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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 122. Ghostwriter

September 28, 2020 The Allusionist
A122 Ghostwriter logo.jpg

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 119. Blood Is Not Water

July 14, 2020 The Allusionist
Allusionist 119 logo

The Yiddish word for ‘black’ is, in certain uses, a slur. So Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Arun Viswanath and Jonah Boyarin teamed up to translate Black Lives Matter without it.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, BLM, Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, racism, POC, BIPOC, black, Black people, African diaspora, civil rights, Yiddish, translation, translators, translating, slurs, pejorative, Arun Viswanath, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Jonah Boyarin, African American, Judaism, Jewish, Jews, Harry Potter, Dean Thomas, edits, problematic, transliteration, phrases, idioms
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
feed bullshit
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!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.