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The Allusionist

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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 185. Gems and Patties

November 21, 2023 The Allusionist

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.

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In episodes Tags vocabulary, history, Erin Pritchard, Chris Strikes, renaming, names, branding, brands, rebranding, rebrand, Telling Other Stories, slurs, offensive terms, food, foodstuffs, food terminology, patties, patty, Patty Wars, Toronto, Canada, Canadian, UK, British, Britain, ableism, little people, dwarfism, medical conditions, disability, discrimination, racism, bias, equality, activism, campaigning, supermarkets, Caribbean, Jamaica, Jamaican, product names, wrestling, pastry, Lloyd Parry, Brian Mulroney, Michael Davidson, law, beef, hamburgers, burgers, meat, meat puck, Patty Summit, 1985, 1980s, Patty Day, 23 February, yaw

Allusionist 177. Fat part 2

May 27, 2023 The Allusionist

“The starting point is, and the research questions are all framed by: 'We know it's terrible to be fat, but how terrible is it?' Not: 'What would it take to give effective healthcare to fat people?'” says Aubrey Gordon, writer of the new book You Just need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, star of the documentary Your Fat Friend, and podcaster of Maintenance Phase. And it's not just healthcare where the alignment of 'fat' with 'unhealthy' - and 'thinner' with 'healthier' - becomes problematic and often very dangerous. "I really don't think people contend with the ways in which they are sending a message to everyone around them that there is a weight limit for people that they will love."

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In episodes Tags etymology, words, language, society & culture, history, fat, fatness, anti-fat bias, anti-fatness, fatphobia, Aubrey Gordon, Maintenance Phase, body, overweight, bias, obese, obesity, medical, medicine, health, stocky, stout, Fatlusionist, bodies, size, doctors, healthism, euphemisms, voluptuous, weight, weight gain, weight loss, dieting, diets, diet culture, rotund, infinifat, super fat, mollig, Robert Crawford, disability, ableism, obesity paradox, Valley of the Dolls, tret

Allusionist 152. Asperger

April 3, 2022 The Allusionist

Hans Asperger would have been merely "a footnote in the history of autism", so why did he get to be the eponym in Asperger's syndrome? Because along with the usual problems medical eponyms pose, and his work not really earning him the honour, he collaborated with Nazis and sent children to a hospital where they would be experimented on and even killed.

Activist, writer and academic Morénike Giwa Onaiwu discusses the stigma around terms like Asperger’s syndrome and autism, and historian Edith Sheffer talks about Hans Asperger and child psychiatry in Nazi Vienna.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, eponyms, medical eponyms, Asperger’s Syndrome, Hans Asperger, autism, autism spectrum, ASD, ableism, disability, Nazis, stigma, disorder, Vienna, Austria, Third Reich, Germany, Second World War, World War Two, WW2, Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, Lorna Wing, DSM, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, psychopathy, medicine, medical, problematic

Allusionist 138. Mind My Mind

June 27, 2021 The Allusionist
A138 Mind My Mind logo.jpg

Crazy, insane, nuts, mad, bonkers, psycho, schizo, OCD - casual vocabulary is strewn with mental health terms, but perhaps shouldn't be? Psychotherapist and podcaster Lily Sloane talks about what we're really saying when we use such words.

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In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, Lily Sloane, therapy, psychotherapy, mental health, ableism, psychopathy, Psycho, OCD, ambivalence, antisocial, egosyntonic, egodystonic, disorders, schizophrenia, schizoid, sociopath, Carl Jung, Psyche, Eros, Cupid, Aphrodite, myths, Greek myths, Greek gods, Hedone, hedonism, the shadow, fartlek
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
Festivelusionists
Allusionist 221. Scribe
Allusionist 221. Scribe
Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 218. Banned Books
Allusionist 218. Banned Books
Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
Allusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
Allusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
Allusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
Souvenirs on BBC Radio 4
Souvenirs on BBC Radio 4
Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
queer playlist
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.