Jargon QI

APPLAUSE

Gooooood evening,

good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening

and welcome to an episode of QI that is jam-packed with J words.

Joining me to joust and jostle

in tonight's J-themed jamboree are the jazzy Bill Bailey...

APPLAUSE

..the jest-propelled Jimmy Carr...

APPLAUSE

..the jasmine-scented Victoria Coren...

APPLAUSE

..and that jolly jackanapes Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

We have fantastically obscure and recondite J buzzers.

Bill goes...

STRING MUSIC

-That's a jarana.

-Oh, it's jarana, yes.

It's a Mexican percussive...

Yes, you strum it. With a "J"... (PRONOUNCED "H")

Exactly. Victoria goes...

STRING MUSIC

That's a Finnish instrument called a jouhikko.

And Jimmy goes...

I don't imagine I'll get this.

STRING MUSIC

Good.

LAUGHTER

Correct. Well, I think we both know. Tell them.

It's actually a Russian instrument. It's a jalalaika.

Finally, Alan goes...

BOING!

LAUGHTER

-Jewish harp.

-It is.

It was originally called a jaws harp

because it's played in the mouth like that.

Anyway, to get you in the mood,

what do these unfamiliar J words mean?

-There are lots of them.

-Janker. I've heard of jankers.

-That's an army thing, isn't it?

-Yes. Jankers is an army punishment.

Cleaning latrines or peeling 10,000 spuds.

That's right, you're put on jankers.

It looks like lots of them are minced oaths.

What was that? A minced...?

A minced oath. Like saying "fudge" or "sugar".

Like a bowdlerised version of a swear word.

Like saying, "by... carbonate of soda."

Or "shut the front door!"

LAUGHTER

Or fu...crying out loud!

-Have you ever said that?

-What, fu-crying...

-Fu-crying out loud?

Works very well. Or fu-Christ's sake.

For photographers that follow you.

"Why don't you just f...otograph someone else?"

LAUGHTER

A jollop?

It's a juice, some sort of unguent. Some sort of...

A jollop is actually a turkey's wattle.

I'm going to say, "bluff."

LAUGHTER

Sorry, is it the wrong game?

It's a good word, yeah.

-Or it can mean a strong liquor.

-Jollop - a strong liquor?

-Don't.

-I didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything. I was going to, but I didn't.

A jentacular, jentacular...

Is this what friends of Jennifer Aniston say how she looks before she goes out?

LAUGHTER

No. It means "pertaining to breakfast".

-It does not.

-Why? Why do you need that, though?

-In your life?

-Well, you have a lunchy word. It's a lunchy type of thing.

-It's a breakfasty type of thing.

-What's a lunch word, then?

LAUGHTER

-So you would say toast is a bit jentacular?

-Yeah.

This toast is jentacular! LAUGHTER

When has anyone ever said that, ever?

These are unusual words, I grant you.

-So we don't need to know that word, is what you're saying?

-No.

So I need to forget that now

cos that's taken vital space I need for pin numbers,

really useful things, in my brain.

Not what I should say about breakfast. "Ooh, it's 11!

"Oh, it's unjentacular! What an idiot!"

LAUGHTER

-Here to astonish you...

-Go on.

One of these words on this board has 28 separate meanings.

I'm going to put those meanings up. Tell me which word it is.

Back passage, vagina, penis.

-AUDIENCE: Jobbie!

-Junt!

Jobbie, you think?

-Jigger.

-We're getting a lot of jiggering from the audience.

-It must be jigger.

-I'm with jigger.

-Jigger is the right answer.

I'm going to share five points with Victoria

and five points with the audience.

CHEERING

The word jigger has all those definitions.

It's a measuring device - a jigger of rum.

A snooker rest, an odd-looking person, Bill.

Sorry, just an odd-looking person. A distillery.

LAUGHTER

Don't say vagina and point to me.

LAUGHTER

-Again.

-Penis and...

LAUGHTER

Woman's coat. That's a nice... thingummy.

People do complain that there aren't any good words for vagina.

There's no way of saying it that sounds nice.

Jigger is not the answer.

LAUGHTER

I think twinkle cave.

LAUGHTER

Twinkle cave?

APPLAUSE

It's a less offensive term for a fu-fu.

So jigger is back passage, vagina, penis...

-Well, that's confusing right there.

-Straightaway.

"Just stick it in me jigger." "What?"

"You're going to have to be more specific, love."

"Do you mean jigger one or jigger two?"

It's also a golf club. So if you ask your caddy, "Do you think

"I should pull my jigger out for this shot? What do you think?"

Yeah, get your jigger out,

rest it on your jigger, stick it in my jigger, mind the jigger.

What about Ouija board? You're at a party.

"Let's all put our fingers together on your jigger."

LAUGHTER

"It's moving. Is it doing that by itself or are we making it?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Potter's wheel.

That's what they used to put on the TV when they ran out of programmes.

"Put the jigger on. NOT THAT ONE!"

LAUGHTER

Revolving. Revolving jigger.

Certain words do double duty. Certain words do triple duty.

Words like jigger seem to do multiple duty.

But what's the one thing we can all agree

Hitler, Stalin and Franco got right

and Mussolini got wrong?

Mussolini surrendered.

Well no, there's something the three moustachioed dictators

loathed and detested

but Mussolini rather liked.

-Erm...

-Pasta.

-Yes.

LAUGHTER

Say what you want about Simon Schama,

he'd never come up with that.

Let's stick with the letter J.

-Jackets with jeans, like Clarkson.

-No.

Oh! Was it double denim?

That again doesn't begin with J.

-J, J, J, jizz...

-The 20th century...

Yes! You're close.

I'm close?

20th century. You only got one vowel out.

-Jazz!

-Jazz! Jazz music.

APPLAUSE

I disagree with this question.

Our very, very naughty people have suggested

that Hitler, Stalin and Franco were right for disliking jazz.

I personally love jazz.

So you're saying that Hitler didn't like jazz?

Not just didn't like it.

-The more I hear about this guy, the less I like him.

-I know.

I know. I agree. Jazz was, to the Germans, inimical.

They thought it was total evil.

It was completely against everything they stood for.

Mussolini, oddly enough, for all his faults -

and let's face it, they were many and grievous -

he listened to jazz in private. His son, Romano,

was one of post-war Italy's most celebrated jazz musicians.

He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Chet Baker.

You can't get much higher than that in the jazz world.

Wasn't that Hitler's thing with comedy? He didn't like Jewish comedy

cos he if you laugh with someone, presumably the same with music -

if you enjoy their music, you couldn't hate them.

What you are experiencing there is cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is exactly right.

I think you'll find that's it.

Take the audience through cognitive dissonance.

Never mind them, take me through cognitive dissonance.

It's exactly what you described -

the ability to hold two opposing opinions at the same time.

They seem to contradict each other, but actually humans can do that.

Here's cognitive dissonance.

Here I am on QI, like you see on the television.

It's quite nice, everyone seems nice, I'm having a nice time.

And yet, we've had the question, "What did Hitler get right?"

Which is exactly what my grandmother told me would happen if I went on television.

LAUGHTER

Last night, I had an anxiety dream about coming on here.

I was so terrified of it. In the dream, I was sitting here.

I think I was on the other side.

-An you were asking the question very sternly.

-No.

-Yes.

The question was, "Why was the March Hare so important to the Aztecs?"

LAUGHTER

I didn't know the answer. And I... "Do they worship it?"

And the screens went, "Worship it! Worship it!

LAUGHTER

Which was absolutely terrifying.

Stephen, ask the question. Let's make it happen.

I'm such an amateur, I didn't even Google the answer.

That's an amazing dream. That's very specific. It's not like...

I dream, "Oh, I went up to the shops and bought some milk and bread."

I wake up and go, "Where is it?"

I thought, "I'm sure I went up the shop and got it but...

"That's a crazy dream. Must have been that blue cheese I had last night."

But that's really...

Yeah, definately the blue cheese was the issue.

"Blue cheese."

Were you actually asleep?

Or was this a sort of premonition?

-We'll find out.

-Yes, we will.

-Can we just confirm, this is happening now?

-Yes.

We're not in one of Vicky's dreams, cos that would be...

That'd be brilliant!

You could be the March Hare. I'll be the Aztecs...

-Bring it on.

-Let's get some blue cheese.

LAUGHTER

So, now, here are four J birds.

What immediately comes to mind when you look at them?

-Wings.

-It's J I'm after.

There is something that allows you to recognise them

that a bird-spotter would call their...

-Jizz.

-Yes!

-Yes.

-You knew that?

-I'm a twitter, aren't I?

-Yes!

APPLAUSE

Jizz is an acronym, not...

don't think of where you might think it's going.

It's the General Impression, Size and Shape.

It came from being able to spot planes in the war.

You could spot the outline of planes from underneath.

It was a military term, GISS,

-but birders use it too.

-Everything you say is believed by many

but unfortunately, there's no evidence for that.

So while you got the word absolutely right

and there are points pouring your way,

-the actual explanation is not proven.

-So there'd be a book

or I could look up the internet at home, "Jizz on birds," and that is fine.

Yes.

LAUGHTER

Absolutely right.

I've got a lot of growing up to do, is all I know.

The pop etymology is that it might be "just is".

In other words, you can't say specifically

why that aeroplane is Spitfire or that bird is a siskin. It just is.

Or even "gist", the essence, the gist.

-Yeah.

-But no-one's quite sure.

The other kind of jizz is a contraction of the word jism.

-What does that mean?

-Jism, jisar, jisat, jisarum.

-I could tell you where it comes from. I could show you!

-No!

LAUGHTER

You're not to do that.

-Again.

-Too late?

-Yes.

Jism has a meaning. Can you imagine what jism might mean?

It means spirit or energy.

-Yeah. "I withhold my jism. I deny them..."

-You shouldn't do that.

Is that meant to encourage us? What's that doing?

LAUGHTER

-It's spiritual energy.

-Oh, yeah, sure(!)

That looks like we're trying to sell some sort of massage CD.

-Here's a top jizz fact.

-Go on.

Imagine one little sperm.

Tiny-winey little sperm.

They're very, very small.

You couldn't see it with the naked eye.

No bigger than an acorn.

You know about computers and memories and things.

They have information on them,

which is expressed in terms of bytes, kilobytes or megabytes.

How much information do you think is in the DNA of one little sperm?

I think it just says, "Swim."

-So - what, one bit?

-One bit.

-One bit.

-One bit of information - swim that way.

Either one bit or one trillion bits.

It's 37.5 megabytes.

Which means that a normal ejaculation...

-Talk about your hard drive.

-..represents...

LAUGHTER

Is this...just after you've logged off?

Just going to plug in my dongle, Bill.

How many more of these can we...?

-Before we go home.

-As long as it's not a floppy.

You can still hold a lot in a floppy.

A normal male ejaculation, if there is such a thing...

I came here to talk about the Aztecs.

LAUGHTER

Will you accept my personal apology, Victoria?

..is equivalent of 15,875 gigabytes.

That's 15.8 terabytes.

That's about 7,500 laptops' worth of information in one ejaculation.

It's gone to waste, just thrown away.

LAUGHTER

-Well, not necessarily.

-Down the end of a SoC.

LAUGHTER

-Stop it.

-What? He started it.

LAUGHTER

Yes, jizz, as you knew as a bird-spotter,

is that indefinable something, the shape, the gait, the outline

that allows you to identify a bird. But we have

the four birds we showed you.

-Thought you were going to say, "We have some jizz."

-No!

"We have some birds you can identify here by their jizz."

-We literally do.

-Oh, look.

Yep. They all begin with J, that's your clue.

-I'm going to say that's a jayhawk.

-That's not a hawk, is it? Look at it.

-What are you saying?!

-That, swooping down and picking up a rabbit?

Look, that's it to scale, Bill. That's the size of it.

Oh, right. Oh, it's a long way off.

-It's massive!

-Have you seen a hawk's beak and eye?

A hawk's... Yes! It's not the common hawk.

It's a raptor. That's not a raptor,

that's a flipping flycatcher or something.

-You are very good, it's a flycatcher.

-It's a flycatcher,

-there you go.

-He is good, he is good.

Yeah, don't mess with a jizzmeister.

Hey, I was second on that.

-No, you weren't, you weren't even close.

-I came second.

-A hawk?

You just mentioned a type of bird,

-that's not coming second.

-Stick up the next one. I'm sure I'll get it.

Just to finish it, that was a flycatcher,

it was a Juan Fernandez tit-tyrant.

LAUGHTER

-A crested...

-Oh, God, here we go again.

Wait a minute.

Oh, tit-tyrant, oh...

"A Juan Fernandez tit-tyrant."

A crested, spotty-chested member of the tyrant flycatcher...

A spotty-chested member?

There are points for knowing where the Juan Fernandez Islands are.

SPLUTTERS: Breast Cock Lane?

That's the spirit!

APPLAUSE

Now you're getting it.

You are getting into it very much.

-The Juan Fernandez Islands?

-Somewhere in South America.

-Chile.

-Chile.

-Fair enough, yep, OK. The next bird, this black one here.

It's some sort of... What is that, a bird of para... No, that's not...

It's got massive green...feet.

It's a weaver bird, in fact.

If I tell you it's a weaver bird,

-you'll probably know it comes from...?

-Yorkshire.

LAUGHTER

Yeah.

-It's Jackson's widowbird.

-Jackson's widowbird?

-The next one.

-At least name the type of bird that it is.

-Jabiru, it's a stork.

-And it is a jabiru, correct answer.

-Yes, of course.

-Very good.

APPLAUSE

This man is good.

That is a jabiru, it's a stork,

and it can be five foot tall with a nine-foot wingspan.

It's a hell of a stork. Well spotted. This man is impressive.

-Oh, thank you.

-OK, and the last one.

Oh, it's very punk rock, it's from...

I would say it's from the '70s.

JEW'S HARP

Jedward.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

We'll allow you that.

I think he could be called the Jedward bird from now on,

it does have another J word.

-Do you know what type of bird that is, Bill?

-It's, erm...

-Hawk. It's a hawk!

-Look at the size of its beak!

-How can it pick up a rabbit?

-Those are oranges!

-It's actually a waxwing.

-It's a waxwing.

-It's a Japanese waxwing.

-Oh, it's a Japanese one!

-Japanese waxwing,

found in Japan, China and Eastern Russia. Very good. OK.

What did Watson do twice as often as Holmes?

Oh, I don't want to say now.

-I guess he had more time on his hands.

-Stick with it.

What did he do twice...?

Oh, I do know. It's, er...

it's, er...ejaculate.

Ejaculate is the right answer!

APPLAUSE

This is the one thing I know about Sherlock Homes

because it's in the book. It's an old term meaning to...

To exclaim, expostulate.

He constantly... "'But, Holmes!' I ejaculated" you get a lot.

-I mean, the books are brilliant anyway.

-They are.

But every 20 pages, that happens and you go...

SNIGGERS

Yes, there are 23 ejaculations in the canon, as it's known.

-They call it the canon?

-Christ!

The canon is the...

-And one up the spout.

-Oh, Christ.

As in the word "canonical".

-I give to you the canon.

-Yeah.

-Stand back!

There's approximately 23 ejaculations.

48 terabytes of information are coming your way.

-Stand by!

-You're a very lucky lady.

-Watson ejaculates 11 times.

-Christ on a bike!

Holmes on one occasion refers to Watson's ejaculations of wonder

being invaluable to his art.

Watson does ejaculate from his very heart

in the direction of his fiancee. Holmes gives six,

but there is one where it's quite hard to tell who it is. So...

-That can happen, Stephen, yeah.

-Who's ejaculating here?

Let's just, let's just...imagine.

"So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat,

"when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up."

LAUGHTER

-"I found..."

-Have you ever been woken up by a sudden ejaculation?

-Stop!

-We've talked enough about your dreams.

There's a fellow called Phelps in the wonderful story The Naval Treaty.

He ejaculates three times, actually.

The only other ejaculator is Mrs Sinclair's husband,

who ejaculates from a second-floor window.

LAUGHTER

This is the most fun I've ever had on this show.

So, now, who first used the expression "OMG?"

-Was it Hannah Montana?

-It wasn't Hannah Montana.

-That was my guess.

-It was a good guess, a reasonable guess.

-I'm guessing

-that in the past, it's meant something else.

-No, as "Oh, my God."

-"Oh, my God..."

-Jesus.

-Not J...!

LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

No, this is genuinely a use of OMG in a communication.

Is it going to be on a Morse Code...?

No, though funnily enough, you're in the right area, it was...

-Military?

-Kissinger?

Not military, naval. It was two of the great naval figures

of the First World War.

-Who was the First Lord of the Admiralty during the...?

-Oh!

-Erm, I have no idea.

-Churchill.

-Winston Churchill.

But the great Lord Fisher, in 1917, wrote a letter to Winston Churchill

saying, "I hear that a new order of knighthoods is on the tapis",

meaning on the carpet.

"OMG, shower it on the Admiralty."

-Hmm!

-So there you are - "Oh, my God."

What year was that, sorry?

-1917.

-OMG.

-Yeah, OMG.

-That's a really good fact.

-That's a good fact, isn't it?

Can we be certain he meant "Oh, my God"?

Yes, definitely, he put "Oh, my God" in brackets afterwards.

He wrote, "OMG, brackets, Oh, my God."

That rather ruined the point of abbreviating it to save time!

As he was the first user, I guess he had to explain it.

"OMG, by which I mean, of course, the longer expression Oh, my God."

Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Abbreviations in 1942

contained dozens of SMS-friendly examples such as "agn" for again,

"mth" for month and "gd" for good.

So they pre-existed.

But I heard someone vocalise "LOL". I actually heard...

Someone said "LOL" as opposed to laugh.

It was two kids in the street, told them a joke

and she went "lol", like that.

-Rather than laugh?

-Rather than laugh.

-That's just some horrible post-Orwellian nightmare.

-It is.

How amazing is that going to be at stand-up gigs? If people just...

An audience starts going "lol"?

Let's just try it.

After three, just say the word "lol" with as little expression as you can.

Here we go. One, two, three.

AUDIENCE: Lol.

Tim Minchin has actually suggested

that because people don't laugh out loud when they say "LOL",

he suggests "MAS - mildly amused smirk."

Which could be quite good,

-because that's what happens.

-Or "NELI" is another one you could have.

N-E-L-I, "Not even laughing inwardly."

But you'll be impressed to know

that in 1659 is the first use of "to unfriend."

Which we thought was a modern Facebook phrase.

But "to unfriend" was used by Thomas Fuller,

who wrote to theologist John Heylyn,

"I hope, sir, that we are not mutually unfriended

"by this difference which hath happened betwixt us."

Yes, and then I believe his friend wrote back

-that he "liked" that message.

-Yes, exactly.

Anyway, where do Arabic numbers come from?

Ooh.

I...don't know.

Interesting fact, though, the oasis is about 110 miles that way.

No, that's the chart position. In...

LAUGHTER

..in the Yemen.

-They're not as big there, are they?

-Nah, they don't like it.

-What do we mean by Arabic numbers?

-We mean the ones we use, don't we?

I presume you mean how people who speak or write Arabic write numbers.

-No, we call our numbers Arabic numbers.

-Do we?

I thought our numbers... OK.

Roman alphabet and Arabic numerals.

And Gregorian...chanting.

And French...pastries.

-Come on, you must know this.

-Danish pastries, German mustard...

Is it Persia?

-No, it's not Persia.

-It's not going to be in Arabia, is it?

-It's not Arabia.

-It's just outside Arabia. Arabia Parkway.

It's actually Hindu. In Arabic they call them Hindu numbers.

In fact, in Arabic numbers we have very little in common.

You can see a car number plate here and you'll see that on the left

is 29-5994

and on the right, that is the Arabic for 29-5994.

And as you see, it's only the 9 that is actually the same.

-So they're not Arabic numbers at all.

-No, we tend to call them that.

We should start... Let's call them Hindu numbers.

We should call them Hindu numbers, exactly right.

Or we could call them "numbers".

Yeah, but what's the fun in that?

Yeah, quite. I want you to tell me, because it's quite interesting,

and that's the name of the game,

which is the only number in the English language

which, when written out, is in alphabetical order?

Erm...eight.

-No.

-OK, well, seven.

-43.

Eight is good, but I comes after G.

OK, I'm going to have to guess,

-because there's not enough time and I'm dyslexic.

-One. Two.

-Two.

-No.

-Three.

O comes before T.

So they have to be in alphabetical order.

-Oh, I see. Ohh.

-Forty.

Yes! Well done.

APPLAUSE

Very good.

Were you going through all the numbers?

I bet I was going through all the numbers at the same time you were.

-40 is the one.

-Alan was on three when you got there.

You three were all talking and we're sitting going,

(MUTTERING) "No, not that one, no..."

All right. Why was the March Hare so important to the Aztecs?

No!

APPLAUSE

You see?

The thing is, Victoria,

whatever you dreamt was the answer IS the right answer.

Yeah, but I know the answer isn't, "Did they worship it?" Because...

ALARM WHOOPS

I think you'll find I said that's NOT the answer.

What the answer actually is, I don't know.

Why is a raven like a writing desk? It's that sort of question.

-It is.

-Maybe for years people will now debate this.

50 years from now, people will be asking,

"Why was the March Hare important to the Aztecs?"

There is a kind of answer that maybe your subconscious somehow knew.

They worshipped rabbits, not hares.

So some part of your brain knew that Aztecs worshipped rabbits.

-They honestly...? Aztecs worshipped rabbits?

-It's true.

I swear to you I didn't know that.

I swear, and I think they're going to believe me.

I'll go even further than this.

There are many people who believe

that the rabbits that the Aztecs worshipped were jackrabbits,

which are, in fact, technically a type of hare.

-And a J word, which makes it even better.

-And a J word.

-This is spooky!

So, Victoria Coren...

Burn the witch!

APPLAUSE

Witch!

-Absolutely spooky.

-You didn't see that one coming,

and yet you did.

I dreamt a thing that I didn't think I knew

-that you say is nearly a fact beginning with J?

-Yeah.

This world is far more mysterious than we give it credit for.

Isn't it just? I know. Which brings us to the scores!

I don't know whether to do this backwards or forwards.

I'll go backwards, actually, with our last place. It's noble

but it's -22. Jimmy Carr!

APPLAUSE

I took a few for the team! I took a couple for the team.

But I'm always happy to see,

in somewhere as high as third place, Alan Davies with -6!

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

And this is astonishing. With +10, Bill Bailey.

I never get +10.

-Really? Really?

-No.

APPLAUSE

And the madwoman who dreams of Aztecs and hares,

Victoria Coren on +13!

APPLAUSE

Well, that's all from Victoria, Jimmy, Bill, Alan and me.

Be gloriously good to each other, thank you and goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd