This Trail Doesn’t Rhyme with Purple
When fall 2022 started, I decided to get back into the habit of hiking on Saturday mornings. I’ve been concentrating on just a few places, with some relatively easy walks to readjust. I’ve been to Norris Dam a number of times because it’s not too far away and has some good options to do some “make your own” hikes. The trail I took is a combination of the Lakeside Trail, the Christmas Fern Trail, the Tall Timbers Trail, and a bit of the Highpoint trail. It’s a favorite walk of mine.
On this trip, I was listening to a relatively new favorite podcast of mine, Something Rhymes with Purple, a fun podcast about English etymology and other aspects of language. The hosts are Susie Dent, a lexicographer that I first became aware of from the show 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, a comedy version of a regular UK gameshow called Countdown. Dent’s role is to be in Dictionary Corner, where she adjudicates the words proposed by the players from a series of randomly drawn letters. She has worked with the Oxford English Dictionary and her knowledge of the history of English words is vast. I highly recommend following her on Twitter (@susie_dent), particularly for her word of the day posts, where she introduces followers to words from English history that feel very useful (and often quite topical).
Susie Dent is joined on the Something Rhymes with Purple podcast by Gyles Brandreth, a presenter that I became aware of through his appearances on UK shows like Just a Minute and QI (Quite Interesting, not Quercus Ilicifolia). He has a genuine love for language, but his role on the show seems to be to facilitate opportunities for Dent to dig into the origins of words and to tell a few anecdotes (which often involved name dropping of famous people with whom he has come in contact).
I’ve very much enjoyed the show and I consider myself one of the Purple People, as fans of the podcast are often called. I found it serendipitous that I was listening as I looked up to see the purple blaze of the Christmas Fern Trail.
