To listen to or read about this episode, visit theallusionist.org/us-electionlexicon.
This is the Allusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, vote for language regardless of the terrible things it does sometimes.
I’m pretty sure the 2016 US election has been going on for seven years already, but apparently it’s still nowhere near over. So we’re going to go for a brisk walk-and-talk through the corridors of the dictionary to find out a little about some political vocabulary, as we did in the original Allusionist Election Lexicon just before the 2015 UK general election. In case you missed it, I’ll tag that show on after this new one, so you no longer need to wonder about the etymology of words like ‘campaign’, ‘ballot’, ‘democracy’, ‘poll’, ‘debate’ and ‘argue’.
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On with the US Election Lexicon.
[PHONE RINGS]
JONATHAN: Hello?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman, and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party. How are you today?
JONATHAN: I'm OK... I'm pretty busy.
HZ: Could I call back another time? Would that be more convenient?
JONATHAN: No, that’s OK, I’m not interested. Thank you.
[HANGS UP]
[PHONE RINGS]
BENJAMEN: Hello?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman, and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party. How are you today?
BENJAMEN: I’m doing well, thank you.
HZ: Pleased to hear it, sir. Official records show you voted in the previous election, and I’m calling today to thank you for being a voter, and to earn your support for the Lexicrat candidate this time round.
BENJAMEN: Who are you again?
HZ: The Lexicrat party represents a linguistic alternative to the major political players. Would you welcome more radical governance?
BENJAMEN: You mean more radical than the Bern? I really feel the Bern.
HZ: Well, we would like radical politics to return to its linguistic roots. Which is ‘root’.
BENJAMEN: You would not accept ‘B-E-R-N’, you would want ‘B-U-R-N’? So you’re saying you would reject the Bern?
HZ: The Lexicrats suggest going right back to the Latin root of ‘radical’, which is the same ‘radish’. Would you welcome the return of radishes to politics? They burn you a little bit, because some of them are quite fiery.
BENJAMEN: That’s true; I had a very spicy one last week, grown in my aunt’s garden.
HZ: What did you do with them - salad, stir fry?
BENJAMEN: Little bit of a salad, but it’s cold here, so I tried to saute them a bit. Have you ever sauteed a radish?
HZ: Oh, cooking a radish is a real revelation.
BENJAMEN: Radical!
HZ: It is radical! So I’m going to put you down as a ‘yes’.
BENJAMEN: I think that works.
HZ: Thank you for being a good citizen who votes.
BENJAMEN: Sure! Why not!
HZ: Have a great day, sir.
[CALL ENDS]
[PHONE RINGS]
LAUREN: Hello?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman, and I’m calling on behalf of the -
LAUREN: Can you speak up a little? I can’t hear you, I’m driving.
HZ: My name is Helen Zaltzman and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party; how are you today?
LAUREN: The what party?
HZ: The Lexicrat Party, your etymological alternative. And one issue that is very important to Lexicrat voters is senate reform. Because the senate is ‘a council of elders’; it’s from the Latin ‘senex’ meaning ‘old man’; so what is the minimum age you think senators should be? Because at the moment some of them are in their thirties, which is old for a dog, or a glass of milk, but not really a person.
LAUREN: So - what’s the minimum age for a senator?
HZ: How old is an old person?
LAUREN: 65, right?
HZ: 65, OK, you think a minimum of 65. What about pushing it up to 80?
LAUREN: I guess someone in their 80s would perhaps know more… But what if they have memory loss issues?
HZ: That is an issue. Maybe we should dip it back down to, say, 74. Do you think 74-year-olds would be competent senators whilst being old enough to be senators?
LAUREN: Yeah, that sounds pretty good.
HZ: Well, thank you for speaking with me today, we hope we can count on your vote.
LAUREN: OK, you’re welcome.
HZ: Have a great day.
LAUREN: Bye.
[CALL ENDS]
[PHONE RINGS]
HRISHIKESH: Hello?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party; how are you today?
HRISHIKESH: [sighs] FINE.
HZ: I’m calling today to thank you for being a Lexicrat voter and to earn your support for the Lexicrat candidate this -
HRISHIKESH: I can’t really talk right now, I’m cooking dinner.
HZ: Oh. What are you making?
HH: Chole.
HZ: What’s in that?
HH: It’s an Indian dish with chickpeas and tomatoes and spices.
HZ: That sounds wonderful. You having people round, or -
HH: Yeah. No. I have to go.
HZ: Thank you very much for your time, and for voting. Have a great -
[HRISHIKESH HANGS UP]
[PHONE VIBRATES]
NICK: Hello?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party; how are you today?
NICK: What do you want?
HZ: Official records show you voted in the previous election, and I’m calling today to thank you for being a voter and to earn your support for the Lexicrat candidate this time round. Can we count on your vote?
NICK: To be honest, I’m really not as engaged with politics as I used to be, so… I think I’m going to sit this one out.
HZ: We know it’s very important to Lexicrat voters to bring the political system back to its linguistic roots. Do you think Congress has done enough to live up to its history? Because in Latin, ‘congress’ would sometimes have meant ‘a fight’. Would you be more interested in politics if there was more bareknuckle fighting involved?
NICK: Honestly, the way language is completely deteriorating at the moment… When I was growing up, people would say ‘pwned’, and now we say ‘rekt’. And it’s just hard for me to follow at this point.
HZ: Is it too much change in a short space of time?
NICK: Yeah. I think the party’s gotten away from its roots.
HZ: I know it’s hard to deal with, sir, but language naturally does change a lot, because ‘congress’ has meant ‘the legislative body of the United States’ since 1775, but for 200 years prior to that, it meant ‘sexual congress’. So would your faith in politics return if Congress was a bit sexier? Would that improve governance, if they were going at it.
NICK: Yeah, sure. Although I don’t know if I want to see Mitch McConnell going at it.
HZ: I’ll make a note of that.
NICK: OK.
HZ: Thank you for sharing your views. We hope you exercise your right to vote this year.
NICK: Bye.
[NICK HANGS UP]
AVERY VOICEMAIL: Hi, we can't take your call right now, but leave a message for Spike and I after the beep. [BEEP]
HZ: Hello, this is Helen Zaltzman calling on behalf of the Lexicrat party to thank you for voting linguistically - I think you meant to say ‘Spike and me’, because if you took Spike out, you wouldn’t say, ‘Leave a message for I’, would you? As you’re not the subject in this clause, you shouldn’t use a nominative pronoun, you should use a - [CUT OFF BY BEEP]
VOICEMAIL: To delete this message, press 7.
[PHONE RINGS]
KATIE: Hellloo?
HZ: Hello, my name is Helen Zaltzman and I’m calling on behalf of the Lexicrat Party; how are you today?
KATIE: I’m greeeat, thanks.
HZ: Official records show you voted in the previous election.
KATIE: Yeah… I don’t remember that, but...cool.
HZ: I’m calling today to thank you for being a voter and to earn your support for the Lexicrat candidate this time round.
KATIE: Errr, alright!
HZ: Can we count on your vote in the next election?
KATIE: Yeah...I dunno...but yeah, sure!
HZ: Well, that’s great to hear. We’ve been speaking to a lot of voters who would like to see significant etymological changes to politics, particularly to filibustering.
KATIE: Sounds good...
HZ: Because standing and talking for hours on end to obstruct a vote is a big departure from the real meaning of filibuster. Is this something that’s important to you?
KATIE: Uh, yeah… It feels really important right now, yeah…
HZ: We’re not suggesting that filibuster should return to its mid-19th century meaning of Americans who would go to Central America with illegal plans to create unrest and seize power. The Lexicrats are advocating a return to the word’s previous incarnation as ‘fleebooter’ or ‘freebooter’, which from the late 1500s referred to pirates. We think filibustering should be more piratical.
KATIE: Yeah, pirates are awesome.
HZ: As a voter, which would be more important to you: pirate hats, or parrots on shoulders?
KATIE: Er, can’t we do both?
HZ: Left shoulder or right shoulder?
KATIE: I wanna say right.
HZ: I’ll make a note that you lean to the right. Can I put you down for hook hand and eyepatch?
KATIE: That’s… That’s a little far.
HZ: Alright, I’ll put you down as a moderate.
KATIE: OK.
HZ: Thank you for your time. We hope we can count on your vote.
KATIE: Alright, lady.
HZ: Have a great day.
KATIE: Goodbye.
[CALL ENDS]
The US Election Lexicon was produced by Matt Hill and me, Helen Zaltzman, with contributions from my beloved fellow Radiotopians. You heard, in order:
Jonathan Mitchell from The Truth
Benjamen Walker from Theory of Everything
Lauren Spohrer from Criminal
Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder
Nick van der Kolk from Love + Radio
and Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle from 99% Invisible.
You can find all their shows, and the rest of the Radiotopians, at radiotopia.fm.
Thanks also to Ruth Larson, Devon Taylor, Francesca Fryer, Carla Francome, and Julie Shapiro, for their help with this.
Hold on tight, because the UK Election Lexicon is coming up momentarily.
This episode is sponsored by Slack, which describes itself as a messaging app for teams, but I’ll be honest with you: it has become my primary form of communication with other humans. My email inbox has become minimal; and the best thing is that, even though all the Radiotopians are spread all around the US and I’m thousands of miles away in the UK, thanks to Slack we still get to meet up and talk business or have our office chitchat every day.
You can use Slack for free for as long as you want, but if you visit Slack.com/allusionist and create a new team, you’ll get $100 in credit to use when you decide to upgrade to a paid plan with additional features.
Alright, now for the original Election Lexicon.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE ORIGINAL ELECTION LEXICON.
That was the UK Election Lexicon, made by me and Matt Hill in May 2015, standing in a high wind at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in London. And if you want to cast a vote for this show, you could review it on iTunes, or tell someone about it in real life.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on this earth. Find them at radiotopia.fm, and if you want to sponsor this or any of the shows, email sponsor@prx.org.
Radiotopia is possible thanks to the generosity of you listeners, the Knight Foundation, and Mailchimp. Mailchimp’s randomly selected word from the dictionary today is…
flockmaster, noun: a sheep farmer.
A point of information regarding the previous episode, WLTM part II: many of you have suggested that Amy’s date who claimed to be an orthopaedic surgeon wasn’t messing up the word ‘anaesthesiologist’ but was correctly saying ‘anaesthetist’. As it happens, Amy mispronounced his mispronunciation: he actually kept saying ‘anestethist’, which is a little wide of the mark. Also apparently he knew pretty much nothing about orthopaedic surgery. Got to get your cover story straight before the date, people.
You can find me on twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow, and in two weeks’ time there’ll be a new episode out at theallusionist.org.
