python [LME] A python’s name comes from Greek Puthōn, the name of a huge serpent or monster killed by Apollo in Greek legend. Poets in the 17th and 18th centuries sometimes described any monster or plague as a python. Python was only used as a generic term for a snake that crushes its prey from the early 19th century. The BBC comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first shown on 5 October 1969. The name was deliberately chosen to have no real meaning—it was the winning candidate from a list of absurd titles such as Gwen Dibley’s Flying Circus, Vaseline Review, and Owl-Stretching Time. After a slow start the programme became so popular and influential that in 1975 it gave the language a new word, Pythonesque, to describe surreal humour.