Allusionist 14: Behave

Sometimes words can become your worst enemy. Clinical psychologist Jane Gregory tells how to defuse their power. There's more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/behave. This episode concerns mental health,

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Sometimes words can become your worst enemy. Clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist Dr Jane Gregory tells how to defuse their power.

NB: Today's show concerns mental health, and the discussion nudges some topics which may not be comfortable for everybody. So if you have concerns, please sit this episode out, and return in two weeks for the next one.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• When Jane has time around working with her patients, she writes very interesting pieces about CBT at cognitivebehaveyourself.com.

• Here's a summary of CBT from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

• Have any of you played a mental health-themed game like Hellblade? How was it?

• Philippa Perry's psychotherapy comic book Couch Fiction is rather wonderful. Read this interview with her then buy a copy from your local bookshop because I can't bring myself to link to Amazon.

• Read a brief history of tennis AKA 'sphairistike'.

• Here's a load of tennis etymology.

• The transcript of this episode is here.

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virga

CREDITS:

• Dr Jane Gregory is a clinical psychologist working in the NHS and her own private practice. Find her at cognitivebehaveyourself.com and @CBYourself

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• Say hello to me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

I'll be back in a fortnight with a new episode. If you like this show, do tell someone about it. Not in a creepy pyramid scheme way; play it cool.

- HZ

Allusionist 13: Mixed Emojions

Emoji allow communication without words. Could emoji be the universal language of the 21st century? Matt Gray and Tom Scott, founders of the emoji-only messaging platform emoj.li, talk through the pitfalls; and History Today's Dr Kate Wiles finds the 5...

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Emoji allow communication without words. Could emoji be the universal language of the 21st century? Matt Gray and Tom Scott, founders of the emoji-only messaging platform emoj.li, talk through the pitfalls; and History Today's Dr Kate Wiles finds the 500- and 5,000-year-old precedents for emoji.

CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains one category B swear word, plus references to penises growing on trees.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• There is a transcript of this episode here.

• Keep up to date with all matters emojional at Emojipedia.

• Learn more about cuneiform and poor old St Audrey.

• Read the Luttrell Psalter. Or Emoji Dick, if you must. (Try before you buy.)

• It should have been a portent of Things To Come that at age six, my favourite of the Just So Stories was the one about the alphabet being invented. It's Rudyard Kipling's own spin on cuneiform, pretty much.

• Why the interrobang never really took off. It's the "That's so fetch!" of punctuation.

• Your summer beach read: Unicode.

• The more medieval marginalia you find, the better they get. Here are some choice cuts, and there are many more at Got Medieval; read Kate Wiles herself on the topic; read an explanation as to why so many involve knights fighting snails; or if you can't be bothered to read, just watch the video I made for you:

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kloof

CREDITS:

• Dr Kate Wiles is contributing editor at History Today and appears on their podcast.

• Matt Gray and Tom Scott brought the emoji-only messenger Emoj.li to life and now they're putting it to death.

• All the music in this episode is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks very much to the Soho Theatre in London for letting me record there.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

- HZ

Allusionist 12: Pride

"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride." It's June; the President of the USA has officially designated it LGBT Pride Month, and there'll be Pride events around the world. But how did the word 'pride' came to be the banner word for demonstrations a...

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"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride."

It’s June; the President of the USA has officially designated it LGBT Pride Month, and there’ll be Pride events around the world.

Activist and the publisher of Homosexuals Intransigent Craig Schoonmaker recounts how the word ‘pride’ was chosen, which eventually came to be the banner word for demonstrations and celebrations of LGBT rights and culture.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• In the episode I contemplate the history of the word 'lesbian', and if you're also interested to know how 'gay' evolved from 'colourful' or 'cheerful' to its present meaning, read about it here and here.

• For background on the Stonewall riots whence arose the Pride movement, listen to this short oral history on Witness by the BBC World Service. I haven't seen the Stonewall Uprising documentary, but the transcript is interesting.

• Craig Schoonmaker mentions the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organisations in the USA. Here's a short history; this was its mission statement (from probably the mid-1960s), and here's what the FBI thought of it.

• Fred Sergeant remembers the first Pride march.

• Barack Obama officially proclaims June 2015 to be Pride Month.

• There is a movement called Gay Shame, founded in 1998 as a protest against/alternative to what they saw as the overcommercialisation and conservatism of Gay Pride. Read about them here.

• There is a transcript of this episode here.

CREDITS:

• L. Craig Schoonmaker has several websites, including Mr Gay Pride, featuring articles and materials going all the way back to 1969; the Mr Gay Pride blog is also very interesting. He also runs a photo journal about Newark, NJ, as well as a version making the case for phonetic (fonetik?) spelling of English.

• This episode was produced by me and Eleanor McDowall of Falling Tree, with help from Peregrine Andrews.

• All the music in this episode is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
congeries

There'll be a new episode in a fortnight. Meantime, I'll be dispensing podcasting advice in California with Roman Mars and Colin Anderson: check here for details of the events.

- HZ

Allusionist 11: Brunchtime

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What does brunch have to do with Lewis Carroll? Fall down the rabbit hole of brunch semantics with Dan Pashman of the Sporkful podcast http://sporkful.com. There's more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/brunch. Tweet @allusionistshow,

Brunch. What does it actually mean?

Yeah yeah, it's breakfast + lunch, but in function or in form? And what does it have to do with Lewis Carroll?

I chewed this over during brunch with Dan Pashman, host of the food podcast The Sporkful and author of Eat More Better. Fall down the rabbit hole of brunch semantics with us.

SIDE ORDERS:

• Here is the transcript of this episode.

• Want to know some more about the Rise of Brunch? Here you go.

• The origins of the name of the classic brunch dish Eggs Benedict are as clear as Hollandaise.

• Here's more about Lewis Carroll and his portmanteaus, and in case you're really hungry for arguments about semantics, here's Alice conversation with Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass.

• In several languages, oranges are called variations of 'Portugal'.

• Have any of you read Brunch: A History? I'm intrigued.

• A lot of people seem to really hate brunch. Portlandia's 'Brunch Village' episode was fiction though, right?

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
extrados

Next episode will appear in a fortnight. Don't stay awake the whole time until then just to game the word 'breakfast'. You'll only be spiting yourself.

- HZ

CREDITS

• This episode was produced by Anne Saini, Dan Pashman and me, and recorded at the Square Diner on Leonard St, NYC. They were very sporting about it.

• Hear Dan Pashman on WNYC's The Sporkful every week - thesporkful.com - and read his very funny and useful book Eat More Better. He is @TheSporkful on Twitter.

• As well as producing The Sporkful, Anne Saini has her own podcast, Mother. She is @CitySpoonful on Twitter.

• You can hear more of my conversation with Dan on this episode of The Sporkful. If you think he was going down some terrifying paths of logic about breakfast, wait till you hear his theories about fizzy water!

• All* the music in this episode is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.
  * Aside from the songs playing in the background at the diner. I can make out 'Alone' by Heart and Maroon 5's 'Moves Like Jagger'. Shurrup, Maroon 5!

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

Me and Dan in the Square Diner, post-porklift.

Allusionist 10: Election Lexicon

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On the eve of the 2015 General Election in the UK, take a jaunt through the etymology of election-related words. Find out why casting a vote should be more like basketball, and why polling is hairy. There's more about this episode at http://theallusion...

On the eve of the 2015 General Election in the UK, join me for a jaunt through the etymology of election-related words.

Find out why casting a vote should be more like basketball, how debating could descend into fisticuffs, and why polling is hairy.

FURTHER READING:

• Producer Matt and I went out in a high wind with a megaphone to record at the place for shouting about politics through a megaphone: Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. Here's a brief history of Speakers' Corner, where people have been blowing high wind through megaphones for more than a century.

• For those who insist upon continuing to do their campaigning indoors, here's a potted history of lobbying in the US.

• I only briefly mentioned the origins of the Tories' name: it has a very knotty history. Read more about that here.

• Swingometer fans! Thanks to the BBC, here're some archive videos and pictures of swingometers through history.

• Here is the transcript of this episode.

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pismire

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See you in a fortnight, unless etymologocracy wins the day and I'm too drunk on power to make this show.

- HZ

CREDITS

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with megaphone assitance from Matt Hill. Matt tweets as @virtualmatthill and makes numerous podcasts and apps, including Spark London and the Media Podcast. Find more of his work at rethinkdaily.co.uk.

• All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear more of it at http://thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com/.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

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So goddamn windy that day. The campaign trail is more challenging than I had expected.

Allusionist 8: Crosswords

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Cryptic crosswords: delightful brain exercise, or the infernal taunting of the incomprehensible? Either way, crossword setter John Feetenby explains how they're made and how to solve them. Visit theallusionist.

Cryptic crosswords: delightful brain exercise, or the infernal taunting of the incomprehensible?

Either way, crossword setter John Feetenby explains how they're made and how to solve them. He reveals how he composes clues (even one for 'Zaltzman'), why crosswords reign supreme over sudoku, and why 'jacuzzi' is rarely the answer.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• If, like me, you suck at cryptic crosswords, to start off here's Cryptic Crosswords for Dummies.

• I'll never be able to do The Guardian's crossword, but if that's the crossword mountain you want to climb, here's the Guardian's Cryptic Crosswords for Beginners series. I can do the Telegraph crossword a bit, so here's the Telegraph's guide too.

• This is a very handy compendium of what words mean in crosswordese.

• Here's a summary of the differences between UK and US crosswords.

I'm aware that crosswords from other countries work differently to British ones, so do illuminate me about your own local crossword practices.

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
waterbrash

Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.

- HZ

CREDITS

• John Feetenby's crosswords appear every Sunday in one of Britain's major newspapers. He is @feexby on Twitter and his website is feexby.com, via which you can find his own podcasts.

• This episode was presented and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman.

MUSIC:

• 'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick

• 'I don't Get It' - Cowboy Junkies

• 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' - The Animals

Allusionist 7: Mountweazel

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You'd think you could trust dictionaries, but it turns out, they are riddled with LIES. Visit theallusionist.org/mountweazel to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.

You'd think you could trust dictionaries, but it turns out, they are riddled with LIES.

Delivering this upsetting news is Eley Williams, who is just finishing up her PhD about mountweazels, esquivalience and other hoax words that lexicographers have snuck into dictionaries.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL:

• In 2009 a Dublin art gallery held an exhibition called 'The Life and Times of Lilian Virginia Mountweazel'.

• Here's the process by which a real word gets into a dictionary.

• And here's how they rooted out 'esquivalience'.

• Cryptozoological hoaxes!

• I love Eley's sister Catherine Williams's illustration of the made-up bird jungftak:

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
osculum

Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.

- HZ

CREDITS

• Eley Williams's website is giantratofsumatra.com and she is on Twitter as @giantratsumatra.

• This episode was presented and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman.

MUSIC:

• 'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick

• 'Would I Lie To You' - Charles and Eddie

• 'Little Lies' - Fleetwood Mac

• 'Suspicious Minds' - Elvis Presley

Allusionist 6: The Writing on the Wall

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Those words on museum walls that you can't be bothered to read? They're more important than you think... Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami explains why. Visit theallusionist.org/museums to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow,

Those words on museum walls that you can't be bothered to read? They're more important than you think...

Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami tells us why.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL:

• Read more about artist Fred Wilson and his 'Mining the Museum' exhibition and other works at the Maryland Historical Society.

• Here's more about that very old museum in Ur.

• Read a lengthy precis of the history of museums, if that's your bag.

• Here's the etymology of the word 'museum'.

• A few years ago, I went on a museums crawl in Vienna and saw such marvels as priapic armour, pickled conjoined foetuses, and meat animations. What's the weirdest museum you've been to?

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD OF THE DAY:
caprine

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Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.

- HZ

CREDITS

• Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman, ie me.

• Rachel Souhami designs and curates exhibitions, produces Museums Showoff, and tweets @rachelsouhami.

MUSIC:

• 'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick

• 'Wonderful World' - Sam Cooke

• 'The Writing's On The Wall' - OK Go

• 'Live As If Someone Is Always Watching You' - Smog

Allusionist 5: Latin Lives!

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Every week since September 1989, a radio station in Finland has broadcast a weekly news bulletin...in Latin. WHY? Let's find out! Visit theallusionist.org/latin to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.

For years, I've been wondering why a radio station in Finland broadcasts a weekly news bulletin in Latin.

And now, I have found out.

Antti Ijäs from Nuntii Latini - now the Finnish Broadcasting Company's longest-running programme - explains how he invents new Latin words for modern concepts, and why the show is important even though, outside of the Vatican, not many people speak Latin any more. Listen now via iTunes, your favoured podcast directory, or RSS.

FOR EXTRA CREDIT:

• Examine the vocabularies for Nuntii Latini.

• Explore Vicipaedia, the Latin Wikipedia.

• Sign up for your free monthly Latin puzzle book, Hebdomada Aenigmatum.

• Learn a whole load of interesting stuff from the Reading, Writing, Romans blog

• Try to understand the Papal tweets.

• Have you seen Plebs? It's worth it for the theme tune alone, but I’m particularly amazed that a sitcom has been commissioned that is not only full of jokes aimed at the ever-rarer breed that is Latin students, but targeted specifically at those who had The Cambridge Latin Course textbooks.

• Let's not forget the Latin grammar jokes in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
skelf

Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.

Valete!

- HZ

CREDITS

• Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman.

• Antti Ijäs has a blog about etymology, which makes me wish I understood Finnish.
  Here is Nuntii Latini's website (OK fine, here's an English translation) and the weekly bulletin is available as a podcast from iTunes.

MUSIC:

• 'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick

• 'Latin Lingo' - Cypress Hill

• Theme from Carry On Cleo

• Theme from I, Claudius

• 'You Will Be Back Someday' - Kevin Tihista's Red Terror