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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 218. Banned Books transcript

October 8, 2025 The Allusionist
A boggle grid spelling out the words 'banned books'

SAM HELMICK: Censorship is a hammer looking for a nail, my friends. And someday, you will be that nail too, unless we all decide that we're going to unite against book bans today.

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In transcript Tags arts, society, culture, words, language, Iris Mogul, Sam Helmick, books, literature, law, novels, fiction, banned books, book bans, Banned Books Week, libraries, librarians, library, teachers, schools, Forrest Spaulding, ALA, American Library Association, Iowa, World War One, First World War, USA, free speech, liberty, censorship, intellectual freedom, First Amendment, oppression, Judy Blume, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Louise Erdrich, Forever, Deenie, Where’s Waldo, Where’s Wally, Tipper Gore, Satanic Panic, Mein Kampf, chilling effect, German, Babel Proclamation, bans, sauerkraut, renaming, rubella, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Friday Night Lights, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, history, queer, trans, LGBTQIIA+, gender, sexuality, race, BIPOC, politics, offence, social justice, explicit lyrics, parental guidance, Library Bill of Rights, quintain

Allusionist 122 Ghostwriter transcript

September 28, 2020 The Allusionist
A122 Ghostwriter logo.jpg

BUFFON: I was like, am I supposed to punch her?
MPUTUBWELE: Nelly knows this is the word for ghostwriter.
BUFFON: Everybody knows that word in France.
MPUTUBWELE: But it's one thing to know that word, and it's another to hear it said to you.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Rough Translation, Ngofeen Mputubwele, Gregory Warner, NPR, French, France, race, racism, Black, BIPOC, ghostwriter, problematic terms, voting, voter suppression, plume, offensive, slurs, elections

Allusionist 119. Blood Is Not Water transcript

July 14, 2020 The Allusionist
Allusionist 119 logo

ANTHONY RUSSELL: I want to have a vocabulary in order to be able to talk about things that directly affect me as an as an African-American, and as a black Jew, and as a Jew, I should have I should be able to talk about things that affect my life.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, BLM, Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, racism, POC, BIPOC, black, Black people, African diaspora, civil rights, Yiddish, translation, translators, translating, slurs, pejorative, Arun Viswanath, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Jonah Boyarin, African American, Judaism, Jewish, Jews, Harry Potter, Dean Thomas, edits, problematic, transliteration, phrases, idioms
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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
queer playlist
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.