S13 E1 Barbara Kellerman, Claire Faulconbridge, Christopher Timothy, Richard Ingrams.
S13 E2 Barbara Kellerman, Claire Faulconbridge, Christopher Timothy, Richard Ingrams.
Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.
S13 E2 Barbara Kellerman, Claire Faulconbridge, Christopher Timothy, Richard Ingrams.
Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.
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FunTranscript
00:00I won't put that on there.
00:03Now it's Richard Ingram's turn. Have a go.
00:06If you were Northumbrian, you would describe Patrick Campbell's expression
00:11as someone who is yorgering, for it means to gape.
00:16LAUGHTER
00:18He does a lot of it. To lower the jaw.
00:21To gape in astonishment.
00:24LAUGHTER
00:27And this came also to be the nickname given to a particular type of oyster
00:33which is found in Northumberland, which opens up.
00:36LAUGHTER
00:39Exactly like that. I couldn't describe it better.
00:43What the oyster does.
00:45If it opens up, don't eat it, that's what I say, not if it's an oyster.
00:49Anyway, it's a sort of vittling ship, a ship where you get your provisions from.
00:53It's a skin disease, though not of sheep.
00:56And it is to gape, or, you know, let your jaw drop.
01:00Barbara, pick one, if you will.
01:03You're out on your own here, darling.
01:05Well, to gape in astonishment, thence like an oyster.
01:12Sounds a bit like yawning, to be true.
01:15LAUGHTER
01:17So I don't know about that one.
01:20Vote for trading... Vote for trading, vote for trading,
01:23for vitamin deficiency.
01:26Home!
01:30I'm going to go for the boat.
01:32The boat, the ship where you get your provisions and all.
01:36Claire Falkenbridge said as much. True or bluff?
01:40You're right!
01:42APPLAUSE
01:49Thank goodness you've broken your duck.
01:53I have to repeat simply that Yorga does actually mean that,
01:56a ship where you get the vittles from.
01:584-1.
02:00The next one is O'Dyll, I suppose.
02:03Barbara?
02:05Well, there's a place in the tiny island of Hydra.
02:08Well, I think it's still there, actually.
02:101903 was the last time I heard about it being there.
02:13And it's a bee building rather than a beehive.
02:19That's to say that people can actually go into the building
02:22and they there collect honey
02:25and they mix this honey with old Greek wines.
02:32That's what O'Dyll is.
02:34Right. And now Patrick tells him.
02:37O'Dyll is a phenomenon.
02:40It was first discovered by the famous physicist...
02:45..Der Herr Baron von Rechenbach.
02:48LAUGHTER
02:50Der Herr Baron von Rechenbach...
02:55..found that O'Dyll is a natural force,
02:58a thing that flows through the whole of life,
03:01making possible things like magnetism and hypnotism...
03:08..and even Uri Gelli.
03:10Not Uri Gelli.
03:13A bending force.
03:16Per pro O'Dyll.
03:18Isn't Rechenbach where Sherlock Holmes fell off?
03:22Yes.
03:24Just the thought I'd asked.
03:26Rechenbach is down.
03:28And now Christopher Timothy.
03:31O'Dyll was an 18th-century medicated soap
03:37for skin complaints.
03:40And it was obtainable at any good quality 18th-century pharmacist.
03:44One of the most famous brand names of the period
03:47was Dr Steerforth's O'Dyll,
03:49which contained, amongst its ingredients,
03:52opium, camphor, rectified spirits and a solution of ammonia.
03:57It was a medicated soap.
03:59So, right.
04:01It's not exactly a beehive, it's a bee house,
04:04a building for bees.
04:06It's a natural force of nature and it's a medicated soap.
04:11Clare.
04:18I'm not sure about the beehives.
04:21I think I'll miss the beehives.
04:24And the natural force...
04:28I'm going to go for the soap.
04:30You just didn't like the other two, did you?
04:32No, I didn't!
04:34I can somehow tell.
04:36But you liked the idea of the soap.
04:38Well, that was Christopher Timothy who said it.
04:40True or bluff?
04:46Oh, no!
04:48APPLAUSE
04:50Really fun.
04:54They're coming up on the rail swiftly.
04:56Let's have the true definition, shall we?
04:58Yes, we must have that.
05:00APPLAUSE
05:03It's a natural force of nature, is the odile.
05:08Purpine is the next one. Let us hurry on. Frank.
05:16Purpine...
05:19..is a verb...
05:21..and it means...
05:25..to...
05:28..to deliberate...
05:30Just like that.
05:32A great length...
05:34For heaven's sake.
05:36..for...
05:39..making up...
05:42..one's mind.
05:46Or, to put it briefly...
05:50..lengthily...
05:55..to ponder.
05:58Pardon?
06:06Oh, where am I? Richard Ingram's your turn.
06:09Purpine...
06:11..is a small...
06:13..coin...
06:15..which...
06:17..is a small coin.
06:20An old coin in France
06:23from the time of King Louis XII
06:27in the 16th century.
06:29And I think it was so-called because it had on one side
06:34the image of a rampant porcupine.
06:40If such a thing can be imagined in these times.
06:44So, Clare Falkenbridge.
06:46Purpine is a feature of a timber-framed cottage
06:50like Anne Hathaway's cottage.
06:52And it lay between two vertical pieces of timber
06:55and it wasn't just decorative,
06:57it used to take the weight of the underlying brickwork.
07:00Well, that's as neat as you please.
07:02It's a sort of timber support.
07:04It's a gold coin of the reign of Louis XII.
07:07That's very early sort of Louis.
07:09And it is to ponder at inordinate, indeed tedious, men.
07:16Well, certainly porcupines have never been...
07:20..caught being rampant, even on the back of old coins.
07:25So that's just silly.
07:27Not to another porcupine.
07:29Do you mind, please, your turn.
07:31Not to another porcupine.
07:34That, oh, that boredom of...
07:37If I talked...
07:40..like that, you'll never catch up.
07:43Who's doing this, you or me?
07:45Well, it's certainly...
07:47It's to mess around with words, to take your time.
07:50It's been laborious.
07:52The pondering act of Frank. True or bluff?
07:59It's a bluff. We all know it's a bluff.
08:02APPLAUSE
08:08He did all that and it wasn't true after all.
08:11It was to put us through that trauma.
08:13Who gave the true definition of that word?
08:15Oh, you lucky prick, he did. Yes, indeed.
08:18Rapidly held up.
08:22I've let you down, please.
08:24It is, indeed, a gold coin and for aught I know
08:27has the porcupine on the back or the front of it.
08:30Nuck is the next one and it's Patrick to define it.
08:33In the days before, a motorway, a tarmacadam, a steamroller,
08:38you had lanes and little byways and things like that
08:41and they were full of nucks.
08:43Because a nuck is when a paving stone sticks up.
08:46Not up, but up.
08:49If you were a horse, you could stub your shoe.
08:53If you were a human being, you could stub your shoe on the nuck.
08:58But it would still be a nuck, wouldn't it?
09:02What about... No, please, a little more.
09:05I think I really finished, I think.
09:07Don't rub the bloom off it, Patrick, I would say.
09:10Christopher.
09:12A nuck is a small snack,
09:15like a piece of cheese or a piece of pork pie,
09:19which farmers carry in their pockets while working
09:22so they can munch whenever they choose without interrupting their toil.
09:26Nuck. Nuck.
09:28All right, so now Barbara Kellerman.
09:31Well, um...
09:33A bit of chuckles at the other end of the studio.
09:37A nuck is a non-moving part of a clock.
09:42So if the big hand moves or if the pendulum swings
09:47or if the seconds go or whatever happens inside the clock moves,
09:51it is not a nuck.
09:53What is?
09:56She told you, it's the bit that doesn't move.
09:59So it's a part of a clock that doesn't move, whatever that is.
10:02Kind of a snack farmers are often found with on their persons.
10:06And it's an irregularity in a paving stone, sort of sticking up.
10:09Frank.
10:11I don't think that parts of a clock which don't move would have a name.
10:16I think the parts which move would have a name,
10:19but parts which don't move would be so deplorably dull
10:23there would be no point in referring to them as a nucks, would there?
10:27It can't be a snack.
10:30So we come to paving stones sticking up before the invention of paving stones.
10:34You see, before Tarmac Adam, paving stones stuck up.
10:39It doesn't make sense, does it?
10:41They wouldn't be there in country by-roads.
10:43Perhaps he meant stone in general, pavement in general.
10:46He might have meant all number of things, Mr Robinson.
10:48I'm sorry.
10:51Interfections in the highway.
10:53So I go for the farmer's snack.
10:56The farmer's snack, Christopher Timothy, true or bluff?
11:02No, no.
11:04APPLAUSE
11:07You gave the true one.
11:09Quick, quick. The true one I must have.
11:11Yes, there you see it.
11:13Well done, madame, lovely.
11:16It's part of a clock that doesn't move.
11:18So, look, we're going to try and squeeze another one in.
11:20Ike. Ike is the next one. Or eek or whatever.
11:23Richard, rather quickly.
11:25Ike is rather disgusting stuff that oozes out of sheep's skin during the hot weather.
11:31That'll do nicely. Well, when I say that'll do nicely.
11:34Claire Hortenbridge.
11:36Ike is an Icelandic cheese which is brown in colour and looks rather like chocolate blancmange.
11:40That'll do. If you like that sort of thing. Frank.
11:43It's a hollow wooden squat cylinder which goes under a beehive.
11:47Right, so it's a sort of goo that comes out of a sheep.
11:50It's Icelandic cheese and it's an extension or something that goes under a beehive.
11:55Instantly then, Christopher, you must make your choice.
11:58Like backing a played number.
12:00Isn't it me? No, him. Yes, Christopher.
12:02Oh, beg your pardon. It is.
12:04I was playing for time. Natural eagerness, Patrick.
12:06Hurry, hurry.
12:08Chocolate cheese.
12:10Chocolate cheese, Claire.
12:12You more or less said something like that.
12:14It was Icelandic cheese but it's still a bluff.
12:20And the true one.
12:22Rather swiftly, we have the true one and there it is.
12:28It is sheep's goo.
12:30I declare the winners, there's no doubt about it.
12:32Six, three, Frank Muir and co. have won.
12:35APPLAUSE
12:41We shall have more words from the Waxworks next week.
12:44Until then, goodbye from Richard Ingrams.
12:47APPLAUSE
12:49Christopher Timothy.
12:51Claire Falkenbridge.
12:53Barbara Calliman.
12:55Frank Muir. Good night.
12:57Patrick Campbell.
12:59And goodbye.
13:01APPLAUSE
13:05Good night.
13:36Hello again, this is Call My Bluff,
13:39featuring the tall version of Robertson Hare,
13:42Patrick Campbell.
13:47Good evening.
13:49There's a lovely, shy elfin girl with the long hair I had last week
13:54has come back as a kind of mysterious Egyptian beauty
13:58but she's still Barbara Calliman.
14:00APPLAUSE
14:04And the other one, the well-known cow helper and herder,
14:07my veterinary surgeon, with double-bowed Christian name,
14:10Christopher Timothy. I've got it right again.
14:17And the man with the steam-driven bow tie, Frank Muir.
14:21Good evening.
14:23Good evening.
14:27And I bring back, for the world of footlights and television cameras,
14:32Claire Falkenbridge.
14:38And for the world of journalism and private eye,
14:42Richard Ingrams.
14:44APPLAUSE
14:49We'll have a word, if that's all right with you.
14:51We go, ring-a-ding, and we get kankydort.
14:54And so, Patrick Campbell and his team will define kankydort,
14:57if they pronounce it that way, three different ways.
15:00Two of the definitions are false, one is true.
15:02That's the one that Frank and co. try and pick out.
15:05What of this word, Patrick?
15:07A kankydort...
15:09..was a Belgian field...
15:12..field hospital.
15:14The kind of tent in which you could get your leg hacked off.
15:18And that kind of thing.
15:20A small point of interest about kankydorts,
15:23was it not General Grey, who was one of Marlborough's generals,
15:28he got dragged into a kankydort,
15:31with a fearful bullet wound in his leg,
15:34and tried to remove his leg,
15:37and he died in the very same kankydort that he was brought into.
15:42During the Battle of...
15:45What's it, Oudegaard?
15:47Oudenaard.
15:49Oudenaard, the very place, yes.
15:51Oudegaard Mef.
15:53No, no, Oudenaard.
15:56General Grey had his leg lopped off and died in a kankydort.
16:00That faces me up, Frank.
16:02Christopher Timothy's turn.
16:05If way back in the 14th century, you were...
16:10You would, in fact, now, be dead.
16:12But if you were back in the 14th century,
16:15and you were in a bit of a fix, in a dodgy situation,
16:18and you were up ye olde creaky without ye olde paddle,
16:22you would have been in a kank... kandyport.
16:25No.
16:27Kankydort.
16:29You very nearly would have been in a kambyport.
16:31Yes, indeed you would have. Not quite.
16:33Kankydort, that's it. Kankydort.
16:36And it's a very old... I'm sorry?
16:38What is it, Ben? You're getting to it.
16:42It's being in a dodgy situation,
16:44and it's a very, very old word only used once, and once only,
16:47in the writings of Chaucer.
16:50Kankydort. Right. So now, Barbara Kellerman.
16:54Well, it's a coal which is mined near Bloemondfontein.
17:03If that's not how you pronounce it, I'm very sorry.
17:05In South Africa.
17:07And it lets off a kind of green mineral substance,
17:11which is due to a chemical called columbite.
17:18LAUGHTER
17:20That's just the way you said due to, that's all.
17:23I don't know what it is. I'm so surprised.
17:26Well, it's the chemical columbite that causes this...
17:29As I said... It's a stuff.
17:31A stuff. Yeah.
17:33Well, it's that sort of coal, and it comes to South Africa somewhere.
17:36Coal, is it? What is it? Coal, I think.
17:39I think I got you right there, Barbara. Coal, yes.
17:42It's a certain sort. Bloemondfontein, I think, was the place.
17:46It's a first-aid post, not a very good one, apparently,
17:49and it's an awkward situation in the 15th century, or was it?
17:52Yes, 15th century. Frank.
17:5414th. Beg your pardon. 14th century, Frank.
17:57Oh, I do think these are rotten, rotten bluffs and trues.
18:01Awful.
18:03No Lousy of Tampa, please.
18:05I really would rather play something else.
18:07LAUGHTER
18:09Belgium, it's all this canker dort.
18:11There's a tremendous effort to make it sound Belgian,
18:15but, or South African,
18:17the word in jeopardy was mentioned once in Chaucer.
18:24Yes, I'll go for that.
18:26The word meaning in jeopardy, mentioned once in Chaucer.
18:30Or to put it another way, it's in Chaucer, only once.
18:34And mentioned only once or twice by Christopher Timothy.
18:37True or bluff? I have no confidence in this.
18:40Let's see.
18:43He's right!
18:51There is no doubt about it, canker dort means, or meant,
18:54an awkward situation, but that was in the 14th century.
18:58We'll have another word, and that word is huffer,
19:01and Frank Muir will define it.
19:03I have to take you back a year or two now, early 1500s,
19:06before Marlowe or Shakespeare,
19:09the actors in a very, very crude melodrama of the period
19:12all looked a bit one like the other,
19:14because the girls were played by boys' parts and they looked like boys.
19:18So they had a marvellous idea that when the villain came in,
19:21who was a braggart or a bully,
19:25he used to walk on stage or into the ring or the arena or the inn
19:29and say,
19:31HUFFER!
19:33And all the groundlings that way knew that he was the huffer.
19:40Good lord. Next, please.
19:45It's your pill.
19:47It was good as long as he went on. Richard, your turn.
19:50A huffer was a sort of French equivalent of Frank Muir's bow tie.
19:56At the time of the French Revolution, it was a sort of cravat,
20:00of a rather florid type,
20:03which was worn by dandies and people of that type.
20:09Huffer? You couldn't pronounce it in French.
20:11Next bit, if I haven't said it. Huffer. Huffer.
20:15So, and now Claire.
20:17A huffer is the key card at an old game called Basset,
20:22B-A-S-S-E-T, which is rather like whist.
20:25And the huffer card varied from hand to hand,
20:28according to the dealer's choice,
20:30and it was the trump card,
20:32and it trumped any trick, regardless of face value.
20:36Writing steadily.
20:38No, it's an early version of Frank Muir's bow tie, a sort of cravat.
20:42It's an exclamation that Elizabethan or earlier actors made
20:48when they came on the stage,
20:50and it was a sort of trump card, but of a special sort.
20:53Patrick.
20:55This is a hopeless mess, isn't it, to begin with,
20:57even before I begin not guessing, but defining by deep analysis.
21:02You've got some trouble here at the mill, I must confess.
21:06It can't be whatever it was that Richard Ingram said was not true.
21:12Of that, I'm certain.
21:15And silly Claire with huffer, a kind of whist.
21:23But if all the boy and girl actors look exactly alike,
21:26you don't have to say huffer to prove it.
21:29So they're all wrong, so it must be...
21:34It's the bully boy.
21:36You're going to have that. Let's see it, Frank, yes.
21:38You'll have it. It was Frank, true or not, Frank?
21:40Fairly quickly. I did say it was.
21:42It was right.
21:44Well done.
21:50It's true, apparently. They came on, they said huffer or huffer,
21:53and you knew that they were right.
21:55Apparently, they came on, they said huffer or huffer,
21:58and you knew that they were the heavy, I suppose.
22:01Now, juggle or what is the next word,
22:04and Christopher Timothy defines it for you.
22:07Juggle.
22:09If you ever heard a nightingale in full...
22:13I was going to say full flight, but they fly quite quietly.
22:16Singing in full flight, or even standing still.
22:19You will have noticed the sound which goes like...
22:24Which goes like...
22:28WHISTLES
22:30Juge.
22:32Juge.
22:34Hence the verb to juggle, which is a nightingale making the sound...
22:39WHISTLES
22:41Juge.
22:43Juge.
22:45Not bad, not bad.
22:47So, Barbara, your turn.
22:50Juggle means a word to agitate,
22:53like you would a bell or like you would a cocktail,
22:57and like you would a dice.
23:01And, in fact, it is still used in Cheshire,
23:04meaning dice.
23:07That's what it means there in Cheshire.
23:10Chaking trees. The actual dice.
23:13The actual things themselves. Right, Patrick's turn.
23:17A juggle, as it was called by printers
23:21when a print was set by hand.
23:25A juggle is the mark that the proofreader...
23:27Do you know what a proofreader is? Do you want an explanation?
23:30No. He reads proofs.
23:32LAUGHTER
23:34If the proofreader finds an error in the hand set type,
23:38he makes a little mark on the side, which is a juggle.
23:42According to the text, in fact, there's been an error in spelling,
23:45or spacing, or even...
23:47Well, not in thought. That's hopeless.
23:50But even... Just an error.
23:53A typographical error. Really.
23:57It's a juggle, a proofreader.
24:00Hand set type.
24:02Can you justify that? Yes.
24:04Well, what they all say is that it's a dice in Cheshire only.
24:09It's the noise made by a nightingale,
24:12and it's a reader's mark made on a proof.
24:15So, Richard Ingrams.
24:17Well, I won't say that I'm totally baffled.
24:21I think I know the answer.
24:23LAUGHTER
24:26I know that birds in old poems go,
24:30and madrigals and things do go jug-jug for some reason.
24:34So I'm quite tempted towards that definition,
24:37which might have some foundation.
24:39In fact, shaken and not stirred.
24:41I have people shaking cocktails.
24:44And proofreaders do, I know,
24:46have all kinds of strange expressions which they use.
24:49Marks they make.
24:53I know it's wrong, but I'll go for the proofreader.
24:56You think the mark made by...
24:58That Patrick said they made to a bluff Patrick.
25:01Do proofreaders do it?
25:03No, no!
25:06APPLAUSE
25:12Nothing to do with that.
25:14Who gave the true definition? Here he comes.
25:16It wasn't shaking the cheese.
25:18It was you, was it?
25:20APPLAUSE
25:23Well done.
25:25You were on the track there, because that is the noise,
25:28or someone says it's the noise that nightingales make.
25:31You will find it in the Oxford English Dictionary as such.
25:34We have one, and we have garlits.
25:37Richard, you will define it.
25:39A garlits is a type of little crossbow
25:44which was used by the Swiss infantry,
25:48the Swiss army, in the 14th century.
25:51And it fired a little arrow, or dart,
25:57which was lethal up to 30 paces, so to say.
26:02That's what it was.
26:04Right, so now we ask Claire Falconbridge.
26:08Garlits are little speckles which sometimes appear
26:11on the base of antlers of young stags before they're fully grown.
26:16You don't care to say more than that, but I don't know why you should.
26:19I'd just like to hear you talk.
26:21You don't know any more than that.
26:23No, but that goes for so many of us, doesn't it?
26:25Frank, your turn.
26:27A garlits, extremely dreary form of linen cloth
26:34imported from German Silesia about 200 years ago,
26:41used for making drearily boring handam objects
26:48like little bags for keeping boot brushes in
26:52and loose covers for hassocks.
26:55And it was a terribly boring colour of brown, and still is.
27:04So it's a sort of rather boring linen.
27:07It's little spots on the base of a stag's antlers
27:11and it's a certain sort of crossbow.
27:13So, Christopher, your choice.
27:16Do you have any feeling about it?
27:18Do you feel anything at all about it?
27:22Um...
27:23Write on your own, lad.
27:29Because Frank Muir makes me laugh a lot, and he makes me laugh now.
27:32Does he?
27:33Yeah. Well, I haven't been here long.
27:35LAUGHTER
27:37The, um...
27:39Being funny about something always makes me think he's going to be honest,
27:42and most of the time that I've seen the programme, he hasn't been.
27:45So, the crossbow Swiss...
27:49..and the young stag's freckles...
27:53..and the Silesian linen cloth, German,
27:56so I'll go for the young stag's freckles.
28:00The young stag's freckles of which Claire Falconbridge spoke.
28:03Draw a bluff.
28:04That's a bluff, isn't it?
28:06Ah, she couldn't tell a lie, could she? She did!
28:08APPLAUSE
28:11It's German, isn't it?
28:14She made all that up. Now, who gave the true definition?
28:19LAUGHTER
28:26Garlic is a poor form or a boring form of linen.
28:30Too old!
28:32Cumbly is our next one.
28:34Barbara, your turn.
28:36Um...
28:38Well, it's cumbly, actually, and it comes from Lancashire,
28:42and it describes a person who is very irritable, who is very abrasive.
28:49That's it.
28:50LAUGHTER
28:52Just that, eh? Yeah.
28:54OK, right, Patrick?
28:56If you've got your cumbly with you,
28:59you're going to be warm and cosy and comfortable wherever you go.
29:03Your wife?
29:05Cumbly, you fool, not your wife.
29:07LAUGHTER
29:10Cumbly, and what a lovely word it is, to be sure.
29:16It's a very hairy, woolly blanket.
29:20It comes off an Indian hill sheep.
29:26You can't just tear it off the sheep and put it on.
29:31When you get it off the Indian hill sheep, you weave it a little bit,
29:34and with your cumbly around you, you can come to no harm.
29:38Perhaps the sheep's mother might come and take it back,
29:41but apart from that, you're cosy and comfortable forevermore,
29:44in your cumbly.
29:47Rather a long blanket, isn't it?
29:50So, shall we hear now from Christopher Timothy?
29:55I take you to Suffolk for cumbly, which is a fudge.
30:00I'll speak faster than that, because they speak very slowly in Suffolk.
30:03Cumbly is cholesterol, and should in fact be made of treacle,
30:06not brown sugar. Sometimes it is, but it shouldn't be.
30:09At Christmas time in Suffolk, they cut the uncooked cumbly,
30:14or the unset cumbly, into shapes like mannequins,
30:16and they hand them out as Christmas presents.
30:18And they're called cumbly men for Christmas.
30:22Fudge.
30:24So, it's a sort of a blanket that sheep provide.
30:28It's stated being irritable in Lancashire,
30:31and it's a sort of fudge from Suffolk.
30:33Oh, yes. Claire.
30:38Well, I toyed with the irritable Lancashire people,
30:42and then I ended up with a hairy blanket.
30:45I think it's the hairy blanket.
30:47You don't care for the fudge?
30:49No.
30:50No.
30:51What this programme's all about, really.
30:53So, anyway, you'll have the blanket, Patrick.
30:56I'll have Paddy the hairy blanket.
30:58You said it was a blanket.
31:00It's not really a blanket for you, darling.
31:02APPLAUSE
31:04No, it's your blanket.
31:08It's not fair.
31:10What a clever girl it is.
31:12Yes, it was a blanket.
31:14And is brought, I know, a blanket.
31:16Three, two, or two, three.
31:18Petit Perny is the next one.
31:20Claire Falkenbridge.
31:22A petit perny, and I'll try not to spit,
31:24is a product from the puff pastry cook.
31:28It's a kind of a pie, according to ancient recipe books,
31:32and it had in it ye olde marrow, ye olde gobbets,
31:36and ye pinch of ginger, amongst other ingredients.
31:40Like what?
31:42That'll do for now.
31:44LAUGHTER
31:46You can make one with those ingredients, you don't need more.
31:48Frank, your turn.
31:50HE HUMS
31:52HE HUMS
31:56Moist dancing.
31:58LAUGHTER
32:00Short, elbow-length cloak for moist dancers.
32:04Sometimes embroidered with wings.
32:06Petit Perny.
32:08Moist dancers, short cloak.
32:10Right, right.
32:12Now, Richard, your turn.
32:14There was a Dr Petit Pan,
32:16who was a master at Brasenose College, Oxford,
32:20in the 16th century.
32:22And he had the reputation,
32:25had a reputation rather like the Vicar of Bray.
32:28He was a man who constantly changed his opinions,
32:31as many Dons do.
32:33And this gave rise to the adjective, Petit Perny,
32:37which meant someone who is always changing his views
32:41from one moment to the next.
32:43It could so easily be that, couldn't it?
32:45Unfortunately. But it isn't.
32:47It isn't my turn.
32:49LAUGHTER
32:51Let me remind you what it is.
32:53Changeable, yes. Changeable, it said,
32:55a sort of pie and a cloak of a moist dancer.
32:59Barbara.
33:01Oh, dear.
33:03Yes, it could so easily be changing views, couldn't it?
33:07A good point there, yes. That really could.
33:10That's what they're doing now.
33:12A bit of Petit Perny going on.
33:16Moist dancers.
33:18Like...
33:22I don't look into your eyes, Frank, when you do that.
33:25And an old pie, an old pie of Petit Perny.
33:27I don't like the old pie at all.
33:30It sounds awful.
33:32Moist dancers... Oh, dear.
33:34Oh, no.
33:36I think I'll go for the obvious.
33:38Which is it?
33:40I think I'll go for yours. Who's yours?
33:42Oh, Richards.
33:44Slowly, slowly, slowly.
33:46APPLAUSE
33:52Well, she went for yours. It turned out to be Richards.
33:55No, it was Frank's, actually.
33:57Yeah, you can play that trick once, but not twice, Barbara.
34:01It wasn't any good, really, because it doesn't mean changeable.
34:05Who gave the true definition?
34:07Oh, not that Richard Puddy.
34:10APPLAUSE
34:16A pie, a Petit Perny is a sort of pie.
34:19And so let's have another word.
34:21It's velling, and Patrick will define it.
34:24The word velling...
34:27..of course, derives from the old agricultural verb,
34:31which is none other than to vell.
34:37You take a field and you want to vell it.
34:41You pass a skimming plough over the field.
34:45And it vells it.
34:47Well, it would, wouldn't it?
34:49At the moment, I haven't quite concluded.
34:52I've got one further illuminating observation to make.
34:56It's like unspreading bread and butter.
35:04Despreading.
35:07Taking the butter or the turf off the velling, or the bread.
35:11We don't have butter in a field.
35:13LAUGHTER
35:15Marge.
35:17It's just velling, anyway. I've finished, haven't I?
35:20Very good, I enjoyed it. Christopher, Timothy, your go.
35:23The word you have pronounced, vellink,
35:26is named after an inventor of Dutch origin called Jacob Vellink.
35:31And he invented a thing called a vellink air pump.
35:36And this was a pump which blew air of a consistent temperature
35:40into a steady-blown glass so that it cooled gradually.
35:45That's right, yes.
35:47Vellink.
35:49All right. Now, Barbara Kellerman to tell us.
35:53Well, it's a mould that grows on certain hops
35:59of a particular substance called fustinara,
36:02which is used for brewing brown ales.
36:05And, in fact, if you then take these little funguses
36:09and put them through a microscope, you will find, believe it or not,
36:13that they are very, very similar in their minuscule form
36:17to wellington boots in their...
36:21LAUGHTER
36:26Well, they are, because they look like very tiny little ones
36:29under a microscope, and it's a fungus.
36:33So, it's a sort of a mould.
36:36It's an air pump invented by a Dutchman,
36:39and it's skimming the top off a field.
36:42Nothing to do with butter, really, that was just the parallel,
36:45but it's just skimming the top off.
36:47So, Frank, choose.
36:53A huff of vellink that an air pump passing air over glass
37:00would shatter the glass if it was hot.
37:03Well, I've just got a feeling.
37:06I didn't understand a word of Miss Kellerman's,
37:10but I'm told by you construed that it was mould.
37:13Mould, yeah, shaped like a wellington boot.
37:16Shaped like a wellington boot. Well, how interesting.
37:19And it's...
37:21You can't skim off the top of a field with a plough.
37:25I mean, a plough is essentially a digger and turnover, isn't it?
37:28You could if you were hell-bent on it, I suppose.
37:31No, you have to be hell-un-bent.
37:34It's the bend in the plough which turns the thing over.
37:37So that can't work.
37:39So it must be the damned air pump.
37:42It can't be, can it?
37:44Yes, flash the card, Vet.
37:47LAUGHTER
37:49It's Christopher Timothy who gave the definition of an air pump.
37:53No, mine here, vellink.
37:55Invented it, he says.
37:57But he didn't...
38:00Well done, Chris.
38:05No, nothing to do with that.
38:07Who gave the true definition?
38:09You must see it, it's there somewhere.
38:12It wasn't me, what a surprise.
38:14I'm so sorry.
38:20It's getting all that butter out of the field.
38:23No, it's nothing to do with butter, it's skimming the top off.
38:26With a plough? With a skimming plough.
38:29More than my position's worth to go further than that.
38:32So, anyway, the score is 4-3.
38:34It's 4-all.
38:36It says 4-3. I think it's 4-3.
38:39Well, we never know. Let's get on and have Hooda.
38:43Frank, it's your turn.
38:45Hooda was the bane of Victorian pickpockets.
38:52Because in, sort of, Kent,
38:55Hooda was a chap who'd taken measures against being pickpocketed.
39:01Good, if you sewed fishhooks inside your hip pocket,
39:06you'd be a Hooda.
39:08If you wired your watch train to a burglar alarm, Hooda.
39:13If you kept your wallet in your sock, Hooda.
39:18Hooda.
39:21It's nonsense, isn't it?
39:24We'll see.
39:26Now, Richard Ingram.
39:28Hooda is, in fact, an Indian word.
39:32And it refers to a sort of cattle cake,
39:37which is used by farmers, or what they would call them in India, I don't know,
39:42during the rainy season to feed to their cattle.
39:48And these chunks of cattle cake
39:51are made up of the husks of millet and maize
39:55and things that grow in India.
39:59Now, Clare, what do you think?
40:02Oh, no, what do you think? I mean, what do you mean?
40:04Yes, what would you say?
40:06A Hooda is a rustic covering for a shock of corn.
40:11And it is a sheaf of corn which is placed slantwise
40:15on top of the shock of corn,
40:17and it acts as a primitive covering against rain.
40:22Yes, that's nice.
40:24It's a sort of cautious person who guards against pickpockets.
40:29It's part of a stook of corn.
40:32It's something to do with laying a bit over the top to keep the rain off.
40:35And it's Indian cattle cake.
40:38Patrick, your choice.
40:43Unfortunately, Richard Ingram is feeding kettles...
40:47Sorry, a slip of the tongue.
40:50...with things that grow in India.
40:52He doesn't know anything about it at all.
40:55Feeding kettles with things that grow in India.
40:57You're a great help.
40:59Or is it?
41:02So obviously a Hooda must be a thing that hoods something,
41:05but who's going to sew fishhooks in the hip pocket
41:10and walk away from it?
41:12Exactly.
41:14I think it's a thing for hooding straw, or do I?
41:19I do.
41:21You're going to choose that?
41:22Yes.
41:23Well, it was young Clare Falkenbridge who said that.
41:25Was she telling the truth, or was she telling a fib?
41:29You're right!
41:31APPLAUSE
41:37So isn't that nice?
41:39That's exactly what Clare said it was.
41:41It's something you put over the corn to keep it a bit dry, not all that dry.
41:45And I'm going to draw stumps at this point, because isn't it nice?
41:49There are no winners, there are no losers.
41:51For all, clap both of them.
41:53APPLAUSE
42:05Very nice, very agreeable.
42:07We'll have some more pre-electric definitions from the OED next week.
42:11Until then, goodbye from Christopher Timothy.
42:14APPLAUSE
42:16Richard Inglis.
42:19Barbara Kellerman.
42:23Clare Falkenbridge.
42:26Patrick Campbell.
42:28Thank you.
42:32And goodbye.
42:37APPLAUSE