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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 172. A Brief History of Brazilian Portuguese

March 9, 2023 The Allusionist

"The myths, or the received wisdom, about Portuguese language in Brazil is that, of course we know we speak a very different version of the language, but this has always been explained to us as maybe perhaps a defect of sorts?" says linguist and translator Caetano Galindo, author of Latim em Pó, a history of Brazilian Portuguese. "You look deeper into things and you find you have to wrap your mind around a very different reality.”

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, history, telling other stories, Caetano Galindo, Brazil, Brasileiro, Brazilian, Portuguese, Portugal, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, indigenous languages, línguas gerais, lingua franca, oppressed languages, South America, Latin, colonisation, Nheengatu, Caetano Veloso, ladino, locorestive

Allusionist 171. Supplantation

February 24, 2023 The Allusionist

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.

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In Telling Other Stories, audio Tags words, language, linguistics, society & culture, history, telling other stories, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, Canada, Canadian History, London, Ontario, eponyms, Ryerson, Egerton Ryerson, schools, campaigns, petition, American history, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, Josiah Henson, plantation, plantations, roads, streets, street names, towns, Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, Dundas Street, Indigenous Canadians, residential schools, Jamaica, local government, council, policy, addresses, zonda

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 169. The Box

January 27, 2023 The Allusionist

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.

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In episodes, Telling Other Stories Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, telling other stories, renaming, names, eponyms, problematic, science eponyms, science, scientific, Subhadra Das, Martin Austwick, Trinity College Dublin, TCD, University College London, UCL, Dublin, London, university, college, buildings, honours, honors, eugenics, racism, Erwin Schrödinger, Karl Pearson, Francis Galton, Schrödinger’s cat, Schrödinger’s equation, theories, quantum mechanics, physics, genetics, moon, Nobel Prize, light, waves, quantum, quantum wave function, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Lunn, Albert Einstein, theory of relativity, many worlds theory, Hugh Everett, Mark Everett, Eels, museums, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg, quadrivium

Allusionist 168. Debuts

January 13, 2023 The Allusionist

There’s been a recurring theme on the show over the years, of filling gaps in language, removing stigma and bias, finding better ways to express ourselves and talk about our feelings and our bodies. Today Kalle Rocklinger, sex educator with RFSU, the National Association for Sexuality Education in Sweden, talks about how and why over the years, the RFSU has come up with and publicised new terms for body parts and sexual acts, and what they would still like to change. This is the first part of the Telling Other Stories series, about renaming things.

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In episodes, Telling Other Stories Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, telling other stories, renaming, names, neologisms, Kalle Rocklinger, bodies, body parts, sex, sexuality, sex education, genitalia, genitals, Sweden, Swedish, RFSU, snippa, snopp, vulva, vagina, penis, virginity, sex debut, onanism, Onan, Anna Kosztovics, hymen, vaginal corona, slidkrans, masturbation, consent, rape, law, deflower, dittography, klittra, snipa, Telling Other Stories
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
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
live tour of the UK!
live tour of the UK!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.