All aboard, we're off to the 2023 Apple Festival at the University of British Columbia, to taste some apples and, most importantly, enjoy some apple names. And before that, we return to the classic Sporklusionist applesode to refresh our memory about how apple names are chosen - eponyms, portmanteaus, geography, or corporate R&D, just like how our ancestors named apples.
Read moreAllusionist 107. Apples
Late 2019 will see the biggest apple launch of our lifetimes. 22 years in the making, ripening on millions of trees into picture-perfect redness, here comes the WA38, more snazzily known as the Cosmic Crisp. The name was the result of a year of focus groups, taste tests and word associations - a far cry from when apples were named after whichever end of a cat they resembled.
Read moreAllusionist 30: US Election Lexicon
The 2016 US election isn't going away anytime soon, so let's seek refuge in etymology, as we did before in the first Election Lexicon.
EXCESS BAGGAGE:
Oxford Dictionaries have had enough of these political terms, and perhaps so have you.
Lo, here's a short history of filibustering.
The linguistics of mass persuasion: how politicians make ‘fetch’ happen.
And in case you needed to know about the sex lives of politicians during primaries, the escorts they hire are here to tell you.
If you want podcasts about the US Election, I've heard good things about FiveThirtyEight, Bandwagon, Presidential, Slate's Political Gabfest, Candidate Confessional, Left, Right & Centre, The Pollsters, Whistlestop... And there's this episode from our pals Mortified.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
flockmaster
CREDITS:
You heard from Jonathan Mitchell from The Truth; Benjamen Walker from Theory of Everything; Lauren Spohrer from Criminal; Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder; Nick van der Kolk from Love + Radio; and Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle from 99% Invisible.
This episode was produced by Matt Hill and me. The theme tune is by Martin Austwick.
Say hello at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman, regardless of on which shoulder you sport your parrot.
