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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 202. Singlish Singlish transcript

October 29, 2024 The Allusionist

GWEE LI SUI: We have not yet known what it's capable of. Singlish is one of those things the potential of which we're yet to tap in properly. There can be so many things you can do with it.

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In transcript Tags Gwee Li Sui, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good Mantarin Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, The Little Prince, Animal Farm, George Orwell, Brothers Grimm, Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne, Speaking Singlish, particles, suffixes, translation, translator, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Chinese, Milo, military, army, rhymes, NYT, the New York Times, jobbery

Allusionist 201. Singlish transcript

October 10, 2024 The Allusionist

BIBEK GURUNG: You grow up with the sense that if your first language, or one of your first languages, Singlish, actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” which is… language is a fundamental human skill. It's what separates us from the lemurs or whatever. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill, I think, really does a number to your self esteem and your abilities to communicate in general. I still have a lot of - I don't know how to phrase it, maybe like cultural cringe - around Singlish. And when I meet someone from Singapore, we do sort of lapse into Singlish and communicate in that way, except if I'm with American friends and then I just feel so self conscious and I'm not able to do it. As a student of linguistics and someone who just knows about the sociolinguistic dynamics, I still find it really hard to shake. 

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In transcript Tags English: problematic fave, history, society, culture, words, language, vocabulary, Bibek Gurung, Singapore, Singlish, Singaporean Colloquial English, Singaporean Standard English, Englishes, education, Speak Good English Movement, government, sociolinguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, policy, oppression, swearing, swears, punishment, school, portmanteaus, portmanteaux, mother tongue, Manglish, Malaysia, Straits, Tamil, Malay, Mandarin, China, Chinese, Asia, Asian, southeast Asia, dialects, creole languages, opsimath, problematic fave, code switching

Allusionist 173 Death transcript

March 24, 2023 The Allusionist

EVIE KING: I mean, if I was to google synonyms of ‘dead’ - let's try that. Synonyms, ‘dead’. See what comes up. ‘Deceased.’

HZ: ‘Deceased’ is just Latin for death.

EVIE KING: ‘Late’, ‘lost’, ‘lamented’...

HZ: ‘Lamented’! 

EVIE KING: ‘Expired’ - expired! Like a cheese. ‘Departed’. ‘Gone’. ‘No more. ‘Fallen. ‘Slain’. Now you're starting to infer causes of death. ‘Slaughtered’, ‘killed’ - see, it escalates quickly. There’s not much, there's not much is there?

HZ: Which is odd considering how much death there is everywhere for everyone.

EVIE KING: Yeah, you get more, more synonyms for very boring words, don't you, very workaday words. I think basically maybe it comes down to the fact that dead is dead and we all know what that means, universally dead is dead, and there's no getting away from it, there's no escaping it and there's no getting around it. So we just have to face that word and use it. And if we don't feel like saying dead, we'll just go “passed away”. 

HZ: Maybe that's the thing: maybe we don't need new vocabulary yet until we've learnt to get comfortable with ‘dead’.

EVIE KING: And then we can start really jazzing it up. Creating fun terms! Like, you know, when you get things like ‘bottomless brunch’ - that kind of thing for ‘dead’. I think we all know we've arrived when we've got a jazzy snazzy word for ‘dead’. 

HZ: Something to look forward to.

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In episodes Tags etymology, Helen Zaltzman, words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, history, death, died, dead, grief, passed, bereavement, bereft, Cariad Lloyd, Evie King, funerals, posthumous, anticipatory grief, admin, paperwork, eulogy, platitudes, Sweden, Swedish, wills, bum-bailiff

Allusionist 172 A Brief History of Brazilian Portuguese transcript

March 9, 2023 The Allusionist

CAETANO GALINDO: Brazilians are very confused and confusing and confounding about this relationship with the Portuguese language, because it defines us. We are the place that speaks Portuguese in the middle of a whole bunch of Spanish-speaking countries, and pretty much all of us speak it. And pretty much all of us speak only this one language. It's really something that defines us, and really something that we cannot try to deny or erase or… I don't know. But at the same time, you have this certainty that this was an imposed reality, that this is not what we could have.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, history, telling other stories, Caetano Galindo, Brazil, Brasileiro, Brazilian, Portuguese, Portugal, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, indigenous languages, línguas gerais, lingua franca, oppressed languages, South America, Latin, colonisation, Nheengatu, Caetano Veloso, ladino, locorestive

Allusionist 169 The Box transcript

January 28, 2023 The Allusionist

SUBHADRA DAS: A guy from the UCL estates team, screwdriver, took the plaque off the wall.
HZ: That's it?
SUBHADRA DAS: That's how you dename a building. It's not difficult.

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In Telling Other Stories, transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, telling other stories, renaming, names, eponyms, problematic, science eponyms, science, scientific, Subhadra Das, Martin Austwick, Trinity College Dublin, TCD, University College London, UCL, Dublin, London, university, college, buildings, honours, honors, eugenics, racism, Erwin Schrödinger, Karl Pearson, Francis Galton, Schrödinger’s cat, Schrödinger’s equation, theories, quantum mechanics, physics, genetics, moon, Nobel Prize, light, waves, quantum, quantum wave function, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Lunn, Albert Einstein, theory of relativity, many worlds theory, Hugh Everett, Mark Everett, Eels, museums, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg, quadrivium

Allusionist 168 Debuts transcript

January 13, 2023 The Allusionist

HZ: The work that RFSU does has included, over the past three decades, coming up with new terms, to fill gaps in the vocabulary or provide more options for talking about sex and bodies.

KALLE ROCKLINGER: Sometimes it's to highlight or make something visible that's not been really talked about. Sometimes it's to change norms in society in some ways, and sometimes it's been sort of a really strategic choice for us in our political work to refuse a certain term or way of describing things, to tell another story, so to speak.

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In transcript, Telling Other Stories Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, telling other stories, renaming, names, neologisms, Kalle Rocklinger, bodies, body parts, sex, sexuality, sex education, genitalia, genitals, Sweden, Swedish, RFSU, snippa, snopp, vulva, vagina, penis, virginity, sex debut, onanism, Onan, Anna Kosztovics, hymen, vaginal corona, slidkrans, masturbation, consent, rape, law, deflower, dittography, klittra, snipa, Telling Other Stories

Allusionist 167 Bonus 2022 transcript

December 16, 2022 The Allusionist

TIM CLARE: Hippocampus, meaning ‘horse’ because it looks like a a sea horse, right? …Oh, don't look at them! They look absolutely terrifying!
HZ: I I've never seen a hippocampus, so I don't know. 
TIM CLARE: There is a real David Cronenberg-like element to them.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, Stephanie Foo, Morenike Giwa Onaiwu, Tim Clare, Jing Tsu, Hannah McGregor, Jolenta Greenberg, Kristen Meinzer, Lewis Raven Wallace, Charlotte Lydia Riley, brain, mental heath, autism, ASD, neurodiverse, almonds, tonsils, Little Women, Louisa May Allcott, sentiment, sentimentality, British Empire, empire, revisionism, nostalgia, transcription, transcripts, therapy, psychology, Chinese, wordplay, protest, homophones, grass mud horse, censorship, Judy Singer, neurotypical, journalism, migrants, migration, bias, historians, Second World War, World War Two, books, novels, Jo March, What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge, Rebecca, hack, life hacks, computing, programming, allistic, amygdala, hippocampus, life hack, neuro- neurodiversity, washin, worry, bonus, bonus episode

Allusionist 166 Fiona part 2 transcript

December 5, 2022 The Allusionist

HARRY JOSIE GILES: I don't think that anyone should come away from this conversation not wanting to use the name Fiona. I think this is a beautiful and rich history. It might not be quite the history that you imagined, but I think it's a beautiful history.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, Harry Josie Giles, Moll Heaton-Callaway, Fiona, Fiona Macleod, William Sharp, Elizabeth Sharp, Wilfion, Willfion, Scotland, Scottish, Gaelic, Celtic Revival, Celtic, Celticism, Highlands, Lowlands, Flora, Ffion, Fionnuala, Finn, white, poetry, novels, letters, correspondence, handwriting, LGBTQIA+, pseudonyms, alter egos, trans, gender, gender fluidity, authors, publishing, writers, writing, colonisation, colonial, cultural appropriation, authenticity, James Macpherson, Tales of Ossian, translation, myths, Irish, names, boats, Sharon Krossa, Caledonian Antisyzygy, Wikipedia, hyperbaton

Allusionist 163 Rhino Borked Guy transcript

October 22, 2022 The Allusionist

"Better to elect a rhino than an ass.”

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, eponyms, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, rhinoceros, Cacareco, elections, politics, political, votes, voting, protest vote, power, democracy, zoos, Richard Nixon, Pigasus, Republicans, Democrats, mule, Canada, Rhinoceros Party, English history, Tudors, Jacobean, guy, Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot, Reformation, Protestant, Catholic, Catholicism, Church of England, religion, England, Henry VIII, pope, divorce, Elizabeth I, James I, kings, queens, monarchy, parliament, Roman Mars, Helen Zaltzman, bonfire, Bonfire Night, fireworks, 5 November, Robert Catesby, oppression, names, treason, conspiracy, gunpowder, explosives, weapons, molotov cocktail, Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Union, USSR, Russia, Finland, Supreme Court, USA, American history, Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Watergate, disinformation, propaganda, Roe v Wade, bork, borked, computers, DoggoLingo, civil rights, originalism, constitution, kype

Allusionist 162 Self-Help transcript

October 7, 2022 The Allusionist

JOLENTA GREENBERG: One of the main things a lot of these books like to do is remind you how bad you are at the beginning. Just like a pickup artist, there will be a chapter or two sort of negging you, or being like, “You know you're lazy about this.” A lot of books make you admit - some even make you write down all the areas like you're failing in or not putting 100% into, and so you literally will have a list sometimes of reasons why you suck. And then they're like, “And now I have the answers!” And it's like, “But you made me make up these problems in the first place.” So they like to dig you in a hole and then be like, “I can dig you out, too.”

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, personal, emotion, emotional, books, f19th century, self-help, self-improvement, self-determination, self esteem, self, advice, By the Book, Kristen Meinzer, Jolenta Greenberg, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Smiles, manifesting, manipulation, wellness, weight loss, dieting, diet industry, diet culture, fatphobia, sizeism, doctor, stoics, forgiveness, spitchcock, mental health, psychology

Allusionist 161 Sentiment transcript

September 23, 2022 The Allusionist

SANDHYA DIRKS: When we talk about empathy: the idea that you can get outside of yourself, that we can imagine someone else's experience is so audacious, because human beings are not that freaking imaginative. I mean, like a unicorn is just a horse with a horn! We did not go that far to get to our most magical creature. We just like grafted two things on top of each other.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, stories, story, storytelling, audio, personal, emotion, emotional, feelings, empathy, empathetic, sympathy, sentiment, sentimentality, kindness, be kind, Julia Furlan, Sandhya Dirks, Hannah McGregor, novels, books, fiction, genre, journalism, 18th century, 19th century, imperative, immanent, complexity, audience, manipulation, Bible, parables, allegory, trauma, death, Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen, tropes, thoughtstoppers, meat, unicorns

Allusionist 160 Coward transcript

September 10, 2022 The Allusionist

TIM CLARE: Calling someone a coward historically has often been a social lever used by the state to shame them for not doing something the state wants them to do - often walk into machine gunfire. Which, to me, doesn't seem like an act of cowardice to not want to do that.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, entertainment, psychology, personality, mental health, Tim Clare, coward, cowardice, anxiety, anxious, fear, tail, lions, heraldry, angst, anger, military, WW1, First World War, executions, death, soldiers, Britain, shell shock, shame, PTSD, trauma, Napoleon III, India, Raj, seagulls, Proto-Indo-European, PIE, Ancient Greek, Latin, cows, dogs, traits, terrific, awesome, tremendous, Bible, angels, magic bullet, silver bullet, werewolves, medical, zauberkugel, Magneto, coda, cue, hangnail, queue, quinsy, quakebuttock, yips

Allusionist 156 Rainbow Washing transcript

June 10, 2022 The Allusionist

HZ: The British supermarket M&S made an LGBT sandwich, which is lettuce, guacamole bacon, and tomato.

MITRA KABOLI: That sounds good, actually. I would eat that.

HZ: They stopped at that point of the initialisms; they didn't go into the -QIA, which is supposed to be what, queso? What foodstuffs begin with an I?

MITRA KABOLI: Ummmm...

HZ: It gets difficult. I can see why they stopped.

MITRA KABOLI: ‘I’...

HZ: For the 'A' - they've got guacamole, so they used up the avocado already. Maybe apple? It's starting to get disgusting the further along the initialism you get.

MITRA KABOLI: There has to be a law where you must continue to make the sandwich, and as the acronym grows with letters, you must find something to put in there.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, whitewashing, whitewash, greenwashing, pinkwashing, redwashing, purplewashing, rainbow-washing, Pride, Pride flag, rainbows, breast cancer, Mitra Kaboli, Sarah Schulman, LGBTQIA+, commerce, capitalism, corporate, CIA, sandwiches, beer, Stonewall, autotelic

Allusionist 155 The Tiffany Problem transcript

May 27, 2022 The Allusionist

JO WALTON: What we the readers know about the name Tiffany is incorrect. Nevertheless, as a writer, you cannot use the name Tiffany.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Jo Walton, The Tiffany Problem, eponyms, history, English, French, medieval, Tiffany, Epiphany, Theophania, old things, fiction, novels, historical, stories, anachronisms, anachronistic, names, first names, last names, naming trends, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Tiffany’s, Richard Gere, fleer

Allusionist 154 Objectivity transcript

May 13, 2022 The Allusionist

HZ: When in your journalism career did the problems of objectivity become evident to you?
LEWIS RAVEN WALLACE: Probably like the first day.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Lewis Raven Wallace, history, Vietnam War, journalism, journalists, objectivity, subjectivity, bias, news, newspapers, neutrality, neutral, perspective, white supremacy, racism, USA, America, 19th century, 20th century, power, unions, First Amendment, balance, nuncupative
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Allusionist 208: Ffff
Allusionist 208: Ffff
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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!
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.