Lexicographer, author and Dictionary Corner resident Susie Dent has been studying words to make us feel happy. She brings etymologies concerning cows, gas, guts and fat, of bellies and breathing and bonanzas. And some that came from the high seas and aren't made up!
Read moreAllusionist 163. Rhino Borked Guy
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 159. Bufflusionist
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.
Read moreAllusionist 143. Hedge Rider
Today it's the etymologies you requested! And a few you didn't! We've got witches, wizards, warlocks; conjurers and cloves; wood shavings, nice gone nasty, and a whole lot more. Plus, a bold method of scaring away a ghost, if you must.
Read moreAllusionist 130. Valentine
St Valentine's name may nowadays be all over the romance-related merch for 14 February, but he was also the patron saint of beekeepers, epilepsy and plagues. Let's get to know this multi-hyphenate saint a bit better.
Read moreAllusionist 128. Bonus 2020
To round off the year, here are some choice cuts from the Allusionist vault of interesting things that guests said that there wasn’t room for in the original episodes. Brace yourself for a vivid name for dust bunnies, the scary side of glamour, another reason to be grateful for bears, and Schrödinger’s Fart.
Read moreAllusionist 123. Celebrity
Celebrity used to mean a solemn occasion; X factor was algebraic; and fame was a huge terrifying Godzilla-like beast with many many tongues.
Here to try define celebrity and fame are historian Greg Jenner of the podcast You’re Dead To Me, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger of Who? Weekly podcast, and writer, podcaster and videomaker Hank Green.
Read moreAllusionist 116. My Dad Excavated A Porno
The word ‘pornography’ arrived in English in the 1840s so upper class male archaeologists could talk about the sexual art they found in Pompeii without anyone who wasn’t an upper class male archaeologist knowing about it. Even though, at the same time, Victorian England was awash with what we’d now term pornography.
Dr Kate Lister of Whores of Yore and pornography historian Brian Watson of histsex.com explain the history of the word, and how the Victorian Brits dealt with material that gave them stirrings in their trousers. Sorry, ‘sit-down-upons’. ‘Inexpressibles’! If they couldn’t even express trousers, it’s little wonder they struggled to cope with pornography.
Read moreAllusionist 109. East West
On 9 November 1989, the demolition of the Berlin Wall began. Within a year, Germany was unified. East Germany dissolved and was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany, took on its currency and its rules - and its lexicon. What was that vocabulary, and where did it go?
Read moreAllusionist 65. Eponyms III: Who's That Guy?
Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms - words that derive from people's names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word 'guy'.
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