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The Allusionist

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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park transcript

July 8, 2025 The Allusionist

HZ: What is a park? 

JUSTIN McELROY: I think ultimately a park is… and it's funny because people sometimes debate: should there be grass, should there be trees? Should there be a playground? Does it need to be a certain size? A park can be anything, that's part of the wonderful flexibility of how we use public spaces. I think, fundamentally, so long as it's a public space that people can hang out in and do a variety of activities, then you got yourself a park.

HZ: Even if those activities aren't hunting? You'll accept?

JUSTIN McELROY: I'll accept, because we're no longer in 17th century Britain. But I traveled the world for the last year before coming back to Vancouver. And every country, every city has different things that they think is an ideal park, and you can see that shape the set-up. But that ability to be different things, I think, is the shining example for what makes them universal. 

HZ: Vancouver is a bit imbalanced because it has a lot of little parks and then one massive park at Stanley Park.

JUSTIN McELROY: And Stanley Park is the best park in the city. It might be the best urban park in the world, when you consider just how big it is, the range of things you can do. 

HZ: Yeah, they filmed Twilight there.

JUSTIN McELROY: Ha! The amazing views that you have of the mountains and the ocean and the city, that you can jog, that you can bike, that you can walk, that you can see all different sorts of gardens and playgrounds: it's absolutely phenomenal, and an absolute jewel. And it's fun to contrast that with the other 242 parks. They can't all be winners, but they're all doing something.

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In transcript Tags society, culture, words, language, history, vocabulary, four letter words, Vancouver, Indigenous Canadians, parks, land, public space, Justin McElroy, Canada, British Columbia, BC, trout, leisure, outside, outdoors, play, nature, plants, trees, eponyms, cities, city, urban, CRAB Park, ports, houselessness, Dude Chilling Park, art, sculpture, Guelph Park, John Hendry Park, Trout Lake, Sun Hop Park, Choklit Park, Stanley Park, names, Viktor Briestensky, fipple

Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate transcript

June 23, 2025 The Allusionist

The Watergate Scandal’s linguistic legacy: the suffix ‘-gate’

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In transcript Tags society, culture, words, language, arts, history, vocabulary, four letter words, snowclone, libfix, suffixes, scandal, gate, -gate, Watergate Hotel, Watergate Complex, Watergate Scandal, Washington DC, Watergate, Richard Nixon, Foggy Bottom, Mr Blobby, Blobbyland, England, Noel Edmonds, theme parks, politics, food, entertainment, sport, sports, wine, football, soccer, corruption, curling, butter, Ariana Grande, Royal Family, monarchy, King Charles III, Princess Diana, Queen Camilla, Prince Charles, Sarah Ferguson, Fergie, meats, tabloids, headlines, newspapers, media, Australia, Tony Abbott, Theresa May, onions, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Mumsnet, biscuits, Mauritius, Macarena, Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Argentina, Venezuela, Denmark, mink, Panama Papers, UK Government, Downing Street, prime minister, covid, coronavirus, lockdown, police, doughnuts, donuts, Nutella, Quebec, French, pasta, pasties, chess, blood, rugby, fake, NFL, balls, farts, crime, Gamergate, gaming, baseball, GBBO, Great British Bake Off, Baked Alaska, ice cream, TV, television, Academy Awards, Oscars, Moonlight, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Chicago, Super Bowl, poop, radio, Harry Styles, spit, Chris Pine, politicians, zwitterion

Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz transcript

June 7, 2025 The Allusionist

Four Letter Word season continues, and this time we do not require explicit tags or content warnings, because our four-letter word is QUIZ! Or rather, today we have a quiz about four letter words.

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In transcript Tags etymology, vocabulary, lexicon, words, language, history, four letter words, quiz, kombucha, body parts, foot, feet, Bible, euphemisms, metanyms, lead, Led Zeppelin, The Nobs, nepo babies, nepotism, popes, Vatican, cardinals, nephew, John Venn, eponyms, Stigler’s Law, inventions, cricket, quails, collective nouns, collective terms, Muhammad Ali, GOAT, Greatest Of All Time, petri dish, Robert Koch, microbiology, moist chamber, Pliny the Elder, knights, Mariko Aoki phenomenon, bookshops, bowel movements, poop, pooping, square, cube, weights, measures, lengths, units of measurement, Pope Paul III, Pope Innocent XII, slugs, The Yardbirds, lawsuits, soap, sapo, cleaning products, accolade, bevy, brat, G.O.A.T., gunk, lights, limaceous, lungs, onyx, rostellum, rube, SCOBY, venn diagram
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Allusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-bomb transcript

May 25, 2025 The Allusionist

Things have changed for a word that despite being around in written text for 900+ years, didn’t even get listed in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1972. 

NICOLE HOLLIDAY: I never say this word.

HZ: No, I feel bad to force you.

NICOLE HOLLIDAY: No, it's funny. Well, I'll say it on podcast, this is professional environment; but in my normal daily life, I can't imagine that I would personally say it. And this might just be like, I'm kind of a prude and I was raised kind of religious, but it does sort of seem like beyond the pale for me personally. I wonder if were 20 if I wouldn’t feel that way, but I spent so much of my life like judiciously avoiding very strong taboos. And this one, just my gut reaction is that it overwhelms. So when you asked me to do this, I was like, “Oh, no! I have to say that word!”

HZ: I'm sorry. We could probably skirt around it and then people can spend the whole episode trying to guess which word we're talking about.

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In transcript Tags vocabulary, lexicography, lexicon, society, culture, words, language, arts, history, four letter words, swearing, profanity, obscenity, swears, taboo, slang, cursing, curses, insults, slurs, dictionaries, parts of speech, Nicole Holliday, Kelly Elizabeth Wright, cunt, cunty, serving cunt, African American English, AAE, African American Language, AAL, Puerto Rican English, ballroom, NYC, New York City, queer, gender, reclamation, performance, reclaimed words, new use, semantics, internet, online, TikTok, drag, RuPaul Charles, RuPaul’s Drag Race, slay, rizz, Tom Hanks, Chet Hanks, Colin Hanks, bench-hanks, compliments, body parts, genitals, cultural appropriation, speech acts, sentiment, intensity, Beyonce, Kevin Aviance, Cunty The Feeling, sound symbolism, plosives, coulisse

Allusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Four Letter Words: Ffff

May 11, 2025 The Allusionist
a boggle grid spelling the word fuck

If you’re thinking, “How the fuck can you write a whole 500-page dictionary just about the word ‘fuck’?” consider, say, the many meanings of ‘ass fuck’, noun and verb - and that’s before you even add similar terms like ‘bumfuck’ and ‘buttfuck’. And there are so many less usual terms, like ‘fucksome’ or ‘fuckstrated’ or ‘fuckist’ or ‘fucktious’.

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In transcript Tags etymology, vocabulary, lexicography, lexicon, society, culture, words, language, history, four letter words, Jesse Sheidlower, F Word, swearing, profanity, obscenity, swears, fuck, fucking, infixing, tmesis, dictionaries, taboo, slang, cursing, curses, insults, publishing, Jonathan Lighter, place names, surnames, last names, acronyms, backronyms, fugazi, Allen Walker Read, Horace Walpole, John S Farmer, W E Henley, Bristol, Austria, fugging, parts of speech, AI, sex, sexual, internet, online, Roger, shit, cunt, slurs, FUBAR, katabatic, SNAFU

Allusionist 207. Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary

January 17, 2025 The Allusionist

Today’s episode is in the Tranquillusionist style, to give your brain a break while I say words that are not too consequential over a soothing backing track. And this time, the words are all the randomly selected words from the dictionary from every episode of the show, in reverse chronological order.

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In transcript, Tranquillusionist Tags serene, serenity, ASMR, calm, calmness, meditation, sleep, mood, emergency, Tranquillusionist, relaxation, tranquil, tranquillity, etymology, vocabulary, lexicography, lexicon, words, language, history, dictionary, pricket, trivia, yarak

Allusionist 206. Bonus 2024 transcript

December 22, 2024 The Allusionist
a Boggle grid spelling out Bonus 2024, the numbers are in mismatched dice, one of which has a dinosaur skeleton next to the number

This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, have been stashing away special Allusiobits all year, when the people who appeared on the show said interesting things that I couldn’t fit into their episode because there wasn’t room or it was not about language - waiting, just waiting, for this, the annual Bonus episode! This year we’ve got something called the ‘universal blank’, which actually does not refer to my emotions; we’ve got tricorn hats, poets with migraines, and why Boston cream pie isn’t a pie. And so much more. 

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In transcript Tags history, etymology, bonus, bonus episode, Joanna Kopaczyk, William Dunbar, flyting, poetry, poems, headaches, migraine, Juliana Pache, Black Crossword, crosswords, puzzles, Ben Zimmer, spelling bee, Scripps National Spelling Bee, homophones, letters, alphabet, pronunciation, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, names, pies, USA, America, American, cakes, Boston cream pie, Massachussetts, AJ Jacobs, framing, parmesan, vomit, -nyms, retronyms, capitalnyms, forks, elastic, tricorn hat, US constitution, battle reeactments, historical costume, hats, cloves, Zazie Todd, animal psychology, dogs, cats, companion animals, renaming, training, Caroline Crampton, Susan Sontag, battle, illness, suggestion, health, cancer, bodies, metaphor, anti-fat, placebo, nocebo, medicine, medical, pharmaceutical, riddles, Old English, monks, onion, bine

Allusionist 205. Lexicat, part 2 transcript

December 7, 2024 The Allusionist

MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL: Elsie does lie. I had just given her the "sleepy" button and I was in the kitchen. I was making lunch, and she goes to the button board and she says, "bedroom, sleepy, lie down." I'm like, "What a great contextual use. Yes, absolutely. Let's go take a little nap," and walk into the bedroom. And my cat doesn't come in, and I come back - and she's eating my cheese sandwich. And she has, multiple times, tried to send me out of the room in order to get my food. So when I'm making lunch and she starts talking to me and it's something like, “Go check the litter box” or something like that, food goes into the microwave and then I investigate whatever's happening. 
HZ: How did that make you feel? You're like, “I can never trust her again?”
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL: I don't know. I was like, oh, right. Cat.  

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In transcript Tags Lexicat, animals, cats, dogs, companion animals, pets, communication, species, buttons, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elsie, Zazie Todd, animal behaviour, AIC, Augmentative Interspecies Communication, emotions, animal psychology, psychology, socialisation, canine, feline, pet directed speech, learning, semantics, syntax, Bastian, Parker, Sascha Crasnow, Joelle Andres, Parkinson’s Disease, dementia, two hand choice, choice, body language, wagging, tails, lies, deceit, yarborough

Allusionist 204. Lexicat, part 1 transcript

November 24, 2024 The Allusionist

HZ: It's a lot of deductive reasoning happening with how she's using language. Fascinating.
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL: Yeah, it really is - which is why, when I get comments on videos where it's like, “Oh, this cat is just walking across buttons randomly,” I'm like, no, I have a dog that does that. I daily have moments where I'm like, okay, no, this is really a thing that's happening.

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In transcript Tags Lexicat, animals, cats, dogs, companion animals, pets, communication, species, buttons, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elsie, Zazie Todd, animal behaviour, Christina Hunger, AIC, Augmentative Interspecies Communication, swearing, emotions, animal psychology, psychology, Washoe, Kanzi, socialisation, nicknames, canine, feline, swears, litterbox, cursing, pet directed speech, pitch, tone, anxiety, learning, mewing, meows, research, semantics, nomology, verbing nouns

Allusionist 203. Flyting transcript

November 9, 2024 The Allusionist

ISHBEL McFARLANE: “You crap so much that you sunk a ship you were on.” 
HZ: I’m gonna use that. 

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In transcript Tags society, culture, words, language, arts, history, Ishbel McFarlane, Joanna Kopaczyk, Scots, Scotland, Scottish, flyting, fleetan, poets, poetry, medieval, court, royal, monarchs, kings, James IV, James VI, writers, entertainment, combat, performance, insults, slurs, swears, obscenity, comedy, literature, printing press, legal, law, witches, witchcraft, trials, lawsuits, roast, vulgarity, abuse, scat, makars, historical pragmatics, rhyme, alliteration, taboos, offensive, offence, owls, contests, competitions, politeness, impoliteness, profanity, speech acts, communication, rude, slander, music hall, Virgil, Aeneid, grampus, shit, shite, fuck

Allusionist 202. Singlish Singlish transcript

October 29, 2024 The Allusionist

GWEE LI SUI: We have not yet known what it's capable of. Singlish is one of those things the potential of which we're yet to tap in properly. There can be so many things you can do with it.

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In transcript Tags Gwee Li Sui, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good Mantarin Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, The Little Prince, Animal Farm, George Orwell, Brothers Grimm, Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne, Speaking Singlish, particles, suffixes, translation, translator, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Chinese, Milo, military, army, rhymes, NYT, the New York Times, jobbery

Allusionist 201. Singlish transcript

October 10, 2024 The Allusionist

BIBEK GURUNG: You grow up with the sense that if your first language, or one of your first languages, Singlish, actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” which is… language is a fundamental human skill. It's what separates us from the lemurs or whatever. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill, I think, really does a number to your self esteem and your abilities to communicate in general. I still have a lot of - I don't know how to phrase it, maybe like cultural cringe - around Singlish. And when I meet someone from Singapore, we do sort of lapse into Singlish and communicate in that way, except if I'm with American friends and then I just feel so self conscious and I'm not able to do it. As a student of linguistics and someone who just knows about the sociolinguistic dynamics, I still find it really hard to shake. 

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In transcript Tags English: problematic fave, history, society, culture, words, language, vocabulary, Bibek Gurung, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good English Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, policy, oppression, swearing, swears, punishment, school, portmanteaus, portmanteaux, mother tongue, Manglish, Malaysia, Straits, Tamil, Malay, Mandarin, China, Chinese, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, dialects, creole languages, opsimath, problematic fave, code switching

Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations transcript

September 26, 2024 The Allusionist

Let’s hear it for some of the constellations that we used to have but are now ex-constellations. 

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In Tranquillusionist, transcript Tags history, lexicon, society, culture, words, language, etymology, vocabulary, serene, serenity, ASMR, calm, calmness, meditation, sleep, mood, Tranquillusionist, relaxation, tranquil, tranquillity, stars, sky, firmament, celestial, Ptolemy, asterism, IAU, International Astronomical Union, Hadrian, dogs, technology, printing press, Gutenberg, Uranus, William Hershel, Johann Bode, Zeus, goats, crabs, myth, Greek myth, Ancient Rome, Romans, Latin, Greek, gods, deities, saints, relics, Saint Veronica, Jesus, Ancient Greece, astronomy, astronomers, Cerberus, John Hill, Henry Fielding, beeves, beef, feuds, Jerome Lalande, cats, sycophancy, royals, monarchy, monarchs, King Charles II, Prussia, King George III, King Charles I, scepters, sceptres, slugs, login, log line, log book, worms, constellations, asterisms, Phaeton, Helios, Hercules, reindeer, Mapertuis, Alessandro Volta, Jacques Cassini, Capra, Titans, telescopes, Maximilian Hell, conception, pregnancy, navigation, pangolin, ventifact

Allusionist 200. 200th episode celebratory quiz! transcript

September 13, 2024 The Allusionist

Here it is, the 200th episode of the Allusionist! To celebrate, here is a playalong quiz where the questions have been set by you, the smart listeners, and if you want to play as you listen, you can keep track of your scores via the score sheet at theallusionist.org/200, if you don’t have to hand the back of an envelope and a pencil you stole from IKEA.

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In transcript Tags Helen Zaltzman, words, language, history, etymology, vocabulary, ducks, moths, names, eponyms, traffic, driving, mathematics, writing systems, syntax, Korean, Hangul, G, creatures, sewing, sewing machines, bread, cloak, hood, St Martin of Tours, saints, holy relics, Portuguese, run, Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff, Canada, Canadian, double double, sign language, American Sign Language, Nicaraguan Sign Langage, French Sign Language, Jamaican Sign Language, British Sign Language, Lesle Hore-Belisha, road safety, loaves, yogh, letter G, lost letters, Normans, caput, French, dart, coffee, influence, influenza, town names, belisha beacon, calculus, chaplain, cobra, embarrass, ewer, flux, Ludlow, Milkshake Duck, monodon monoceros, mortgage, narwhal, rhinoceros, sewer, shampoo, toucan crossing, vilify, villain, vindaloo, acronyms, care package, Io, quiz, Greek deites, Zeus, Hera, Greek deities, cows, Greek mythology, Argus Panoptes, Greek gods, Herakles, Johan Christian Fabricius, Bosphorous Strait, suckmother, squid

Allusionist 199. 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet - transcript

August 30, 2024 The Allusionist

This is the 199th episode of the show, and since before this show began, so for nearly a decade, I have been jotting down ideas in two documents - one for short ideas, one for long ideas. There are always more ideas than I have time and ability to make podcasts about, so now the documents are altogether 66 pages long and growing every day. So in this episode, you’re going to hear 199 ideas that I wanted to put into the podcast and haven’t yet.

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In transcript Tags words, language, history, etymology, vocabulary, Juliet Club, Romeo and Juliet, Verona, lost positives, desperate, prefixes, suffixes, Mc-, -core, -tron, -opoli, photography, smiles, animals, cows, cattle, Samuel Maverick, Maury Maverick, gobbledegook, legal, law, punctuation, Ancient Romans, trousers, clothing, clothes, pubs, bears, translation, fencing, kaput, caput, head, hats, hoods, medicine, trademarks, eponyms, popsicles, portmanteau, spiders, Hawaii, Hawaiian, protest, Kaleikoa Kaʻeo, Mele Kalikimaka, capes, Ludo, Parcheesi, Richard Kimble, cowboys, courtroom, oaths, DMV, vanity plates, Joe Lycett, knots, Kevin, Karen, saints, pastry, food, copaganda, police, humour, fine, idioms, rain, Sarah, names, euphemisms, place names, comedians, comedy, apartheid, sign language, Yolgnu, Australia, pandanus, nuts, posthumous, death, calendar, time, distance, measurement, emoji, pizza, X, K, H, dogs, France, French, master bedroom, master, technology, masterpiece, problematic, Scouts, Embers, renaming, spinsters, single, censorship, pregnancy, charcuterie, mushrooms, fly agaric, volcanoes, doula, gender inclusive language, gender inclusivity, chestfeeding, queerness, queer, LGBTQIA+, IKEA, products, product names, branding, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, printing, craft, cross stitch, bad decisions, problematic eponyms, Miranda rights, viruses, lost letters, heroin, aspirin, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Johann Fust, Johannes Gutenberg, smells, granola, vampires, shoes, werewolf, bums, acme, acne, acumen, aftermath, album, amateur, attercop, average, beret, bespoke, biceps, bloomers, boudoir, bracatus, brochure, candletwist, capsize, chaperone, chord, cliche, cobweb, concrete, crestfallen, croupier, culottes, cynosure, delete, dessert, dutto, dwell, elixir, escape, extravagant, fathom, faux pas, foible, forte, furlong, germane, gimbal, glucose, Grape Nuts, grenade, habit, halcyon, harlot, jade, Kensington gore, limousine, loom, lower case, magenta, malaria, maverick, menu, miasma, migraine, negative, noon, nurse, Oprah Winfrey, overwhelm, pageant, patio, pecuniary, pedigree, petition, pluck, pomegranate, popsicle, positive, puce, retina, riposte, rival, rosemary, sabotage, salty, scavenger, schwa, scruple, slogan, sperate, stereotype, stillicide, stiricide, tabloid, taint, thornback, toady, travesty, treadmill, tutu, twist, tyre, upper case, valid, vamp, vindication, volcano, weregild, whelm, Winterfylleth
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Featured
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
queer playlist
Allusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-Bomb
Allusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-Bomb
feed bullshit
Allusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Ffff
Allusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Ffff
WhatsApp Image 2025-04-27 at 23.06.37.jpeg
several bits of news! (nothing bad)
Allusionist 207: Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary
Allusionist 207: Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary
Allusionist 206. Bonus 2024
Allusionist 206. Bonus 2024
A Christmas Carollusionist
A Christmas Carollusionist
Allusionist 205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog
Allusionist 205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog
Festivelusionists
Allusionist 204. Lexicat, part 1
Allusionist 204. Lexicat, part 1
Allusionist 203. Flyting
Allusionist 203. Flyting
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.