Allusionist 210: 4x4x4 Quiz

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Four Letter Word season continues with a quiz (which is a four-letter word itself) about four letter words. Listen and play along to test your etymological knowledge, and hear about the original nepo baby, John Venn's invention that wasn't the venn diagram, brat, gunk, rube, the time(s) Led Zeppelin changed their name, and plenty more.

Click here to use the interactive score sheet. Or keep score yourself on the back of an old envelope with a pencil you stole from IKEA.

There are seven other Allusionist quizzes, including ones about food, swearing, creatures, and more. All full of etymology facts! Here they all are.

EXTRA MATERIALS:

• Original Gunk for sale.

• G.O.A.T.

• Weights and Measures used in the [spoiler for question 2] Industry. A ‘cut’ was 1/14 of a foot, and a ‘pig’ was ‘strictly twice the weight of a piece’, OF COURSE.

• On nepo baby: “Two viral articles released on Dec. 19, 2022, skyrocketed the term to mainstream use: How a Nepo Baby Is Born by Nate Jones at Vulture and the New York Magazine cover story Extremely Overanalyzing Hollywood’s Nepo-Baby Boom by Priyanka Mantha.

  While nepotism baby has been in use for decades, and a trend of mocking nepo babies on TikTok was on the rise, these articles are what led to the term’s viral use.”

• John Venn’s non-diagram achievements (link contains spoilers for question 4).

• Lights: “eating a fox’s [spoiler for question 1] would cure the disease.”

• “Etymologists have a bevy of theories about the roots of bevy” (spoilers for question 5).

• Otherlusionists about four letter words that aren’t officially part of Four Letter Word season: Dude, Soho, Toki Pona, singular they in No Title… why not browse the Lexicon of words covered in the show and pick a few.

Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get merch perks at the live shows, behind-the-scenes info about every episode, livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the charming and supportive Allusioverse Discord community.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
rostellum, noun: a little beak;
a beaklike outgrowth from an orchid column;
the forepart of a tapeworm's head.
Adjective rostellar or rostellate.
Latin rostellum, diminutive of rostrum: beak.

CREDITS:

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples.

• The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.

• Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow. 

Back in two weeks with a new four letter word episode - HZ.

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