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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 206. Bonus 2024

December 22, 2024 The Allusionist

It's the annual parade of Bonus Bits - things this year's guests said that I couldn't fit into their episodes, and/or weren't about language, but now is their time to shine.

We've got tricorn hats, changing your dog's name, Boston cream pie, parmesan vs vomit, the placebo effect's negative sibling, the universal blank, headache poetry and bawdy riddles. And more!

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In episodes Tags history, etymology, bonus, bonus episode, Joanna Kopaczyk, William Dunbar, flyting, poetry, poems, headaches, migraine, Juliana Pache, Black Crossword, crosswords, puzzles, Ben Zimmer, spelling bee, Scripps National Spelling Bee, homophones, letters, alphabet, pronunciation, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, names, pies, USA, America, American, cakes, Boston cream pie, Massachussetts, AJ Jacobs, framing, parmesan, vomit, -nyms, retronyms, capitalnyms, forks, elastic, tricorn hat, US constitution, battle reeactments, historical costume, hats, cloves, Zazie Todd, animal psychology, dogs, cats, companion animals, renaming, training, Caroline Crampton, Susan Sontag, battle, illness, suggestion, health, cancer, bodies, metaphor, anti-fat, placebo, nocebo, medicine, medical, pharmaceutical, riddles, Old English, monks, onion, bine

Allusionist 197. Word Play 7: Word Sport

June 29, 2024 The Allusionist
A boggle grid spelling out the words 'word sport'

At the Scripps National Spelling Bee, behind the spectacle of kids vying to be champion spellers, a whole lot of work goes on to make words into this word sport.

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In episodes, Word Play Tags words, language, etymology, vocabulary, lexicography, lexicon, word sport, word play, word games, Scripps National Spelling Bee, spelling bee, games, competitions, contests, sport, sports, spelling sports, spellers, television, TV, school, Merriam-Webster, dictionary, Corrie Loeffler, Ben Zimmer, Jane Solomon, beeple, beecap, champions, spinning, protest, textiles, American history, USA, Noah Webster, Marie Bolden, American English, Octochamps, hemlock, spell-off, bees, univocal

Allusionist 193. Word Play 3: Lemon Demon

April 23, 2024 The Allusionist

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.

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In episodes, Word Play Tags history, word play, word games, puzzles, puzzling, AJ Jacobs, Bible, Constitution, USA, America, American history, US constitution, anagrams, legal, law, Alexander the Great, war, games, rebus, Louis XIII, France, French history, witch trials, prophet, English history, eye rhymes, ough, patterns, confirmation bias, pens, handwriting, quills, writing, letters, guns, second amendment, arms, insults, punishment, legs, apophenia, virtue, timocracy, satyr, ghoti, Bernard Shaw, pillory

Allusionist 183. Timucua

October 9, 2023 The Allusionist
A boggle set spelling out the word Timucua

When Spanish missionaries arrived in what is now called Florida, there were 100,000-200,000 Timucua people in the region. Just two centuries later, there were fewer than 100. Soon, with all the people who spoke it dead, the Timucua language died out, too, preserved only in a few Spanish-Timucua religious texts.

In the 21st century, linguistic anthropologist Aaron Broadwell and historian Alejandra Dubcovsky have been decoding and translating these texts to understand the Timucua language and the people who were writing it down.

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In episodes Tags language, lexicography, lexicon, vocabulary, history, translation, revival, survival, Aaron Broadwell, Alejandra Dubcovsky, Timucua, isolates, Florida, Georgia, USA, colonisation, missionaries, Franciscan, Indigenous Americans, Spanish, Christianity, conversion, genocide, Roman alphabet, writing systems, Catholic, Catholicism, catechism, communion, Genesis, Bible, Adam and Eve, Eve, gender, euphemisms, conquistadors, Timucua Rebellion, letters, writing, nival, lost language, Survival

Allusionist 170. Actively Passive

February 9, 2023 The Allusionist

Over the past few years, numerous products and places with the word 'plantation' in their names have rebranded. As for the word 'plantation' itself, architect and writer Kennedy Whiters of unRedactTheFacts.com advocates for replacing it with a more truthful term. She also watches out for use of the grammatical passive voice, because "It hides who did what to whom."

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In episodes, Telling Other Stories Tags history, telling other stories, Kennedy Whiters, Unredact the Facts, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, USA, American history, Black history, United States of America, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, plantation, plantations, euphemisms, weddings, products, branding, rebranding, brand names, Rhode Island, streets, towns, bingo, embrave

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.

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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 159. Bufflusionist

August 19, 2022 The Allusionist

Grab your stake and crucifix pendant, we're going vampire-hunting! Well, vampire-etymology-hunting. The podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer, which recaps the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode by episode, invited me to answer their listeners' questions of language that the show had provoked. Together with BVTS hosts Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs, I tackle the etymology of coven, vampire/vampyre, wigging out, the name Buffy and Bovril; as well as google as a verb, conlang on TV, and why Latin is so often the language of spells and spookiness.

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In episodes Tags etymology, history, entertainment, Buffering the Vampire Slayer, Jenny Owen Youngs, Kristin Russo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers, Sarah Michelle Gellar, slang, Joss Whedon, television, TV, teenage, USA, 1990s, 2000s, 1600s, 1300s, 1950s, vampires, weaving, Slaymaker, Latin, nicknames, hellmouth, Christianity, Catholicism, religion, witches, spells, magic, covens, nuns, monks, science, alchemy, occult, plagues, alewives, beer, misogyny, Margaret Murray, wigs, wiggins, flip your wig, headcount, hair, wigpicker, nominalisation, verbs, nouns, generic, Google, googling, brand names, cricket, truckers, military, radio, My So-Called Life, vampyre, Serbia, vampire epidemics, conlang, constructed languages, David J Peterson, Dothraki, Valyrian, Game of Thrones, Klingon, Yulish, Icelandic, beef, liquid beef, meat, git, Napoleon III, food, cows, Victorians, inventions, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, novels, science fiction, fantasy, 5x5, Bovril, Buffy, coven, Elizabeth, grilse, killer, slayer, vampire, wigging out

Allusionist 154. Objectivity

May 13, 2022 The Allusionist

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.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Lewis Raven Wallace, history, Vietnam War, journalism, journalists, objectivity, subjectivity, bias, news, newspapers, neutrality, neutral, perspective, white supremacy, racism, USA, America, 19th century, 20th century, power, unions, First Amendment, balance, nuncupative

Allusionist 137. Dude

June 10, 2021 The Allusionist
A137 Dude logo.jpeg

Exclamation; sign of agreement OR disapproval; gendered, but circumstantially gender-neutral; term of endearment: 'dude' can do it all! But its connotations of a laid-back, cool, masculine person are only a few decades old; before that, it meant...an uptight city-dwelling tourist?? Dude, seriously!

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Callie Wright, Queersplaining, dude, Yankee Doodle, macaronis, history, slang, terms of endearment, insults, USA, David Bowie, songs, lyrics, movies, films, Easy Rider, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, gender neutral, non binary, gender, guys, Pacheco, zoot suit, Mexican Americans, African Americans, AAVE, surfing, saros

Allusionist 133. Cake is Mightier than the Sword

March 26, 2021 The Allusionist
A133 Cake is Mightier than the Sword logo.jpeg

What to do to stick it to the powers that be? Send your message through something they really care about: cake.

In Buenos Aires, local tour guides Madi Lang and Juan Palacios introduce me to priest's balls and little cannons, the pastries laced with the sweet taste of 1880s trade union protests.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Argentina, Buenos Aires, 19th century, history, politics, cake, pastries, pastry, treats, anarchy, protest, unions, strikes, industrial action, graham crackers, Sylvester Graham, Shirley Temple, eponyms, pineapples, food, drink, freedom fries, french fries, dachshunds, sauerkraut, World War One, First World War, Iraq War, USA, UK, France, French, Paris, law, facturas, cueca virada, ganache, fedora, Taiwan, Arnold Palmer, John Daly, Bob Ney, Walter B Jones, Ettore Mattei, Errico Malatesta, Paul Siraudin, Victorien Sardou, playwrights, confectionary, police, cops, law enforcement, vigilante, cañoncitas, libritos, bolas de fraile, priest’s balls, borborygmus
Older Posts →
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Featured
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!
Allusionist 199: 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet
Allusionist 199: 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.