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 moreAllusionist 122. Ghostwriter
The word for ‘ghostwriter’ in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what word could French-speakers say instead?
Read moreAllusionist 100. The Hundredth
To mark the 100th episode of the Allusionist, here’s a celebratory parade of language-related facts.
Read moreAllusionist 30: US Election Lexicon
The 2016 US election isn't going away anytime soon, so let's seek refuge in etymology, as we did before in the first Election Lexicon.
EXCESS BAGGAGE:
Oxford Dictionaries have had enough of these political terms, and perhaps so have you.
Lo, here's a short history of filibustering.
The linguistics of mass persuasion: how politicians make ‘fetch’ happen.
And in case you needed to know about the sex lives of politicians during primaries, the escorts they hire are here to tell you.
If you want podcasts about the US Election, I've heard good things about FiveThirtyEight, Bandwagon, Presidential, Slate's Political Gabfest, Candidate Confessional, Left, Right & Centre, The Pollsters, Whistlestop... And there's this episode from our pals Mortified.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
flockmaster
CREDITS:
You heard from Jonathan Mitchell from The Truth; Benjamen Walker from Theory of Everything; Lauren Spohrer from Criminal; Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder; Nick van der Kolk from Love + Radio; and Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle from 99% Invisible.
This episode was produced by Matt Hill and me. The theme tune is by Martin Austwick.
Say hello at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman, regardless of on which shoulder you sport your parrot.
Meet you back here in a fortnight.
- HZ
P.S. Thanks to listener Matt for designing this bumper sticker after hearing the episode. We've got a chance of winning this, people...
Allusionist 10: Election Lexicon
On the eve of the 2015 General Election in the UK, join me for a jaunt through the etymology of election-related words.
Find out why casting a vote should be more like basketball, how debating could descend into fisticuffs, and why polling is hairy.
FURTHER READING:
Producer Matt and I went out in a high wind with a megaphone to record at the place for shouting about politics through a megaphone: Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. Here's a brief history of Speakers' Corner, where people have been blowing high wind through megaphones for more than a century.
For those who insist upon continuing to do their campaigning indoors, here's a potted history of lobbying in the US.
I only briefly mentioned the origins of the Tories' name: it has a very knotty history. Read more about that here.
Swingometer fans! Thanks to the BBC, here're some archive videos and pictures of swingometers through history.
Here is the transcript of this episode.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
pismire
See you in a fortnight, unless etymologocracy wins the day and I'm too drunk on power to make this show.
- HZ
CREDITS
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with megaphone assitance from Matt Hill. Matt tweets as @virtualmatthill and makes numerous podcasts and apps, including Spark London and the Media Podcast. Find more of his work at rethinkdaily.co.uk.
All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear more of it at http://thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com/.
Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
So goddamn windy that day. The campaign trail is more challenging than I had expected.
