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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 129. Sorry

January 30, 2021 The Allusionist
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Apologies are such important verbal transactions. So why are so many of them soooo bad? Susan McCarthy and Marjorie Ingalls from SorryWatch and Laura Beaudin of fauxpolo.gy pinpoint what to look out for, to sort the apologies from the fauxpologies.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Laura Beaudin, Laura Lakhian, Marjorie Ingall, Susan McCarthy, SorryWatch, apology, fauxpology, contrition, public apologies, sorry, regret, remorse, reparations, offence, responsibility, emotions, corporate, corporations, government, state, relationships, speech acts, semiotics, celebrities, Justin Trudeau, agency, vulnerability, passive voice, verbs, nouns, adjectives, conditionals, misdirection, mitigation, noria

Allusionist 128. Bonus 2020

December 24, 2020 The Allusionist
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To round off the year, here are some choice cuts from the Allusionist vault of interesting things that guests said that there wasn’t room for in the original episodes. Brace yourself for a vivid name for dust bunnies, the scary side of glamour, another reason to be grateful for bears, and Schrödinger’s Fart.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Victorians, Victorian Britain, 19th century, dysfunction, sex, sexuality, John Ruskin, JMW Turner, paintings, erotica, slut, slut holes, slut wool, apples, Avalon, bears, portmanteau, glamour, fan, fandom, fanatic, celebrity, celebrities, fame, seduction, charisma, James Rush, orators, oratory, stanning, Eminem, Stan, religion, divine, Britney Spears, Schrödinger’s fart, Australia, First Nations, Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal Australians, gubba, gubs, gender neutral, email, etiquette, dear, letters, pleasantries, Hamilton, formality, resumes, CVs, French, protest, slogans, Yiddish, Sholem Aleichem, translation, chickens, bagels, patulous, Rudi Bremer, Greg Jenner, MiMi Aye, Joanna Crosby, Kate Lister, Jonah Boyarin, Arun Viswanath, Anthony Russell, Gretchen McCulloch, bonus episode, bonus

Allusionist 127. A Festive Hit for 2020

December 14, 2020 The Allusionist
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The usual canon of Christmas songs may not really fit people's moods in this year 2020, when I'm not sure a lot of us are feeling all that holly jolly. So I drafted in singer and songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs and we wrote a festive song that is suitable for 2020.

Content note: there are swears. Several of them.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Jenny Owen Youngs, music, songs, songwriting, writing, writers, lyrics, corpus linguistics, holly, jolly, Christmas, Xmas, Christ’s thorn, festive, holidays, yule, Winterval, meat, sweats, mistletoe, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Holly Jolly Christmas, Zoom, yarak

Allusionist 126. Survival: Custodians of the Languages

November 29, 2020 The Allusionist
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In Australia, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of languages. Until English arrived.

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In episodes, Survival Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Survival, Rudi Bremer, Karina Lester, Australia, country, indigenous, First Nations, Aboriginal people, colonisation, colonisers, oppression, genocide, oppressed languages, endangered languages, language death, language extinction, English: problematic fave, stolen generations, punishment, assimilation, language revival, oral culture, family, relationships, families, relatives, missionaries, Kaurna, Gamilaraay

Allusionist 125. Swearalong Quiz

November 10, 2020 The Allusionist
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Fill your lungs and get ready to shout out some profane answers: it’s the Swearlusionist Swearalong Quiz! Every answer is a swear word. Swearing, as we know, is good for your health, plus helps vent stress, and you’ll learn many etymological facts along the way, so this is a very wholesome and educational quiz.

CONTENT NOTE: this episode contains swears. Surprise!

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In episodes, quiz Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, swearing, swears, profanity, Bible, court cases, law, legal, Sex Pistols, Never Mind The Bollocks, indecency, bollocks, shit, spunk, balls, ball, lalochezia, The Wolf of Wall Street, birds, films, movies, poets, bullshit, TS Eliot, twat, Robert Browning, piss, dandelion, plants, flowers, nature, botany, ornithology, cocks, rooster, knobweed, mountains, Wank mountain, guns, kestrels, windfucker, herons, shitepoke, geography, place names, Twatt, Crapstone, crap, Shitterton, Thomas Crapper, drabble, quiz, swear words

Allusionist 124. Nightmare

October 25, 2020 The Allusionist
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This is the Alloooooooooosionist, in which we learn about the etymology of some scary words for Halloween, with the help of Paul Bae of The Black Tapes and The Big Loop podcasts, and Chelsey Weber-Smith of the podcast American Hysteria. Beware of demons! Satan! The bogeyman! Lemurs!

Wait - lemurs??

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Paul Bae, Chelsey Weber-Smith, sex, demons, sleep, bogeyman, boggart, bugaboo, bugbear, cobalt, devil, demon, haunt, horror, incubus, jack-o’-lantern lemur, nickel, nightmare, satan, succubus, bristling, hair, scary, adjectives, adverbs, Korea, Korean, myths, legends, folklore, hell, heaven, spirits, bears, fear, mining, miners, goblins, animals, elements, satanic, satanic panic, bible, Ancient Greek, slander, gods, turnips, kobold, copper, kupfernickel, Hebrew, adversary, Old Testament

Allusionist 123. Celebrity

October 10, 2020 The Allusionist
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Celebrity used to mean a solemn occasion; X factor was algebraic; and fame was a huge terrifying Godzilla-like beast with many many tongues.

Here to try define celebrity and fame are historian Greg Jenner of the podcast You’re Dead To Me, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger of Who? Weekly podcast, and writer, podcaster and videomaker Hank Green.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Greg Jenner, Hank Green, Who Weekly, Lindsey Weber, Bobby Finger, celebrity, celebrities, fame, famous, notoriety, notorious, renown, respect, bad fame, infamous, infamy, reputation, skimmington, history, Lord Byron, Marilyn Monroe, David Attenborough, David Schwimmer, Schwimfans, Richard Nixon, Brian Austin Green, Angelina Jolie, Ovid, Julius Caesar, Virgil, Chaucer, Godzilla, Aeneid, Metamorphoses, Fama, poetry, religion, attention, stardom, stars, stellified, charisma, kleos, akleos, glory, economics, media, tabloids, magazines, paparazzi, Whos, Thems, Herostratus Syndrome, Herostratus, psychology, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Romans, Greeks, Romantic period, theatre, theater, movies, film, 18th century, 19th century, private lives, gossip, jobs, careers, goddesses, gods, deities, Greek deites, Pheme, infamia, law, legal, King Edward VI, Book of Common Prayer, sinners, Temple of Ephasus, meteorology, comets, celestial, Edmund Kean, Charises, Three Graces, X factor, X, oomph, oomphish, Ann Sheridan

Allusionist 122. Ghostwriter

September 28, 2020 The Allusionist
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The word for ‘ghostwriter’ in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what word could French-speakers say instead?

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Rough Translation, Ngofeen Mputubwele, Gregory Warner, NPR, French, France, race, racism, Black, BIPOC, ghostwriter, problematic terms, voting, voter suppression, plume, offensive, slurs, elections

Allusionist 121. No Title

September 14, 2020 The Allusionist
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In 2014, a seemingly trivial and boring incident at the bank propelled me down a linguistic road via medieval werewolves, Ms Marvel and confusingly inscribed gravestones, to find out why the English language is riddled with all this gender. What’s it FOR? How did it GET there? Will it go AWAY now please? It is, at the very least, taking up brainspace and not paying any rent.

This is a recording of a live performance at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room in St Louis, Missouri on 23 November 2019, and there were visuals happening, so I’ll drop in sometimes to explain them, and I’ve also put a transcript and pictures in this post.

There are swears in this. There are also arguments that will be very useful to you if you ever come up against a denier of singular they. You will definitely win.

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In live recording, episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, live show, live recording, performance, No Title, gender, sex, identity, pronouns, titles, singular they, they, non-conforming, fluid, rank, hierarchy, marriage, social status, status, aristocracy, doctor, doctorate, Latin, Ms, Mrs, Master, Mister, Mr, Dr, Mx, ip, gender neutral, gender free, gender neutral pronouns, gender free pronouns, Ms Magazine, Ms Marvel, Sheila Michaels, feminism, feminists, tombstones, graves, gravestones, Downton Abbey, William and the Werewolf, medieval, Italian, Italy, signora, signorina, Frau, Fräulein, mademoiselle, madame, Académie Française, Mondamoiseau, Z, Mre, Russian, Russia, manners, politeness, etiquette, seamtress, seamster, manhole, you, ey, Martin Austwick

Allusionist redux rerun: The Away Team

August 18, 2020 The Allusionist
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After yet another spell of the British press and politicians using very dehumanising and derogatory rhetoric about migrants, I felt it necessary to go back to the Away Team episode of the Allusionist, about the language of migration, with lecturer and researcher Emma Briant and author and editor Nikesh Shukla. This episode originally went out in early 2017, but it is never not relevant.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, immigration, migration, immigrants, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, media, propaganda, tabloids, Emma Briant, Nikesh Shukla, racism, bias, political correctness, politically correct, POC, BAME
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Allusionist Patreon
Featured
Allusionist 208: Ffff
Allusionist 208: Ffff
WhatsApp Image 2025-04-27 at 23.06.37.jpeg
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!
Allusionist 199: 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet
Allusionist 199: 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.