Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino transcript

July 22, 2025 The Allusionist

lot of dinosaur names as well are just being factual about size, like ‘mega’ - and actually a lot of the names are being factual about other things, like triceratops and pentaceratops: that's descriptive. Three horns; five horns.

HANNAH McGREGOR: Five horns. We're always telling you about the number of horns. And then a lot of them are just like, “We found this in this place.”

HZ: Yeah. The albertosaurus -

HANNAH McGREGOR: Albertosaurus!

HZ: - in Alberta. And, mastodon is meant nipple tooth, or nipple teeth.

HANNAH McGREGOR: …Sorry?

HZ: You look a little perturbed,

HANNAH McGREGOR: Perturbed and delighted. Vagina dentata is a sort of recurring theme -

HZ: It's a passion of yours.

HANNAH McGREGOR: It’s a passion of mine! Ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, you know what? You're not wrong. It's a recurring theme in the book and my life. and so I'm really, I am intrigued by the idea of adding nipple teeth into the equation.

Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations transcript

September 26, 2024 The Allusionist

Let’s hear it for some of the constellations that we used to have but are now ex-constellations.

Allusionist 179 Andy Quiz transcript

August 10, 2023 The Allusionist

HZ: Which of the following sweeteners is named after an ancient Greek mythological character? A. saccharine, B. agave, C. stevia, D. aspartame?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, Steve is not an ancient Greek mythological character. He's the third wheel In the Bible origin story along with Adam and Eve.
HZ: They got rid of him in the translations.

Allusionist 178 Uranus transcript

June 22, 2023 The Allusionist

Have you ever wondered why the planets in our solar system are all named after Roman deities, except two of them?

One of those exceptions is Earth, which means, well, earth, and it doesn’t fit the system because it wasn’t formally discovered by humans, it was where they already were, so when they started identifying planets thousands of years ago, they hadn’t yet counted Earth as one.

And the other exception is Uranus.

Allusionist 172 A Brief History of Brazilian Portuguese transcript

March 9, 2023 The Allusionist

CAETANO GALINDO: Brazilians are very confused and confusing and confounding about this relationship with the Portuguese language, because it defines us. We are the place that speaks Portuguese in the middle of a whole bunch of Spanish-speaking countries, and pretty much all of us speak it. And pretty much all of us speak only this one language. It's really something that defines us, and really something that we cannot try to deny or erase or… I don't know. But at the same time, you have this certainty that this was an imposed reality, that this is not what we could have.

Allusionist 160 Coward transcript

September 10, 2022 The Allusionist

TIM CLARE: Calling someone a coward historically has often been a social lever used by the state to shame them for not doing something the state wants them to do - often walk into machine gunfire. Which, to me, doesn't seem like an act of cowardice to not want to do that.

Allusionist 159 Bufflusionist transcript

August 20, 2022 The Allusionist

HZ: ‘Vampyre’ with a Y was pretty interchangeable with ‘vampire’ with an I when it first landed in English. Actually, I think the first appearance in English was with a Y. We probably got it from French or German, but it was based on - it’s a little unclear, but it was based on Hungarian, possibly, or Slavic languages. And it was because, at the time, they were doing a lot of coverage of the Serbian vampire epidemic of 1725 to 1732.
JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: Oh, of course.
HZ: Apparently there were a lot of Eastern European vampire epidemics.
KRISTIN RUSSO: What is a vampire epidemic?
HZ: I assume an epidemic of vampires. Imagine Covid, but for vampirism. And no vaccine. No masking is going to save you.

Allusonist 158 Creature Quiz transcript

August 5, 2022 The Allusionist

Magpie is short for:

A. Magnum PI
B. Margaret Pica
C. Magic Pigeon
D. Magister Pinetree

Allusionist 143 Hedge Rider transcript

October 13, 2021 The Allusionist

Sometimes it would be useful if a podcast had footnotes, wouldn’t it, so that if you came here just for etymology, you didn’t get derailed by a tale of someone frightening off a ghost with semen.

Allusionist 121 No Title transcript

September 14, 2020 The Allusionist

About to go onstage to perform No Title for the first time, at SF Sketchfest 2019 at the Brava Theatre in San Francisco. Photo by Martin Austwick.

The bank clerk scrolls down and down this list of titles and honorifics, this enormous list of different ways to present ourselves, and I just want an option that doesn’t reflect my marital status, because why did all the available male titles not reflect marital status whereas female ones did? And come to think of it, why do titles reflect gender anyway? Why does anything reflect gender? What is the point of gender?

I was asking a question I am not intelligent enough to answer. And I wasn’t expecting this moment, in the bank, on a seemingly trivial and pointless mission, to be my introduction to gender studies and queer theory, but you don’t necessarily get to choose the learning moments of your life.

And in case you’re sitting there thinking, “Well. If if it’s SO important to you to have a title that does not reflect your marital status or your gender, why don’t you just become a rabbi?” Well, my family lapsed HARD. None of us is becoming a rabbi. We’d never make it. They can see the bacon in our eyes.

Allusionist 116: My Dad Excavated a Porno transcript

June 3, 2020 The Allusionist

HZ: The Victorians really did a number on people. I feel like we're still unpicking Victorian attitudes.

KATE LISTER: Yes, we are. I mean, we're still very much the children of the Victorians, and they're a fascinating bunch, the Victorians. No generation, at no point in history, has sex been successfully repressed, ever. It just doesn't happen. But what you have is really strict social morality, conditioning and mores and constructs and power dynamics around sex that dictate what we are and what we're not supposed to be doing. And outward facing, they were so repressed and polite society and so offended by everything even remotely to do with sex, to the point of where they wouldn't say the word 'trousers' because they thought they were too rude. They were 'sit down upons'.

Allusionist 113. Zaltzology transcript

January 24, 2020 The Allusionist

ALIE WARD: Carrie Studard wants to know: “Are there any synonyms for the most hated word, ‘moist’?”

HZ: Moist. Do you hate the word ‘moist’?

ALIE WARD: At this point, it's an underdog. You know what I mean? Like, can moist live? Can it just do its business? I don't hate it.

HZ: It's fine.

ALIE WARD: I don't hate it. I tend to think of dew or grass more than I think of...

HZ: Well, that's a lovely form of moisture. I suppose the people who hate it are maybe thinking of bodily crevices. And that's their prejudice showing.

ALIE WARD: Yes, it is.

HZ: Yeah. Because other words like ‘damp’ - I mean, if you're moist from the rain, like a raincoat. Damp. Is that better? Is that worse? A bodily crevice could also be damp.

ALIE WARD: Sure. I feel like moist has a certain heat to it that damp lacks.

HZ: A steaminess rather than chilliness. It's good that we're figuring these things out.

Allusionist 100. The Hundredth - transcript

May 27, 2019 The Allusionist

Today there’ll be a celebratory parade of language-related facts that you’ve learned from the Allusionist and I’ve learned from making the Allusionist, so some old facts, some new facts - well, the new facts aren’t recently invented facts, they are established facts, just making their Allusionist debut.

Allusionist 98. Alter Ego - transcript

April 27, 2019 The Allusionist

Today: three pieces about alter egos, when your name - the words by which the world knows you - is replaced by another for particular purposes.

How did John Doe come to be the name for a man, alive or dead, identity unknown or concealed in a legal matter? Strap in for a whirlwind ride into some frankly batshit centuries-old English law.
At their first bout of the 2019 season, the London Roller Girls talk about how they chose their roller derby names - or why they chose to get rid of one.
The 1930s and 40s were a golden age for detective fiction, which was also very popular and lucrative. Yet writing it was disreputable enough for authors to hide behind pseudonyms.

Allusionist 92. To Err Is Human - transcript

January 23, 2019 The Allusionist

SUSIE DENT: There never has been a golden age when everything was as it should be ever. Even though we tend to think that English is now at its most dumbed down, always; I think every generation has thought that.