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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 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk

September 8, 2025 The Allusionist
A Boggle set spelling out the word 'terisk' which isn't a real word

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.

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In episodes, Four Letter Words Tags etymology, lexicon, society, culture, words, language, history, vocabulary, four letter words, England, Old English, Domesday Book, Doomsday Book, census, Skuma, land, Lincolnshire, towns, town names, place names, Martin Austwick, asterisks, subtitles, programming, errors, blocklist, swears, obscenity, AOL, Dominic Cummings, technology, internet, online, cunt, C word, swearing, block, Plymouth, Clitheroe, Penistone, Lightwater, Horniman Museum, Scunthorpe Problem, Clbuttic Problem, euphemisms, Legally Blonde, Elle Woods, Reese Witherspoon, payment, rent, eels, king, royals, prosthetic E, Normans, bottoms, donkeys, plays, mores, arse, ass, hachures, Scunthorpe

Allusionist 186. Ravels

December 12, 2023 The Allusionist
a boggle grid spelling out the word 'ravels'

We’ve got knitting! We’ve got eponyms!! We’ve got knitting eponyms!!! Which come with a whole load of battles, f-boys, duels, baseball, scandals - and socks, lots of socks.

Fibre artist and Yarn Stories podcaster Miriam Felton discusses why grafting should ditch the name 'kitchener stitch'; we learn about the eponymous cardigan; and three towns in Ontario take pretty different approaches to having problematic namesakes.

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In episodes, Telling Other Stories, eponyms Tags etymology, vocabulary, history, denaming, renaming, Telling Other Stories, Miriam Felton, Canada, Canadian, Canadian history, UK, British, Britain, British history, wars, war, battles, Second Boer War, Africa, South Africa, concentration camps, Crimean War, Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Battle of Balaclava, World War One, First World War, WW1, 19th century, 20th century, Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, knitting, knitwear, knit, terminology, crafts, stitches, graft, grafting, Lord Kitchener, Lord Cardigan, Lord Raglan, Ceredigion, eponyms, Ontario, Russell, towns, military, army, conflict, campaigns, yachts, horse, cardigan, socks, raglan sleeve, seams, balaclava, Ravelry, King County, German, Germany, Berlin, House of Windsor, royals, monarchy, dachshunds, buns, lawsuits, schisms, criminal conversation, duels, referendums, politics, patriotism, garments, innovation, baseball, codes, spies, espionage, Vogue, knitting patterns, namesakes, Martin Luther King Jr, cachalot

Allusionist 171. Supplantation

February 24, 2023 The Allusionist

Last episode, I mentioned that in London, Ontario, in 2019 a 9-year-old named Lyla Wheeler had launched a petition to rename her street, currently called Plantation Road. This episode, Lyla, now aged nearly thirteen, and her mom Kristin Daley recount the reasons why Lyla campaigned for this name change, how the neighbours reacted, what happened when the wider world heard about it, and why the street's name is still Plantation Road.

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In Telling Other Stories, audio Tags words, language, linguistics, society & culture, history, telling other stories, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, Canada, Canadian History, London, Ontario, eponyms, Ryerson, Egerton Ryerson, schools, campaigns, petition, American history, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, Josiah Henson, plantation, plantations, roads, streets, street names, towns, Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, Dundas Street, Indigenous Canadians, residential schools, Jamaica, local government, council, policy, addresses, zonda

Allusionist 170. Actively Passive

February 9, 2023 The Allusionist

Over the past few years, numerous products and places with the word 'plantation' in their names have rebranded. As for the word 'plantation' itself, architect and writer Kennedy Whiters of unRedactTheFacts.com advocates for replacing it with a more truthful term. She also watches out for use of the grammatical passive voice, because "It hides who did what to whom."

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In episodes, Telling Other Stories Tags history, telling other stories, Kennedy Whiters, Unredact the Facts, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, USA, American history, Black history, United States of America, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, plantation, plantations, euphemisms, weddings, products, branding, rebranding, brand names, Rhode Island, streets, towns, bingo, embrave
Allusionist Patreon
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
queer playlist
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.