- 7 hours ago
First broadcast 8th January 2010.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Ronni Ancona
Sandi Toksvig
Jack Dee
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Ronni Ancona
Sandi Toksvig
Jack Dee
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:03Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight is a battle of
00:08the sexes, as QI looks at girls and boys and gender. Let's hear it for the girls!
00:20And huddled under the glass ceiling we have sugar and spice Ronnie M. Conard.
00:28And all things nice, Sandy Toksvig.
00:35But what about a big hand for the boys?
00:40Slugs and snails, Jack D.
00:47And a puppy dog's tail, Alan Davis.
00:55Give, of course, la difference. Let's hear our gender specific buzzers. Sandy goes...
01:02Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!
01:05Ronnie goes...
01:09Jack goes...
01:13And Alan goes...
01:14Hello, darling!
01:18Well, tonight we're on the lookout for outrageous sexism, so if any of you spot an example of it, you
01:23can pull me up short by using your buzzer, or ask one of the boys to do it for you,
01:28if you like.
01:29Yes, that's an example, very good.
01:31It's his artist.
01:31Exactly, you get points for that.
01:33Now, and if you're right, you also might get a cuddle.
01:37Boys, obviously.
01:38No, the boys might get a cuddle.
01:39Oh ho ho ho ho!
01:39Alright, yeah.
01:40That was an example too, yeah.
01:42Anyway, second's out, round one.
01:43Who was traditionally dressed in pink, and called a girl?
01:49Was it Got Kwan?
01:53No, not Got Kwan.
01:54Is it Liberace?
01:55Is it a person from history?
01:56No, traditionally a whole class of people.
01:58A whole class of people?
02:00Traditionally dressed in pink.
02:01The lower class is always dressed in pink, so it's got them.
02:04A living class in that sense, a group of people.
02:05Who are dressed in pink, and called a girl?
02:09A girl, as in a girl describing a group of people?
02:12No, but babies.
02:14Which babies would you dress in pink?
02:15Oh, female babies.
02:16Girls.
02:16So boys used to be?
02:17Boys were.
02:18Boys, boys.
02:18Until the 20th century, the colours were pink for a baby boy, and blue for a baby girl.
02:24How could they be wrong for so long?
02:27Well, maybe we took a wrong turn.
02:29But I'll give you an example of Dressmaker magazine from 1900.
02:32The preferred colour to dress young boys is in pink.
02:35Blue is reserved for girls as it's presumed paler.
02:38And the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger.
02:42And as late as 1927, there was a report about Princess Astrid of Belgium
02:46who had been caught out when she gave birth to a girl because, quote,
02:50the cradle had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the colour for boys.
02:54Isn't that strange when now every shop has a whole sort of pink corner devoted to girls?
03:00I mean, young girls are...
03:01When did this happen?
03:02When did we turn around the other way?
03:03Well, that's insane.
03:05In 1927 they were still talking about pink for boys.
03:07Is it something to do with blue being considered quite serene and it's the colour of the Virgin Mary?
03:13I think that's all part of it, yes.
03:14They just thought blue was a natural pale of female colour.
03:18But even more extraordinary is the word girl.
03:20Right up until mid-15th century...
03:22Always were called girls?
03:23Yes.
03:24Well, all children...
03:27It's not something else.
03:28You're having to rethink everything, aren't you?
03:30Yes, the first extraordinary episode yet.
03:34All children were called girls.
03:36How old girls?
03:37Boy children were called knave girls.
03:40And this is even more confusing for us today.
03:43Girl children were called gay girls.
03:46Yes.
03:47So you had...
03:48I have no problem with that.
03:51Gay girls and knave girls.
03:53I like pink.
03:54See, pink, pink.
03:54I like pink.
03:55Pink make the boys wink.
03:56I...
03:57And I think that's right.
03:58I've known boys who've been complete winkers.
04:00I think it's...
04:02That was a marvellous thing, pink.
04:04Sorry.
04:05It was a bit sexist, wasn't it?
04:07Yeah.
04:08I've only just started.
04:12This is the beginning, my dear.
04:14I'm gonna come down on you like a...
04:16Hello.
04:17Tone of bricks.
04:19You'll be the first boy in my life that's done so.
04:23They can get a man on the moon, but they can't get one on Sandy.
04:35The word boy was only lately applied to a male child.
04:39Before, it just meant a servant.
04:41To say boy meaning like waiter or servant.
04:44Yes.
04:44Troll.
04:44Oh, what the hell went wrong?
04:47It's a very strange thing, isn't it?
04:49Things do change.
04:51And the colour pink...
04:52I mean, everything has to have a pink version of mobile phones.
04:55Is there anything to do with the fact that red used to be the colour for men?
04:58I mean, it was a sort of strong Christian colour.
05:00Uniform.
05:00So I wonder if pink is sort of like a sibling of...
05:02I think it is a mixture of that.
05:03That pink was, yes, considered strong and reddish and male.
05:06And, as you said, blue, the colour of the Virgin Mary and so on, was considered...
05:10I read somewhere that monkeys are attracted to pink.
05:13The females are attracted to pink because the infant primates have got little pink faces.
05:17Oh, that's very good.
05:19That's quite likely.
05:19Did you read that or just see it on a children's television program?
05:23It's certainly true that if you dress a baby in pink, mothers, when picking them up, if
05:27it's not their own child, will tend to have a pink-dressed baby facing them when they hug it,
05:33and a blue-dressed baby facing outwards when they...
05:36Throne out the window.
05:38Throne out the window.
05:39All just facing outwards.
05:41All that information you've got, Stephen, and you're so unlikely to use it.
05:45I read the thing that said that they tried an experiment with chimps, I think,
05:49and they gave them dolls and trucks or engines to play with,
05:55and the boy ones all wanted to play with the trucks and the engines,
05:57and the girl ones played with the dolls.
05:59How weird that is.
06:01It is, I have to say, it is very strange.
06:02I've got two daughters and a son, and my son's the last one,
06:05and when he was born, I thought there were going to be no guns,
06:07no guns whatsoever, so we had no horrible toys,
06:09and honestly, it was about two, and a toilet roll immediately became a machine gun.
06:13It is the most...
06:14You can't fight it, can you?
06:15No, he likes blue and they like pink.
06:17Not with toilet rolls, no.
06:19Depends on the war.
06:20But it goes even more.
06:20I don't fall down for much hope.
06:24But pink, do you know what the traje de luces is?
06:27The what?
06:28Traje de luces?
06:29I thought you'd been unwell.
06:31The suit of lights.
06:33A South American thing, is it?
06:34No, it's the thing Matador wears.
06:36This is often pink.
06:37The Matador's suit, the suit of lights.
06:38Oh, and the lining of his cape is pink.
06:43That's...
06:43That's a painful moment.
06:44Something's going to be pink in a minute.
06:49That was...
06:49That is...
06:50Tear me a new one.
06:51That's me.
06:54Yes, pink is a strange colour too, because it sort of doesn't exist on the spectrum.
06:59It's an extra spectral colour.
07:01Aren't girls more inclined towards the red end of the spectrum?
07:03I think that's true.
07:04Because it varies, foraging.
07:06Yes, having a little look on the savannah and boys running off towards the blue sky.
07:10Is it not some reason why?
07:11Yes, I've heard something similar to that.
07:12Foraging for lipsticks.
07:15They would on trees in primal times.
07:18Do you know that they've done studies of the hunter-gatherer societies and nine tenths of the food is provided
07:23by the women.
07:24And one tenth is provided by the men.
07:26So, the women go, oh, we'll get some berries.
07:28And the men come back.
07:29And honestly, that bison was this close.
07:32Yeah, yeah, have your berry dinner.
07:33That's true.
07:34Well, we saw one, so...
07:36Yeah.
07:37Sort of chance.
07:38Yeah, we'll get him.
07:39Yeah.
07:39Have you got any berries on?
07:41Yeah.
07:43Well, the truth is that pink used to be the colour for boys, and boys used to be called girls
07:48anyway.
07:48So, with all this confusion, what's the best way to get a girl?
07:52Oh, I think...
07:53Hello, darling!
07:54Usually works.
07:59Whoa!
08:03VG.
08:04VG.
08:04If you need any more than that, they're not interested.
08:06No!
08:07Is it to do with swimming badges?
08:11Swimming badges?
08:12Swimming badges?
08:13Yes, well, you know, how some people can swim and they're fantastically fast, but they haven't got a lot of
08:16stamina.
08:17And then some people can swim and they're not very fast, but they've got fantastic stamina.
08:21And boys sperm are the ones who...
08:24Ah, yes.
08:24Boys sperm swim fantastically fast, but they die pretty quickly.
08:28And girls sperm take an awfully long time, so...
08:29Can I just...
08:30There's a flaw in your argument.
08:32Girls sperm, we don't have sperm.
08:34No, no.
08:37I was listening and I had...
08:39You picked up.
08:40Yes, there are lots of theories about it.
08:43Do you know any others?
08:45Oh, is it something to do with diet?
08:47Probably.
08:47Diet is the current one, yes.
08:49For example, calories.
08:51If you had a higher calorie intake before being impregnated, out of 100, 56 had boys.
08:59So you don't want to have cream cakes just before?
09:01If you want a girl.
09:02If you want a girl.
09:03No, exactly.
09:03Also, women who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal a day were 87% more likely to have
09:09boys than those who ate no more than one bowl a week.
09:12Which is quite...
09:13Oh, darling, that's tosh.
09:15That's put out by Kellogg's.
09:18It does look rather extraordinary, doesn't it?
09:21Women who had boys ate about 400 calories more daily than those who had girls on average.
09:26But those people who had Coco Pops had chimpanzees.
09:28I don't...
09:31A very bizarre one.
09:32I don't know whom this would benefit commercially.
09:36Women infected with hepatitis B virus are one and a half times more likely to give birth to a male.
09:41It's not a good reason to get it.
09:42It is a good reason.
09:43No, no.
09:44It's certainly not encouraging it.
09:46But there is one certain way, which is embryo selection, of course, which in America and Thailand in particular is
09:50very popular.
09:52It costs about 18,000 US dollars.
09:54Wow.
09:55A friend of ours had a baby in Thailand.
09:57English couple.
09:58Oh, really?
09:59And the Thai women said,
10:01If you look lovely and you're pregnant, you'll have a girl.
10:05If you look tired and ugly, dress badly, you'll have a boy.
10:10And she said, What do you think I'm going to have?
10:11Boy.
10:16And she did.
10:17And she did.
10:18Oh my God.
10:18It works.
10:21I think there are different species there, the boys and the girls things.
10:23I was walking down the road, I remember, with my two girls and my son.
10:26And we were walking along the high street and my son suddenly went, Ha!
10:29Like this, but no reason.
10:30And the girls and I both turned to him and went, What?
10:33There was probably a secret agent around the corner, yeah?
10:35I did not.
10:36Yeah?
10:37Is that funny?
10:38Actually, Ronnie and I were talking about how wonderful boys are because they live in this
10:41kind of very kind of clear world about themselves.
10:43And when my son was about six, he had a friend over.
10:46And his friend said, What's it like having two mummies then?
10:48He said, It's marvellous.
10:49And he said, If one of them's poorly, you've still got one to do for you.
10:56Ha!
10:57Ha!
10:58Excellent child!
11:00Excellent child, I like.
11:02What did they do for you?
11:03They're glorious self-centers, aren't they?
11:05Well, there are other theories.
11:08Aristotle thought the diet of the mother and the sexual position used at conception made
11:12a difference.
11:12So he was half right, it seems, with the diet.
11:14And Xagoras thought boys and girls came out of different testicles.
11:17So you would tie off the testicle you didn't want the gentleman.
11:21Oh!
11:22And they're just making it up as they go.
11:25Face on nothing at all.
11:28The Talmud suggests aligning the bed north-south before sex, and then you get a boy.
11:33Why don't they just all wait and see?
11:36Yeah, that's the best way, you're right.
11:37The French thought wearing boots to bed might help having a boy.
11:42What have the boots got to do with it?
11:44I have no idea.
11:45It does seem most strange.
11:47Nowadays, you'll find that if you've got the football on, you'll have a boy.
11:51Oh yes, that works.
11:52That would, wouldn't it?
11:53Yeah.
11:53That would definitely work.
11:55If you've got the football on, you'll be lucky to having sex at all.
12:02That's a woman who's lost the will to me.
12:04You'd be surprised how easy it is to get the football on without it being noted.
12:14You don't always need the sound on if you know who's playing.
12:19If you're working...
12:20If you're working...
12:22If you're...
12:24If you're working the remote while you're doing the business...
12:29We've all heard the rustle of a magazine from the other end.
12:34Oh dear.
12:35Yeah.
12:35Are you reading a magazine?
12:37No, no.
12:38No.
12:44Anyway, sex selection is a tricky business.
12:46French folklore suggests wearing your boots in bed, but modern research suggests it's
12:49much all to do with diet.
12:51Now, why don't we have more women as guests on QI?
12:54You may well ask.
12:55Oh, I know this.
12:56No.
12:57No.
12:57No.
12:58No.
12:58No.
12:59No.
12:59No.
12:59No.
13:06That's right.
13:07But we're good at other things.
13:09We're good at raising kittens and knitting cakes.
13:11Yeah.
13:13I've heard this a lot.
13:14I've heard that women aren't funny, and I think there's a truth in this.
13:17I think that there is a scientific relationship between a sense of humour and the male sex organ.
13:23People are always laughing at mine.
13:25Yeah.
13:25Well, there you are.
13:30Is this to do with the fact that people always say there aren't as many female comedians
13:36as there are men?
13:38Because you know what?
13:39There are loads of female comedians.
13:41It's just that we just don't see them because they're systematically rounded up and kept in
13:46a pen just outside Harwich.
13:48Yes, Harwich.
13:50But you can go and see them and you can adopt them online.
13:53Yeah.
13:53You can go and you can visit them and you can feed them lines and you might get a joke
13:57back sometimes.
13:58And then sometimes some of them escape and they disguise themselves as male comedians.
14:03But you can always tell which ones the male comedians is the ones with the beards.
14:08Sure.
14:08The life of Brian.
14:09Bill Bailey.
14:09Bill Bailey.
14:10Bill Bailey.
14:11Nearly a woman.
14:12But you know they're very, it's really rare to be allowed to sit next to a female comedian.
14:17I don't know what they're worried that our cycles will suddenly synchronise.
14:21I'm not.
14:21I'm in disguise.
14:22I'm Laurie Bremner.
14:23I'm doing...
14:23Oh, hello.
14:24You see, because once you get them started they don't shut up.
14:37Oh, I say.
14:41But recent studies appear to have shown an interesting thing which is that women laugh more but they
14:48laugh less at women.
14:52Women laugh more at men.
14:54Audiences generally laugh more at men.
14:57But women themselves do more laughing.
14:59I don't know.
15:00I suppose men are more willing to make pretz of themselves.
15:03There is an element to that.
15:04I mean the really truly great female comedians of course do make pretz.
15:07I do see a bald people like that.
15:09And there's a strange division that girls have either got to be sort of fay and look
15:13slightly stupid or they can, like myself, not terribly attractive, wear a pink jacket
15:17No, stop it.
15:18No, but I mean there's an interesting, there's an interesting thing about, if you think about
15:21the kind of, Goldie Hawn for example, where it played ditzy and is one of the most successful
15:25Hollywood producers of all time.
15:27Yes, very smart but played stupid, yeah.
15:30But just as Sandy says, as a woman they want to sort of categorise you more.
15:34The men and the women, what is she doing here?
15:36Is she doing the fat man-hater thing?
15:38Is she doing the fake?
15:39Certainly, in the early days the sort of modern stand-up movement, it started in the 80s,
15:43almost all female comedians their subject was being a woman.
15:46Whereas male comedians, their subject was not being a man.
15:49In other words, women were treating themselves as if they were a minority.
15:52But in fact, they're 51% of the population.
15:55Women don't have the history in comedy, you know, in the era of the great silent comics.
15:59We're all being tied to a railway track while they were all being, you know, hanging.
16:04Happy days.
16:09There was, I think it was Jermaine Greer who said there are only two things that women
16:12don't do as well as men and that's design dresses and cook.
16:16Which is kind of an amusing thing that actually almost all the great chefs are men and all the great
16:22couturiers are men.
16:23And yet the one thing we used to think about women is, oh, you know, put them in the kitchen
16:27and make them design dresses.
16:28So, according to an American study, if we had more women on the show, the panel would laugh more, but
16:33the audience would laugh less perversely.
16:35Now, where and when would you find the most violent women in history?
16:40Fasildon.
16:41Fasildon?
16:43Fasildon?
16:44Fasildon?
16:45I was going to say first day of the sales.
16:47Ah!
16:48As well.
16:49Well, there have been lots of...
16:51Yeah.
16:51There's a wonderful woman called Princess Kutalun, who was the niece of Kublai Khan, the great Mongol leader.
16:58And Marco Polo says she was the fiercest of all the warriors.
17:00And I love this, okay.
17:02She's the niece of Kublai Khan.
17:03And he reckon she should get married.
17:04So she said, fair enough, I like being a soldier, but I'll tell you what.
17:06I will wrestle any man who wants to marry me.
17:09And if he wins, he can marry me.
17:10And if he loses, he has to give me a hundred horses.
17:13And she ended up unmarried with 10,000 horses.
17:17How much do we love her?
17:19Wow.
17:20Yeah.
17:20But, I mean, Amazons and...
17:22Yes.
17:22And the Amazons were a mythical race of warrior women.
17:26Zina.
17:26Zina.
17:26Zina the warrior princess.
17:28Yes.
17:31She was tough.
17:32She may have been mediocre, though, Alan, I hate to say it.
17:35That was a documentary.
17:37Yeah.
17:39I'm not going to be the one to destroy yours.
17:42Does Gaddafi have Amazons?
17:44He has...
17:45Well, he calls them Amazons.
17:46He's...
17:46We're in the right continent.
17:47It's Benin.
17:49Benin?
17:49Yeah.
17:50Hardest women in the world?
17:51Yeah.
17:52It was called Dahomey before.
17:54And the army of Dahomey in the 19th century protected the king.
17:58And they were extraordinary.
18:00There they are.
18:00Wow.
18:01They were very extraordinary women.
18:02They had to be nominal wives of the king, although they were celibate.
18:06Do you not think they look like the wild card on Britain's Got Talent?
18:09Do you not?
18:10Of course.
18:12They were chosen for their aggression.
18:14The husband could actually nominate his wife if his wife was a nag, which seems rather unpleasant.
18:18But they carried a type of switchblade that was capable of cutting a man in two.
18:22Oh.
18:22Oddly enough, some people saw their plight as tragic and said they had to surrender their
18:25womanhood, turn into men, and despise women, where others said, well, they were venerated.
18:29When they walked through the streets, they were accompanied by slave girls ringing a bell,
18:33and all men had to avert their eyes.
18:35See, that might be a better life.
18:36Yeah.
18:37It's like the eunuchs.
18:38The eunuchs had a good life.
18:39Well, you speak for yourself, Alanis.
18:43Don't you sometimes wish?
18:44No.
18:47I quite like the idea of the slave girl walking ahead of me ringing a bell.
18:52Recent statistics have been rather astonishing.
18:54Female violent crime in this country has risen over the last three years by 25%.
18:58Is that to do with alcohol?
19:01Well, yes.
19:02Probably.
19:03Because drunk women have 50% more testosterone coursing about their blood.
19:08They're drinking the wrong thing.
19:13Alcohol causes the stimulation and production of female...
19:16I mean, women have testosterone, just as men have, you know.
19:19Lady things.
19:21Oestrogen and so forth.
19:23Lady things.
19:24Yeah.
19:25Nipples.
19:25Nipples, yeah.
19:28Well, the basic human form is female, isn't it?
19:31Because you start out with two exes and then you get one broken one.
19:34Oh, yes.
19:36That's your basic model.
19:37Basic model is female.
19:39Do you want any of the...
19:40Addons.
19:41Addons.
19:41Yeah, yeah.
19:42It's going to cost you.
19:44Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:45Nice specs.
19:46Leather steering wheel, whatever.
19:47Yeah, let's talk about car for a minute.
19:50We got there in the end.
19:55We got there in the end.
19:55But, yes, that's right.
19:562% fall for boy violent crime and a 25% rise in girl violence.
20:02So there's boys all over Britain going, leave it, it's not worth it.
20:06I won't do it.
20:07Exactly.
20:08You know what she's like?
20:09She starts...
20:11And girl bullying is not nice, is it?
20:13No.
20:14You're very good.
20:14I mean, if you wanted to be, you're very good at mental torture, it has to be so.
20:18Yeah, especially now with the mobile phone, they just keep texting you until you break down.
20:21Oh, yeah.
20:22In the classroom, suddenly girl suddenly goes...
20:26What's happening?
20:27You know, I...
20:27Texting me!
20:28I arrived in this country at the age of 14.
20:30I'd been thrown out of school in the United States.
20:31And I...
20:32It's hard to imagine that, but I arrived with a very thick New York accent.
20:35And I was sent to boarding school.
20:36And for six weeks, nobody spoke to me.
20:38Six weeks.
20:39I know it's like a therapy for me, this program.
20:41And, um...
20:44And then one night we were watching...
20:46I thought, I have to change my accent.
20:47And one night we were watching Brief Encounter.
20:49Yeah.
20:50With Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.
20:51And I thought, I'm going to speak like that.
20:53Oh.
20:54And that's why I sound like I'm trapped in a black and white film.
20:56But it was.
20:57To do with bullying.
20:59To do with bullying.
20:59It's...
20:59Well, you went to your own fair share of bullying at school, Stephen.
21:02It's not...
21:03Yeah, well, sort of.
21:05But I found a very useful one was if you were physically bullied.
21:08It's to say, no, no, no, don't.
21:09You'll give me an erection.
21:12Which, uh...
21:13Works incredibly well.
21:16Well, well...
21:17Well...
21:20It's really, really useful.
21:23You could try.
21:24Don't...
21:24I won't take responsibility.
21:26Anyway, yeah.
21:28Yeah.
21:28Yes, the fighting women of Dahomey were the bodyguard of the 19th century kings of Benin.
21:32Hen-pecked husbands used to volunteer their wives for the job.
21:35Now we're off to China.
21:37What does new shoe mean to Chinese women?
21:41Well, nun shoe is writing.
21:43Is it something to do with writing?
21:44It is.
21:45Do you know what kind of writing?
21:46New shoe is a very particular kind of writing.
21:48It's a region young county in Hunan province.
21:50It was invented entirely by women for women.
21:53It's a lady writing.
21:54It's lady writing.
21:55Only ladies can understand.
21:56Yeah, well, because women were not educated formally at all.
21:59Not even taught how to read and write.
22:00And over centuries, they developed a secret code that they...
22:04Which is actually a phonetic writing.
22:06Unlike Chinese characters.
22:07They haven't covered all these books.
22:08How to poison your man.
22:09Well, kind of.
22:11It's taught new shoe.
22:12And when one of them married, they would be given a book by these secret female friendship groups.
22:17And they'd each write in the book and leave a lot of blank pages so that they could write their
22:21secret thoughts down.
22:22And the men would never be able to read it.
22:24But only other women would.
22:25It's very sly.
22:26Because that's like...
22:27That's like our culture, really.
22:28There's loads of words that women know but men don't have a clue about.
22:32You know?
22:33Like, sorry.
22:34I...
22:35Fidelity.
22:37Responsibility.
22:38Commitment.
22:39We have a secret language in this country.
22:41It's called an instruction manual.
22:43Oh, yeah.
22:43If you want to hide something on your computer from a man, put it in a folder marked instructions and
22:48he will never open it.
22:51It's like a secret language.
22:54Hello, darling.
22:55Sexist.
22:56Sexist.
22:56You're right.
22:57So, once again.
22:59And they would send them because they couldn't take them to their women friends very often.
23:03For what reason?
23:05It's a horrible, gruesome reason.
23:06Oh, because of their feet.
23:07Because of their feet.
23:09Because of their feet.
23:09What did you tell me about?
23:11Lotus.
23:12Well, they're called lotus flowers, weren't they?
23:14When they were very young.
23:16Five years old.
23:17They used to break all the bones in the foot.
23:20And they would bend it.
23:21Bend it right around.
23:23Underneath the foot.
23:24Underneath the foot.
23:25Yeah.
23:25And then it would be.
23:26Three inches.
23:26So they'd be like little.
23:27They'd be like literally.
23:28Yeah.
23:29Little bound.
23:29They'd become the stumps like hoofs.
23:31Yeah.
23:31They'd be jammed into this.
23:33And many of them would rot.
23:34Oh.
23:34Separate, die of gangrene.
23:36And this went on for almost a thousand years.
23:38But how ironic then to come up with a writing system called New Shoe.
23:40Yeah.
23:41It was a bit.
23:48It was a bit.
23:49It was a bit grim.
23:50They would write in tapestry messages to each other.
23:53Yes.
23:53Is that right?
23:53Yeah.
23:54That's right.
23:54The Bay of Tapestry is actually not about the Battle of Hastings at all.
23:57It's a complex soup recipe.
24:02There are other separate languages, aren't there?
24:04I think in Africa there are.
24:06I'm trying to think of whether it's the Bantu or the Zoza people.
24:09That when women go...
24:11Say you and I got married, Stephen.
24:13Yes.
24:14The contingency is a remote one.
24:17I would no longer be allowed to use any syllable that was in your name.
24:21It's the language of respect that women have to use.
24:23Wow.
24:24So say I wanted a stevedore over for a fry-up.
24:30You couldn't say...
24:31Just to please you.
24:32I couldn't say...
24:33You'd have to say adore and up with that.
24:36You couldn't say...
24:36Yeah, I couldn't...
24:37I'd have to say a docker coming in for breakfast.
24:39I couldn't use any of the syllables that are in your...
24:42Is that how Ronnie Barker got started?
24:44I think so.
24:45It would be.
24:46Well of course there are.
24:47I mean there was Pig Latin as a secret language where you take the first syllable and put it at
24:51the end
24:52with an A on the end.
24:53That's it.
24:54Yes, I remember.
24:54So quite interesting would be white K.
24:57It's quite interesting A.
24:59Yes, exactly.
25:00S.E.A.
25:01Yes.
25:02Oh, you scholar.
25:03Interesting in A.
25:05Yeah.
25:08Funny more where that came from.
25:13The Germans have something called Löfelsprache, which I think means spoon speak.
25:17And the French have Lushbem.
25:19And there's Pileshki.
25:20And the Japanese have Babibu Babel, which is their little amusing nonsense language.
25:25But those are nonsense languages where you apply a very simple rule and it sounds very
25:28quickly nonsense.
25:29Like there's a very camp sort of high church one where they call Holy Communion haggers
25:33come haggers and that sort of thing.
25:35They're weird.
25:35And they just go, oh, Jessica Christ.
25:39What do they do?
25:41They do.
25:41They just sound the same in every language I have noticed.
25:44Teenagers.
25:44Yeah.
25:44You can say.
25:47Any language that means yes.
25:50Would you like some more croissant?
25:56It's always the same.
25:57Do you ever say to a teenager, look at me?
25:59They can't look, they can look everywhere else apart from at your face.
26:02Just meet me, meet me, look.
26:06And then when they do eventually concede to look at you, they go.
26:14That's very true indeed.
26:17Anyway, the women of Jang Yong had a secret language all of their own.
26:21And talking of secrets, what does your granny have in common with a killer whale?
26:26Yes, Ronnie?
26:28They've both got stomachs full of plastic bags that they've eaten by mistake.
26:36My granny is actually being hunted by the Japanese for research purposes.
26:43At this very moment.
26:44Free Willy.
26:45No, the thing is actually the Japanese always use the excuse of hunting whales.
26:51They see it's research.
26:52Yeah.
26:52What else do they need to know about a whale?
26:55What else?
26:55Can't they get another book out?
26:57Yeah.
26:58What they mean is we want to research how it tastes in a sandwich.
27:03If it's my Scandinavian granny, it would be the ability to take a single herring and stretch it into a
27:08meal for four.
27:11Oddly enough, you made reference to some particular stage that women go through, which grannies tend to have gone through.
27:17Which you...
27:18The menopause.
27:18You talked about flushes and things.
27:20Flushes, is it a stage?
27:21The menopause, the menopause.
27:22Orca in the menopause.
27:24Well, oddly enough.
27:26Is that why she's jumping out of the water?
27:27She's always hot in there.
27:29Possibly.
27:30Killer whales...
27:31Killer whales are the only animals other than human beings that have this enormous gap between menopause and death.
27:38In other words, they have a menopause and then a very active and useful and happy life.
27:42They're also matrilineal, aren't they?
27:44So the granny would presumably be in charge, I would imagine.
27:47Yes, and it's thought that it's because...
27:49You mentioned this, oddly enough, when you talked about hunter-gatherers and that it was the women who provided the
27:54nutrition.
27:55And it seems that it was often the elder women who gathered the berries and the nutrition that kept.
28:01And so it seems to be a survival, a slow human survival thing that older women are the ones who
28:05actually, the grandmothers, keep the family going and therefore their own genes.
28:10Yeah.
28:11Grannies can be vicious.
28:12I have to say, because the killer whale in captivity can kill its handler and my granny got thrown out
28:16of three care homes.
28:19Wow!
28:20What fool!
28:20I was so proud of it.
28:21Bad behaviour.
28:22Couldn't have been prouder.
28:24They kept ringing up and saying, we need another word.
28:26Oh, granny, not again.
28:27Try and be pleasant.
28:28It is interesting.
28:29When you see, when you see a big family, you see the grandmother and the children and in the middle,
28:35the poor mother.
28:36And the grandmother and the children are so alike.
28:38The grandmothers are being childish and bossy and greedy and the children are being childish and bossy and greedy.
28:44And the poor, we've got this terrible period in between when we are not allowed to be either a child
28:48or a grandmother.
28:50My mother grew up in Maidstone in Kent during the Battle of Britain and their entire street of terraced houses
28:56was bombed apart from their house.
28:58And I said to my mother, why not your house?
29:00She said, oh, granny wouldn't have allowed it.
29:04Excellent.
29:06Maybe then, I think we might all agree, what Britain needs is more grannies.
29:10Yeah.
29:10More grannies.
29:11Power.
29:11Britain's got grannies.
29:12Yeah.
29:13Britain's got grannies.
29:14Oh, God.
29:16Do you not think it would be great if only grandmothers could join the army?
29:19Do you not think it would be the most fabulous thing?
29:21Because, for sure, if you're going to invade somewhere, right, it would take a really long time to organise the
29:25coach.
29:26And then you'd finally get there and everybody would need a wee.
29:32And all the kit would be all crocheted, wouldn't it?
29:35And then you'd show pictures to the people you've arrived, you know, to invade.
29:38You'd say, oh, look at my children.
29:40And there'd be a lot of them.
29:40And then you think, oh, let's have a cup of tea while we've stopped.
29:43And a bit of a tidy, by which time your appetite for fighting would have been diminished over the thought.
29:47And then they'd fiddle around with the government.
29:49Oh, it's not working.
29:50Oh!
29:51And then it would have to constantly be a draught.
29:52What is his name?
29:52Is it like his sister?
29:53Oh!
29:54Oh!
29:56They're so angry at draughts.
29:57Oh!
29:58Oh!
29:59Oh!
30:02Oh!
30:05That's the answer to the world's problems, darling.
30:07Armies of grannies.
30:08Anyway.
30:09Human females are the only mammals, apart from killer whales, known to pass through menopause.
30:14But what's going on here?
30:17Oh!
30:19Yay!
30:20Is it half hen, half cock?
30:22It is exactly half cock, yeah.
30:24It is exactly that.
30:25It's half hen, half cock.
30:27Right down...
30:27A freakish accident?
30:28Down the middle.
30:29It is a freakish accident.
30:30Done by design.
30:31No, it's not done by any kind of scientist.
30:34It's a rare enough thing.
30:35I literally guessed that because of the theme of the program.
30:38Well done!
30:39Yeah, you see.
30:40Using your male intelligence.
30:43Oh, I feel so foolish now.
30:45It's called bilateral gynandromorphic hermaphroditism.
30:49I was going to say that.
30:50Yeah.
30:51We're dealing with chromosomes again.
30:53All cells on one side of the animal, male.
30:56All cells on the right, female.
30:58Doesn't happen in humans.
31:00Oh, I don't know how that would work, though.
31:02Quite a good plan, though, isn't it?
31:03It would be fun, yes.
31:04To the party.
31:05Stand that way.
31:10Lord!
31:11Shall I wipe my bottle with my lady hand on my hand?
31:14Gently or roughly.
31:17But, uh, clownfish.
31:19Do you remember, did you ever see the film Finding Nemo?
31:21Yes!
31:22Yes, that's a clownfish.
31:22A clownfish.
31:23They're fierce.
31:24They are.
31:24I know a bit about them.
31:26They have a relationship with that anemone.
31:28So that anemone is normally poisonous to other fish,
31:32but they are immune to it and they have their babies in there.
31:34And then if you try and get near them, they come at you.
31:36They're quite fierce.
31:38Yep, they are.
31:39Territorial.
31:39Do you know about their gender assignations?
31:42Is it variable?
31:43It is sort of up to them, yes.
31:45What happens is you have one female and one dominant male and the rest are all rather weakly and not
31:50very fit or sexually active males.
31:52And if the female dies, the active male then becomes female and one of the weakling males becomes the alpha
32:01male.
32:02It's sort of really weird.
32:04Isn't that extraordinary?
32:06Yeah, they're very unusual like that.
32:08Rather splendid.
32:09So the story of Finding Nemo and his father would have been a very different...
32:12His father would have been his mother by the time he got to him.
32:16The whole thing would have been very odd.
32:18Where have you been?
32:19Huh?
32:20Huh?
32:21It would have been very strange.
32:23Do you think these animals know that that's what's going to happen to them or they're just instinct?
32:26Do they actually...
32:26Does he know, you know, I hope you don't die because if you...
32:29If you die...
32:30I'm going to have to...
32:31Then I have to have it off with all the other blokes.
32:34I'm not into that.
32:37It's embarrassing.
32:38They wake up one morning and go, oh no, what's happened to me?
32:41The change.
32:43The change.
32:44It is a very strange thought.
32:45Yes, bilateral, gynandromorphic hermaphrodites are male on one side, female on the other.
32:50Do you think that's bizarre?
32:51What should you do if you meet a nun with hairy hands?
32:54I would assume that it was a man on the run.
32:57Yes.
32:58Disguised as a nun.
32:59In the 1940s, there was a big scare about hairy nuns.
33:04It's something to do with the Second World War.
33:05Yeah.
33:06Urban myth now.
33:07It's an urban myth.
33:07They thought that...
33:08Being parachuted?
33:10Nazis were parachuting.
33:11Nazis were coming dressed as...
33:11Yes, basically.
33:12Now look out.
33:13We're expecting them to come as nuns.
33:16Be aware of nuns.
33:17If you see a nun...
33:18Look at the hand.
33:18Check the hand.
33:19Basically, that's right.
33:20They did have it.
33:21Jump to nuns again.
33:22Halt!
33:23Exactly.
33:24They were told that they could be spotted everywhere on buses, tubes and trains from the South Coast
33:27to the Scottish Islands.
33:28They were said to be given away when they reached out a hand to pay their fare or when they
33:31dropped
33:32something and stretched to pick it up, thus revealing the hairiness of their hands and forearms.
33:35In some cases, they might have had Hitler's face tattooed on their arms.
33:40How did they not have covered that up?
33:42What do you think?
33:43You'd have thought, wouldn't you?
33:44If she's driving a tank, that's a giveaway.
33:49Do you ever get women with hair...
33:51I've never seen a woman with hairy hands.
33:52Hairy everything else.
33:53Oh, yes.
33:53Really?
33:54Well, I'm sure.
33:55I don't know any, but there must be...
33:57Because the moustaches, as you say, are common enough.
34:00And hairy legs, obviously.
34:01But you're right.
34:02Back of hand, I've not seen.
34:04Have you ever grown a moustache?
34:06I tried to, for a thing.
34:08Yeah?
34:09Well, it didn't work.
34:10It didn't take.
34:11Didn't really like it.
34:11Did you try it under glass?
34:12Then I found...
34:13Then I had to do a part recently on this.
34:15Oh, can you give it...
34:16We need a couple of weeks' growth.
34:18And it started to go great.
34:19That is deeply upsetting, yes.
34:22That's quite...
34:22And actually about that.
34:23Yeah, I know.
34:24And then my wife told me that you have already got a grey pube.
34:30I said, have I?
34:31Yeah, yeah.
34:33Well...
34:33Or was that someone else?
34:36Oh, oh, oh, oh!
34:41Good point.
34:41That's a fair point well made.
34:43I'll check properly now.
34:45But there were other things to test if someone was German.
34:48Do you know what these might have been?
34:49Have you...
34:49You've said they spoke very good English, but you wanted to check whether they were German.
34:53There were English words.
34:55Particular words that are pronounced oddly.
34:57Words of surnames.
34:58Here are some, for example.
35:00So, what's the top one?
35:01How would you pronounce that?
35:02Fanshaw.
35:02Fanshaw.
35:03Yes.
35:04Did you know that was pronounced?
35:05No, I didn't know that at all.
35:05Chumley.
35:06Chumley, the second one.
35:08Chumley.
35:09Mannering.
35:10Mannering.
35:10I don't know how the bottom is Belvoir.
35:12The bottom is Beaver.
35:14Beaver.
35:14Beaver.
35:14The veil of Beaver.
35:16I'm going to have that if I ever became a dame or anything.
35:19Dame!
35:20Dame, and I don't know it's pronounced Beaver.
35:22LAUGHTER
35:26You could just say that about Toxvic.
35:28Yeah, I could, yeah.
35:29It's pronounced Beaver.
35:33LAUGHTER
35:33He was a member of this aristographic family here.
35:35Tollmash, spelt T-O-double-L-E-M-A-C-H-E.
35:39Tollmash.
35:40There was the Tollmash, Tollmash family.
35:43Double-barrelled, same name.
35:45But, each half was pronounced differently.
35:48Oh, no.
35:49So, it's pronounced Toll-make, Toll-mash.
35:52The Toll-make, Toll-mash is, and they had the longest name in the British Army, one of their number.
35:56Leon Sextus, Dennis Oswald, Freudati, Filius, Toll-make, Toll-mash, to Oriana, Plantagenet, Toll-mash, Toll-mash.
36:03But, is Earl the brother?
36:04Right?
36:05Yes.
36:06Lealf, Idwollo, Odin, Nestor, Egbert, Lionel, Turdmag, Hugh, Chenwine, Saxon, Ezer, Cromwell, Ormond, Neville, Dysart, Plantagenet, Toll-make, Toll-mash.
36:16That was his name, which, the initials spelt out Lionel II.
36:21So, yes, during World War II, it was feared that the German paratroopers would be disguised as nuns.
36:25Now, to break down the walls of mutual misunderstanding with a look at general ignorance.
36:30Oh, dainty fingers and great big mitts on buzzers, if you please.
36:33You're sitting in a dimly lit bar, girls and boys, with a saucy little poppet.
36:37How can you be sure she's not a bloke?
36:41Hello, darling!
36:44You ask her a question, and she asks you a question back, it's a woman.
36:50No, as in, if you say to a bloke, do you know where the post office is, you'll say it's
36:54down there.
36:55And if you say to a woman, do you know where the post office is, she'll say, do you want
36:58to buy a stamp?
37:00That would be helpful, but asking you a question.
37:02That's true.
37:03Boys sit with their legs apart, don't they, on bar stools?
37:05There are things like that.
37:06Girls sit with it.
37:07We were wondering whether you might say Adam's apple, and we would have forfeited you, because women do have Adam's
37:12apples.
37:12Do you guys probably know you have an Adam's apple?
37:14It's not as big, it's...
37:15Sometimes on some women it can be quite pronounced.
37:19There's a woman, a girl, a lady person, with quite an Adam's apple there.
37:25It's called the prominentia laryngea, is the medical name for it, and it's around the larynx.
37:30So that's what you're looking, if someone, you think someone's bad.
37:33But it's no proof, is the point.
37:35Basically, a good ladyboy can imitate almost anything female, in terms of how they hold the legs and, you know,
37:40and everything like that.
37:41Not hands or feet?
37:42Well, some women, as you say, have large hands and large feet, you know.
37:46And a dainty ladyboy can easily fool, and often has.
37:50Hmm.
37:52As you know, it's your post.
37:54Oh, what an expensive night, that one.
37:57Oh, some women.
37:58Moving on.
37:59The truth is that without undressing them or testing their DNA, you can't be sure what sex someone is, so
38:03be careful out there.
38:04Why are men better than women at reading maps?
38:10Yep.
38:12Erm...
38:12They're not, I would say.
38:14They're not better than women.
38:17Aren't they not?
38:18Yeah, I so try not.
38:19Your one attempt to be decent.
38:21Yes.
38:23That's quite horribly.
38:24Something to do with the brain.
38:26Spatial.
38:27Spatial, yeah.
38:27Testosterone again.
38:28It's your old, isn't it?
38:29Testosterone again.
38:30Well, it's to do with grey matter and white matter in the brain.
38:33And MRI equipment has shown, oddly enough, that in a test group of men and women with average IQ scores
38:40amongst the two gen is roughly equal.
38:42Oh, that'd be absurd.
38:43Er...
38:43Hey!
38:46They can't agree.
38:47When given intelligence tests, men use six and a half times more grey matter than women.
38:54Women use nine times as much white matter.
38:56Grey matter central to processing information plays a vital role in aiding skills such as mathematics, map reading, intellectual thought.
39:03White matter connects the brain's processing centers central to emotional thinking, use of language, the ability to do more than
39:09one thing at once.
39:10I know they're all cliches, you know, words, emotional thinking, multitasking women are better at, but it does seem that
39:16the evidence indicates that this is the case.
39:18I'm so sorry.
39:19No, I would say...
39:20Is it the white matter that makes you think it's okay to wind the window down and ask the way?
39:24Yes, because that's also the superiority in language, which seems to be a female thing.
39:30You prefer to ask, whereas a man would prefer to look at visual cues...
39:33Well, that's just male...
39:34...spatially.
39:35The reason you don't like ask prior is you always get the idiot, don't you?
39:38When you stop and ask, and do you know the way to the test go?
39:43Er...
39:43Well, they say, in two miles you come to a bridge, a mile before that turn left.
39:48LAUGHTER
39:50I once stopped in Ireland, stopped an elderly man, I was lost, and I asked in the way, and I
39:56said, I can't remember the names of the places, I said, do you know the way to Duncannon?
40:00And he said, did you not want to go to Castle Ray?
40:03And I said, no, I want to go to Duncannon.
40:06He said, that's a pity, because I know the way to Castle Ray.
40:09LAUGHTER
40:11That is very Eccles, isn't it?
40:13That is superb.
40:14Well, it does seem that men are better at spatial awareness problems, and women are better at vocabulary problems.
40:20And finally, one last fanfare to unfairness.
40:24What is unfair about the prize money at Wimbledon?
40:28Yes.
40:29Um, they only give it to you if you're really, really good at tennis.
40:35APPLAUSE
40:39Very damnably unfair.
40:40Er, nothing.
40:47Women get more money for playing than men.
40:50Oh, per set, you mean?
40:52You're talking women with discrepancies.
40:53You get men who are not more tennis and get less money.
40:55I'll show you how it goes.
40:56When it started in 1884, the ladies' champion won a 20 guinea silver flower basket, awww, while the men got
41:03a 30 guinea gold trophy.
41:04By 2016, 625,000 for Amelia Merezmo, who played 142 games, versus just £30,000 more for Roger Federer, who
41:16played 202 games.
41:18And the best women were earning more than the best men because their shorter matches allowed them to compete in
41:22both doubles tournaments as well as the singles.
41:24The rates per game tell the story, 2005, the final eight women earned an average of £1,432 per game
41:33against the men's 993.
41:35How much do they win now if they win?
41:37It's equal for the first prize.
41:39Is it half a million?
41:50That's not that much when you think 50% will go to tax, 15% will go to their agent,
41:54then they've got to buy all their balls, and they've got to buy the sticky stuff to wrap around the
41:59racket.
41:59That's very expensive.
42:00So do the men.
42:01The Southfields are going to get a travel card.
42:02That's only six.
42:03So do the men.
42:04They're left with about £1.50 overall there.
42:08Anyway, now that male and female tennis players get the same prize money, it's arguably unfair to men who work
42:13harder and longer for less money overall.
42:15Which brings us to the end of our hard work and the gleanings of our genders.
42:19Oh, my goodness me.
42:20Let's discover who's wearing the trousers here.
42:23Well, my heavens.
42:25The winners are the ladies team with, between them, plus eight.
42:35The breaks down is three for Ronnie and five for Sandy, but the boys, I'm afraid, have come last with
42:42minus five.
42:51That's all from this edition of QI, so it's goodnight from Ronnie, Sandy, Jack, Alan and me.
42:57Hopefully the real winner tonight has been mutual understanding and respect.
43:00I leave you with this thought from Canadian feminist Charlotte Whitton.
43:04Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be thought half as good.
43:08Luckily, that isn't difficult.
43:10Goodnight.
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