The Allusionist

By Helen Zaltzman for Radiotopia

Arts

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Linguistic adventures with Helen Zaltzman, TheAllusionist.org.

A proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm.

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102. New Rules

07.14.2019

I don’t know exactly when or where, but at some point in the past few years, I stopped putting punctuation at the end of sentences. Why? The internet made me do it! Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch, cohost of Lingthusiasm podcast ...

The Allusionist episodes:

07.14.2019 102. New Rules I don’t know exactly when or where, but at some point in the past few years, I stopped putting punctuation at the end of sentences. Why? The internet made me do it! Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch, cohost of Lingthusiasm podcast ...
06.26.2019 101. Two Or More Oysters, fragrances, canoeing, space stations, God, hats, and of course people - the word ‘bisexual’ has described a great deal of different things, with different meanings, in its fairly short existence. And that whole time, it has had a pretty ...
06.07.2019 56+12. Joins & Pride To celebrate Pride Month, I’m playing two of the Allusionist episodes that have stuck with me the most during the show’s existence. The first is Joins. You listeners talk about your particular experiences in your trans bodies, dealing with the ...
05.27.2019 100. The Hundredth To mark the 100th* episode of the Allusionist, here’s a celebratory parade of language-related facts: some of your favourites from the Allusionist back catalogue, some of my favourites from the Allusionist back catalogue, and a load of fresh facts making ...
05.12.2019 99. Polari When there were no safe spaces to be gay, Polari allowed gay men to identify and communicate with each other, and to keep things secret from outsiders. Professor Paul Baker, author of the Polari dictionary and the new book Fabulosa! ...
04.27.2019 98. Alter Ego Today: three pieces about alter egos, when your name - the words by which the world knows you - is replaced by another for particular purposes, such as competing in roller derby, writing popular but disreputable detective novels, or being ...
04.11.2019 97. The Future is Now? “There are two ways to say ‘The future is now’: you can say it optimistically, like, ‘The future is now! Isn't that cool?’ Or you could be like, ‘The future is now, and we're totally screwed.’” Rose Eveleth, of the ...
03.26.2019 96. Trust “Trust isn't a brand that you should use. It's a social glue that, when it breaks down, has really huge consequences to our lives.” Trust expert and author Rachel Botsman explains why we need to protect this word that has ...
03.11.2019 95. Verisimilitude When you’re watching a fantasy or science fiction show, and the characters are speaking a language that does not exist in this world but sounds like it could - that doesn’t happen by accident, or improvisation. A lot - a ...
02.22.2019 94. Harsh Realm On 15 November 1992, the New York Times printed a ‘Lexicon of Grunge’, a list of slang terms from the Seattle music scene. ‘Harsh realm’ = bummer. ‘Wack slacks’ = old ripped jeans. ‘Swingin’ on the flippity-flop’ = hanging out. ...
02.09.2019 93. Gossip ‘Idle’, ‘trivial’, ‘scurrilous’: the word ‘gossip’ is often accompanied by uncomplimentary adjectives. But don’t dismiss it; from childbirth to Hollywood to political analysis to whisper networks, gossip may be more useful and serious than you realise. Lainey Lui, founder of ...
01.24.2019 92. To Err Is Human If you wince when you hear someone say “a whole nother level”, “hone in on” or “right from the gecko”, here’s some bad news: you might have to get used to it. The English language is full of words and ...
12.18.2018 Extra special QUIZ! For a bit of fun to celebrate Radiotopia’s 2018 fundraiser, this episode is a wordy quiz for you to play along with as you listen. Get a pen and paper, or fill in your answers online at http://theallusionist.org/2018quiz. Also! I’ve ...
12.16.2018 91. Bonus 2018 Throughout the year, the people who appear on the Allusionist tell me a lot of interesting stuff. Not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away in preparation for this moment: ...
11.30.2018 90. Dear Santa Jim Glaub and Dylan Parker didn’t think too much of it when, every year, a few letters were delivered to their New York apartment addressed to Santa. But then one year, 400 letters arrived. And they decided they had to ...
11.30.2018 90. Dear Santa Jim Glaub and Dylan Parker didn’t think too much of it when, every year, a handful of letters were delivered to their New York apartment addressed to Santa. But then one year, 400 letters arrived. And they decided they had ...
11.17.2018 89. WPM This is a story of feats of speed and endurance, of record-breakers, of champions… Typing champions. Recorded live at the Hot Docs Podcast Festival in the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto on 4 November 2018, WPM is performed ...
11.04.2018 88. Name Changers Why did you change your name? And why did you choose the name you chose? Listeners answer these two questions. Hear their stories of gender identity, family fallouts, marriages, divorces, doxxing, cults, and…just not liking your given name very much. ...
10.22.2018 87. Name v. Law Iceland has quite exacting laws about what its citizens can be named, and only around 4,000 names are on the officially approved list. If you want a name that deviates from that list, you have to send an application to ...
10.08.2018 86. Name Therapy “It’s the word that you use the most often and the soonest to describe yourself, and yet nobody’s really ever talked about how it kind of makes me feel like this.” Until Duana Taha, who, after a lifetime of feelings ...
09.23.2018 85. Skin Story “I wanted a story that actually lives, and actually dies, and disappears.” In 2003, artist and author Shelley Jackson started the Skin Project: a story printed, word by word, as tattoos on volunteers. https://ineradicablestain.com/skindex.html Find more about this episode at ...
09.08.2018 84. Trammels Why would you write books or poems or plays with only one vowel? Or in palindromes? Or only using the example sentences in dictionaries? Sometimes you need to force yourself to jump a few hurdles (and perhaps the rest of ...
08.26.2018 83. Yes, As In “Really? As in the animal/foodstuff/music genre?” “Is that a stripper name?” “What were your parents thinking?” When your name is a word that is more usually a noun or adjective than a human moniker, you hear the same questions a ...
08.13.2018 82. A Novel Remedy When you’re feeling unwell, what’s the book you read to make yourself feel better? And why does it work? Clinical psychologist Jane Gregory explains why she sometimes prescribes novel-reading to her patients; and academic Guy Cuthbertson tells how post-WW1 Britain ...
07.28.2018 81. Shark Week Today, we’re dipping into the Allusionist mailbag full of listeners’ linguistic requests, with the help of special guest Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder and The West Wing Weekly podcasts. What is the expression ‘beyond the pale’ on about? How do ...
06.29.2018 Imaginary Advice: S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. Hello! I’m currently in hospital so am having to take a little time off work. Therefore, instead of a new Allusionist episode today, here’s my favourite audio piece I’ve heard this year: ‘S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D.’ from Ross Sutherland’s podcast Imaginary Advice. NB: ...
06.17.2018 80. Warm Front Today will be fine. But wait: fine as in ‘OK’, fine as in ‘really rather good’, or fine as in ‘no precipitation’? When you’re a TV weather forecaster, you have to deal with the mismatch of your specialist vocabulary with ...
06.03.2018 79. Queer Strange or obtuse; a stinging homophobic slur; a radical political rejection of normativity; a broad term encompassing every and any variation on sexual orientation and gender identity: the word ‘queer’ has a multifarious past and complicated present. Tracing its movements ...
05.21.2018 78. Oot in the Open You are born and raised in a household speaking a language. Then you start going to school, and that language is banned. If you speak it, you’ll be punished physically or psychologically. Across your country, there are people like you ...
05.05.2018 42+43. Survival: The Key rerun To accompany the current Allusionist miniseries Survival, about minority languages facing suppression and extinction, we’re revisiting this double bill of The Key episodes about why languages die and how they can be resuscitated. The Rosetta Stone and its modern equivalent ...
04.21.2018 77. Survival part 1: Second Home There are two main places in the world where the Welsh language is spoken: Wales, and the Chubut Province in Patagonia. How did this ancient language take root in rural Argentina, 12,000km away from its home base? Find out more ...
04.07.2018 76. Across the Pond Pavement/sidewalk; football/soccer; bum bag/fanny pack: we know that the English language is different in the UK and the USA. But why? Linguist Lynne Murphy points out the geographical, cultural and social influences that separate the common language. Find out more ...
03.23.2018 75. Ear Hustling Today we’re going inside to open up the unofficial dictionary of San Quentin state prison, compiled by Earlonne Woods of Ear Hustle podcast. Content note: this episode contains some Adult Terms. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/ear-hustling. The ...
03.09.2018 74. Take A Swear Pill CONTENT WARNING: there is swearing in this episode. But the happy news is: swearing is good for you! Dr Emma Byrne, author of Swearing Is Good For You, explains how swearing can be beneficial to your physical health and emotional ...
02.24.2018 73. Supername! Up in the sky: look! It’s an adjective! It’s a noun! It’s…Adjectivenoun! Your friendly neighbourhood superheroes might have thrilling and varied powers and spandex garments, but the way their names are concocted have followed only a handful of formulae in ...
02.09.2018 72. Hey “Hey.” “Going to the supermarket, want me to get you anything?” “Puppies or ice cream?” “What’s your glasses prescription?” “I wanna *** your *******.” If you’ve used a dating app, maybe you’ve received one of the above messages from a ...
01.26.2018 71. Triumph/Trumpet/Top/Fart It’s a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. And in that year, he’s caused a lot of changes in the job of constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh of TrumpConLaw podcast – in ...
12.23.2017 70. Bonus 2017 It’s the annual bonus episode. Throughout the year, the people who appear on the show tell me a lot of interesting stuff, not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away ...
12.09.2017 69. How the Dickens stole Christmas Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the impoverished and destitute members of British society. So how come his name is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry “God bless us every one” Christmas? Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle ...
11.25.2017 68. Curse Soup Somebody has really ticked you off. You’re all steamed up inside and you want to vent that rage using words, but you don’t want to confront them directly because you’re either too polite or too cowardly. So do you: A. ...
11.10.2017 67. Open Me part II You’re holding a letter. What’s inside? A weather report from 5,000 miles away? Some devastating family history? A single word? A heartfelt dispatch from your past self that’s about to change the course of your life? Find out more about ...
10.27.2017 66. Open Me part I From Me To You’s Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley didn’t know each other well. But when Brian was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Alison offered to write him letters. 100 letters later, their lives were changed. One of the newest ...
10.14.2017 65. Eponyms III: Who’s That Guy? Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms – words that derive from people’s names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word ‘guy’. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/guy. CONTENT NOTE: the episode contains ...
09.30.2017 64. Technobabble You’ve encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science ...
09.15.2017 63. Evolution of Accents “Accent is identity. It’s a way of encoding and signaling – almost completely at an unconscious level for most people – who they feel like they are, who they want to be seen as, what group they feel like they ...
09.02.2017 62. In Crypt, Decrypt Crossword-solving is often a solitary activity – over breakfast; on the train; on the loo… But a few times a year, crossword puzzle enthusiasts gather in their hundreds to compete to be the fastest, most accurate crossword-solver. This episode comes ...
08.19.2017 61. In Your Hand “It’s sort of frozen body language; that’s what handwriting analysis is about.” Since it caught on a couple of hundred years ago, graphology – analysing handwriting to deduce characteristics of the writer – has struggled to be taken seriously as ...
08.05.2017 60. Zillions They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they’re not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what’s going on with indefinite hyperbolic numerals like ‘zillion’, ‘squillion’ and ‘kajillion’. For more about this ...
06.30.2017 59. One To Another Translation, A Love Story: Translator listens to The Allusionist. Translator hears about the podcast The Memory Palace. Translator listens to The Memory Palace. Translator immediately becomes smitten with The Memory Palace. Translator translates The Memory Palace from English to Brazilian ...
06.16.2017 58. Eclipse It’s August 2007. Lauren Marks is a 27-year-old actor and a PhD student, spending the month directing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She’s in a bar, standing onstage, performing a karaoke duet of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’…and ...

Older episodes

The Allusionist

What's The Allusionist about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Allusionist episodes:

102. New Rules

101. Two Or More

56+12. Joins & Pride

100. The Hundredth

99. Polari

98. Alter Ego

97. The Future is Now?

96. Trust

95. Verisimilitude

94. Harsh Realm

93. Gossip

92. To Err Is Human

Extra special QUIZ!

91. Bonus 2018

90. Dear Santa

90. Dear Santa

89. WPM

88. Name Changers

87. Name v. Law

86. Name Therapy

85. Skin Story

84. Trammels

83. Yes, As In

82. A Novel Remedy

81. Shark Week

Imaginary Advice: S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D.

80. Warm Front

79. Queer

78. Oot in the Open

42+43. Survival: The Key rerun

77. Survival part 1: Second Home

76. Across the Pond

75. Ear Hustling

74. Take A Swear Pill

73. Supername!

72. Hey

71. Triumph/Trumpet/Top/Fart

70. Bonus 2017

69. How the Dickens stole Christmas

68. Curse Soup

67. Open Me part II

66. Open Me part I

65. Eponyms III: Who’s That Guy?

64. Technobabble

63. Evolution of Accents

62. In Crypt, Decrypt

61. In Your Hand

60. Zillions

59. One To Another

58. Eclipse

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