AJ Jacobs makes The Puzzler podcast, wrote The Puzzler book, and sometimes turns his whole life into a puzzle. He comes bearing word games, explanations of anagrams being used to precipitate wars and were key evidence in trials, tips for writing with a quill, below-the-knee insults, and tales of living constitutionally.
Read moreAllusionist 154. Objectivity
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.
Read moreAllusionist 94. Harsh Realm
On 15 November 1992, the New York Times printed a ‘ Lexicon of Grunge’, a list of slang terms from the Seattle music scene. ‘Harsh realm’ = bummer. ‘Wack slacks’ = old ripped jeans. ‘Swingin’ on the flippity-flop’ = hanging out.
Not familiar with any of these? It’s OK, it’s not because you’re a cob nobbler (= loser). They were all made up. By Megan Jasper. Now the CEO of Sub Pop records, she explains why she pranked an unsuspecting journalist.
Read moreAllusionist 76. Across the Pond
Pavement/sidewalk; football/soccer; bum bag/fanny pack: we know that the English language is different in the UK and the USA. But why? Linguist Lynne Murphy points out the geographical, cultural and social influences that separate the common language.
Read moreAllusionist 71. Triumph/Trumpet/Top/Fart
It's a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. And in that year, he's caused a lot of changes in the job of constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh of What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law podcast - in particular, one verb is now off limits.
Plus, Paul Anthony Jones, aka etymologist extraordinaire Haggard Hawks, describes how politicians' names work their way into our vocabularies.
CONTENT NOTE: this episode contains references to the 45th president of the USA. I know a lot of you listen to The Allusionist for a little escape from politics and current affairs, so let me reassure you that there is not much modern politics in the episode; it’s mostly about history and interesting word facts.
Read moreAllusionist 30: US Election Lexicon
The 2016 US election isn't going away anytime soon, so let's seek refuge in etymology, as we did before in the first Election Lexicon.
EXCESS BAGGAGE:
Oxford Dictionaries have had enough of these political terms, and perhaps so have you.
Lo, here's a short history of filibustering.
The linguistics of mass persuasion: how politicians make ‘fetch’ happen.
And in case you needed to know about the sex lives of politicians during primaries, the escorts they hire are here to tell you.
If you want podcasts about the US Election, I've heard good things about FiveThirtyEight, Bandwagon, Presidential, Slate's Political Gabfest, Candidate Confessional, Left, Right & Centre, The Pollsters, Whistlestop... And there's this episode from our pals Mortified.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
flockmaster
CREDITS:
You heard from Jonathan Mitchell from The Truth; Benjamen Walker from Theory of Everything; Lauren Spohrer from Criminal; Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder; Nick van der Kolk from Love + Radio; and Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle from 99% Invisible.
This episode was produced by Matt Hill and me. The theme tune is by Martin Austwick.
Say hello at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman, regardless of on which shoulder you sport your parrot.
