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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 200. 200th episode celebratory quiz! transcript

September 13, 2024 The Allusionist

Here it is, the 200th episode of the Allusionist! To celebrate, here is a playalong quiz where the questions have been set by you, the smart listeners, and if you want to play as you listen, you can keep track of your scores via the score sheet at theallusionist.org/200, if you don’t have to hand the back of an envelope and a pencil you stole from IKEA.

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In transcript Tags Helen Zaltzman, words, language, history, etymology, vocabulary, ducks, moths, names, eponyms, traffic, driving, mathematics, writing systems, syntax, Korean, Hangul, G, creatures, sewing, sewing machines, bread, cloak, hood, St Martin of Tours, saints, holy relics, Portuguese, run, Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff, Canada, Canadian, double double, sign language, American Sign Language, Nicaraguan Sign Langage, French Sign Language, Jamaican Sign Language, British Sign Language, Lesle Hore-Belisha, road safety, loaves, yogh, letter G, lost letters, Normans, caput, French, dart, coffee, influence, influenza, town names, belisha beacon, calculus, chaplain, cobra, embarrass, ewer, flux, Ludlow, Milkshake Duck, monodon monoceros, mortgage, narwhal, rhinoceros, sewer, shampoo, toucan crossing, vilify, villain, vindaloo, acronyms, care package, Io, quiz, Greek deites, Zeus, Hera, Greek deities, cows, Greek mythology, Argus Panoptes, Greek gods, Herakles, Johan Christian Fabricius, Bosphorous Strait, suckmother, squid

Allusionist 199. 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet - transcript

August 30, 2024 The Allusionist

This is the 199th episode of the show, and since before this show began, so for nearly a decade, I have been jotting down ideas in two documents - one for short ideas, one for long ideas. There are always more ideas than I have time and ability to make podcasts about, so now the documents are altogether 66 pages long and growing every day. So in this episode, you’re going to hear 199 ideas that I wanted to put into the podcast and haven’t yet.

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In transcript Tags words, language, history, etymology, vocabulary, Juliet Club, Romeo and Juliet, Verona, lost positives, desperate, prefixes, suffixes, Mc-, -core, -tron, -opoli, photography, smiles, animals, cows, cattle, Samuel Maverick, Maury Maverick, gobbledegook, legal, law, punctuation, Ancient Romans, trousers, clothing, clothes, pubs, bears, translation, fencing, kaput, caput, head, hats, hoods, medicine, trademarks, eponyms, popsicles, portmanteau, spiders, Hawaii, Hawaiian, protest, Kaleikoa Kaʻeo, Mele Kalikimaka, capes, Ludo, Parcheesi, Richard Kimble, cowboys, courtroom, oaths, DMV, vanity plates, Joe Lycett, knots, Kevin, Karen, saints, pastry, food, copaganda, police, humour, fine, idioms, rain, Sarah, names, euphemisms, place names, comedians, comedy, apartheid, sign language, Yolgnu, Australia, pandanus, nuts, posthumous, death, calendar, time, distance, measurement, emoji, pizza, X, K, H, dogs, France, French, master bedroom, master, technology, masterpiece, problematic, Scouts, Embers, renaming, spinsters, single, censorship, pregnancy, charcuterie, mushrooms, fly agaric, volcanoes, doula, gender inclusive language, gender inclusivity, chestfeeding, queerness, queer, LGBTQIA+, IKEA, products, product names, branding, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, printing, craft, cross stitch, bad decisions, problematic eponyms, Miranda rights, viruses, lost letters, heroin, aspirin, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Johann Fust, Johannes Gutenberg, smells, granola, vampires, shoes, werewolf, bums, acme, acne, acumen, aftermath, album, amateur, attercop, average, beret, bespoke, biceps, bloomers, boudoir, bracatus, brochure, candletwist, capsize, chaperone, chord, cliche, cobweb, concrete, crestfallen, croupier, culottes, cynosure, delete, dessert, dutto, dwell, elixir, escape, extravagant, fathom, faux pas, foible, forte, furlong, germane, gimbal, glucose, Grape Nuts, grenade, habit, halcyon, harlot, jade, Kensington gore, limousine, loom, lower case, magenta, malaria, maverick, menu, miasma, migraine, negative, noon, nurse, Oprah Winfrey, overwhelm, pageant, patio, pecuniary, pedigree, petition, pluck, pomegranate, popsicle, positive, puce, retina, riposte, rival, rosemary, sabotage, salty, scavenger, schwa, scruple, slogan, sperate, stereotype, stillicide, stiricide, tabloid, taint, thornback, toady, travesty, treadmill, tutu, twist, tyre, upper case, valid, vamp, vindication, volcano, weregild, whelm, Winterfylleth

Allusionist 146 Survival: Today, Tomorrow part 1 transcript

November 24, 2021 The Allusionist

HZ: The Icelandic word for ‘mansplaining’ translates as ‘ramsplaining’. Like the original, it’s a portmanteau, but there’s also a bonus pun in there.

ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: That's hrútar, ram, and explaining.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: The word for explanation is utskyring. So you add in front of it H and R.
ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: H R, that’s Mr Explaining.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: It becomes hrutskyring.
ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: Hrutskyring, Mr Explaining, herra utskyring.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: Hrútar also means a ram, a male sheep, so in many ways it's a very funny word.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, Iceland, Icelandic, Ágústa Þorbergsdóttir, Jóhannes Bjarni Sigtryggsson, linguistic purism, neologisms, new words, coinages, calques, portmanteaus, internet, Danish, Norse, Norwegians, Norway, Denmark, technology, mansplaining, domains, lost letters, letters, thorn, eth, ash, characters, printing press, ye, programming, subtitles, translation, automated translation, Unicode, jink, Survival, jouk
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Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.