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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 special play-at-home QUIZ 2018

December 18, 2018 The Allusionist
A91.5 logo Quiz.jpg

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A wordy quiz for you to play along with as you listen. Get a pen and paper, or fill in your answers online at http://theallusionist.org/2018quiz. Also!

Hello!

For a bit of fun, this episode is a wordy quiz for you to play along with as you listen. Get a pen and paper, or there’s an answer form all ready for your clicks just down this post.

Also! I’ve put together an Allusionist print-at-home puzzle book, featuring a wordsearch, crossword, some jollity with portmanteaus, eponyms and scandals ending in -gate. I wrote them, and the wonderful Kristyna Baczynski made them look good.

Do let me know how you fare in the quiz and puzzles at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.

The full transcript of this is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/2018quiz.

OK, are you ready?

LET’S GET QUIZZY!

The dot on a letter i is called:

The dot on a letter i is called:

A. A tittle

The horrific disease ‘botulism’ derives from the Latin word for:

The horrific disease ‘botulism’ derives from the Latin word for:

D. Sausage

CLOTHING ROUND: An aglet is:

An aglet is:

C. The thing on the end of your shoelace

It’s the diminutive of the Old French word for ‘needle’.

CLOTHING ROUND: The word ‘wardrobe’ derives from the word ‘garderobe’, literally 'to guard your robes'. But in a medieval castle, which other thing might the garderobe have been?

A garderobe also functioned as:

A. The toilet

In a medieval castle, there’d be a little room with a seat with a hole in it, through which excrement would fall from your body down into the moat below. And clothes were also kept in that room, because, we’ll you’ve got to put them somewhere, and there was a school of thought that the ammonia in urine kept fleas away from your clothes.

CLOTHING ROUND: Felt, as in the fabric, derives from an Old Germanic word meaning what?

Felt, as in the fabric, derives from an Old Germanic word meaning:

A. To beat

To beat, in felt’s case, wool, and other fibres, including hair. So you might be enacting the 8,500-year-old practice of feltmaking as you trample your dirty bathmat. Well done.

TRUTH OR UNTRUTH: The idiom ‘To give someone the cold shoulder’ originated in the 1800s, when you would serve an unwelcome guest a cold shoulder of meat because it would be tough and gross.

The idiom ‘To give someone the cold shoulder’ was orginally a snub through the medium of cold meat is an UNTRUTH. A very often repeated untruth.

It’s most likely a mistranslation from Latin in the Vulgate Bible of ‘they turned their backs on you’ - the Latin word ‘umerus’ was used to mean both shoulder and back.

TRUTH OR UNTRUTH: Remember the 90s craze Pogs? The name is a portmanteau of ‘pig’ and ‘dogs’.

The game Pogs being a portmanteau of pig and dogs is an UNTRUTH.

‘Pog’ is in fact an acronym of passion fruit, orange and guava, after a Hawaiian juice containing those fruits and named POG, and under the POG bottle caps there were little cardboard discs printed with images and these would grow up to be Pogs.

TRUTH OR UNTRUTH: ‘Feist’, as in ‘feisty’, means ‘a small dog’.

‘Feist’, as in ‘feisty’, means ‘a small dog’: TRUTH!

Around 200 years ago, ‘feist’ meant a small dog. That was an abbreviation of ‘fysting curr’, a 16th century expression which meant ‘stinky dog’, from the earlier verb ‘fysten’ or ‘fisten’, which meant ‘to fart’. So when you say someone is feisty, you’re kind of saying that they’re farty.

Turkey, as in the bird, was named after the country Turkey. But in Turkey, the country, turkeys - the bird - are named after a different country. Which one?

In Turkey, the word for turkey refers to:

A. India

A turkey in Turkey is called ‘hindi’, meaning ‘Indian’, and a lot of different languages reference India in their terms for turkey - French, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Italian. Why? Urgh, complicated! The bird we know in English as turkey was originally domesticated by the Aztecs, then later taken across the Atlantic by the Spanish. In England, the birds started being sold from around the mid-16th century, and they were called turkeys then either because they were mistaken for a kind of fowl already being sold there by Turkish traders; or because the Spanish introduced the turkeys to northern Africa, which was at the time under Turkish rule, and from there these turkeys were traded with other European countries.

And why do so many languages refer to India in their turkey names? Couple of possible reasons: one, that to much of Europe, Turkey, India, they’re all over to the east, aren’t they, who can tell the difference? The other, that India was one common name for the New World, often attributed to Christopher Columbus believing he had landed in India when he arrived in Caribbean. Other countries cited in different languages’ words for turkeys include: Netherlands! France! Greece! Ethiopia! Peru! Peru at least is on a similar longitude to where the birds originally came from. Basically, nobody is seeming that smart in their geographical turkey names.



Around 700 years ago, if you said ‘urchin’, you would have been talking about which animal?

Around 700 years ago, if you said ‘urchin’, you would have been talking about:

B. A hedgehog

So called because they spend time in hedges and have snouts a bit like hogs, hedgehogs have only been hedgehogs since the mid-15th century. Their prior name, urchins, or rather yrichons, from Old French - and if you trace the word back to its root, it derives from the Proto-Indo-European *ghers-, which meant ‘to bristle’, a thing which hedgehogs do. And that’s also a thing which we humans do when we’re frightened, our hairs stand on end, so incidentally, the word ‘horror’ also comes from the same root word as ‘urchin’, it developed into a Latin verb ‘horrere’, to bristle with fear. Hedgehogs and horror. Old acquaintances.

EPONYMS ROUND: George Washington Gale Ferris Jr created the first official Ferris wheel for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. But there were precursors several hundred years before, called ‘pleasure wheels’. They were turned by:

Pleasure wheels were turned by:

C. Strongmen

There are written accounts of riding on pleasure wheels turned by strongmen from as far back as the early 1600s.

EPONYMS ROUND: Zeppelin airships were named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. In 1971, his granddaughter issued legal threats to Led Zeppelin, meaning the band had to play a concert in Copenhagen under a different name. Was it:

For one night only, Led Zeppelin had to play as:

B. The Nobs

After their European promoter Claude Nobs.

EPONYMS ROUND: The first stetson hat was made by John B. Stetson out of which creature’s skin?

To wear whilst panning for gold in Colorado, John B. Stetson made the first Stetson hat from the skin of:

B. A beaver

There are no points for this answer, but Roman Mars can do:

full burpees: 100 in one session
cardio burpees: 36 in a minute

In the Bible, the word ‘foot’ is a euphemism for:

In the Bible, the word ‘foot’ is a euphemism for:

C. A penis

If you scored 0: better luck next time
If you scored 1-13: not bad
If you scored 14: congratulations!

I couldn’t let 2018 go without one more
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
hesternal

A91-5 wotd hesternal.jpg

CREDITS:

You heard from the following podcasters, in order of appearance:

  • Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder and The West Wing Weekly (and several Allusionist episodes including Namaste and Shark Week)

  • Benjamen Walker of Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything (and Allusionist episodes Curse Soup and US Election Lexicon)

  • Avery Trufelman of 99% Invisible and her new series Articles of Interest (and Allusionist episodes including How The Dickens Stole Christmas and Small Talk)

  • Jonathan Mitchell of The Truth (and the Allusionist US Election Lexicon)

  • Joe Richman of Radio Diaries (making his Allusionist debut!)

  • Nate DiMeo of The Memory Palace (and Allusionist episodes including Toki Pona and One To Another)

  • Roman Mars of 99% Invisible (and myriad Allusionist episodes)

  • Jen Poyant and Manoush Zomorodi of ZigZag (our newest Topes)

This episode was written and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music and sound effects are by Martin Austwick. Hear his work at palebirdmusic.com. And come to see us live at SF Sketchfest on 25 January!

- HZ

In episodes, quiz Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, Avery Trufelman, Articles of Interest, Roman Mars, 99% Invisible, 99PI, Nate DiMeo, The Memory Palace, Hrishikesh Hirway, Song Exploder, The West Wing Weekly, The Truth, Radio Diaries, podcast, podcasts, podcasters, quiz, questions, eponyms, history, etymology, phrases, idioms, animals, hedgehogs, turkey, urchins, botulism, sausage, Latin, i, tittle, diacritics, Bible, euphemisms, foot, aglet, clothing, shoes, shoelaces, fashion, garb, garments, apparel, clothing terminology, terminology, diseases, medieval, castles, toilets, WC, garderobe, wardrobe, clothes, bathroom, ammonia, hygiene, faeces, waste disposal, evacuations, bodily functions, mistranslation, Vulgate Bible, dogs, feist, feisty, fart, meat, cold shoulder, expressions, juice, Hawaii, turkeys, Turkey, poultry, names, imports, Aztecs, India, trade, Peru, geography, New World, Christopher Columbus, horror, burpees, exercises, exercise, physical exertion, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr, Ferris wheels, pleasure wheels, inventions, strongmen, World’s Fair, zeppelins, Led Zeppelin, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, bands, music, name changes, lawsuits, fur, fabric, felt, cloth, Stetson, hats, John B. Stetson, genitalia, genitals, penis, Radiotopian guest appearance
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