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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 213. Four Letter Words: Dino

July 21, 2025 The Allusionist
A Boggle grid spelling out the word 'dino'. Two small toy dinosaurs are peeking in from the sides

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.

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In episodes, Four Letter Words Tags etymology, lexicon, society, culture, words, language, history, vocabulary, four letter words, dino, dinosaurs, palaeontology, fossils, Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, films, movies, 19th century, awe, Crystal Palace, parks, Victorians, museums, Latin, Greek, T-rex, sublime, taxonomy, semantics, terrible, nature, natural history, ancient, extinct, bones, creatures, animals, reptiles, lizards, plesiosaur, geology, zoos, safaris, spectacle, spectacular, discomfort, Richard Owen, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Bone Wars, Othniel Charles Marsh, Edward Drinker Cope, categories, categorising, apatosaurus, athanor, brontosaurus, deinonychus, dinosaur, mastodon, megalosaurus, tyrannosaurus, tyrant, velociraptor, dynamoterror, lizard, naming, names, nipples, teeth, nipple teeth, claws, pentaceratops, triceratops, Oedipus, eugenics, Alberta, Canada, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Princess Louise, vagina dentata
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Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park

July 4, 2025 The Allusionist

Get in, winner: we're going on a field trip.

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In episodes, eponyms, Four Letter Words Tags society, culture, words, language, history, vocabulary, four letter words, Vancouver, Indigenous Canadians, parks, land, public space, Justin McElroy, Canada, British Columbia, BC, trout, leisure, outside, outdoors, play, nature, plants, trees, eponyms, cities, city, urban, CRAB Park, ports, houselessness, Dude Chilling Park, art, sculpture, Guelph Park, John Hendry Park, Trout Lake, Sun Hop Park, Choklit Park, Stanley Park, names, Viktor Briestensky, fipple
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Allusionist 125. Swearalong Quiz

November 10, 2020 The Allusionist
A125 swearalong quiz logo.jpg

Fill your lungs and get ready to shout out some profane answers: it’s the Swearlusionist Swearalong Quiz! Every answer is a swear word. Swearing, as we know, is good for your health, plus helps vent stress, and you’ll learn many etymological facts along the way, so this is a very wholesome and educational quiz.

CONTENT NOTE: this episode contains swears. Surprise!

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In episodes, quiz Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, swearing, swears, profanity, Bible, court cases, law, legal, Sex Pistols, Never Mind The Bollocks, indecency, bollocks, shit, spunk, balls, ball, lalochezia, The Wolf of Wall Street, birds, films, movies, poets, bullshit, TS Eliot, twat, Robert Browning, piss, dandelion, plants, flowers, nature, botany, ornithology, cocks, rooster, knobweed, mountains, Wank mountain, guns, kestrels, windfucker, herons, shitepoke, geography, place names, Twatt, Crapstone, crap, Shitterton, Thomas Crapper, drabble, quiz, swear words
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Featured
Festivelusionists
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
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.