Sometimes it would be useful if a podcast had footnotes, wouldn’t it, so that if you came here just for etymology, you didn’t get derailed by a tale of someone frightening off a ghost with semen.
Read moreAllusionist 142 Zero transcript
HZ: Zero, out of all the numbers and mathematical symbols, seems unique in being a combination of typographical marker and philosophical vortex. What makes it so special?
KYNE: It's a really interesting number because it's one of the newer numbers really. And there was lots of debate about whether it should count - no pun intended - as a number at all. What is a number in the first place? Can you give a definition without using the word number, like even a synonym, like quantity or amount?
HZ: Damn you, I was going to go 'quantity'!
KYNE: Right? I was like thinking about this earlier, so I wrote down my best definition. This is my best try: "A number is an abstract mathematical object used to describe things." So I know that definition uses the word 'mathematical', which I mean, in fairness is another tricky word to wrangle a definition out of. It's pretty clunky, I know, but...
HZ: You set that rule. You made it difficult you for yourself.
KYNE: I really encourage whoever's listening, try to ask yourself: how do you define a number?
Allusionist 140 Num8er5 transcript
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.
Read moreAllusionist 139 Ladybird Ladybug transcript
Little coconut, tortoise beetle, golden turtle, spoon insect, patch-sewer, umbrella insect, flowery big sister, celestial path insect, red mother, Ali's mother, coral beetle, good luck bug, ladyclock, child of the sun, little midwife, Saint Lucia's little piglet, God's little cow, god's little lamb, god's chicken, devil’s chicken, god's horse, Flying Mary…
Read moreAllusionist 138 Mind My Mind transcript
HZ: The term therapy tends to appear in many other contexts, say in ‘retail therapy,’ and I'm just wondering whether that rebounds onto the reputation of psychological and emotional therapy.
LILY SLOANE: Yeah. I mean, many things in life are therapeutic. Sometimes listening can be therapeutic for people. Sometimes going for a walk in the park is therapeutic. Sometimes buying stuff you don't need is therapeutic. But it's not therapy.
HZ: So it's just important to keep the adjective and the noun separated.
LILY SLOANE: And I think the word psychotherapy can be a bit of a turnoff for people seeking therapy. So I'll just say 'therapy' and then they don't know what I'm talking about.
Allusionist 137 Dude transcript
Till about the 1950s, ‘dude’ still had this connotation of someone out of place, a tourist trying to dress like a local and failing. And in that sense, it was gender neutral for a bit. Then, somehow, it became cool.
Read moreAllusionist 134 Lacuna transcript
CRYSTIAN CRUZ: Some of the content was censored at the very beginning, but some was censored at the very end of the process. So they were just about to print out the new edition and then they had to stop the machines and say, “No, that's content was not approved, so we have to replace it at the very last moment.” So that guy would have to come up with some recipes.
HZ: That’s a lot of pressure on a linotype printer - not just having to deal with very late changes to the paper, but mentally having to bake a cake too.
CRYSTIAN CRUZ: And then the thing is, they didn't work at all, because the guy had just made it up.
Read moreAllusionist 133 Cake Is Mightier Than The Sword transcript
JUAN PALACIOS: So as a funny, but actually as a political comment, a political statement, they start naming the pastries with these names. Who would they attack? The police; the army; the church: the structures of power that they were trying to take down. Hence the names. It's funny but it was more than that. It's a political statement.
MADI LANG: It really characterizes the people. Because I don't think they thought they were going to start a revolution. They were just being kind of disrespectful in a very open, normal way, like, what if instead of calling it pizza they called it "the fuck you"?
Allusionist 131 Podlingual transcript
JAMES KIM: I wanted that experience for everybody to be in the character's shoes, and understand how it's like for somebody that you love to talk to you, but you can't understand a word that they're saying.
Read moreAllusionist 130 Valentine transcript
ST VALENTINE: I’m actually also the patron saint of beekeepers, epilepsy and plagues, but you don’t see beekeeper-shaped boxes of chocolates in the supermarkets in February, do you?
Read moreAllusionist 129 Sorry transcript
MARJORIE INGALL: We dislike "for any hurt caused", "for anyone who was offended", because the "any" implies maybe it was no one. And it's clear that if you're apologising, someone was offended. It's not in any sort of airy-fairy situation. That's another way, again, it's all about distancing yourself from what you did.
HZ: Yeah, and removing agency.
MARJORIE INGALL: Yes.
SUSAN McCARTHY: If your castle is surrounded by people shouting with pitchforks and torches, and you're up on the battlements shouting, "Sorry if I caused any offence," you know you caused offence.
Allusionist 128 Bonus 2020 transcript
KATE LISTER: When you're looking back at old texts and they're talking about 'slut holes' that need clearing out, it makes us fall about laughing; but what they actually mean was like a hole that was just full of rubbish and crap in the street, that you'd put coal into and store there. And there's something that was called ‘slut wool’ as well. You know when you lift up the sofa or the bed and you call them dust bunnies now, all those balls of dust - that was ‘slut wool’ once upon a time.
Read moreAllusionist 127 A Festive Hit for 2020 transcript
Nothing says "Happy Holidays, fam" like "Stay the fuck away from me".
Read moreAllusionist 126 Survival: Custodians of the Languages transcript
RUDI BREMER: One aspect of of what happened in Australia, as far as colonisation, is the assimilation policy. And in broad strokes, the way that that worked was Aboriginal people were rounded up, and taken from their land and placed on missions. And from there you were forced to only speak English. You couldn't teach your children your language, you couldn't teach them your culture.
Read moreAllusionist 125 Swearalong Quiz transcript
Today, we’re going to destress, let off some steam, with the Swearlusionist Swearalong quiz.
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