Away With Words - Season 1

First aired: 9/15/1998 13 episodes
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Episodes

1. Episode 1

Aired: 9/15/1998

Programme one sees him joining the circus at Great Yarmouth's Hippodrome, where he makes the acquaintance of a friendly pachyderm (elephant), and finds out why we refer to chaotic situations as a "three-ring circus".

2. Episode 2

Aired: 9/22/1998

AWAY WITH WORDS, presenter Neil Innes falls foul of the Roundheads (while dressed as a Cavalier), gets nosy about Cromwell, tries to get ahead with a wig, and discovers a taste for eel pie, as he sets about probing the history which lies hidden in everyday words and phrases. The second programme in the series plunges him into the midst of Civil War hostilities, where he swiftly discovers the origins of phrases like "keep your powder dry" and "a flash in the pan".

3. Episode 3

Aired: 9/29/1998

Neil Innes has fun beside the seaside, exploring words and sayings which take him from cockle-fishing to Cockney rhyming slang. Southend, and neighbouring Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, prove the perfect places to enjoy a range of traditional seaside delights from making candy floss and playing bingo, to having his fortune told and joining the fancy footwork at the Cliff Bandstand where he finds out how dances like the rumba, fox-trot and waltz got their names.

4. Episode 4

Aired: 10/6/1998

AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes is off to Newmarket to dabble in the sport of kings and find out what the richness of the language owes to the riches of the racetrack. A surprising number of everyday words and expressions derive from horses, gambling and money, as Neil reveals. He also has fun tracing the royal connections which helped put Newmarket on the map. From the history of racing, to the photo finish, it's odds-on that Neil will find plenty to talk about, hopefully without losing his shirt!

5. Episode 5

Aired: 10/13/1998

Neil Innes gets to grips with more of the English language in a programme which ranges from real tennis to Romeo and Juliet. Juliet's big poser 'What's in a name?" provides the perfect excuse for Neil to climb into costume and discover the enormous debt our everyday speech still owes to William Shakespeare. While a visit to a real tennis court serves to uncover the origins of some of the sport's idiosyncrasies (like the scoring). And where better than Cambridge, to find out why students "graduate", who makes a "chum", and how to stay out of someone's "bad books'. A trip to the tailor's reveals, among other things, where the term "the full Monty" originated. And, punting down the river, there's time to contemplate how Cambridge itself came by its name.

6. Episode 6

Aired: 10/25/1998

He doesn't eat his hat, but presenter Neil Innes does tuck into a curry when AWAY WITH WORDS takes a closer look at what the English language owes to foreign cultures and far-away places like the sub-continent of India. Heading for Luton and Bedford, Neil finds himself on a journey which takes him from a Hindu temple to a hat factory, and ends with him rubbing shoulders with Royalty. There is an introduction to the oldest surviving written language of all when Neil visits Luton's Hindu Mandir Temple, and goes on to discover that everyday words like juggernaut, pundit and ginger all share their origins in ancient Sanskrit.

7. Episode 7

Aired: 11/1/1998

It is all grist to the mill for presenter Neil Innes, when he manages to coinbine beer-tasting, golf, music and Morris dancing in this week's AWAY WITH WORDS. Neil's latest fun quest for words and their origins, begins in the seaside town of Southwold, where beach-hut names soon give way to pub names, a visit to Adnam's Brewery, and the language of ale. Neil also swings into action on the fairway (and in the rough) as he gets to grips with some of the peculiar names involved in the game of golf. Ringing the changes, Neil meets some bell-ringers at a nearby church tower. And there is more music-making (and beer-drinking) in the Suffolk town of Woodbridge, where he meets violin maker Russell Stowe, enjoys a performance by Martlesham Brass Band, and watches the East Suffolk Morris Men in action. By which time Neil should be able to work out whether he is fit as a fiddle and can blow his own trumpet. Or whether he needs to be taken down a peg or two!

8. Episode 8

Aired: 11/8/1998

More from Neil Innes as he discovers the origins on common words and phrases. This episode is based around the beach and hot air balloons.

9. Episode 9

Aired: 11/15/1998

AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes takes to the skies as he follows the English language to America - and back - in this week's edition of the fun programme about words and their origins. Beginning with a look at some of the Imperial War Museum's collection of fighter planes at Duxford near Cambridge, Neil visits two wartime airfields, and an American air force base, to explore the ways in which common words and phrases have criss-crossed the Atlantic - by sea on the Mayflower; by air with the American forces and on celluloid with the movies.

10. Episode 10

Aired: 11/22/1998

Smuggling, seafaring and superstition are all on the agenda when AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes finds himself trawling for the origins of more everyday phrases - and lands in deep trouble with the law. Exploring the language of customs and excise along a Suffolk, coastline which is no stranger to smuggling activities, Neil soon finds the long arm of the law reaching out to nab him. Then it is off to the dungeons with him ... in Norwich Castle. There is a garden encounter with Norwich witch, Naomi, before Neil heads back over the county border for a good night's sleepwalking in Woodbridge! Quitting his bedroom at the Suffolk town's Bull Hotel, a pyjama clad Neil is soon breaking all the rules to illustrate some everyday superstitions. Finally, Away with Words sets sail on board the Excelsior, a traditional Lowestoft trawler, built in 1921, where Neil is soon busy learning the ropes, and discovering why sailors were required to "show a leg".

11. Episode 11

Aired: 11/29/1998

More from Neil Innes on words and their origins. In this episode Neil goes to the Physio.

12. Episode 12

Aired: 12/13/1998

AWAY WITH WORDS gets into dictionaries, codes and computers as presenter Neil Innes boldly goes into cyberspace in pursuit of the development of the English language. The fun series, which probes the unlikely origins of everyday words and phrases pays a call to the Cyber Café in Milton Keynes to see where words fit in to the web-wide world of modern technology. Neil also visits Bletchley Park where top-secret wartime code-breakers struggled to crack the German Enigma machine, and sees why the world's first electronic valve computer was named Colossus. Before the programme is over, he gets to drive a tank, and a very smart car.

13. Episode 13

Aired: 12/20/1998

Enlisting the unlikely help of a large St Bernard dog, a group of Roman soldiers, and some Anglo Saxon villagers, presenter Neil Innes sets out to answer the question. "Who are the English?" in this, the last of the series probing curious corners of the English language. And as he continues his fun journey round the region probing the origins of everyday words and phrases, he is forced to wonder if the reason English has become such a global language is because it came from all over the world in the first place! Joining him on this final voyage of discovery is Henry a three-year-old St Bernard with an appointment at a grooming parlour in Bury St Edmunds.