Cain's Jawbone, a murder mystery cryptic puzzle novella in the form of 100 pages presented in the wrong order, has many millions of possible solutions but only one that is correct. 86 years after it was published, writer, comedian and crossword constructor John Finnemore solved it. And then, craving another 100-page cryptic puzzle murder story, he wrote his own.
Read moreAllusionist 187. Bonus 2023
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 moreAllusionist 171. Supplantation
Last episode, I mentioned that in London, Ontario, in 2019 a 9-year-old named Lyla Wheeler had launched a petition to rename her street, currently called Plantation Road. This episode, Lyla, now aged nearly thirteen, and her mom Kristin Daley recount the reasons why Lyla campaigned for this name change, how the neighbours reacted, what happened when the wider world heard about it, and why the street's name is still Plantation Road.
Read moreAllusionist 169. The Box
Erwin Schrödinger is one of the "fathers of quantum mechanics". He also sexually abused children. Trinity College Dublin recently denamed a lecture theatre that had been named after him - but his name is still on an equation that won the Nobel Prize for physics. And a cat.
Writer and historian Subhadra Das recounts how and why you rename a university building, and retired physicist Martin Austwick considers that renaming an eponymous equation or theory might be more difficult than unscrewing a sign from a wall.
Read moreAllusionist 99. Polari
When there were no safe spaces to be gay, Polari allowed gay men to identify and communicate with each other, and to keep things secret from outsiders.
Professor Paul Baker, author of the Polari dictionary and the upcoming book Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language, explains how Polari emerged from criminal cant and London’s theatres and docks to be used a code language for gay men in the oppressive 1950s - and then, not long after, it entered the slang lexicons of the general public, via popular sketch comedy and the mouth of an annoyed princess.
Read moreAllusionist 91. Bonus 2018
Throughout the year, the people who appear on the Allusionist tell me a lot of interesting stuff. Not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away in preparation for this moment: the annual bonus episode! Get ready for gory 19th century London slang, the rise and fall of superhero capes, the post-WW1 trend for nudism, and more.
Read moreAllusionist 69. How the Dickens Stole Christmas
Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the impoverished and destitute members of British society. So how come his name is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry "God bless us every one" Christmas?
Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle of 99% Invisible report from the streets of Victorian London at the annual Dickens Christmas Fair in Daly City, California, while historian Greg Jenner explains the origins of the festive traditions for which Dickens gets the credit, without even wanting the credit - in fact, his motivation for writing A Christmas Carol was far from a cash-in on Christmas.
Read moreAllusionist 32: Soho
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Around the world, there are several places called Soho, getting their names from an acronym-portmanteau-ish composite of local streets or neighbouring areas. But not the original Soho in London. In fact, London's place names are an etymological hotchpotch: landmarks present and long gone; 1000-year-old vanity projects; and Cockfosters.
This is a companion piece to the 99% Invisible episode 'The Soho Effect', about the proliferation of acranamed places.
MO SOHO INFO
Peruse lots of historical and modern pieces about Soho on the Museum of Soho's blog, and find their touch screen exhibit on Sherwood Street.
The Soho Stories app will take you on a walk around Soho and play anecdotes into your ear when you pass notorious places.
There are so many stories of Soho, usually saturated with booze and sex; these ones are quite endearing.
There’s yet another Soho in Britain’s second city, Birmingham. There are acranamers claiming it’s from ‘SOuth HOuse’, but it’s probably a second win for the hunting cry.
Learn about Pittsburgh’s former Soho.
Have a look at the first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus.
Read an 1878 account of Soho, if you can handle the verbosity.
The Londonist was keeping track of the city’s rebranded areas.
Encyclopedia Briannica just tweeted to tell me that ‘acranames’ are actually ‘clipped compounds’. Yeah, but accuracy’s gain is acromanteaus’ loss.
Hungry for more portmanteau words? There's a feastmanteau in the Brunch episode of this show.
There's a transcript of this episode at theallusionist.org/transcripts/soho.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
yarak
CREDITS:
Tony Shrimplin is the chair of the Museum of Soho, a grassroots community project which you can find at mosoho.org.uk and twitter.com/TheMuseumOfSoho. Pop into their Bowie's London exhibition, 9-23 April at 35 Beak St. You can also hear him on Soho Radio, Sundays at 10am.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, except for the bit that was produced by Avery Trufelman and 99% Invisible. The music is by Martin Austwick.
Tony and I met in the Soho landmark Black's Club, who very kindly paused the coffee machine while we were talking.
Sound the hunting cries at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
Let's reconvene in two weeks for another of these.
