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.
Read moreAllusionist 122. Ghostwriter
The word for ‘ghostwriter’ in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what word could French-speakers say instead?
Read moreAllusionist 116. My Dad Excavated A Porno
The word ‘pornography’ arrived in English in the 1840s so upper class male archaeologists could talk about the sexual art they found in Pompeii without anyone who wasn’t an upper class male archaeologist knowing about it. Even though, at the same time, Victorian England was awash with what we’d now term pornography.
Dr Kate Lister of Whores of Yore and pornography historian Brian Watson of histsex.com explain the history of the word, and how the Victorian Brits dealt with material that gave them stirrings in their trousers. Sorry, ‘sit-down-upons’. ‘Inexpressibles’! If they couldn’t even express trousers, it’s little wonder they struggled to cope with pornography.
Read moreAllusionist 107. Apples
Late 2019 will see the biggest apple launch of our lifetimes. 22 years in the making, ripening on millions of trees into picture-perfect redness, here comes the WA38, more snazzily known as the Cosmic Crisp. The name was the result of a year of focus groups, taste tests and word associations - a far cry from when apples were named after whichever end of a cat they resembled.
Read moreAllusionist 100. The Hundredth
To mark the 100th episode of the Allusionist, here’s a celebratory parade of language-related facts.
Read moreAllusionist 84. Trammels
Why would you write books or poems or plays with only one vowel? Or in palindromes? Or only using the example sentences in dictionaries? Sometimes you need to force yourself to jump a few hurdles (and perhaps the rest of the obstacle course) before your creativity will be unleashed.
Read moreAllusionist 53: The Away Team
"Recognizing someone's humanity is crucial. Calling someone a migrant, calling someone an asylum seeker, calling them a refugee: these are official categories. But in many ways, depending on how they use them, they can change and become more negative."
So says propaganda and migration specialist Emma Briant, explaining the dangers of conflating and misusing the terms that apply to humans on the move. And British-Asian-but-kinda-not author Nikesh Shukla wonders where he's from - where he is really from.
Read moreAllusionist 26: Xmas Man
Historian Greg Jenner traces the origins of that mythical beardy man who turns up in December with gifts. And I ensure my permanent removal from everybody's Christmas card lists.
Read moreAllusionist 24: Spill Your Guts
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It's cathartic; it's useful historical records; and it might help you behave better on public transport. Neil Katcher and Dave Nadelberg from Mortified discuss the art and practice of keeping a diary.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:
This website has a fair amount of information about Samuel Pepys, including his diary entries describing the Plague and the Great Fire of London - and some of the entries he wrote in code because they're a bit saucy.
Pepys wrote his diary in shorthand, so snoopers couldn't understand it. Read a translation at Project Gutenberg.
Anne Frank, meanwhile, edited a version of her diary for possible public consumption, which was the one published in 1947. The longer, private version was recently published.
Mortification comes in many forms. All of which are funnier when they happened to someone else.
My friend Jo Neary has been keeping an illustrated diary for decades. Occasionally, she shares some pages online, to my delight.
Which of these medical acronyms will follow in LOL's footsteps and be in common use in textspeak within the next 30 years?
Having trouble translating DAMHIKT, UDS or POTF? Acronym Finder is here to help.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
horst
CREDITS:
Dave Nadelberg and Neil Katcher run Mortified. It's a weekly podcast, a stage show in many cities around the world, a documentary, a TV series, and books; find all these Mortified things at getmortified.com.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks for the advice, Eleanor McDowall and Martin Austwick (who also provided all the music).
Communicate with me publicly at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
- HZ
Allusionist 17: Fix part I
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The English language is a mess. And if you don't like it, what are you going to do about it - fix it? Good luck with that.
In the early 18th century, a movement of grammarians and authors wanted to set up an official authority to regulate English, like French had in the Academie Francaise. But is trying to fix a language a good move? Linguists Liv Walsh and Thomas Godard weigh up the evidence.
Apologies in advance, pedants: this episode may contain some truths you* don't want to hear.
*we.
READING MATTER:
Some of the audio is a bit unclear, so here's a transcript of the show.
Find out about the Academie Francaise, including what you'll need to do if you want to become one of Les Immortels. (You'll probably have to kill one of the current ones.)
Here is Jonathan Swift’s language proposal and here is his Modest Proposal.
This article summarises how most linguistic rules are just busking it; it also links to a 1909 paper about the subject that doesn't mess around.
Thomas Godard recommends reading Fixing English by Anne Curzan and The Bishop's Grammar by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, and listening to PRI's The World in Words.
The purists among you may wish to seek refuge with the Queen's English Society.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
toxophilite
CREDITS:
Thanks very much to Dr Liv Walsh and Thomas Godard, and to Dr Rachele De Felice who helped me find them.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more - WITH LYRICS! - at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.
Say hello to me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
