“The more we look into social structures, the more many of us realize we don't fit into them," says So Mayer, author of the new book Bad Language, "So each phrase or set of vocabulary is another piece of that dismantlement.” We discuss finding vocabulary for oneself, coming out as a speech act, growing up under Section 28, busting through oppression and shame, and joyous listening.
Read moreAllusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
Watching the film Legally Blonde one day with the subtitles on, numerous perfectly innocuous words were partially asterisked out, because of a technological problem I can't name here lest this episode be blocked from search results, thus becoming an example of the problem itself.
Who's to blame? A 900-year-old man from Lincolnshire. Although he didn't ask for this either.
Read moreAllusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
Listener Erica commented: "Perhaps an idea for a bonus ep of Four Letter Word season would be one on two-letter words: there’s an established list that Scrabble nerds end up memorizing, and it’s full of weirdness." In fact, there are TWO established lists, NASPA, the North American Scrabble Players Association, which has currently 107 two-letter words, and Collins Scrabble Words, formerly known as SOWPODS, used by the rest of the world and contains at present 127 two-letter words.
And this episode, we're going to hear all those two-letter words. If you don't agree with their Scrabbular validity, don't blame me! Some of the inclusions were a surprise, frankly!
Read moreAllusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
For today’s instalment of Four Letter Word season, we’re hopping from ‘bane’ to ‘bain’ to ‘bath’, via poison gardens, doll’s eyes, alchemists, placentas and waterborne curses.
Read moreAllusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
The latest four letter word of Four Letter Word season is dino. 'Dinosaur' is derived from Greek 'terrible lizard', and they could have called it 'whopping great lizard' or 'sublime lizard' or 'hey cool lizard', but no. TERRIBLE.
Professor Hannah McGregor of Material Girls podcast and author of the book Clever Girl: Jurassic Park explains humans' relationship with language for dinosaurs, and why 'terrible' might be a perfect choice.
Read moreAllusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Four Letter Word season continues with a quiz (which is a four-letter word itself) about four letter words. Listen and play along to test your etymological knowledge, and hear about the original nepo baby, John Venn's invention that wasn't the venn diagram, brat, gunk, rube, the time(s) Led Zeppelin changed their name, and plenty more.
Click here to use the interactive score sheet.
Read moreAllusionist 209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-Bomb
Ten years ago, on the fourth ever episode of the show, I investigated why the C-word is considered a worse swear than the others. Since then - well really just in the last three years or so - there has been a huge development: the word has hit the mainstream as a compliment, in the forms of serving it and -y. Linguists Nicole Holliday and Kelly Elizabeth Wright discuss these uses of the word originating in the ballroom culture of New York City in the 1990s, and what it means to turn such a strong swear into praise.
Read moreAllusionist 208. Four Letter Words: Ffff
Welcome to four letter word season!
We're kicking off with one of the most versatile words: it can be a noun, verb, punctuation, expostulation, full sentence on its own; it can be an intensifier, an insult and a compliment... and a Category A swear. Thus, of course, content note: this episode contains many category A swears, plus some sexual references.
Read moreAllusionist 207: Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary
Happy tenth birthday to this show! To celebrate, here's every randomly selected word from the dictionary from the first decade of the show.
Read moreAllusionist 201: Singlish
"If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” says Bibek Gurung, a former linguist who grew up in Singapore speaking Singlish with his family and friends, while schools and the government tried to quash it. "Language is a fundamental human skill. And to just have this sense that you're bad at this very fundamental skill really does a number to your self esteem and your abilities to communicate in general."
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