Happy tenth birthday to this show! To celebrate, here's every randomly selected word from the dictionary from the first decade of the show. Visit theallusionist.org/randomlyselectedwords to read the transcript and get other Tranquillusionist episodes. The podcast is taking a break until early May 2025, but the Allusioverse will continue to be in full swing: become a member at theallusionist.org/donate. You get regular livestreams with me reading from my ever-expanding collection of diction...
Jan 17, 2025•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's the annual parade of Bonus Bits - things this year's guests said that I couldn't fit into their episodes, and/or weren't about language, but now is their time to shine. We've got tricorn hats, changing your dog's name, Boston cream pie, parmesan vs vomit, the placebo effect's negative sibling, the universal blank, headache poetry and bawdy riddles. And more! Thanks to, in order of appearance: Joanna Kopaczyk, Juliana Pache, Ben Zimmer, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, A.J. Jacobs, Zazie Todd and Caroli...
Dec 23, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast In Lexicat part 1, we met the author Mary Robinette Kowal and her cat Elsie, and learned about how they communicate via a set of buttons programmed with words. In part 2, two talking dogs, Bastian and Parker - and their humans, Joelle Andres and Sascha Crasnow - join us too, and explain how they discovered some very unexpected things about what their animal companions are thinking and feeling thanks to the buttons, and how they changed the ways they communicate with other humans too. And animal ...
Dec 06, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elsie the cat has a set of 120 buttons programmed with words. She uses them to lie, swear, apologise, express grief and frustration and love to her human, the author Mary Robinette Kowal, who talks about what's involved in learning to communicate via language buttons with companion animals. And animal behaviour expert Zazie Todd explains how animals might be interacting with human language. This is the first half of a two-parter: in the next episode, some talking dogs - and their humans - come t...
Nov 24, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 15th and 16th century Scotland, in the highest courts of the land, you'd find esteemed poets hurling insults at each other. This was flyting, a sort of medieval equivalent of battle rap, and it was so popular at the time that the King himself wrote instructions for how to do it well. Writer and Scots language campaigner Ishbel McFarlane and historical linguist Joanna Kopaczyk explain the art of flyting, where an insult becomes slander, what's going on within the speech act of performative dis...
Nov 09, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast There's so much more to say about Singlish after last episode that we're saying some more of it this episode. Poet and academic Gwee Li Sui, author of Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to how Singaporeans Communicate , describes the resistance he received in Singapore when he published Singlish translations of literary works - and why they are important and celebratory for Singlish. And Stacey Mei Yan Fong, baker and author of 50 Pies, 50 States , explains how the language that used to be embarrass...
Oct 29, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast "If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” says Bibek Gurung , a former linguist who grew up in Singapore speaking Singlish with his family and friends, while schools and the government tried to quash it. "Language is a fundamental human skill. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill really does a number ...
Oct 12, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, give your brain a break by temporarily supplanting your interior monologue with words that don't make you feel feelings. Note: this is NOT a normal episode of the Allusionist, where you might learn something about language and your brain might be stimulated. The Tranquillusionist's purpose is to soothe your brain and for you to learn very little, except for something about Zeus's attitude to bad drivers. There's a collection of other Tra...
Sep 28, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast I can scarce believe that I've made 200 episodes of this show, but here we are! To celebrate, here is a quiz about language where all the questions were set by YOU, the beautiful brainy listeners. Play along with me - there's a score sheet you can use over at theallusionist.org/200, plus the episode's transcript and links to more information about some of the topics. If you want to help me celebrate this podcast making it to 200 episodes, recommend it to someone! Word of mouth/virtual mouth is t...
Sep 13, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Next episode is the 200th, therefore this is the 199th. I raid the 66 pages of ideas for episodes I have been keeping for nearly a decade, and present to you 199 that I have not yet made into podcasts (except for this one). Find the episode's transcript, plus more information about the topics therein, at theallusionist.org/199ideas . If you fancy concocting a quiz question for the imminent 200th episode, go to theallusionist.org/quiz to submit it; your deadline is 6 September 2024. To help fund ...
Aug 30, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since 2019, Marwan Kaabour has been collecting Arabic slang words used by and about queer people, first for the online community Takweer, and now the newly published Queer Arab Glossary. "When researching for this book, I discovered so much of the sociopolitical, cultural, linguistic, and historical layers that make up the words," he says. He also discovered quite a lot about frying, white beans and worms (metaphorical ones). Find the episode's transcript, plus more information and links to Marw...
Aug 12, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast At the Scripps National Spelling Bee, behind the spectacle of kids vying to be champion spellers, a whole lot of work goes on to make words into this word sport. Offering a peek into the apiary are the Bee's executive director Corrie Loeffler, and Ben Zimmer and Jane Solomon from the Bee's word panel. Find out more about this episode, get the transcript, hear the other Beelusionist episode about the Spelling Bee, and listen to the rest of the Word Play series, at theallusionist.org/wordsport. An...
Jun 30, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast I went to the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, to marvel at kids spelling words I had mostly never even heard of. But when you’re at Bee Week, the competitive spelling is merely the tip of the icebee. Find out more about this episode, get the transcript, and listen to the rest of the Word Play series, at theallusionist.org/beeing. And visit spellingbee.com for all the information about this year's tournament. Members of the Allusioverse also got daily Beecaps from my time at Bee Week, so if y...
Jun 10, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cain's Jawbone, a murder mystery cryptic puzzle novella in the form of 100 pages presented in the wrong order, has many millions of possible solutions but only one that is correct. 86 years after it was published, writer, comedian and crossword constructor John Finnemore solved it. And then, craving another 100-page cryptic puzzle murder story, he wrote his own. Get the transcript of this episode, and find links to more information about the people, puzzles and topics therein, at theallusionist....
May 28, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Exciting things have been happening with crossword puzzles in the US: more constructors, more outlets to get puzzles published, clues and answers that would never have appeared even a few years ago, and puzzle packs raising a whole lot of money for charities and humanitarian causes. You hear from crossword constructor extraordinaire Erik Agard, Juliana Pache of BlackCrossword.com, Rachel Fabi of These Puzzles Fund Abortion, and Adrian Johnson from Puzzles for Palestine. Get the transcript ...
May 13, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast AJ Jacobs makes The Puzzler podcast, wrote The Puzzler book, and sometimes turns his whole life into a puzzle. He comes bearing word games, explanations of anagrams being used to precipitate wars and were key evidence in trials, tips for writing with a quill, below-the-knee insults, and tales of living constitutionally. AJ's new book is The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning. Find his work at AJJacobs.com. Get the transcript of t...
Apr 23, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode, and the next couple of episodes, are about word games! Today, Joshua Blackburn recounts how his sons' uninspiring English homework led to him inventing the language quiz game League of the Lexicon; and Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalıoğlu of Thorny Games explain how they make topics like language loss and deciphering alien language into creative play. Get the transcript of this episode, and find links to more information about the topics therein, at theallusionist.org/wordplay2. Word...
Apr 09, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast The word 'hypochondria' has travelled from meaning physical ailments in a particular region of your body, to ones that are only in your mind. It has been in fashion, and thoroughly out; it has been subject to a range of treatments; it has been lucrative for quacks; and it's a very understandable form of anxiety - which I have, and so does Caroline Crampton, author of the new book A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria. Content note: this episode contains a lot of discussion about health...
Mar 23, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast "It's quite a big undertaking going through every named feature in the whole solar system and trying to find out who that person was." When PhD student Annie Lennox discovered a crater on Mercury, she got the chance to name it. Which sent her on a bigger space mission. Content note: this episode contains mentions of, but not descriptions of, sexual violence. Get the transcript of this episode, and find links to more information about the topics therein including how to get involved with the next...
Mar 11, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, soothe your brain by saying a load of words that don’t really mean very much, to give you an emotional break by temporarily supplanting your interior monologue with something you can benignly ignore. Note: this is NOT a normal episode of the Allusionist, where you might learn something about language and your brain might be energised. The Tranquillusionist's purpose is to rest your brain and for you to learn nothing. If you like it, ther...
Feb 26, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast At Lunar New Year, certain foods are particularly lucky to eat. Why? Because in Chinese, their names are puns on fortunate things. Damn, maybe noodles are all it takes to get me into puns after all... Professor Miranda Brown, cultural historian of China specialising in food and drink, explains the wordplay foods of new year, and why names are so resonant in Chinese. Get the transcript of this episode, and find links to Miranda Brown's work and more information about the topics therein, at theall...
Feb 10, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lipreading has been in the news this month, thanks to gossip-stoking mouth movements at the Golden Globes that the amateur lipreaders of The Internet rushed to interpret. But lipreading tutor Helen Barrow describes how reading lips really works - the confusable consonants, the importance of context and body language - and gossip maven Lainey Lui explains why these regularly occurring lipreading gossip stories are unworthy of a second or even first glance. Get the transcript of this episode, and ...
Jan 28, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's our annual end of year parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about, including a mythical disappearing island, geese, human dictionaries, the dubious history of the Body Mass Index, Victorian death department stores, and much more. In order of appearance, we hear from: Translator and author Caetano Galindo on how the countril Brazil got its name Lexicographer and Countdown's Dictionary Corner-er Susie Dent on pleasing words Academic and collector of dictionaries Lin...
Dec 24, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve got knitting! We’ve got eponyms!! We’ve got knitting eponyms!!! Which come with a whole load of battles, f-boys, duels, baseball, espionage, scandals - and socks, lots of socks. Fibre artist and Yarn Stories podcaster Miriam Felton discusses why grafting should ditch the name 'kitchener stitch'; we learn about the eponymous cardigan; and three towns in Ontario take pretty different approaches to having problematic namesakes. Content note: this episode contains mentions of war, death and in...
Dec 12, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re returning to the theme of renaming, for two food-related renamings: the first one that mostly happened, the second that mostly did not - but in a good way. Dr Erin Pritchard persuaded a British supermarket to rebrand a type of sweets that had a slur in their name. And Chris Strikes recounts the renaming conflict that was the Toronto Patty Wars of 1985. Content note: the first part of the episode concerns an ableist slur, so there are incidences of that slur, and discussion of ableism...
Nov 20, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast The word 'misophonia' describes a condition that statistically, 20 per cent of you have: an extreme reaction to certain sounds. "For me, it was a relief to have a word for what I'd been experiencing," says Dr Jane Gregory, author of the new book Sounds Like Misophonia: How to Stop Small Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions, "because I thought for a long time that I was really uptight or maybe a bit controlling over other people, and that that was a problem with my character, as opposed to...
Nov 06, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast All aboard, we're off to the 2023 Apple Festival at the University of British Columbia, to taste some apples and, most importantly, enjoy some apple names. And before that, we return to the classic Sporklusionist applesode to refresh our memory about how apple names are chosen - eponyms, portmanteaus, geography, or corporate R&D, just like how our ancestors named apples. Dan Pashman hosts The Sporkful podcast - head to the Sporkful podfeed or sporkful.com to listen to the companion episode w...
Oct 22, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Spanish missionaries arrived in what is now called Florida, there were 100,000-200,000 Timucua people in the region. Just two centuries later, there were fewer than 100. Soon, with all the people who spoke it dead, the Timucua language died out, too, preserved only in a few Spanish-Timucua religious texts. In the 21st century, linguistic anthropologist Aaron Broadwell and historian Alejandra Dubcovsky have been decoding and translating these texts to understand the Timucua language and the ...
Oct 09, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lexicographer, author and Dictionary Corner resident Susie Dent has been studying words to make us feel happy. She brings etymologies concerning cows, gas, guts and fat, of bellies and breathing and bonanzas. And some that came from the high seas and aren't made up! Find out more about this episode and the topics therein, and obtain the transcript, at theallusionist.org/siblings-of-chaos. Become a member of the Allusioverse at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent pod...
Sep 24, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast There's an abiding myth that the landmark dictionaries are the work of one man, in a dusty paper-filled garrett tirelessly working away singlehandedly. But really it took a village: behind every Big Daddy of Lexicography was usually a team of women, keeping the garrett clean, organising the piles of papers, reading through all the citations, doing research, writing definitions, editing, subediting...essentially being lexicographers, without the credit or the pay. Academic Lindsay Rose Russell, a...
Sep 13, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
