At Lunar New Year, certain foods are particularly lucky to eat. Why? Because in Chinese, their names are puns on fortunate things. Damn, maybe noodles are all it takes to get me into puns after all... Professor Miranda Brown, cultural historian of China specialising in food and drink, explains the wordplay foods of new year, and why names are so resonant in Chinese.
Read moreAllusionist 167. Bonus 2022
What do the hippocampus, homophones, Little Women, worrying and egg hacks have in common? They all star in the 2022 parade of Allusionist bonus bits! This year's guests provide some extra fascinating facts, thoughts and feelings: in order of reappearance, Jing Tsu, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, Tim Clare, Stephanie Foo, Lewis Raven Wallace, Charlotte Lydia Riley, Hannah McGregor, Kristen Meinzer and Jolenta Greenberg.
Read moreAllusionist 153. In Character
Chinese is one of the oldest still-spoken languages in the world. But when technologies arrived like telegraphy and computing, designed with the Roman alphabet in mind, if Chinese wanted to be able to participate then it had to choose between adapting, or paying a heavy price. And sometimes both were inevitable. Jing Tsu, author of Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern, recounts how Chinese contended with obstacles like alphabetisation, Romanisation and standardisation.
Read moreAllusionist 1: Ban The Pun
When it emerged I was going to make the Allusionist, I got a lot of people asking me, "Are there going to be puns in it?"
“No,” I cried! “No! I hate puns!”
This episode is about puns.
I thought if I got them out of the way, we might never need speak of them again.
Late last year, China announced puns are to be banned across all media. Frankly, I wish I could ban them in my own family. I spoke to my brother Andy and my dad Zack about their punning which has blighted my life since 1980.
Perhaps all Zaltzmans should be tested for Witzelsucht Disease.
If you're a glutton for punishment, some brave soul has edited together nearly TWO HOURS of Andy's puns from his podcast The Bugle, which you can listen to here. Warning: high dose may prove fatal.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
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CREDITS
Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman.
Andy Zaltzman can be found touring, on The Bugle podcast and tweeting as @zaltzcricket and @hellobuglers.
Zack Zaltzman can be found in his studio trying out puns on his sculptures.
Thanks to Chris Skinner.
MUSIC
'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick
'China In Your Hand' [Instrumental] - T'Pau
'Here' - Tindersticks
