• Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch
Menu

The Allusionist

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

Your Custom Text Here

The Allusionist

  • Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch

Allusionist 165 Fiona part 1 transcript

November 22, 2022 The Allusionist

HARRY JOSIE GILES: Fiona is a name I think now that still has a slightly romantic, slightly historical Scottish feel. I think everyone thinks it's an old Scottish name, but it's not an old Scottish name!

Read more
In transcript Tags arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, Harry Josie Giles, Moll Heaton-Callaway, Fiona Macleod, William Sharp, Elizabeth Sharp, Wilfion, Scotland, Scottish, Gaelic, Celtic Revival, Celtic, Highlands, Lowlands, WB Yeats, poetry, novels, letters, correspondence, handwriting, LGBTQIA+, pseudonyms, alter egos, trans, gender, gender fluidity, Elena Ferrante, authors, publishing, writers, writing, cultural appropriation, names, naming, census, records, boats, celsitude

Allusionist 163 Rhino Borked Guy transcript

October 22, 2022 The Allusionist

"Better to elect a rhino than an ass.”

Read more
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.”

Read more
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.

Read more
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.

Read more
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

Allusonist 158 Creature Quiz transcript

August 5, 2022 The Allusionist

Magpie is short for:

A. Magnum PI
B. Margaret Pica
C. Magic Pigeon
D. Magister Pinetree

Read more
In transcript Tags history, words, language, lexicon, vocabulary, entertainment, culture, arts, etymology, quiz, meatus, animals, creatures, fish, birds, beasts, magpie, Margaret, pie, pica, sexism, Latin, Greek, Old English, parrot, Italian, priest, piebald, skewbald, bald, camelopard, offend, elephant, raccoon, chicken pox, chickens, cowardice, pox, goose barnacles, geese, goose, barnacles, myths, squirrel, cattle, weasel, smell, stinky, ferret, eggs, manure, porpoise, shrews, beshrew, agriculture, poop, dung, bison, polecats, weasel words, chattel, property, real estate, fee, livestock, petunia, penis, genitals, bowels

Allusionist 157 Queerbaiting transcript

June 25, 2022 The Allusionist

LEIGH PFEFFER: I think people are a little too quick to ascribe the term ‘queerbaiting’ to anytime they see something that doesn't necessarily sit right with them on instinct. There's a tendency at this point to kind of use it as a synonym for bad representation. I think that there's a disconnect and a mismatch between what younger viewers nowadays are kind of expecting in queer representation versus what pop culture is providing. People are getting used to more representation. They want to see better representation. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how do we get better representation? What do we call it when we have specific tropes that might lead to harmful stereotypes, instead of lumping everything under this term ‘queerbaiting’ - because if we muddy a term like that, it loses its meaning. We need to be intentional with the language we're using when we're discussing queer representation in media, because we're at a fragile point. We have to have the right language to criticise it.

Read more
In transcript Tags history, words, language, lexicon, vocabulary, entertainment, culture, arts, etymology, Leigh Pfeffer, History Is Gay, pinkwashing, rainbow washing, representation, queer, LGBTQIA+, Hays code, queerbaiting, queer coding, race baiting, Disney villains, gender, Lavender Scare, Red Scare, fandom, online, slash, Star Trek, Kirk, Spock, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, theurgy

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.

Read more
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.

Read more
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.

Read more
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

Allusionist 153 In Character transcript

April 15, 2022 The Allusionist

we think of all the important transformative game-changing global technologies in communication, like telegraphs, typewriters and computers: none of it was really designed with Chinese in mind. They were all for alphabetic, precisely English language.
HZ: It seems a bit unfair for China to be left behind by writing technologies, given that China had the movable type printing press centuries before Europe.
JING TSU: A fact they will continue to flaunt! That is the question; that's why the catching up was doubled with this memory of “How did we get to this point? We were leading, how do we now end up chasing someone else's writing system from behind?”

Read more
In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, Jing Tsu, Chinese, China, Asia, ideographic, characters, writing, alphabet, alphabetisation, alphabetization, standardisation, Romanisation, Roman alphabet, Latin alphabet, homophones, tones, telegraphy, telegraph, typography, typing, type, Morse code, computers, binary, computer programming, ASCII, coding, printing press, Wade-Giles, Pinyin, Danes, Portuguese, Doomsday Book, Mao Zedong, Zhao Yuanren, Communists, Nationalists, Taiwan, Japan, Sino-Japanese War, Qing, missionaries, Opium War, Ideographic Research Group, Unicode, names, lions, antanaclasis, rale

Allusionist 152 Asperger transcript

April 3, 2022 The Allusionist

EDITH SHEFFER: I do think it's important that Asperger's syndrome be removed as a distinct label. I don't think it's helpful medically and then ethically. Eponymous diagnoses are bestowed as an honour, to commend someone for one's life work and also to commend someone for discovering a condition. And arguably Asperger merits neither.

Read more
In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, eponyms, medical eponyms, Asperger’s Syndrome, Hans Asperger, autism, autism spectrum, ASD, ableism, disability, Nazis, stigma, disorder, Vienna, Austria, Third Reich, Germany, Second World War, World War Two, WW2, Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, Lorna Wing, DSM, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, psychopathy, medicine, medical, problematic

Allusionist 151 The Bee's Knees transcript

March 19, 2022 The Allusionist

“There's a town in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, which apparently has the Guinness World Record for most exclamation marks in a town name. Which is two.”

Read more
In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, slang, Shedunnit, Caroline Crampton, murder mysteries, novels, fiction, writing, writers, authors, detectives, Golden Age, codes, war, spelling alphabets, phonetic, military, diets, dieting, eponyms, William Banting, undertakers, flappers, canary’s tusks, flea’s eyebrows, creature, Frankenstein, monster, whiskey, refrigeration, ditches, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, exclamation marks, courtship, sex, Mae West, royalty, opossums, animals, bunt

Allusionist 150 The Egg's Warning transcript

March 5, 2022 The Allusionist
IMG_6602.jpeg
IMG_6603.jpeg
IMG_6604.jpeg
IMG_6607.jpeg
IMG_6601.jpeg
IMG_6600.jpeg
IMG_6602.jpeg IMG_6603.jpeg IMG_6604.jpeg IMG_6607.jpeg IMG_6601.jpeg IMG_6600.jpeg

KEITH KAHN-HARRIS: So let's explain what a Kinder Surprise egg is in the first place.
HZ: Yeah. It's slightly bigger than a hen's egg.
KEITH KAHN-HARRIS: It's a foil wrapped chocolate egg, and it has an outer chocolate layer.
HZ: I'm peeling off the foil, which is white and orange. And then we have the chocolate egg in two parts. I’m trying to split it without too much incident. And then inside that is a yellow capsule. And then inside the capsule:
KEITH KAHN-HARRIS: It's a self-assembly toy.
HZ: It's a self-assembly toy. Let's not get distracted by that, because that's not even the true prize, is it?
KEITH KAHN-HARRIS: No, exactly. And you'll find at least two pieces of paper. Now, one of them is a sort of a picture showing how to assemble the toy.
HZ: That's right. And then the other one, which I don't know if I've ever even paid attention to before...
KEITH KAHN-HARRIS: It's got the warning message, and it is in a literally dozens of languages on this tiny piece of paper.

Read more
In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, society & culture, arts, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Kinder Egg, Kinder Surprise, warnings, messages, toys, confectionary, Ferrero, chocolate, candy, Keith Kahn Harris, multilingual, Europe, European, Kinder Joy, laws, FDA, errors, typesetting, diacritics, tilde, macron, ligatures, æ, warning, exciton

Allusionist 149 Complex PTSD transcript

February 18, 2022 The Allusionist

STEPHANIE FOO: I was diagnosed with complex PTSD in 2018. And I had never heard of complex PTSD before. I Googled it; it sounded very serious and very scary.
HZ: And was it very serious and very scary?
STEPHANIE FOO: I mean, yes! I think it is very serious and very scary. I

Read more
In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, Stephanie Foo, psychology, mental health, health, psychoanalysis, trauma, resilience, endurance, PTSD, C-PTSD, complex PTSD, self-care, self-soothing, war, military, shell shock, triggers, nostalgia, lactometer
← Newer Posts Older Posts →
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.