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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 193 Word Play part 3: Lemon Demon transcript

April 23, 2024 The Allusionist

AJ JACOBS: Anagrams played a part in a trial, sort of a witch trial in the 1600s in the UK. And it was a woman who was put on trial for claiming that she was a prophet. Part of her proof was that if you rearrange the letters in her name - her name was Eleanor Davies - if you rearrange it, then it says, ‘Reveal, O Daniel’, as in the prophet Daniel. I don't believe that that was proof she was a prophet. They came down on her hard in the trial, so they said, “If you rearrange” - her married name was Dame Eleanor Davies - “and you rearrange those letters, it spells ‘Never So Mad A Lady;.” So like, “she's so crazy.” So that was how she was convicted. And by the way, that was when anagrams were easier, because there were so many spellings.

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In transcript, Word Play Tags history, word play, word games, puzzles, puzzling, AJ Jacobs, Bible, Constitution, USA, America, American history, US constitution, anagrams, legal, law, Alexander the Great, war, games, rebus, Louis XIII, France, French history, witch trials, prophet, English history, eye rhymes, ough, patterns, confirmation bias, pens, handwriting, quills, writing, letters, guns, second amendment, arms, insults, punishment, legs, apophenia, virtue, timocracy, satyr, ghoti, Bernard Shaw, pillory

Allusionist 92. To Err Is Human - transcript

January 23, 2019 The Allusionist
A92 To Err is Human logo.jpg

SUSIE DENT: There never has been a golden age when everything was as it should be ever. Even though we tend to think that English is now at its most dumbed down, always; I think every generation has thought that.

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In transcript Tags umpire, bears, jerusalem artichoke, freelance, arse ropes, zounds, mistakes, English, sayings, language, swearing, eggcorns, profanity, lick into shape, debt, Countdown, Old English, plumber, linguistics, swears, comedy, Helen Zaltzman, lexicography, expressions, entertainment, anagrams, literature, shamefaced, Latin, cusses, education, hangnail, euphemisms, Jiminy Cricket, arts, curry favour, favor, errors, history, etymology, gadzooks, doubt, nickname, society & culture, Middle English, jeepers creepers, malaphors, jerusalem artichokes, buttonholing, dord, Susie Dent, words, cherries, lexicographers, secretary

Allusionist 16: Word Play - transcript

August 12, 2015 The Allusionist

LESLIE SCOTT: Not many people realise the success of Scrabble is based on a statistician figuring out the scoring system - it's the first time someone had a word game where the score of the word game was based on him researching very thoroughly the number of times a particular letter was used. He scoured the New York Times for years counting how many times an E comes up, a Z, etc. Hence the numbers of those letters in the stack to start with was based on this, as is the scoring. And it works, whether or not you like the game. We have a mathematician to thank.
HZ: Probably why it’s not fun.

HZ: Sorry, Scrabble. But a game where you can triumph just by memorizing every two letter word will never have my affection.

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In transcript, Word Play Tags transcript, games, words, Oxford Games, Leslie Scott, Jenga, fun, Ex Libris, Anagram, anagrams, inventions, word play, word games
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feed bullshit
Allusionist 208: Ffff
Allusionist 208: Ffff
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
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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!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.