HZ: Which of the following sweeteners is named after an ancient Greek mythological character? A. saccharine, B. agave, C. stevia, D. aspartame?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, Steve is not an ancient Greek mythological character. He's the third wheel In the Bible origin story along with Adam and Eve.
HZ: They got rid of him in the translations.
Allusionist 106. Typo Demon - transcript
IAN CHILLAG: Titivillus is the typo demon. I've certainly felt the effects of the demon Titivillus in my life. I've made typos. I had not, until I learned of Titivillus, known that I could blame those typos on a higher power or - is a demon or a lower power?
HZ: I think they originated when an archangel fell from heaven - Lucifer - ao I'd imagine if you're taking the conventional geography of heaven being high, then the demons would be low - but then a typing demon would probably be on the Earth's surface for maximum efficacy.
IAN CHILLAG: Well, Titivillus did - does, maybe - walk the Earth, and what he does is make scribes make errors. So a medieval scribe is doing their work, writing down what they have to in their text, probably a religious text; and Titivillus shows up and does whatever he does and suddenly there are typos in those texts.
HZ: And rather than ascribing that to medieval scribes having very tired hands due to the equipment that they use being exhausting to propel, and they were working in not the brightest light conditions, they were like, "No, it's demons."
IAN CHILLAG: Nope, it was Titivillus the typo demon.
HZ: We're talking about a demon that arrived on the scene of demonism in the 13th century.
IAN CHILLAG: Correct.
HZ: So when we say typos, we really mean handos.
IAN CHILLAG: Yeah yeah. The hando demon.
Read more