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🎁 Come to the Allusionist's 10th birthday live show
🎂 12 January 2025
🎉 Tickets: theallusionist.org/events
🎁 Come to the Allusionist's 10th birthday live show 🎂 12 January 2025 🎉 Tickets: theallusionist.org/events
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! Thanks to, in order of appearance:
Joanna Kopaczyk, historical linguist and Professor of Scots and English Philology at the University of Glasgow. She previously appeared in the Flyting episode, about medieval Scottish diss poetry.
Juliana Pache, maker of the daily mini puzzle Black Crossword - and now her book is out too, Black Crossword: 100 Mini Puzzles Celebrating the African Diaspora. She previously appeared in the episode Good Grids, about exciting developments in American crosswords.
Ben Zimmer, linguist, writer, crossword constructor, and word panellist and judge at the Scripps Annual Spelling Bee. He talked about what goes into making spelling into sport in the Word Sport episode.
Stacey Mei Yan Fong, baker and writer of the 50 Pies, 50 States project and book. She talked about her relationship with the Singlish language in Singlish Singlish.
A.J. Jacobs, puzzler from The Puzzler podcast (I’m on some episodes!) and The Puzzler book and author of books including The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning, and The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. He appeared in the Lemon Demon episode, bringing word games and advice for writing with a quill.
Zazie Todd, animal behaviour expert and author of books including Wag, Purr, and her latest, Bark, the Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful or Reactive Dog. She talked about humans and animals communicating via language in the two Lexicat episodes.
Caroline Crampton, host of Shedunnit podcast and author of books including A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria. She talked about the history, and her experience, of health anxiety in the Hypochondria episode.
Listen to all the previous years’ Bonus episodes, they’re always crammed full of curios and delights. Plus, here are all the Festivelusionists, because if not now, when? (Next December I guess!)
Also listen to The Podgoblin’s Hat, because it is a lovely podcast about the Moomins, and I’m on this episode about the excellent book Moominland Midwinter.
AND! I just read the whole of A Christmas Carol, with live musical scoring by Martin Austwick, and it is available on YouTube.com/allusionistshow.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
History of nocebo.
I’m not recommending Zeebo, the open-label placebo, I’m just confirming that it exists.
I didn’t want to get into the disagreement over which dictionary first featured the word ‘placebo’, but I appreciate this paper ‘Semantics of the placebo’ from 1968 for getting into it.
“There is actually a surprising amount of evidence of how medieval people dealt with migraine… A thirteenth-century Welsh text recommends eating a baked or roasted hare’s brain stuffed with rosemary flowers.”
History of forks.
Order your own tricorn hat and historical sock-belts.
To help fund this independent podcast, take yourself to theallusionist.org/donate and become a member of the Allusioverse. You get regular livestreams with me reading from my ever-expanding collection of dictionaries, inside scoops into the making of this show, and watchalong parties - coming up, we've got Great Pottery Throwdown 2025, and Cold Comfort Farm (1995). And best of all, you get the company of your fellow Allusionauts in our delightful Discord community.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
bine, noun: a long, flexible stem of a climbing plant, especially the hop.
Origin 19th century: originally a dialect form of ‘bind’.
CREDITS:
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, TikTok @allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back mid-January 2025 with with the show’s TENTH BIRTHDAY episode - HZ.
Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by:
• Rosetta Stone, language-learning programs available for 25 different languages. Allusionist listeners get 50% off lifetime memberships at rosettastone.com/allusionist.
• Audio Maverick, a new 9-part documentary podcast from CUNY TV about radio maven Himan Brown. Hear about the dawn of radio and Brown's remarkable career, via archive footage and new interviews with audio mavericks, by subscribing to Audio Maverick in your podcast app.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online forever home. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free 2-week trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.
• Rocket Money, the personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions and monitors your spending. Go to rocketmoney.com/allusionist to save money and lower your outgoings.
