

Something Rhymes with Purple
Sony Music Entertainment
Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth invite you to enhance your vocabulary, uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words in this award-winning podcast.
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: purple@somethinelse.com
Want more Purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or by heading to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms for ad-free listening, and not 1 but 2 episodes of the show every week.
You can buy our branded mugs, tote bags and T-shirts here: https://bit.ly/37huhqs
A 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 podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: purple@somethinelse.com
Want more Purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or by heading to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms for ad-free listening, and not 1 but 2 episodes of the show every week.
You can buy our branded mugs, tote bags and T-shirts here: https://bit.ly/37huhqs
A 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 podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 14, 2024 • 40min
Murdre
Join Susuie and Gyles this week as they unravel the linguistic roots behind murder. From the ancient origins of 'homicide' to the sinister evolution of 'assassination', we uncover the words we use to describe humanity's darkest deeds.
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Suasible: Susceptible to persuasion.
Rannygazoo: Nonsense.
Fudgel: To make a big show of working whilst doing nothing at all.
Gyles' poem this week was 'The Stern Parent' by Harry Graham
Father heard his Children scream,
So he threw them in the stream,
Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
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May 7, 2024 • 38min
Hupnos
This week, Susie and Gyles drift off far far away to the land of sleep...
So tune in and embark on a journey through the nocturnal landscape of words.
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Nescience: An absence of knowledge; ignorance.
Phobophobia: The fear of being afraid.
Rasorial: Characteristically scratching the ground for food.
Gyles' poem this week was 'Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed (Sonnet 27)' by William Shakespeare
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! Thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts
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Apr 30, 2024 • 40min
Mundungus
This week, Susie and Gyles explore fragrances and scents. Join us as we inhale the sweet aromas of people and places...
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Acang: To act foolishly, lose self-control.
Anythingarian: One who professes no creed in particular; an indifferentist.
Coleworts: Old news. Literally, a cabbage-like plant. From the proverb for “old news,” “coleworts twice sodden’.
Gyles' poem this week was 'Home Thoughts, From Abroad' by Richard Browning
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts
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Apr 23, 2024 • 47min
Botulus
*Cough cough*... This week Susie and Gyles explore the language of diseases. From Cholera to Mumps, and Malaria to Influenza, they have you covered.
Also, we reveal the WINNERS of our 'To Dent' and 'To Brandreth' competition!
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Shackbaggerly: Disordered and unkempt.
Komorebi (Japanese): The patterns cast by sunlight filtering through trees.
Gruttling (old East Anglian dialect): A strange, inexplicable noise.
Gyles' poem this week was 'Sick Room' by Billy Collins
Every time Canaletto painted Venice
he painted her from a different angle,
sometimes from point of view
he must have imagined,
for there is no place in the city
he could have stood and observed such scenes.
How ingenious of him to visualise
a dome or canal from any point in space.
How passionate he was
to delineate Venice from perspectives
that required him to mount the air
and levitate there with his floating brush.
But I have been sick in this bed
for over sixty hours,
and I am not Canaletto,
and this airless little room,
with its broken ceiling fan
and it monstrous wallpaper, is not Venice.
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
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Apr 16, 2024 • 34min
Fascicles
This week, Susie and Gyles unravel the intricate history of dictionaries, those indispensable guides that serve as gateways to language. From ancient lexicons to modern compendiums, we explore how dictionaries have shaped our understanding of words and the world around us. And Gyles lets us know how his weight lifting is going...
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Idioticon : A dialect dictionary.
Limbeck: To rack the brain and exhaust yourself in an effort to come up with a new idea.
Proggle: To poke, prod, or grubble about.
Gyles' poem this week was 'Shakespeare at School' by Wendy Cope
Forty boys on benches with their quills
Six days a week through almost all the year,
Long hours of Latin with relentless drills
And repetition, all enforced by fear.
I picture Shakespeare sitting near the back,
Indulging in a risky bit of fun
By exercising his prodigious knack
Of thinking up an idiotic pun,
And whispering his gem to other boys,
Some of whom could not suppress their mirth –
Behaviour that unfailingly annoys
Any teacher anywhere on earth.
The fun was over when the master spoke:
Will Shakespeare, come up here and share the joke.
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
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Apr 9, 2024 • 45min
Bafflegab
This week Susie and Gyles explore nonsensical language paying tribute to Dr. Seuss, Spike Milligan, and Edward Lear. They discuss quirky English words like 'spissitude' and 'gronk', and share Gyles' recitation of 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat'. The podcast delves into nonsense verse, rhyming schemes, British comedy, and the imaginative world of Dr. Seuss.

Apr 2, 2024 • 38min
Oxford, Gibson and Brogue
This podcast explores the origins and evolution of various types of shoes like Oxford, Brogue, and Gibson. They discuss the multifaceted career of May West, boot-related expressions, slang terms for being drunk, and unique mythological words like Obliqui, Mermaidon, and Naiad. The hosts wrap up with a poetic journey exploring life through the lens of shoes.

Mar 26, 2024 • 43min
Happy Birthday Gyles!
This week it's about the birthday boy, as we celebrate all things Gyles Brandreth.
Not only does Gyles spoil us with a plethora of his famous anecdotes, but he becomes the linguistics quizmaster and places Susie in the hot seat to answer questions from his book 'Have You Eaten Grandma'.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GYLES! You are truly one of a kind.
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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.
Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:
Galere: A coterie of undesirable people.
Chawbacon: One uninterested in culture.
Boulevardier: A lover of boulevards.
Gyles' poem this week was the incredibly emotive 'Counting Backwards' by Linda Pastan.
How did I get so old,
I wonder,
contemplating
my 67th birthday.
Dyslexia smiles:
I’m 76 in fact.
There are places
where at 60 they start
counting backwards;
in Japan
they start again
from one.
But the numbers
hardly matter.
It’s the physics
of acceleration I mind,
the way time speeds up
as if it hasn’t guessed
the destination—
where look!
I see my mother
and father bearing a cake,
waiting for me
at the starting line.
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
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Mar 19, 2024 • 31min
Treasure House
From the latin word dicere meaning ‘to speak, to tell or to say’. This week Susie and Gyles are looking at the ultimate word bible, the dictionary!
Gyles ponders the difference between a glossary and a dictionary.
And Susie delves into prescriptivism vs descriptivism
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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'
And now for three bite sized words from Susie in her trio:
Thruffable: Open and transparent (through).
Wambliness: An upheaval of the stomach.
Boodyankers: An exclamation of surprise or delight (Northumberland).
Gyles’s poem comes from his friend and neighbour James K Harris and is called ‘I Don’t’
I don't, of course, mean everything I say.
I mean, sometimes, I don't know what I mean.
Sometimes I have a thought which goes astray.
I start describing blue, it turns out green.
The alphabet is very volatile. Its union is hard to bring to heel. It's easy to fall victim to its guile.
You think you're describing what you feel, but then you find the words describing you.
And so one sees oneself in their dark light. One thinks one is describing what is true, then suddenly one sees one isn't right.
In which case, still, it's true that one was wrong.
Well, truth, in some guys, always comes along.
A Sony Music Entertainment production.
Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts
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Mar 12, 2024 • 41min
Cool Britannia
The 90s was a crazy decade, brimming with pop culture moments that defined Britain. Susie and Gyles discuss words that gained popularity in the post Cold War era, from Cool Britannia, to the Spice Girls, Dianamania to the World Wide Web...
We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: purplepeople@somethingrhymes.com
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:
Solacious: Soothing or comforting.
Soodle : To linger or dawdle.
Splatherdab: A gossip.
Gyles' poem this week was 'This Boy' by Leigh Lawson, who wrote it upon the birth of his first grandson, Solomon.
He gives me joy, this boy,
Unspeakable, inexpressible.
This boy gives me joy.
Inexplicable, unexplainable.
This boy brings me joy.
Let bells ring, choirs sing,
Chimes chime, poets rhyme,
Trumpets trump, drums drum,
Feet stamp, guitars strum.
Higher than the moon,
Oh, hotter than the sun,
Deeper than the sea,
Is the joy this boy brings to me.
A 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 podcastadsales@sonymusic.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices