What do you call yourself if you're a part-time vegetarian? What petty linguistic things would you change? And what do you do if people gripe at you if you say that you are bi or pan? To answer these questions from the Allusionist mailbag are esteemed alumsionists: Hrishikesh Hirway and Samin Nosrat of Home Cooking podcast; academic and author Alex Ketchum; lexicographer Kory Stamper; and linguist Lauren Gawne of Lingthusiasm podcast.
Read morequeer playlist
Hello! Here’s a playlist of episodes of the show that are particularly relevant in Pride month - but also at any time of year.
Polari was a secret language that was used mostly by gay men in London. And now lives on in the non-secret lexicon - you might not realise that you know some Polari words!
Two Or More is about the bumpy life of the word ‘bisexual’, describing things from oysters to space stations to God to hats and then people, where things get really complicated.
Parents is about how some of the vocabulary of pregnancy and parenting might not fit when you’re trans, and how to make the language gender-additive.
Many Ways At Once. The Scots language didn’t have much of an LGBTQ+ lexicon. So writer and performer Dr Harry Josephine Giles decided to create one.
Rainbow Washing examines the trends in corporate performative allyship, and considers how to sort the real queer support from the harm-disguise.
Similarly, Queerbaiting follows a term from entrapment to marketing to the failures of onscreen representation.
Name Changers features listeners telling the stories of why they changed their names - often a big feature of a gender journey.
There’s so much more to say about the word Queer, where it has been and where it is going now.
Survival: Bequest is about the Māori word ‘takatapui’, a bit of linguistic evidence that prior to the European colonisation that imposed cisgender monogamous heterosexuality, Māori culture had included myriad sexual orientations, gender fluidity and polyamory.
Survival: Today Tomorrow part 2 is about how new queer words are coined for the Icelandic language.
No Title is about making language gender-free. And there are unbeatable arguments to fell anyone who denies singular ‘they’, should you need those in your arsenal.
Joins is about how the available vocabulary for body parts can be a liability when you’re trans and/or non binary.
Aro Ace is about how newish words like ‘aromantic’ and ‘asexual’ enable people to voice their identities, and to find each other.
Serving C-Bomb examines how some terms from the ballroom scene in New York City in the 1990s became mainstream in the 2020s.
Suburbia discusses queerness in British suburbs.
Pride, about why the word ‘Pride’ was chosen to be the banner word for demonstrations and celebrations of LGBTQIA rights and culture.
And if you just need to shut off your internal monologue for a bit, you can replace it with a relaxingly scored list of gay animals.
Allusionist 198: Queer Arab Glossary
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).
Read moreTranquillusionist: Gay Animals
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, say a load of words which aren’t really about anything, so that your brain gets a little gentle diversion from thinking and/or feeling. Today: a list of gay animals.
Read moreAllusionist 145. Parents
When you're trans and pregnant, some of the vocabulary of pregnancy, birth and parenting might not fit you. In face, some of it might not even work for people of ANY gender. Trans parents Freddy McConnell and CJ talk about gender-additive language, inclusive for women and other genders, and about how in English law, the word 'mother' becomes semantically very complicated indeed.
Read moreAllusionist 144. Aro Ace
The word 'asexual' has been used by humans describing themselves for several decades; 'aromantic' is newer. Both words enable people to voice identities that were unacknowledged for centuries, to find each other and build communities together, and to provide counternarratives to what the allosexuals are pushing.
Read moreAllusionist 118. Survival: Bequest
When the Europeans arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as guns, stoats and Christianity, they brought ideas of cisgender monogamous heterosexuality that were imposed upon the Māori people as if there had never been anything else. But one word, takatāpui, proved otherwise.
Read moreAllusionist 117. Many Ways At Once
The Scots language didn’t have much of an LGBTQ+ lexicon. So writer and performer Dr Harry Josephine Giles decided to create one.
Read more
