Four Letter Word season continues, and this time we do not require explicit tags or content warnings, because our four-letter word is QUIZ! Or rather, today we have a quiz about four letter words.
Read moreAllusionist 159 Bufflusionist transcript
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.
Allusionist 100. The Hundredth - transcript
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.
Read more2018 Extra Special QUIZ! - interactive transcript
For a bit of fun to celebrate Radiotopia’s 2018 fundraiser, this episode is a wordy quiz for you to play along with as you listen.
Read moreAllusionist 16: Word Play - transcript
LESLIE SCOTT: Not many people realise the success of Scrabble is based on a statistician figuring out the scoring system - it's the first time someone had a word game where the score of the word game was based on him researching very thoroughly the number of times a particular letter was used. He scoured the New York Times for years counting how many times an E comes up, a Z, etc. Hence the numbers of those letters in the stack to start with was based on this, as is the scoring. And it works, whether or not you like the game. We have a mathematician to thank.
HZ: Probably why it’s not fun.
HZ: Sorry, Scrabble. But a game where you can triumph just by memorizing every two letter word will never have my affection.
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