galvanize myself for our podcast. And I remember that years ago, I used to work with the great David Frost. Did you meet and work with David? No, I never met him. He was a lovely man. And I knew him, I thought, quite well. But the truth is, he did know me, but he never really said to me anything beyond a joy, Giles, a joy, an absolute joy. He was very good at remembering people's names. But he also was good at energising himself before any performance. And I did lots of programmes with him over many years. And he always had the same routine. He did a kind of countdown to the beginning of the show. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

I wish you could see Giles' face at this point. I'm on. And then he would begin. And I worked also with somebody called Russell Harty. Do you remember Russell Harty? I never met Russell either, but he was a big friend of Richard Whiteley's, of course. Of course you are, indeed.

Wet Wang, no? They came from Wet Wang together. Russell Harty, for those who don't know, was a television presenter and a chat show host and a delightful man. But before that, he had been a teacher. And we both know Richard Whiteley because Richard Whiteley was a television presenter in Yorkshire and the original television presenter of the program Countdown, the words and numbers game on Channel 4, of which my friend Susie Dent here is the reigning star. Anyway, Richard used to present that show. He had been to a school called Giggleswick, where one of the teachers was Russell Harty.

And indeed, I remember going to a party given by Russell Harty where Richard was there and Alan Bennett was there. I think they all lived in the same village. Yeah, quite a gathering. Anyway, he, Russell Harty, used to begin his shows dancing to the theme music. So he'd be doing sort of amazing sort of physical jerks in the background. And then, I'm on. He would go on like that.

Do you know, I think, who is his natural successor, possibly? It's Joe Lycett, my friend Joe, the comedian, who obviously comes regularly on the comedy version of Countdown called 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Catsdown for short. But he came on the regular Countdown as well. And whenever there was a break, he would either get up on the desk, do a bit of yoga, run around the studio.

He was just full of energy. So how do you, after a bit of yoga, run around the studio. It was just full of energy. So how do you, after a restless night, get yourself ready to give your all to our podcast? Caffeine. Caffeine and a cold shower. The regular things. Really? I don't know that either of those are very good for you in the long run. No, you've given up caffeine, haven't you? I've given up caffeine. And in the hot weather, I know that a warm shower does you more good than a cold shower Yes, hot weather, that's absolutely true But this is for waking up in the morning

But yes, if it's really hot and you can't sleep, your natural instinct is to have a cold shower, right? And then go to bed Wrong I learnt this only recently If you have a warm shower, your body will slowly cool down and it will get to the temperature I think it's about 18 degrees, 19 degrees Which is the optimum temperature for sleep And that's the thing to do. Last night, I played an amusing game to try and get me to sleep, and I'm going to share it with you later. But first, I want to talk to you about

sleep, because trying to get to sleep last night, I thought, well, the reason I'm not sleeping is because during the afternoon, I had 40 winks. After lunch, I had a little dosette. And then I thought, 40 winks? Where on earth does the expression 40 winks come from? And I thought, hey, I'm seeing Susie Dent in the morning. She can tell me. 40 winks. It's strange, isn't it? Because we tend to think of winking as something we do for innuendo

or a sort of secret message. It's shutting your eye and then opening it immediately again. But in Anglo-Saxon times and for many centuries, to wink was to close your eyes. Oh, not to close them permanently. Well, not permanently, but for quite a while. Not just an open shut, like we think of a wink now. Exactly.

And to hoodwink somebody was to close somebody's eyes by placing a hood over them, literally, as a sort of criminal thing or to, you know, lead them astray. And then it slipped into figurative use. And don't they do that with birds of prey sometimes? I've seen them wearing hoods. I think they do. And maybe to make parrots and canaries go to sleep, you cover their cage, give them darkness.

So anyway, hoodwink. Hoodwink goes back to that early, yeah, the early meaning meaning of wink not the one that we know today now tell me about 40 winks then well 40 winks nobody quite knows why it's 40 and there have been you know various numbers in the past it hasn't settled on 40 uh it wasn't settled on 40 forever um so what was it before 40 i think there was a 30 recorded and various other numbers. But 40 pence was a customary amount for a bet. And there were other 40s in English expressions. The 40 hours in the church was an occasion of special devotion or intercession.

Maybe that's to do with 40 days and 40 nights spent in the wilderness by Jesus. But I think it was a fairly random choice, if I'm honest. But 40 Winks itself goes back to, just looking at the Oxford English dictionary here, 1872 is the first record of it in Punch magazine. If a man after reading steadily through the 39 articles were to take 40 winks. Well, there you are. You see, I can see where the joke comes about, because the 39 articles was a big thing of Catholic faith. Do you think that was a riff on that? I think it is. 39 to 40.

So you've actually nailed it. There you are. Not me. Etymological news. No, you've broken it. You've broken that. We've broken the spell. We've explained what it is. 39 articles, 40 winks. A kind of literary play on words. That might be true. If that is the first record of it, then that might well be true. And but 40 winks then does become actually just nodding off for maybe for 40 minutes, because I think of 40 winks as a short snooze.

Oh, do you? Yeah. So we're not, obviously, we're not medics, but there is, I think there's an optimum time for a snooze, isn't there? Well, I think if you go beyond a certain amount of time, then you go into a very deep sleep. And that actually makes you very groggy. We must talk about groggy. It makes you very groggy when you wake up. Can we talk about groggy now?

You can't just tease people. Groggy. Everything to do with drink, originally, and grog. with drink originally and grog. But ultimately it goes back to an admiral called Admiral Vernon who used to wear a heavy grogram coat on board a ship and was not very popular because he watered down sailors' rations of rum. And so because of his grogram coat, he became known as Old Grog and because he was associated with alcohol,

we talk about being groggy after a few too many, otherwise known as being tosticated. So yeah, it goes back to him. So if you sleep too long in the afternoon, you wake up feeling groggy. A bit drunk, yes. But if you sleep from 20 to 30 minutes, which I sometimes do. I think that's perfect. You feel quite refreshed. A power nap, yeah.

And people like Winston Churchill used to do it. It is actually quite a power nap because I work most evenings and I work most days. After lunch, I tend to have a little power nap. And I actually lie down. I can do it anywhere. You go to bed. But I do lie on the bed. I absolutely lie on the bed, flat on my back. And because I'm alone, I can lie flat on my back.

There's no danger of being overheard snoring. Apparently, I do occasionally snore. I reflect on this from the spare room. But on the whole, I fly flat on my back and then I feel ready and bouncy. So that's the origin of 40 Winks. What about burning the candle at both ends? Because that's, I know, what I'm occasionally accused of doing. Burning the candle at both ends.

I think you do do that. What is the poem? There's a lovely poem. Is it Edna St. Vincent Millay? I don't know. I burn the candle at both ends. I think you do do that. What is the poem? There's a lovely poem by, is it Edna St. Vincent Millay? I don't know. I burn the candle at both ends. It will not last the night. But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light. I may have misquoted that slightly.

It's beautiful. Edna St. Vincent Millay. That's beautiful. Anyway, what's the origin of burning the candle at both ends? That's beautiful. Anyway, what's the origin of burning the candle at both ends? To burn the candle at both ends is, I think, simply the idea that you burn a candle at both ends of the day. So you're burning it late into the night and then possibly in the winter you light it again early in the morning.

Oh, because you have to see instead of using the hours of darkness for sleep, you're burning the candle. You're getting up early and you're going to bed late. What time do you go to bed? Do you know, I have a daughter who has not yet discovered, well, she's not a teenager yet, so she's not really discovered the joys of sleeping in in the morning. So she is regularly up between five and six every morning. So you get up between five and six? Yeah, well, she wakes me up. So, because I'm a very light sleeper.

So I tend to go to bed really early. But you know, I love bed. It's where I relax. It's where I catch up on TV. It's where I catch up on news. It's where I read. It's all of that. Oh, excuse me.

People say you should not have your electronic devices, at least not many of them, in your bed with you. Yes. That's not good. We shouldn't encourage that. No, I do. I switch off before then and listen to podcasts as well as I fall asleep. Ah, soothing podcasts.

People used to listen to something called the BBC World Service through the night. Yes. When I had my first child, that's what I used to do. Kept me going. But now all we do is listen to the podcasts, which is fantastic. I've got a few more to ask you i said just very interesting the burn the candle at both ends um in the oed um 1736 and in one of the earliest dictionaries ever compiled nathan bailey's dictionary and britannicum uh he defines it as said when a husband and wife are both spendthrifts, which is interesting.

So that's a completely different take on it. Of course, candles were expensive. Is that right? And so if you're burning the candle at both ends, you're just spending so much money, money you haven't got. I think that's right. And then 1753, so not long after that, it's defined as apt to consume too much and work too little so it's had quite a history

this one and then finally 1848 this is Naomi Dee to double all your griefs and burn life's candle as village gossips say at either end well there are lots of variations then on the way this phrase has been used I still like it and I still like that little poem.

And if I've got it slightly wrong, I probably have, you can tell us how wrong I've got it by communicating with us at purple at something else. And as you know, the something is without a G. Fresh as a daisy? Fresh as a daisy. Wow. I suppose it's obvious, isn't it? The daisy is one of my favorite etymologies

ever and um i always have a laugh with the floor manager on countdown because he's heard this so often uh i think he's now apt to groan even though he loved it at the beginning but uh daisy's beautiful because it goes back to um the anglo-saxon for day's eye it's a contraction of day's eye because the flower did you know this at dawn it opens its petals to reveal that sunny central yellow disc and then at night it closes, at dusk it closes its petals. So it is the eye of the day. It's awake during the day. Isn't that great? You're telling me that a daisy overnight folds its petals in and covers that golden disc in the middle. And then in the morning, as day comes, we see the day's eye in the heart of the daisy.

Isn't that beautiful? Now, if you're listening to this, you know why you are listening to this. I met a man on the underground the other day who stopped me and said, it's you, it's you. He clearly couldn't remember my name, but he vaguely knew who I was. It's you, it's you, Scuddyfunge. And he said he loved the podcast. Excellent. Isn't that good? knew who I was. It's you. It's you. Scuddyfunge. And he said he loved the podcast. Isn't that good? So people are now, people will be going around saying,

we've discovered the origin of the word daisy, the day's eye. So fresh as a daisy means fresh as the morning dew. Exactly. Fresh as the morning dew. There's another one. Dog tired. I suppose that's obvious. Dogs, poor dogs. We've talked about this in another episode, haven't we? The sort of animal idioms and how dogs get a really sort of a bad rap in English, really. A dog tired, you know, I guess maybe working dogs or dogs that aren't treated very well, which was pretty much the norm in the past. If you're dog tired, you just have no energy left.

Hitting the hay. Hitting the hay. In Australia, of course, they call it hitting the farter. Can you do a good Australian accent? Hitting the farter? I can't do it. Hitting the farter? Yeah, of course, they call it hitting the farter. Can you do a good Australian accent? Hitting the farter? I can't do it. Hitting the farter? Yeah, pretty good. I don't know.

Yes. I mean, I think hitting the hay is just the idea of literally going to lie down in a bed of hay. I can't think of anything more exciting than that. But hitting the farter. Were beds, forgive me, were beds made of straw? You talk about a bit of straw, a bit of hay. Did people stuff their mattresses with hay once upon a time? They did if they didn't have a very high income.

Because I seem to remember that the word threshold is to do, you know, you come to somebody's front door, you're crossing the threshold. There was literally on the floor by a doorway an apparatus on the floor that held the threshed hay as you came over the door. Is that possible? I think that might be a folk etymology. Threshold is a really difficult one, in fact. And it is, I'm looking up here, I think it's going to say we don't know where it came from. It is, I'm looking up here, I think it's going to say we don't know where it came from.

The first element is generally identified with thresh, as you would explain it, in its original sense to tread or trample. But the second is doubtful. No one knows what the hold is. So, yeah, I'm not sure. But I love the idea of a line of hay carrying someone over the threshold. Anyway, beds might have been made of hay. Yes. I do remember when I was at school, I went to a co-educational boarding school.

And I had a girlfriend when I was really quite young. I say girlfriend, it was a more innocent era. There was holding hands. And we went out one evening before assembly and we found a haystack. Where is this going? And nowhere, it turned out. We lay on our backs on the haystack chatting. And then the time came.

We suddenly realized it was time for assembly. So we got up and we ran to the hall where assembly was taking place. And we were the last people to arrive. And we walked down into assembly. And everyone began to snigger and laugh. The reason being... You had straw sticking out of your trousers. We did. Not out of my trousers. All over the back of our jumpers.

Oh. It was totally... I mean, we were 12, 13. It was totally innocent. Totally innocent. But still, it was very, very embarrassing because we'd cleared all the straw and hay off our fronts, but we hadn't thought about our backs. So then it was the telltale hay. We'd hit the hay and it was embarrassing. You had hit the hay, quite literally.

Sleeping like a top? Sleeping like a top, sleeping like a log. The idea is simply of an inanimate object. And the top in question here is a spinning top, a child's toy, that when it stops spinning, it's completely still. So you sleep like that rather than the sort of whirling toy in motion. Let's stop the spinning top

of Something Rhymes with Purple for a moment while we have a quick break. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

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I think when people say sleep tight, some people trace that back to the days when mattresses would be strapped in order to keep them sort of firm and supple. And if indeed they were stuffed with hay, I think that was the idea that you were kind of squashing the hay flat. Nothing to do with that, as it turns out. It's simply to do with soundly the idea of you know something compact if you sleep in a sound way i think i may have discovered the difference between you and the prince of wales am i right in thinking just one am i right in thinking that you like to sleep between under quite a nice loose light duvet uh as opposed to sheets sheets are a treat if i go to a hotel i love sheets but i don't have

them at home anymore fine do you iron your sheets do i iron my sheets yes uh we have i'm guessing you have sheets i can't imagine you're on a duvet funnily enough i do have a duvet um but we do have sheets and because we have three children and seven grandchildren, the basement of our house is like an industrial laundry. And we have a huge machine that my wife invested in 30 or 40 years ago that actually you put the sheets in this vast machine. I mean, it is literally six feet wide and it will just put the sheets in the beginning and it just rolls them. It does them. It rolls them and folds them. You're kidding. I'm bringing mine around.

Thank you. Does it wash duvets as well? This is what the problem is. We have three children, seven grandchildren, and they're still bringing the sheets around to be ironed. I'm going to join them and I hope you won't notice me at the back as a kid. I do have a duvet. But the point is, you and the Prince of Wales, you have more in common than I realised. He is a sheet man.

But he's a sheet and blanket man. I am a loose, just toss the duvet over me, but he wants to be tucked in like nanny used to do. Kids like to be swaddled. Babies like to be swaddled, don't they? Quite. You mean, what does swaddled mean? Swaddling is, if you have a newborn baby, they love to be wrapped tight. Swaddling clothes. It's a reference, isn't it? I think in the Bible. Yes, we talk about swaddling clothes.

The baby Jesus is in swaddling clothes. Yeah, it's the same idea. So people like to be swaddled in their beds. They do. Tucked in tight. Well, I don't like that. I like freedom of movement. In fact, whenever my wife and I check into a hotel, my first duty in the hotel bedroom.

Is to untuck the bottom. Untuck the bottom. I do the same. I do the same. I don't like it at the bottom. And what about those ridiculous hotel bedrooms? The grander the hotel, the more ludicrous cushions that are on the bed. Oh, yes, true. It's absurd. Occasionally I take photographs and tweet them or Instagram them. I mean, it takes 40 minutes to get to bed. It takes 40 minutes to find the bed because you've got to pull off all these ludicrous pillows, cushions. What kind of fancy-pants zhuzh is that?

Let's hope that goes soon. Ah, and also that strip of cloth across the end of the bed. What is that called? What is it called? I don't know. You tell me what the thing around a coffee cup is called. A zarf. A zarf, S-A-Z-A-R-F.

There's going to be a word like that for that ludicrous bit of... I think there might be. I think it's called... Some decorative strip of velvet. It's for that ludicrous bit of... I think there might be. I think it's called... Some decorative strip of velvet. It's called a ludicrous bit of cloth. That's the correct term from it. So, once you've got into bed, and we hope you sleep tight. Remind me what was tight about?

Nothing to do with being drunk? No. No, I think it's just... Tight tucked in. Yes, tight. It's just as in something that's kind of compact and circumscribed and solid and sound. I think that's simply the idea. It's just a figurative use of tight. It's nothing more than that. Pillow. What is the origin of pillow? I should know this. I genuinely don't think I have ever questioned.

The word pillow. It's a thing for me. I question about it because there's an amusing story about the fellow who... It goes back to the Latin, classical Latin pulvinus, meaning a cushion, back to cushions. Ah, so a pillow is a type of cushion. A Latin word for cushion. There you are. So you know the fellow who dreamt he was eating marshmallows and they were getting bigger and bigger.

He woke up, he found he'd swallowed his pillow. Do you sleep with your head in the pillow? In it? No, some people sleep with their faces down in the pillow. Yes. And some people sleep with their heads at the back of the pillow. Some people sleep on their sides. This is very intimate, isn't it?

I have been known to, I don't know if this has anything to do with me going to a convent, but I will wake up and I have my hands and arms folded across my chest in a religious sort of way and to be lying on my front. She is demonstrating this now, listeners, as though she were one of those, a saint or a medieval lady. Yes. If you go to a tomb and you see they're buried like that. It's kind of a self-protective thing, isn't it? Yes, it is.

I'm just sort of hugging myself. But also it may be symbolic of the cross. Could it be? Could well be. I don't think that's why I'm doing it. The knights and the ladies, when you see them, if you go around a cathedral and you see the tombs of ancient people. They do have their arms crossed.

They have their arms crossed across their chest. Yeah. In a, is it a St. Andrew cross? What is this cross called? I don't know. Shaped like that. I think. Our listeners might know.

It might be a St. Andrew cross? What is this cross called? I don't know. I think our listeners might know. It might be a St. Andrew cross. Anyway, whatever the cross is, diagonally crossed. So you wake up like that every morning. Every morning. And occasionally, do you have nightmares? Yes, I do. Just to say nightmares, actually quite a sin. I mean, they're sinister enough, but the word nightmare is quite sinister. The mare has nothing to do with a horse. And it goes back to another old English word that meant a horrible sort of monster, really, that would come and suffocate you in your sleep. this because my nightmare is genuinely about being suffocated, which is quite strange. But very often it has a very simple explanation, which is I will wake up and my head is so buried in the pillow and lying on my front that I genuinely can't breathe. So it's rational. Yes, totally rational. Well, it's like the fellow who dreamt that he was swallowing giant marshmallows and in fact was eating the pillow. Yeah. Give me again the explanation of nightmare.

Yes. It's not a great horse riding at you or on you through the night. No, no. What is the mare part of it, M-A-R-E? It is, it's the same, you'll find it in French, cauchemar, same sort of idea. The mare was a female spirit or a monster. And the idea was that she would settle on you and produce this feeling of suffocation. Oh, so it is.

It's like, in fact, you've seen drawings. I feel somebody like William Blake did pictures of monsters sitting on your chest, almost laughing at you, grotesque creatures sitting on your chest and jeering at you. Horrible. And that she's associated, I think, with Queen of the Elves, the sort of Irish Queen of the Elves. So various legends and myths attached to her. But you definitely do not want to meet her.

So she was a woman. The original nightmare is a female spirit who haunts you at night. Yes, who tries to sit on your chest and constrict your breathing. And when she comes to you, Susie Dent, she really is constricting your breathing. Absolutely. Rationally. When she comes to me, my most regular nightmare is I'm in an aeroplane of some kind, a spacecraft, flying through very tight passages. And they're often, it drops 30,000 feet and then proceeds and then drops again.

And I'm near cities and then I take off again. It's to do with flight. I do invariably survive it, but it is pretty grim and it is a recurring nightmare. Is that what they call the myoclonic jerk? So, you know, when your muscles suddenly go into that kind of, I don't know if they're spasming. I hate that word. I hate that verb. But But you know, when you have that sudden feeling of dropping when you're just falling asleep, so you're sort of half asleep, half awake. Is that, do you think what you're experiencing that's encouraging that? I don't know. It doesn't happen until the middle of the night. Though I do remember when I last

had a general anaesthetic, I felt the anaesthetist had said to me, as you're going to sleep, as you're going to sleep, picture, and this is a grim thing to say to somebody, picture the towers tumbling at 9-11 as you go to sleep. And the towers tumbled and I fell asleep. Later, I said to the anaesthetist, did you say that to me? He said, no, not for a moment. I wouldn't dream of saying such a thing. And clearly in my mind, I saw these tumbling towers as I tumbled into sleep. That might be it. They're sort of hypnic jerks or... Hypnic? What's hypnic mean? I've been on a picnic. What's a hypnic? Do you think a hypnic is what

hip people do? I'm not going on a picnic. I'm going on a hypnic. No, it's hypnosis, is it? Yes, it's related to that. So hypnos was the god of sleep in Greek mythology. And it's also the name of a very good bed company. They make lovely beds. Hypnic or hypnos? Hypnos. OK.

Lovely mattresses. I know this because I'm the host. You know, because you want them to sponsor us? No, they already do. No, they don't sponsor us, but they might absolutely enjoy the podcast even more lying on a hypnos bed. No, I host the British Bedding Federation Awards, and I've done so a number of times. That's why I know the firm Hypnos. Go on.

And then we have Morpheus, of course. Morpheus, the god of dreams. People of my father's generation used to talk about going to meet Morpheus. Yes, or the altar of Morpheus. The arms or the altar. The altar. Going to worship at the altar of Morpheus. Yes, or the altar of Morpheus. The arms or the altar. The altar, going to worship at the altar of Morpheus. That's it. Going to the arms of Morpheus.

How lovely. Maybe that's a euphemism for dying. Possibly. We're going to talk about death, aren't we? Very soon it's getting closer for me than it is for you. I mean, what is the, are there words that we, dream, where does the word dream come from? Dream is Germanic. So, come from sweet dreams is a Germanic

so you know we are a Germanic language and so it's related to the German Traum a dream oh

Traum in French which is just beautiful which is related to reverie obviously do you have

sweet dreams do you have good dreams I have very strange dreams and like most people I cannot really remember them. I know some people who have a book by their bed and they write them down the moment they wake up. I just have very strange dreams.

And they're totally fascinating. But I can't. Totally fascinating? Well, no, dreams are fascinating, aren't they? I suppose they are. I need my dreams to be decoded. I'm not sure I'm prepared to share many of them with you here today. Well, I don't know. Well, no, dreams are fascinating, aren't they? I suppose they are. I need my dreams to be decoded. I'm not sure I'm prepared to share many of them with you here today. Well, I don't know.

Well, thank you. Thank you for that vote of confidence. It's only you and me here together. Is it? I'd be very happy to share my dreams with you, but I don't remember them. No, that's the thing. And I'm quite self-conscious about not remembering them. Because I come from a generation that's one generation older than you,

I think I'm more in touch with an even older generation where introspection was not encouraged in any way, shape, or form. So the idea of poking around in your dreams would be anathema, not something one would want to do. So I don't think about my dreams. And in fact, describing my nightmare, it's difficult to articulate because I don't think, I try not to think about it very often. Okay. Well, that makes sense. But apparently we all need to dream at night, don't we? We all need to process our… Well, do bed is our, what they call our dreamery or what they used to call our dreamery.

Susie, I was playing one of my favourite games in bed last night. Were you now? Yeah. It's one I play to get to sleep. Okay. And simply it's this. It's really a kind of joke game. You have to think of a profession and then what happens to people in that profession if they are sacked or fired or fall from grace. So accountants, what happens to them? Accountants are disfigured.

Get it? Admirals are abridged. See Admiral of the Fleet on the bridge? They become abridged. Advertisers are declassified. Do you remember classified ads? I do. So you get the idea?

Yeah. Bankers are disinterested. Very good. They lose their interest interest in banking uh botanists i like this one i was quite pleased with this one uh what are botanists to do with flowers yeah uh deflowered yes botanists are deflowered i thought you'd like that one what about clerks what do what do filing clerks do? Oh, I've given it away. Clerks? Defiled. Good. Choristers are?

Defrocked. Oh. No, I think those are clergy people who are defrocked. But that happens literally if they've got too friendly with the choristers. Choristers are unsung. Oh, yeah. This is quite clever. Quango members are? I think this is clever. I invented this one. No, is quite clever. Quango members are...

I think this is clever. I invented this one. No, I didn't. Quango members are... Deacronymed. Oh, that's quite good. No, it's not an acronym anyway, actually. Forget that.

Isn't it? I don't think so. Quango? No. A quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. It is. Very good. So it is a Quango.

Giles. Quango members are disappointed. Disappointed. Do you know what, though? That is the first meaning of disappointed, or at least it was. It was to be removed from office. Oh. Yes, they were literally unappointed.

Electricians are... Cut off. Discharged. That amounts to the same thing. Oh, yeah, that's a wee verb. Okay. Gunsmiths are... Fired.

Fired. Very good. This is quite clever, I think. Hairdressers are... Clipped. I suppose so. Distressed. Oh, that's excellent.

That's the best one. You think it's the best so far? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Well, shall we leave it there? Yes. And I'll do some more another day. I'm loving it.

People can try that at home. And if you come up with better ones, you can communicate with us. Purple at somethingelse.com. People have been communicating in droves. Pick out some of this week's letters. We've had a lot. This is from Aaron Eames. I hope I'm pronouncing that properly, Aaron or Aaron. I've probably got this totally wrong. Could you please explain the origins of the words hello and goodbye and other salutations in general um yes well hello has had various forms as he would um imagine hello hello hello started off as a probably a hunting cry um could it have

been hail though hail hail fellow well met hail hail caesar isn't isn't that possible i think to be honest they all sound very similar and it's very difficult to disentangle the very beginning of hello. Goodbye is much easier. Goodbye is a contraction of God be with ye. God be with you, which is quite nice. Watcher. Do you remember that? Washer.

From the 80s and 90s. Well, believe it or not, that goes back to a centuries-old greeting when people would see each other on the street and say what cheer in other words how are you now cheer was uh uh basically synonym for the face so if you had good cheer you were looking happy if you had bad cheer you you were looking distinctly unhappy so what cheer is like what is your mood um and then what cheer eventually became shortened to watcher watcher isn't that amazing i love it what cheer cheer is one to watcher. Watcher? Isn't that amazing? I love it. What cheer?

Cheer is one's appearance. So if you're cheerful, you're full of cheer. Exactly. And it's good cheer. Good cheer. And I would just to finish off on those salutations, I think I may have mentioned this before, but I love the fact that in early telephone exchanges,

once you'd finished your conversation, you would say, that is all, and hang up. Oh, to conclude it, like over and out. That is all. That is all. It's much better than the endless code of exchanges that we have these days. That is all, except it isn't quite all for us today, because I haven't yet heard your trio of interesting words. What threesome have you got for us right now?

Well, two of them related to sleep. The first is hypnopompic. We mentioned hypno and hypnic and hypnos before, god of sleep. The first is hypnopompic. We mentioned hypno and hypnic and hypnos before, the god of sleep. Hypnopompic is a wonderful word for that sort of twilight state between sleeping and waking when you're not quite there yet. And Richard Osman described it beautifully with a much more modern term a while ago on Twitter. He described it as buffering. You know, when your appliance is basically trying to find the right kind of, to auto-tune itself with the right station or whatever,

that is buffering, but otherwise known as hypnopompic. Hypnopompic. And is that before you sleep or before you wake up or both? Usually when you're waking up, actually. It's that midway stage as you're beginning to come together. With me, frequently, it lasts an entire morning, I have to say. You're hypnopompic. Hypnopompic. How interesting.

With me, either I'm awake or I'm asleep. Really? And if I'm awake, I'm awake. And I have to get up. There has to be action. Okay. I'm very rarely in a hypnopompic state. I am.

But now I know the word. You have to be all the time. But you're permanently hypnopompic. I have to now i know the word all the time but you're permanently hypnopompic i have to say i am um do you know i'm going to make all three of these about sleep good swattery who swatter and swattery z w o d d e r add y on if you like if you want the adjective it's feeling drowsy and almost stupefied so it's described in dialectic shmooze as a drowsy stupid state of mind zwaddery sounds west country he was all zwaddery yeah old dialect you sound like a texan there i'm sorry i shouldn't apologize nothing wrong with texas i'm sure we have

listeners internationally by the way it's quite exciting we get lots of emails from america it's fantastic uh and to anyone else who's listening, Farrarfield, thank you for tuning in. And the third one, now, right, I'm going to have to spell this one for you. It's Onerophrinia. E-U. E-U.

N-E-I-R. N-E-I-R. O-P. O-P. H-R-E-N-I-A. And that is simply the lingering... Unerio phrenia. Yes.

It is the lingering sensation that you get after waking from a pleasant dream. You know when you're desperate to go back to the dream that you've just left? Well, sort of the feeling that that dream leaves you with is um unerophrenia it's not lovely if on the other hand you have that horrible sinking feeling that you wake up uh from a from a nightmare and it's still with you and you can't quite believe it's not true that is malnirephrenia with the mal at the end so complicated to say but we all know the sensation i think we do and but they're good words people should try and introduce some of these words i'm with the M-A-L at the end. So complicated to say, but we all know the sensation, I think. We do. And, but they're good words.

People should try and introduce some of these words. I'm certainly going to be- That one's a bit tricky. Zwadry is, I think, the most useful. Zwadry is the most useful word. Well, look, I can't wait to be with you again, which I will be next Tuesday for our next podcast. It's called Something Rhymes with Purple.

If you quite like it, and do give us a nice review, recommend us to a friend. If you have a question you'd like to answer, or give a go at answering or to get in touch, do email us here at purple at somethingelse.com. We will do our best to answer your queries on the show, but we can't necessarily answer everybody. I'm sure you will understand that. So that's it.

Yeah, that is it. Except you're going to say, you're going to do the sign off. Oh, I'm going to do the sign off. Well, just for a change. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced by Paul Smith with additional production from Lawrence Bassett, Steve Ackerman and I've forgotten somebody. Oh, not Gully. Gully.

You'd have thought with so many people involved it would be better. Really? Hmm.