• Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch
Menu

The Allusionist

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

Your Custom Text Here

The Allusionist

  • Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch

Allusionist 187. Bonus 2023

December 24, 2023 The Allusionist

It's our annual end of year parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about, including a mythical disappearing island, geese, human dictionaries, the dubious history of the Body Mass Index, Victorian death department stores, and much more.

Read more
In episodes Tags etymology, vocabulary, history, Caetano Galindo, Susie Dent, Lindsay Rose Russell, Aubrey Gordon, Dean Vuletic, Evie King, Cariad Lloyd, Griefcast, Hy-Brasil, myths, legends, islands, Ireland, Victorians, Georgians, death, 19th century, funerals, mourning, grief, grieving, posthumous, dead bodies, bodies, fat, anti-fatness, anti-fat, bias, medical, BMI, Body Mass Index, body positivity, eugenics, families, family, estrangement, Brazilian, brasileiros, Portuguese, wood, brazilwood, trees, dictionaries, walking dictionary, sleeping dictionary, gender, geese, goose, weaving, renaming, denaming, cremation, aquamation, ashes, burial, composting, graves, clothes, shopping, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, five stages of grief, Jay’s, Regent Street, London, jet, jewelry, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, street names, school names, John La Rose, Richmond, Virginia, Australia, K’Gari, Hobart, Macquarie Street, Tasmania, petitions, Toronto, Rob Ford, Michaelmas, Alfred Hitchcock, Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca, rebeca, cardigan, turtlenecks, lexicography, Adolphe Quetelet, Quetelet’s Index, Ancel Keys, Francis Galton, drapetomania, hysteria, Eurovision Song Contest, Eurovision, nul points, zero, French, Brazil, Brasil, gossamer, pavage, text, textile, clothing, bonus, bonus episode

Allusionist 172. A Brief History of Brazilian Portuguese

March 9, 2023 The Allusionist

"The myths, or the received wisdom, about Portuguese language in Brazil is that, of course we know we speak a very different version of the language, but this has always been explained to us as maybe perhaps a defect of sorts?" says linguist and translator Caetano Galindo, author of Latim em Pó, a history of Brazilian Portuguese. "You look deeper into things and you find you have to wrap your mind around a very different reality.”

Read more
In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, history, telling other stories, Caetano Galindo, Brazil, Brasileiro, Brazilian, Portuguese, Portugal, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, indigenous languages, línguas gerais, lingua franca, oppressed languages, South America, Latin, colonisation, Nheengatu, Caetano Veloso, ladino, locorestive

Allusionist 163. Rhino Borked Guy

October 20, 2022 The Allusionist

Provoked by current events, we've got three political eponyms for turmoiled times. Get ready for explosives, presidential pigs, Supreme Court scrapping, and wronged rhinos.

Read more
In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, eponyms, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, rhinoceros, Cacareco, elections, politics, political, votes, voting, protest vote, power, democracy, zoos, Richard Nixon, Pigasus, Republicans, Democrats, mule, Canada, Rhinoceros Party, English history, Tudors, Jacobean, guy, Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot, Reformation, Protestant, Catholic, Catholicism, Church of England, religion, England, Henry VIII, pope, divorce, Elizabeth I, James I, kings, queens, monarchy, parliament, Roman Mars, Helen Zaltzman, bonfire, Bonfire Night, fireworks, 5 November, Robert Catesby, oppression, names, treason, conspiracy, gunpowder, explosives, weapons, molotov cocktail, Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Union, USSR, Russia, Finland, Supreme Court, USA, American history, Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Watergate, disinformation, propaganda, Roe v Wade, bork, borked, computers, DoggoLingo, civil rights, originalism, constitution, kype

Allusionist 134. Lacuna

April 9, 2021 The Allusionist
A134 Lacuna logo.png

If you were in Brazil during the military dictatorship of 1964-1985, tried to bake a cake from a recipe in the newspaper, and were served with a sorry mess that tasted disgustingly salty, it wasn't your fault. What you thought was a recipe was actually a message from the newspaper that they were being censored.

Designer and researcher Crystian Cruz opens up the TOP SECRET files, to share the fake weather reports, single nipples vs a pair, soap opera characters getting bumped off, and the problems with kung fu.

Read more
In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Brazil, South America, Crystian Cruz, censorship, censors, dictatorship, military, press, media, newspapers, magazines, cake, recipes, food, soap operas, books, nipples, printing, journalism, news, films, movies, kung fu, poems, poetry, metachrosis
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
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
live tour of the UK!
live tour of the UK!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.