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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 187 Bonus 2023 transcript

December 24, 2023 The Allusionist

It is the annual Bonus episode - because the people who appear on this show always say so much good stuff, it doesn’t all fit into their original episodes, so at the end of each year we get to enjoy all the extra bounty. Coming up, we’ve got a mythical disappearing island, geese, human dictionaries, the dubious history of the Body Mass Index, a Eurovision thing that has puzzled me for years, Victorian death department stores, and much more. 

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In transcript Tags etymology, vocabulary, history, Caetano Galindo, Susie Dent, Lindsay Rose Russell, Aubrey Gordon, Dean Vuletic, Evie King, Cariad Lloyd, Griefcast, Hy-Brasil, myths, legends, islands, Ireland, Victorians, Georgians, death, 19th century, funerals, mourning, grief, grieving, posthumous, dead bodies, bodies, fat, anti-fatness, anti-fat, bias, medical, BMI, Body Mass Index, body positivity, eugenics, families, family, estrangement, Brazilian, brasileiros, Portuguese, wood, brazilwood, trees, dictionaries, walking dictionary, sleeping dictionary, gender, geese, goose, weaving, renaming, denaming, cremation, aquamation, ashes, burial, composting, graves, clothes, shopping, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, five stages of grief, Jay’s, Regent Street, London, jet, jewelry, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, street names, school names, John La Rose, Richmond, Virginia, Australia, K’gari, Hobart, Macquarie Street, Tasmania, petitions, Toronto, Rob Ford, Michaelmas, Alfred Hitchcock, Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca, rebeca, cardigan, turtlenecks, lexicography, Adolphe Quetelet, Quetelet’s Index, Ancel Keys, Francis Galton, drapetomania, hysteria, Eurovision Song Contest, Eurovision, nul points, zero, French, Brazil, Brasil, gossamer, pavage, text, textile, clothing, bonus, bonus episode

Allusionist 185 Gems and Patties transcript

November 21, 2023 The Allusionist

I've got a doctorate in this, and I have got dwarfism, but there'll always be an average-sized person whose only recollection of dwarfism is through Snow White, and yet somehow they'll construct themselves as the expert, and tell you it's not offensive or, “No, you've got that wrong.” 

HZ: Also by having it on bags of sweets, that's kind of the ultimate “It's okay to say this in normal conversation”.

ERIN PRITCHARD: Yeah. But you do get through to some people, some people go, “I never realised that. I never knew that.”

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In transcript Tags vocabulary, history, Erin Pritchard, Chris Strikes, renaming, names, branding, brands, rebranding, rebrand, Telling Other Stories, slurs, offensive terms, food, foodstuffs, food terminology, patties, patty, Patty Wars, Toronto, Canada, Canadian, UK, British, Britain, ableism, little people, dwarfism, medical conditions, disability, discrimination, racism, bias, equality, activism, campaigning, supermarkets, Caribbean, Jamaica, Jamaican, product names, wrestling, pastry, Lloyd Parry, Brian Mulroney, Michael Davidson, law, beef, hamburgers, burgers, meat, meat puck, Patty Summit, 1985, 1980s, Patty Day, 23 February, yaw

Allusionist 176 Fat part 1 transcript

May 12, 2023 The Allusionist

AUBREY GORDON: The words that always bothered me considerably more than ‘fat’ are the many, many, many euphemisms that people who aren't fat come up with to supplant fat. 
HZ: ‘Curvy’. My chins are.
AUBREY GORDON: Totally. I'm like, “I have one curve, guys! I'm just like an egg shape.”

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In transcript Tags etymology, words, language, society & culture, history, fat, fatness, anti-fat bias, anti-fatness, fatphobia, Aubrey Gordon, Maintenance Phase, bodies, body, overweight, bias, obese, obesity, WHO, World Health Organisation, chairs, medical, medicine, health, Donald Trump, figurant, portly, stocky, stout

Allusionist 167 Bonus 2022 transcript

December 16, 2022 The Allusionist

TIM CLARE: Hippocampus, meaning ‘horse’ because it looks like a a sea horse, right? …Oh, don't look at them! They look absolutely terrifying!
HZ: I I've never seen a hippocampus, so I don't know. 
TIM CLARE: There is a real David Cronenberg-like element to them.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, etymology, history, Stephanie Foo, Morenike Giwa Onaiwu, Tim Clare, Jing Tsu, Hannah McGregor, Jolenta Greenberg, Kristen Meinzer, Lewis Raven Wallace, Charlotte Lydia Riley, brain, mental heath, autism, ASD, neurodiverse, almonds, tonsils, Little Women, Louisa May Allcott, sentiment, sentimentality, British Empire, empire, revisionism, nostalgia, transcription, transcripts, therapy, psychology, Chinese, wordplay, protest, homophones, grass mud horse, censorship, Judy Singer, neurotypical, journalism, migrants, migration, bias, historians, Second World War, World War Two, books, novels, Jo March, What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge, Rebecca, hack, life hacks, computing, programming, allistic, amygdala, hippocampus, life hack, neuro- neurodiversity, washin, worry, bonus, bonus episode

Allusionist 154 Objectivity transcript

May 13, 2022 The Allusionist

HZ: When in your journalism career did the problems of objectivity become evident to you?
LEWIS RAVEN WALLACE: Probably like the first day.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Lewis Raven Wallace, history, Vietnam War, journalism, journalists, objectivity, subjectivity, bias, news, newspapers, neutrality, neutral, perspective, white supremacy, racism, USA, America, 19th century, 20th century, power, unions, First Amendment, balance, nuncupative

Allusionist redux rerun: The Away Team

August 18, 2020 The Allusionist
A53 Away Team logo.jpg

EMMA BRIANT: Recognizing someone's humanity is crucial. Calling someone a migrant, calling someone an asylum seeker, calling them a refugee. These are official categories; but in many ways, depending on how they use them, they can change and become more negative. And they also preference how officials are sorting them over their very basic humanity.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, immigration, migration, immigrants, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, media, propaganda, tabloids, Emma Briant, Nikesh Shukla, racism, bias, political correctness, politically correct, POC, BAME, political correctness gone mad
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Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 218. Banned Books
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Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
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Allusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
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Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
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Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
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Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
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Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.