TREVOR CUNNINGHAM: It was October 2023. I was thinking of a retirement project, and it just came in from the universe. I just thought, “I wonder if I could get guys called Trevor to reclaim the name?” So I went on LinkedIn and I just looked for Trevors, and I started contacting them. I thought if I could get 20 or 25, that'd be great. And I've ended up with 140 from all over the world, which I wasn't expecting.
Read moreAllusionist 234. No Names transcript
THOMAS DITYE: We hear about cases like 25 years of marriage without ever having said their husband's or their wife's name.
HZ: Do people ever report having it with their pets?
THOMAS DITYE: I don't think we've ever had that.
Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino transcript
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.
Read moreAllusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park transcript
HZ: What is a park?
JUSTIN McELROY: I think ultimately a park is… and it's funny because people sometimes debate: should there be grass, should there be trees? Should there be a playground? Does it need to be a certain size? A park can be anything, that's part of the wonderful flexibility of how we use public spaces. I think, fundamentally, so long as it's a public space that people can hang out in and do a variety of activities, then you got yourself a park.
HZ: Even if those activities aren't hunting? You'll accept?
JUSTIN McELROY: I'll accept, because we're no longer in 17th century Britain. But I traveled the world for the last year before coming back to Vancouver. And every country, every city has different things that they think is an ideal park, and you can see that shape the set-up. But that ability to be different things, I think, is the shining example for what makes them universal.
HZ: Vancouver is a bit imbalanced because it has a lot of little parks and then one massive park at Stanley Park.
JUSTIN McELROY: And Stanley Park is the best park in the city. It might be the best urban park in the world, when you consider just how big it is, the range of things you can do.
HZ: Yeah, they filmed Twilight there.
JUSTIN McELROY: Ha! The amazing views that you have of the mountains and the ocean and the city, that you can jog, that you can bike, that you can walk, that you can see all different sorts of gardens and playgrounds: it's absolutely phenomenal, and an absolute jewel. And it's fun to contrast that with the other 242 parks. They can't all be winners, but they're all doing something.
Read moreAllusionist 206. Bonus 2024 transcript
This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, have been stashing away special Allusiobits all year, when the people who appeared on the show said interesting things that I couldn’t fit into their episode because there wasn’t room or it was not about language - waiting, just waiting, for this, the annual Bonus episode! This year we’ve got something called the ‘universal blank’, which actually does not refer to my emotions; we’ve got tricorn hats, poets with migraines, and why Boston cream pie isn’t a pie. And so much more.
Read moreAllusionist 200. 200th episode celebratory quiz! transcript
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.
Read moreAllusionist 199. 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet - transcript
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.
Read moreAllusionist 190 Craters - transcript
ANNIE LENNOX: It really all came to light when I got the opportunity to name my first feature on Mercury - which was, side note, one of the most exciting things. To find something that is scientifically significant and then to get the chance to name it on another planet: super cool.
Read moreAllusionist 185 Gems and Patties transcript
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.”
Read moreAllusionist Apple Fest transcript
HZ: Each apple varietal had a little card with background information about the varietal's provenance and tasting notes.
HZ: “Topaz. Refreshing, sharp, sweet, mellows with age.” I mean, that's... Something for me to aspire to, but I feel I'm going the other way.
HANNAH McGREGOR: I'm definitely getting sharper and more acidic with age.
HZ: I'm getting withered and bitter without having achieved true ripeness.
HANNAH McGREGOR: Sorry, could we just check in about what it means to achieve true ripeness?
Read moreAllusionist 178 Uranus transcript
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.
Read moreAllusionist 169 The Box transcript
SUBHADRA DAS: A guy from the UCL estates team, screwdriver, took the plaque off the wall.
HZ: That's it?
SUBHADRA DAS: That's how you dename a building. It's not difficult.
Allusionist 168 Debuts transcript
HZ: The work that RFSU does has included, over the past three decades, coming up with new terms, to fill gaps in the vocabulary or provide more options for talking about sex and bodies.
KALLE ROCKLINGER: Sometimes it's to highlight or make something visible that's not been really talked about. Sometimes it's to change norms in society in some ways, and sometimes it's been sort of a really strategic choice for us in our political work to refuse a certain term or way of describing things, to tell another story, so to speak.
Read moreAllusionist 166 Fiona part 2 transcript
HARRY JOSIE GILES: I don't think that anyone should come away from this conversation not wanting to use the name Fiona. I think this is a beautiful and rich history. It might not be quite the history that you imagined, but I think it's a beautiful history.
Read moreAllusionist 165 Fiona part 1 transcript
HARRY JOSIE GILES: Fiona is a name I think now that still has a slightly romantic, slightly historical Scottish feel. I think everyone thinks it's an old Scottish name, but it's not an old Scottish name!
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