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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 206. Bonus 2024 transcript

December 22, 2024 The Allusionist
a Boggle grid spelling out Bonus 2024, the numbers are in mismatched dice, one of which has a dinosaur skeleton next to the number

This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, have been stashing away special Allusiobits all year, when the people who appeared on the show said interesting things that I couldn’t fit into their episode because there wasn’t room or it was not about language - waiting, just waiting, for this, the annual Bonus episode! This year we’ve got something called the ‘universal blank’, which actually does not refer to my emotions; we’ve got tricorn hats, poets with migraines, and why Boston cream pie isn’t a pie. And so much more. 

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In transcript Tags history, etymology, bonus, bonus episode, Joanna Kopaczyk, William Dunbar, flyting, poetry, poems, headaches, migraine, Juliana Pache, Black Crossword, crosswords, puzzles, Ben Zimmer, spelling bee, Scripps National Spelling Bee, homophones, letters, alphabet, pronunciation, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, names, pies, USA, America, American, cakes, Boston cream pie, Massachussetts, AJ Jacobs, framing, parmesan, vomit, -nyms, retronyms, capitalnyms, forks, elastic, tricorn hat, US constitution, battle reeactments, historical costume, hats, cloves, Zazie Todd, animal psychology, dogs, cats, companion animals, renaming, training, Caroline Crampton, Susan Sontag, battle, illness, suggestion, health, cancer, bodies, metaphor, anti-fat, placebo, nocebo, medicine, medical, pharmaceutical, riddles, Old English, monks, onion, bine

Allusionist 199. 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet - transcript

August 30, 2024 The Allusionist

This is the 199th episode of the show, and since before this show began, so for nearly a decade, I have been jotting down ideas in two documents - one for short ideas, one for long ideas. There are always more ideas than I have time and ability to make podcasts about, so now the documents are altogether 66 pages long and growing every day. So in this episode, you’re going to hear 199 ideas that I wanted to put into the podcast and haven’t yet.

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In transcript Tags words, language, history, etymology, vocabulary, Juliet Club, Romeo and Juliet, Verona, lost positives, desperate, prefixes, suffixes, Mc-, -core, -tron, -opoli, photography, smiles, animals, cows, cattle, Samuel Maverick, Maury Maverick, gobbledegook, legal, law, punctuation, Ancient Romans, trousers, clothing, clothes, pubs, bears, translation, fencing, kaput, caput, head, hats, hoods, medicine, trademarks, eponyms, popsicles, portmanteau, spiders, Hawaii, Hawaiian, protest, Kaleikoa Kaʻeo, Mele Kalikimaka, capes, Ludo, Parcheesi, Richard Kimble, cowboys, courtroom, oaths, DMV, vanity plates, Joe Lycett, knots, Kevin, Karen, saints, pastry, food, copaganda, police, humour, fine, idioms, rain, Sarah, names, euphemisms, place names, comedians, comedy, apartheid, sign language, Yolgnu, Australia, pandanus, nuts, posthumous, death, calendar, time, distance, measurement, emoji, pizza, X, K, H, dogs, France, French, master bedroom, master, technology, masterpiece, problematic, Scouts, Embers, renaming, spinsters, single, censorship, pregnancy, charcuterie, mushrooms, fly agaric, volcanoes, doula, gender inclusive language, gender inclusivity, chestfeeding, queerness, queer, LGBTQIA+, IKEA, products, product names, branding, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, printing, craft, cross stitch, bad decisions, problematic eponyms, Miranda rights, viruses, lost letters, heroin, aspirin, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Johann Fust, Johannes Gutenberg, smells, granola, vampires, shoes, werewolf, bums, acme, acne, acumen, aftermath, album, amateur, attercop, average, beret, bespoke, biceps, bloomers, boudoir, bracatus, brochure, candletwist, capsize, chaperone, chord, cliche, cobweb, concrete, crestfallen, croupier, culottes, cynosure, delete, dessert, dutto, dwell, elixir, escape, extravagant, fathom, faux pas, foible, forte, furlong, germane, gimbal, glucose, Grape Nuts, grenade, habit, halcyon, harlot, jade, Kensington gore, limousine, loom, lower case, magenta, malaria, maverick, menu, miasma, migraine, negative, noon, nurse, Oprah Winfrey, overwhelm, pageant, patio, pecuniary, pedigree, petition, pluck, pomegranate, popsicle, positive, puce, retina, riposte, rival, rosemary, sabotage, salty, scavenger, schwa, scruple, slogan, sperate, stereotype, stillicide, stiricide, tabloid, taint, thornback, toady, travesty, treadmill, tutu, twist, tyre, upper case, valid, vamp, vindication, volcano, weregild, whelm, Winterfylleth

Allusionist 140 Num8er5 transcript

August 30, 2021 The Allusionist
A140 numbers logo.jpeg

STEPHEN CHRISOMALIS: It's very hard, I think, to imagine that we didn't have to do this at all. We could have just not done it.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, Stephen Chrisomalis, numbers, numerals, numbering, verbal numbers, numerical, number systems, alphabet, alphabetic numerals, capitals, upper case, Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans, globalisation, imperialism, colonisation, acrophonic, graphic, googol, pi, K, Super Bowl, loser, hats, gastrolith, mathematics, maths, math

Allusionist 101. Two or More - transcript

June 24, 2019 The Allusionist
A101 logo Two or More.jpg

MARK WILKINSON: If you talk about something a certain way for enough time over a sustained period of time then it will likely affect the way people perceive that issue, right? So if something is framed in a certain way over a sustained period of time, you always hear the same words for something, then eventually it frames the way you think about it.

HZ: In this case, he’s been studying the use and framing of the word ‘bisexual’.

MARK WILKINSON: I think bisexual - the word bisexual, and the people as well - the word has had a really rough go of it. 

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, bisexual, bisexual erasure, pansexual, fluid, sexuality, romance, love, sex, sexes, gender, gender binary, binary, LGBTQIA, bisexual+, plus, plurisexual, omnisexual, sexual orientation, identity, gender identity, nonbinary, NB, enby, genderqueer, unisex, androgynous, androgyny, hermaphroditic, Lord Byron, music, musical instruments, perfume, fragrances, hats, products, clothing, clothes, semantic shifts, fashion, intersex, Wolfenden Report, HIV, AIDS, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 19th century, Germany, heternormativity, uranian, urning, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Alfred Kinsey, Kinsey Scale, God, The Times, Times newspaper, newspapers, press, media, news, reviews, past tense, Plato, Symposium, Uranus, Aphrodite Urania, womanizer, relationships, semantic shift, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, queer, queer history

2018 Extra Special QUIZ! - interactive transcript

December 18, 2018 The Allusionist
A91.5 logo Quiz.jpg

For a bit of fun to celebrate Radiotopia’s 2018 fundraiser, this episode is a wordy quiz for you to play along with as you listen.

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In Radiotopia, call to action, episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, Avery Trufelman, Articles of Interest, Roman Mars, 99% Invisible, 99PI, Nate DiMeo, The Memory Palace, Benjamen Walker, Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything, Hrishikesh Hirway, Song Exploder, The West Wing Weekly, Jen Poyant, Manoush Zomorodi, ZigZag, Jonathan Mitchell, The Truth, Radio Diaries, Joe Richman, podcast, podcasts, podcasters, quiz, questions, eponyms, history, etymology, phrases, idioms, animals, hedgehogs, turkey, urchins, botulism, sausage, Latin, i, tittle, diacritics, Bible, euphemisms, foot, aglet, clothing, shoes, shoelaces, fashion, garb, garments, apparel, clothing terminology, terminology, diseases, medieval, castles, toilets, WC, garderobe, wardrobe, clothes, bathroom, ammonia, hygiene, faeces, waste disposal, evacuations, bodily functions, mistranslation, Vulgate Bible, dogs, feist, feisty, fart, meat, cold shoulder, expressions, Pogs, juice, Hawaii, passion fruit orange and guava, POG, turkeys, Turkey, poultry, names, imports, Aztecs, India, trade, Peru, geography, New World, Christopher Columbus, horror, burpees, exercises, exercise, physical exertion, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr, Ferris wheels, pleasure wheels, inventions, strongmen, World’s Fair, zeppelins, Led Zeppelin, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, bands, music, name changes, lawsuits, fur, fabric, felt, cloth, Stetson, hats, John B. Stetson, genitalia, genitals, penis, Radiotopian guest appearance
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
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
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!
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.