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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 201: Singlish

October 10, 2024 The Allusionist

"If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” says Bibek Gurung, a former linguist who grew up in Singapore speaking Singlish with his family and friends, while schools and the government tried to quash it. "Language is a fundamental human skill. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill really does a number to your self esteem and your abilities to communicate in general."

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In episodes Tags history, lexicon, Helen Zaltzman, 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, code switching, English problematic fave

Allusionist 180. Project ENABLE

August 24, 2023 The Allusionist

Sterling Martin was in grad school, studying C. elegans worms, when COVID19 hit and suddenly he found himself in lexicography, as part of a team creating a Navajo-English dictionary of science terms.

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In episodes Tags Helen Zaltzman, etymology, society, culture, words, language, Sterling Martin, Project ENABLE, Frank Morgan, Navajo, Diné Bizaad, Diné, translation, translating, science, medicine, medical, biology, COVID19, lexicography, lexicon, vocabulary, neologisms, technology, accessibility, access, Indigenous languages, Native American languages, Native Americans, Indigenous Americans, language revitalisation, protons, electrons, chromosome, chemical, carnivore, bacteria, DNA, catalyst, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, font, keyboard, worms, C Elegans, veridical

Allusionist 173. Death

March 24, 2023 The Allusionist

"You can't redead the dead by you saying something shit," says Cariad Lloyd of Griefcast and author of You Are Not Alone; nevertheless when you're bereaved, people still are usually so nervous to say the wrong thing that they often don't say anything at all. And especially not the word 'dead'. Maybe what we need, says council funeral officer Evie King, author of Ashes To Admin, is a "jazzy snazzy term for death, the 'bottomless brunch' of death..."

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In episodes Tags etymology, Helen Zaltzman, words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, history, death, died, dead, grief, passed, bereavement, bereft, Cariad Lloyd, Evie King, funerals, posthumous, anticipatory grief, admin, paperwork, eulogy, platitudes, Sweden, Swedish, wills, bum-bailiff

Allusionist 163. Rhino Borked Guy

October 20, 2022 The Allusionist

Provoked by current events, we've got three political eponyms for turmoiled times. Get ready for explosives, presidential pigs, Supreme Court scrapping, and wronged rhinos.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, eponyms, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, rhinoceros, Cacareco, elections, politics, political, votes, voting, protest vote, power, democracy, zoos, Richard Nixon, Pigasus, Republicans, Democrats, mule, Canada, Rhinoceros Party, English history, Tudors, Jacobean, guy, Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot, Reformation, Protestant, Catholic, Catholicism, Church of England, religion, England, Henry VIII, pope, divorce, Elizabeth I, James I, kings, queens, monarchy, parliament, Roman Mars, Helen Zaltzman, bonfire, Bonfire Night, fireworks, 5 November, Robert Catesby, oppression, names, treason, conspiracy, gunpowder, explosives, weapons, molotov cocktail, Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Union, USSR, Russia, Finland, Supreme Court, USA, American history, Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Watergate, disinformation, propaganda, Roe v Wade, bork, borked, computers, DoggoLingo, civil rights, originalism, constitution, kype

Allusionist 158. Creature Quiz!

August 5, 2022 The Allusionist

There's lots of fun etymology of creatures and a lot of fun etymology derived from creatures, and now it is gathered into this fun playalong quiz about animal etymologies!

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In audio, quiz Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, literature, Helen Zaltzman, history, lexicon, vocabulary, culture, arts, etymology, quiz, meatus, animals, creatures, fish, birds, beasts, magpie, Margaret, pie, pica, sexism, Latin, Greek, Old English, parrot, Italian, priest, piebald, skewbald, bald, camelopard, offend, elephant, raccoon, chicken pox, chickens, cowardice, pox, goose barnacles, geese, goose, barnacles, myths, squirrel, cattle, weasel, smell, stinky, ferret, eggs, manure, porpoise, shrews, beshrew, agriculture, poop, dung, bison, polecats, weasel words, chattel, property, real estate, fee, livestock, petunia, penis, genitals, bowels

Allusionist 155. The Tiffany Problem

May 27, 2022 The Allusionist

The name Tiffany has been around for some 800 years. But you can't name a character in a historical novel 'Tiffany', because people don't believe the name is old. Science fiction and fantasy author Jo Walton coined the term "The Tiffany Problem" to express the disparity between historical facts and the common perception of the past.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Jo Walton, The Tiffany Problem, eponyms, history, English, French, medieval, Tiffany, Epiphany, Theophania, old things, fiction, novels, historical, stories, anachronisms, anachronistic, names, first names, last names, naming trends, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Tiffany’s, Richard Gere, fleer

Allusionist 154. Objectivity

May 13, 2022 The Allusionist

Couple of easy straightforward questions for us to chew on: 1. What is ‘objectivity’ supposed to mean? And 2. does it exist? Lewis Raven Wallace, a journalist and audiomaker fired from his public radio job over his blog post entitled ‘Objectivity is dead and I'm okay with it’, considers the principals and practice of objectivity, and what might be fairer ones.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Lewis Raven Wallace, history, Vietnam War, journalism, journalists, objectivity, subjectivity, bias, news, newspapers, neutrality, neutral, perspective, white supremacy, racism, USA, America, 19th century, 20th century, power, unions, First Amendment, balance, nuncupative

Allusionist 152. Asperger

April 3, 2022 The Allusionist

Hans Asperger would have been merely "a footnote in the history of autism", so why did he get to be the eponym in Asperger's syndrome? Because along with the usual problems medical eponyms pose, and his work not really earning him the honour, he collaborated with Nazis and sent children to a hospital where they would be experimented on and even killed.

Activist, writer and academic Morénike Giwa Onaiwu discusses the stigma around terms like Asperger’s syndrome and autism, and historian Edith Sheffer talks about Hans Asperger and child psychiatry in Nazi Vienna.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, eponyms, medical eponyms, Asperger’s Syndrome, Hans Asperger, autism, autism spectrum, ASD, ableism, disability, Nazis, stigma, disorder, Vienna, Austria, Third Reich, Germany, Second World War, World War Two, WW2, Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, Lorna Wing, DSM, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, psychopathy, medicine, medical, problematic

Allusionist 151. The Bee's Knees

March 18, 2022 The Allusionist

Bad hats, cat's pyjamas, banting, goops, creatures, and playing possum - what WERE people going on about during the Golden Age of detective fiction? Caroline Crampton of Shedunnit podcast and I get sleuthing into the slang of the mystery novels of the 1920s and 1930s.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, slang, Shedunnit, Caroline Crampton, murder mysteries, novels, fiction, writing, writers, authors, detectives, Golden Age, codes, war, spelling alphabets, phonetic, military, diets, dieting, eponyms, William Banting, undertakers, flappers, canary’s tusks, flea’s eyebrows, creature, Frankenstein, monster, whiskey, refrigeration, ditches, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, exclamation marks, courtship, sex, Mae West, royalty, opossums, animals, bunt

Allusionist 150. The Egg's Warning

March 4, 2022 The Allusionist

"Warning: read and keep," says the piece of paper inside Kinder Surprise Eggs, in 34 languages; yet most people do neither thing. But sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris did read and keep it, and study what the egg is trying to tell us: about Kinder Egg toy safety, yes, but also about multilingualism, about an object that says 'yes!' but the warning says 'no!', about the signs of human idiosyncracy that show themselves even in a mandatory corporate message.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, society & culture, arts, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Kinder Egg, Kinder Surprise, warnings, messages, toys, confectionary, Ferrero, chocolate, candy, Keith Kahn Harris, multilingual, Europe, European, Kinder Joy, laws, FDA, errors, typesetting, diacritics, tilde, macron, ligatures, æ, warning, exciton
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feed bullshit
Allusionist 208: Ffff
Allusionist 208: Ffff
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several bits of news! (nothing bad)
queer playlist
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
Allusionist 202: Singlish Singlish
Allusionist 202: Singlish Singlish
Allusionist 201: Singlish
Allusionist 201: Singlish
Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations
Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations
Allusionist 200: 200th episode celebratory quiz!
Allusionist 200: 200th episode celebratory quiz!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.