Firgun

Something Rhymes with Purple

Sony Music

Comedy, Arts, Education

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week we’re full of chutzpah as we schmooze our way through the fabulous words that Yiddish has given to the English language. While our resident mensches don’t pretend to be mavens, they swell with kvelling as they revel in this rich and unique vocabulary covering everything from they smutty schmucks to the new Purple favourite ‘firgun’. Elsewhere Susie explains what ‘relexicalisation’ is, there’s a discussion on political correctness, and as always, three brilliant words to take into your week and a brand new poem to learn by heart. If you have a linguistic query or a tale from the table we’d love to hear it at [email protected]. A Somethin’ Else production. To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple If you would like to sign up to 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. If you would like to see Gyles and Susie LIVE and in person on our Something Rhymes With Purple UK Tour then please go to https://www.tiltedco.com/somethingrhymeswithpurple for tickets and more information. Susie’s Trio: Fipple - the mouthpiece of a wind instrument Flews - the pendulous lateral parts of a dog’s upper lip Fugacious - transient or fleeting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, Giles here, and knowing that we have a family audience and the purple people often include
0:05.3	some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people
0:11.8	may find uncomfortable or offensive.
0:23.8	This is something rhymes with purple. I'm Giles Brandrath. I'm speaking to you from London,
0:28.5	England, and in Oxford, England is my colleague, friend, and the world's leading lexiconographer,
0:34.2	Susie Dent. How are you Susie? Hello, very well. Thank you very much, Giles. I'm really
0:39.1	fascinated by this week's subject, actually. I'm really looking forward to it because it's um,
0:42.5	well, yeah. It is an intriguing subject, and it sort of springs from the fact that I've been doing
0:48.5	celebrity gogglebox with my friend, the actress, Dame Maureen Lippmann. And while I was doing it,
0:55.2	she was telling me about a play that she filmed, which I've now seen. It's a one-woman play.
1:01.8	It's called Rose. It's by Martin Sherman, and it was showing on Sky Arts. I don't know if you can
1:07.2	still, you know, find it there on Sky Arts, but it was a complete tour de force. And it reminded me
1:13.1	of the fascinating impact that Yiddish has had on the English language. And when I spend time
1:20.4	with Maureen, she tells me the most wonderful traditional Jewish stories, some of which are
1:26.7	repeatable, some of which aren't, but they can only be told by somebody like her. But she often
1:32.7	refers to words in Yiddish. She talks about the Yiddish language. And I don't really, because I've
1:37.7	known her for 70 years, I don't really dare confess to her that I don't really know much about
1:42.9	Yiddish history, the language, what it is. Can you give me your master class, your linguists take
1:50.2	on Yiddish? Well, it's fascinating. So for centuries, Yiddish was the language of the Ashkenazi
1:56.7	Jews of Eastern Europe. It's rarely spoken these days, but of course it lives on in many words
2:04.5	that have come into English and indeed lots of other languages and in the text of Yiddish literature.
2:10.7	But because it's rarely spoken, Yiddish scholars are now very much trying to analyse it. It's quite
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sony Music, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sony Music and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.