Alexinomia is the aversion to saying people's names. Psychologist Thomas Ditye explains what it means to have this condition - in some cases not even saying your spouse's name during 25 years of marriage - and the research he and colleague Lisa Welleschick are doing to learn more about it.
Read moreAllusionist 233. Phobia
'Phobia' gets used for anything from a mild aversion to a debilitating anxiety response to various forms of bigotry. Deboki Chakravarti and Sam Jones of the podcast Tiny Matters join to consider the term from its comedic origins with one of the founding fathers of the USA, via rabies and Greek deities, to its role in their lives today.
CONTENT NOTE: we’re not trying to stoke anyone’s phobias, but we do discuss some common phobia-inducers, including snakes, germs and small holes, and there’s a brief mention of tarantulas. There’s also talk about OCD and rabies.
Read moreAllusionist 223. Bonus 2025
MP3 • APPLE PODCASTS • RSS • GOOGLE • POCKETCASTS • TRANSCRIPT
It's the annual parade of bonus bits! Every year, the show's guests say too many interesting things and/or stuff that isn't languagey enough, so I save it up and release it in a delightful melange of facts and thoughts, about language and also not about language. That melange is today, and it includes dinosaur mouths and dinosaur poop, psychedelic plants, feminist cookbooks, and taking a class in profanity.
Content note: there are category A swears in this episode.
(And yes I know 2025 is over, but I had to delay this for a month while enjoying a nasty bout of laryngitis, AKA Podcaster's Plague.)
You hear, in order of appearance:
Alex Ketchum, academic and author of books including How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences, Queers At The Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (With Recipes) and Ingredients for Revolution, a History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses. She also organises the Queer Food Conference, next happening 1-3 May 2026. Alex previously appeared in the episode Bread and Roses, and Coffee.
Martin Austwick, musician and podcaster with Neutrino Watch, Song By Song and Answer Me This. Find his songs at PaleBirdMusic.com and Bandcamp but not Spotify. Martin has previously appeared in several Allusionists, but the one where we were talking about poisonous plants was Bane Bain Bath.
So Mayer, bookseller at Burley Fisher Books, editor of books including The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K Le Guin, and author of books including Bad Language. They appeared on the Allusionist episode Disobedience.
Hannah McGregor, professor, podcaster and author of books including Clever Girl: Jurassic Park. They have been on the show a few times, but most recently and saliently in the episode Dino.
Kelly Elizabeth Wright, linguist — she recently had a paper published in the journal Cognition — and Data Czar with the American Dialect Society, which just concluded their 2025 Word of the Year process so check out the results. She appeared on the episode Serving C-Bomb.
Nicole Holliday, linguist and an excellent follow on BlueSky and TikTok @mixedlinguist. She also featured in Serving C-Bomb.
This weekend is the annual Birthdaylusionist livestream.
Join me and the aforementioned Martin Austwick for an hour of chat and relaxing readings from my ever-expanding collection of vintage reference books. Here’s the YouTube link. Kick-off is 24 January 1pm PT/4pm ET/9pm UTC&UK/check your timezone here.
For more regular livestreams, become a member of the Allusioverse at theallusionist.org/donate from $2/month — and you’re thereby helping fund this independent podcast (thank you!). Plus you get additional written content including behind-the-scenes info about every episode, and membership of the charming and nurturing Allusioverse Discord community, where we hang out and keep each other company, and we're also watching the current season of Great Pottery Throwdown together.
You can also sign up at patreon.com/allusionist for a free account to get occasional email updates about Allusionist stuff eg live events and the birthdaylusionist livestream.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
glaucous, adjective, technical or poetic/literary:
1. of a dull greyish-green or blue colour.
2 covered with a powdery bloom like that on grapes.
Origin 17th century: via Latin from Greek glaukos + -ous.
CREDITS:
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch. And together we are on the recently revived long-running podcast Answer Me This.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back in early February with a new episode - HZ.
Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online forever home. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.
Allusionist 160. Coward
“Anxiety is the parrot sidekick that rides on my shoulder and occasionally squawks warnings in my ear,” says Tim Clare, poet and podcaster and author of the book Coward: Why We Get Anxious & What We Can Do About It. We talk about anxiety, cowardice, magic bullets vs silver bullets, the scary Bible, and seagulls.
Read moreAllusionist 124. Nightmare
This is the Alloooooooooosionist, in which we learn about the etymology of some scary words for Halloween, with the help of Paul Bae of The Black Tapes and The Big Loop podcasts, and Chelsey Weber-Smith of the podcast American Hysteria. Beware of demons! Satan! The bogeyman! Lemurs!
Wait - lemurs??
Read moreAllusionist 114. Alarm Bells
How to communicate about climate in a way that results in useful action.
Read more