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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 211. Four Letter Words: -gate

June 23, 2025 The Allusionist
A boggle grid spelling out the word 'gate'

The other day was the 53rd anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which not only caused a lot of political uproar, it had a big linguistic legacy: the suffix -gate to mean a scandal.

Today, as part of Four Letter Word season, we have a list of -gates - royal, sporting, political, food, showbiz - it's a non-exhaustive list because there are so many, and new ones are being spawned all the time. Content warning for all sorts of bad human behaviour.

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In episodes, Four Letter Words Tags society, culture, words, language, arts, history, vocabulary, four letter words, snowclone, libfix, suffixes, scandal, Watergate Hotel, Watergate Complex, Watergate Scandal, Washington DC, Watergate, Richard Nixon, Foggy Bottom, Mr Blobby, Blobbyland, England, Noel Edmonds, theme parks, politics, food, entertainment, sport, sports, wine, football, soccer, corruption, curling, butter, Ariana Grande, Royal Family, monarchy, King Charles III, Princess Diana, Queen Camilla, Prince Charles, Sarah Ferguson, Fergie, meats, tabloids, headlines, newspapers, media, Australia, Tony Abbott, Theresa May, onions, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Mumsnet, biscuits, Mauritius, Macarena, Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Argentina, Venezuela, Denmark, mink, Panama Papers, UK Government, Downing Street, prime minister, covid, coronavirus, lockdown, police, doughnuts, donuts, Nutella, Quebec, French, pasta, pasties, chess, blood, rugby, fake, NFL, balls, farts, crime, Gamergate, gaming, baseball, GBBO, Great British Bake Off, Baked Alaska, ice cream, TV, television, Academy Awards, Oscars, Moonlight, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Chicago, Super Bowl, poop, radio, Harry Styles, spit, Chris Pine, politicians, zwitterion, gate, -gate
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Allusionist 188. Lipread

January 28, 2024 The Allusionist

Lipreading has been in the news this month, thanks to gossip-stoking mouth movements at the Golden Globes that the amateur lipreaders of The Internet rushed to interpret. But lipreading tutor Helen Barrow describes how reading lips really works - the confusable consonants, the importance of context and body language - and gossip maven Lainey Lui explains why these regularly occurring lipreading gossip stories are unworthy of a second or even first glance.

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In episodes Tags Helen Barrow, Lainey Lui, Lainey Gossip, lipreading, lip reading, lipreaders, lip readers, gossip, ATLA, homophenes, visemes, phonemes, consonants, confusion, celebrities, stars, Hollywood, press, journalism, Golden Globes, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Kylie Jenner, Timothée Chalamet, Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, body language, sport, football, Raheem Sterling, John Terry, Leonardo DiCaprio, sign language, detectives, beards, East Asia, masks, portmanteau, blunge

Allusionist 89. WPM

November 16, 2018 The Allusionist
A89 WPM logo.jpg

This is a story of feats of speed and endurance, of record-breakers, of champions… Typing champions.

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In live recording, episodes Tags Allusionist Live, live performance, kalpa, words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, Allusionist live, live recording, keyboards, typewriters, computers, typing, typists, typing speed, speed typing, WPM, words per minute, Martin Austwick, Guinness World Records, record breakers, champions, typing competitions, competitive typing, competitions, Birdie Reeve, vaudeville, Rose Fritz, Marcellus Wiley, NFL, football, Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, QWERTY, Madison Square Garden, Columbo, cellphones, mobile phones, Spy, spies, reality TV, loggers, logging, TV, jobs, work, back sack and crack waxes, August Dvorak
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Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.