Allusionist 122. Ghostwriter

The word for 'ghostwriter' in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what can French-speakers say instead?

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The word for ‘ghostwriter’ in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what word could French-speakers say instead?

Ngofeen Mputubwele and Gregory Warner investigate. This piece originally aired on NPR’s Rough Translation.

The second half of this episode of Rough Translation is also very worth you listening to, about the problem of the French ‘noir’.

Content note: this episode is about, and therefore contains, offensive terms. And towards the end of the episode, in the Minillusionist, I get into the racist violent etymology of the word ‘bulldozer’.

Some of the sources I found to research ‘bulldozer’:

• “Father, would you bulldoze me into it?”

• ‘It became easy to say “that fellow ought to be bull-dosed, or bull-dozed,” and soon bull-doze, bull-dozing, and bull-dozers came to be slang words.’

• “The presidential election of 1876, which historians suggest may have been the most hard-fought, corrupt and rigged election in the history of the Union.”

• Bulldozing Reconstruction and Southern Voters

• “Some historians give credit to an American named Benjamin Holt for inventing the first ‘bulldozer’ in 1904... However, this would be misleading.”

• I first learned about it from the Patreon mailout from the invaluable etymology site etymonline.com.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
gloze

CREDITS:

• ‘We Don’t Say That’ from NPR’s Rough Translation was reported by Ngofeen Mputubwele and Gregory Warner, produced by Jess Jiang and edited by Marianne McCune. Rough Translation has a new season out, called International School of Scandal, all about people making trouble to try to change the status quo. Listen at NPR.org or on your pod app, and follow the show on Twitter @roughly.

• Thanks to Lu Olkowski, Nicole Beemsterboer and Eleanor McDowall.

• The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and hear more of his composition on the new science podcast for kids Maddie’s Sound Explorers.

• Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.

Back in two weeks with a new episode - HZ