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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 143 Hedge Rider transcript

October 13, 2021 The Allusionist
A143 Hedge Rider logo.jpeg

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.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, history, Halloween, Latin, Greek, paganism, religion, Christianity, hedges, herbs, wood shavings, wood wool, wood, wicca, products, blunders, fish hook, names, exte berri, Basque, saints, garlic, spices, cloves, science, nescience, Leo Durocher, sportsball, seed, sexism, ghosts, demons, execution, Iceland, witches, God, zero, aught, buzzard, cauldron, clove, clumsy, conjure, craft, crone, drycræft, excelsior, exorcism, fact, gaff, gaffe, grimoire, hag, haggard, Harvey, hedge, hedge witch, Javier, magic, naught, naughty, nice, nice guys finish last, nought, ought, popple, semen, seminal, seminary, sorcerer, supernatural, wicked, witch, wizard, Xavier, legerdemain, hawks

Allusionist 124 Nightmare transcript

October 25, 2020 The Allusionist
A124 Nightmare logo.jpeg

Around 700 years ago, the word ‘haunt’ first appeared in written English, at least 200 years before it took on the meaning of a ghost frequenting a place.

HZ: It just meant that way where someone haunts a bar, as in they go to it a lot, but they're not an actual ghost. But it also meant to have sex with. And I could not do enough Googling safely to find out why it had that sense, because it just came up with a lot of websites about people having sex with ghosts. So I cannot find the etymology of this middle English use of 'haunt' in the sexual sense.
PAUL BAE: You've just screwed up your Google ads logarithm by looking up succubus, haunting, "Why sex haunting?"
HZ: The things I do for this show.
PAUL BAE: Exactly.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Paul Bae, Chelsey Weber-Smith, sex, demons, sleep, bogeyman, boggart, bugaboo, bugbear, cobalt, devil, demon, haunt, horror, incubus, jack-o’-lantern lemur, nickel, nightmare, satan, succubus, bristling, hair, scary, adjectives, adverbs, Korea, Korean, myths, legends, folklore, hell, heaven, spirits, bears, fear, mining, miners, goblins, animals, elements, satanic, satanic panic, bible, Ancient Greek, slander, gods, turnips, kobold, copper, kupfernickel, Hebrew, adversary, Old Testament

Allusionist 106. Typo Demon - transcript

September 15, 2019 The Allusionist
A106 Typo Demon logo.jpg

IAN CHILLAG: Titivillus is the typo demon. I've certainly felt the effects of the demon Titivillus in my life. I've made typos. I had not, until I learned of Titivillus, known that I could blame those typos on a higher power or - is a demon or a lower power?

HZ: I think they originated when an archangel fell from heaven - Lucifer - ao I'd imagine if you're taking the conventional geography of heaven being high, then the demons would be low - but then a typing demon would probably be on the Earth's surface for maximum efficacy. 

IAN CHILLAG: Well, Titivillus did - does, maybe - walk the Earth, and what he does is make scribes make errors. So a medieval scribe is doing their work, writing down what they have to in their text, probably a religious text; and Titivillus shows up and does whatever he does and suddenly there are typos in those texts. 

HZ: And rather than ascribing that to medieval scribes having very tired hands due to the equipment that they use being exhausting to propel, and they were working in not the brightest light conditions, they were like, "No, it's demons."

IAN CHILLAG: Nope, it was Titivillus the typo demon. 

HZ: We're talking about a demon that arrived on the scene of demonism in the 13th century. 

IAN CHILLAG: Correct. 

HZ: So when we say typos, we really mean handos. 

IAN CHILLAG: Yeah yeah. The hando demon.

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In transcript, Radiotopia Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Chillusionist, Everything Is Allusionist, Ian Chillag, Everything Is Alive, typos, handwriting, writing, scribes, scribal error, Titivillus, demons, devil, Lucifer, heaven, hell, errors, typing, handos, The Exorcist, Satan, divine, retribution, Wicked Bible, Bible, Bible translations, errors in the Bible, mistakes, gossip, spelling, buzzkills, killjoys, Ten Commandments, God, medieval, Middle Ages, Old Testament, error hell, folders, demonic possessions, autocorrect, punishment, swear jar, jokes, bad jokes, puns, portmanteaus, gentlest circle of hell, trivia, prayer, scribal, church, demonic possession
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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
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Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
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Souvenirs on BBC Radio 4
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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
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Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.