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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 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 171 Supplantation transcript

February 24, 2023 The Allusionist

HZ: How do you feel when you have to tell someone your address?
LYLA WHEELER: I feel uncomfortable, like, why am I writing this? Why am I talking about this?
KRISTIN DALEY: I feel the same way. I'm mortified.

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In Telling Other Stories, transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, society & culture, history, telling other stories, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, Canada, Canadian History, London, Ontario, eponyms, Ryerson, Egerton Ryerson, schools, campaigns, petition, American history, Black history, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, Josiah Henson, plantation, plantations, roads, streets, street names, towns, Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, Dundas Street, Indigenous Canadians, residential schools, Jamaica, local government, council, policy, addresses, zonda

Allusionist 170 Actively Passive transcript

February 9, 2023 The Allusionist

KENNEDY WHITERS: I'm saying unredact the word ‘plantation’. There are many definitions for a plantation, but the southern definition of plantation, it's where people laboured during the period of chattel slavery. Plantations were places of forced labour. They were forced labour camps - and other people are using this phrase to describe these places.
I made an attempt on Wikipedia to add the descriptor 'forced labour camp' to the word ‘plantation’ - and someone redacted my unredaction, actually.

HZ: I imagine fewer people would choose to have weddings at things called forced labour camps.

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In transcript Tags history, telling other stories, Kennedy Whiters, Unredact the Facts, renaming, problematic, racism, anti-Black racism, USA, American history, Black history, United States of America, slavery, enslaved African people, Transatlantic slave trade, slave owners, white supremacy, plantation, plantations, euphemisms, weddings, products, branding, rebranding, brand names, Rhode Island, streets, towns, bingo, embrave

Allusionist 169 The Box transcript

January 28, 2023 The Allusionist

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.

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In Telling Other Stories, transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, society & culture, arts, literature, lexicon, vocabulary, telling other stories, renaming, names, eponyms, problematic, science eponyms, science, scientific, Subhadra Das, Martin Austwick, Trinity College Dublin, TCD, University College London, UCL, Dublin, London, university, college, buildings, honours, honors, eugenics, racism, Erwin Schrödinger, Karl Pearson, Francis Galton, Schrödinger’s cat, Schrödinger’s equation, theories, quantum mechanics, physics, genetics, moon, Nobel Prize, light, waves, quantum, quantum wave function, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Lunn, Albert Einstein, theory of relativity, many worlds theory, Hugh Everett, Mark Everett, Eels, museums, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Heisenberg, quadrivium

Allusionist 152 Asperger transcript

April 3, 2022 The Allusionist

EDITH SHEFFER: I do think it's important that Asperger's syndrome be removed as a distinct label. I don't think it's helpful medically and then ethically. Eponymous diagnoses are bestowed as an honour, to commend someone for one's life work and also to commend someone for discovering a condition. And arguably Asperger merits neither.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, history, phrases, idioms, eponyms, medical eponyms, Asperger’s Syndrome, Hans Asperger, autism, autism spectrum, ASD, ableism, disability, Nazis, stigma, disorder, Vienna, Austria, Third Reich, Germany, Second World War, World War Two, WW2, Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, Lorna Wing, DSM, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, psychopathy, medicine, medical, problematic

Allusionist 119. Blood Is Not Water transcript

July 14, 2020 The Allusionist
Allusionist 119 logo

ANTHONY RUSSELL: I want to have a vocabulary in order to be able to talk about things that directly affect me as an as an African-American, and as a black Jew, and as a Jew, I should have I should be able to talk about things that affect my life.

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In transcript Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, BLM, Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, racism, POC, BIPOC, black, Black people, African diaspora, civil rights, Yiddish, translation, translators, translating, slurs, pejorative, Arun Viswanath, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Jonah Boyarin, African American, Judaism, Jewish, Jews, Harry Potter, Dean Thomas, edits, problematic, transliteration, phrases, idioms
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Allusionist 221. Scribe
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Allusionist 220. Disobedience
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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.