Allusionist 23: Criminallusionist

Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer from the podcast Criminal stop by to talk about the linguistic challenges of crime reporting. They also share their episode 'Pants on Fire', about lying. It's an extremely useful handbook if you fancy becoming either a h...

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Today, Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer from the Radiotopian podcast Criminal stop by to talk about the linguistic challenges of crime reporting.

They also share their episode 'Pants on Fire', about lying. It's an extremely useful handbook if you fancy becoming either a human polygraph, or an excellent liar.

READING MATTER:

• Lauren Spohrer wrote a very smart piece for Catapult about the ethics of cutting and editing information when constructing stories for Criminal.

• Here's one version of the history of the term 'serial killer', courtesy of NPR, though apparently its origins are contested.

• Body language often gives away a lie, but here are some tips for spotting lies over the phone.

• "The English language has 112 words for deception."

• Here's the transcript of this episode.

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
Welsh onion

CREDITS:

• Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer make Criminal, which you can find at thisiscriminal.com. Amongst my favourite episodes are 'Triassic Park', 'Gil from London', and 'Angie'. You can see and hear Phoebe fending off attack dogs here.

• 'Pants on Fire' was produced by Phoebe Judge, Lauren Spohrer and Eric Mennel. The rest of this episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Russ Henry for production help, and Martin Austwick for the music.

• Communicate with me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman. No fibbing, please.

- HZ