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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 226. Suburbia

April 27, 2026 The Allusionist

"The word ‘suburbia’ sort of evokes a very fixed idea of a place that is identikit, that all suburbs are the same, that within the suburb everything is the same, that all people are the same, all experiences are the same," says social historian and author John Grindrod. "I think it has this kind of flattening-out facility, that word, that isn't true."

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In episodes Tags society, culture, John Grindrod, architecture, buildings, towns, cities, country, suburbs, suburbia, suburban, queer, LGBTQIA+, QUILTBAG, gay, Britain, England, 20th century, Victorians, 19th century, WW1, WW2, First World War, Second World War, 1980s, Margaret Thatcher, home, houses, EM Forster, Maurice, DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Ebenezer Howard, garden cities, new towns, Letchworth, Welwyn, Edward Carpenter, George Merrill, Milton Keynes, work, Conservative Party, E Nesbit, class, British Empire, decor, council, home ownership, surveillance, bagasse

Allusionist 179: Andy Quiz

August 10, 2023 The Allusionist
a boggle grid spelling out the words Andy Quiz

It's the annual etymology quizlusionist! I’m on a family holiday for the first time since 1988, so enlisted my brother Andy Zaltzman of the Bugle podcast to test his/your wits on singing goats, explosives, mythological Greek sweeteners, attics, left-handedness and whales.

Can you beat Andy’s score? Play along using the interactive scoresheet at the bottom of this post.

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In episodes, quiz Tags words, language, quiz, cows, ox, bovine, animals, Greek, Ancient Greek, Greece, Old English, Latin, classic, Proto-Indo-European, bucolic, butane, butter, gwou, vows, run, running, car, carriage, goats, goat song, caprine, John Oliver, comedy, explosives, explosions, Alfred Nobel, eponyms, ballistite, crying, weeping, left handed, right handed, sinister, right, Attis, cricket, sweeteners, myths, Thebes, Maenads, Bacchae, Euripides, saccharine, whales, kaboom, bang, applause, Kent, architecture, trivium, quadrivium, Dionysus, hockey, agave, baleen, boom, bugle, buttocks, careen, career, deplore, dynamite, explode, explore, jetton, left, profession, tragedy, trivia, whale penises
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
Allusionist 226. Suburbia
Allusionist 226. Suburbia
Allusionist 225. Hues
Allusionist 225. Hues
Allusionist 224. Cosmic Hairball
Allusionist 224. Cosmic Hairball
Allusionist 223. Bonus 2025
Allusionist 223. Bonus 2025
Allusionist 222. A Christmas Carol
Allusionist 222. A Christmas Carol
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
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.