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.
Read moreAllusionist 163. Rhino Borked Guy
Provoked by current events, we've got three political eponyms for turmoiled times. Get ready for explosives, presidential pigs, Supreme Court scrapping, and wronged rhinos.
Read moreAllusionist 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 of 99% Invisible report from the streets of Victorian London at the annual Dickens Christmas Fair in Daly City, California, while historian Greg Jenner explains the origins of the festive traditions for which Dickens gets the credit, without even wanting the credit - in fact, his motivation for writing A Christmas Carol was far from a cash-in on Christmas.
Read moreAllusionist 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. Subtweet them.
B. With your finger, scrawl an insulting message into the dirt on their car.
C. Get a small sheet of lead, scratch into it a message cursing your enemies, roll it up and throw it into your nearest sacred spring?
Oh, I forgot to mention that it's 1700-2000 years ago and you're living in the Ancient Roman Empire, so the answer is C.
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