The Allusionist
Adventures in language with Helen Zaltzman. TheAllusionist.org
Celebrity used to mean a solemn occasion; X factor was algebraic; and fame was a huge terrifying Godzilla-like beast with many many tongues.
Here to try define celebrity and fame are historian Greg Jenner of the podcast You’re Dead To Me, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger of Who? Weekly podcast, and writer, podcaster and videomaker Hank Green.
Find more information about these topics and guests at theallusionist.org/celebrity.
The Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, which are soothingly escapist.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
The word for ‘ghostwriter’ in French is a racist slur. How did THAT come about? And what word could French-speakers use instead? Ngofeen Mputubwele and Gregory Warner investigate. This piece originally aired on NPR’s Rough Translation; hear their new season at npr.org and on your pod app.
Content note: the piece is about, and therefore contains, offensive terms. And towards the end of the episode, in the Minillusionist, I get into the racist violent etymology of the word ‘bulldozer’.
The Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, which are soothingly escapist.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
In 2014, a seemingly trivial and boring incident at the bank propelled me down a linguistic road via medieval werewolves, Ms Marvel and confusingly inscribed gravestones, to find out why the English language is riddled with all this gender. What’s it FOR? How did it GET there? Will it go AWAY now please? It is, at the very least, taking up brainspace and not paying any rent.
This is a recording of a live performance at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room in St Louis, Missouri on 23 November 2019, and there were visuals happening, so I’ll drop in sometimes to explain them, and I’ve also put a transcript and pictures at theallusionist.org/notitle.
There are swears in this. There are also arguments that will be very useful to you if you ever come up against a denier of singular they. You will definitely win.
The show features Martin Austwick and Richard Zaltzman. The original music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, which are also soothingly escapist.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, quell anxiety and calm brain frenzies by replacing your interior monologue with words detached from significance. In this case: the list of HGTV original programming, and lawnmower adverts from before I was born.
Find this episode and a transcript and some pics of lawnmower ads at theallusionist.org/homeandgarden, and all the Allusionist episodes - other Tranquillusionists and also ones that are actually about something - at theallusionist.org.
The original music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, which are also soothingly escapist.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
After yet another spell of the British press and politicians using very dehumanising and derogatory rhetoric about migrants, I felt it necessary to go back to the Away Team episode of the Allusionist, about the language of migration, with lecturer and researcher Emma Briant, and author and editor Nikesh Shukla. This episode originally went out in early 2017, but it is never not relevant.
And there’s a chunk of new material in the Minillusionist, so stick around right till the end to hear that.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/migration2020.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
It’s great when you coin a phrase that really resonates with people, right? Until they start using it for businesses and ventures that are at odds with the meaning of it… Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, hosts of the podcast Call Your Girlfriend and authors of the new book Big Friendship, talk about what their term Shine Theory really means and what they had to do to keep it that way.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/shinetheory.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm. And - it’s Radiotopia’s annual survey! If you’ve got a moment to tell us your feelings about podcasts in general and ours more specifically, head to survey.prx.org/ALLUSIONIST. Your responses are anonymous and none the information you tell us is given to Evilcorp, but it IS is hugely useful for figuring out how to make our shows to your liking. Thanks in advance!
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
The Yiddish word for ‘black’ is, in certain uses, a slur. So Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Arun Viswanath and Jonah Boyarin teamed up to translate Black Lives Matter without it.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/yiddishblm. Content note: since the episode is discussing a slur, it does contain incidences of the slur. There is also one category B swear.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
When the Europeans arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as guns, stoats and Christianity, they brought ideas of cisgender monogamous heterosexuality that were imposed upon the Māori people as if there had never been anything else. But one word, takatāpui, proved otherwise.
Lecturer Hemi Kelly and activist Elizabeth Kerekere excavate the linguistic evidence that pre-colonisation, Māori culture had included myriad sexual orientations, gender fluidity and polyamory.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/bequest.
Other episodes in the Survival series include Second Home, about the Welsh language seeking a haven in Argentina, Oot in the Open, about the suppression and revival of the Scots language, and The Key, about language demise and revival.
Allusionist episodes covering LGBTQIA+ terms and oppression include Queer, Two Or More, Polari, and Many Ways at Once.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
• Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
• BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
• Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
• Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
The Scots language didn’t have much of an LGBTQ+ lexicon. So writer and performer Dr Harry Josephine Giles decided to create one.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/manywaysatonce.
Previous Allusionist episodes that go alongside this episode include Oot in the Open, Queer and Two Or More. And Josie has written up a very interesting document about the LGBTQ+ lexicon in Scots which you can read at bit.ly/lgbtscots.
Wishing you all an excellent and kind Pride month.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
I donated 50% of the ad revenue from this episode to the Exist Loudly Fund to Support Queer Black Young People, the Okra Project, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, the Trevor Project, akt and Mermaids UK. This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
Catan, the fun collaborative boardgame where you settle, build and trade on the island of Catan. Allusionist listeners get 10% off the original base game Catan at catanshop.com/allusionist by using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code allusionist.
Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Bombas works year-round with the Ally Coalition, and has a new collection of socks for Pride month. Shop and get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
The word ‘pornography’ arrived in English in the 1840s so upper class male archaeologists could talk about the sexual art they found in Pompeii without anyone who wasn’t an upper class male archaeologist knowing about it. Even though, at the same time, Victorian England was awash with what we’d now term pornography.
Dr Kate Lister of Whores of Yore and pornography historian Brian Watson of histsex.com explain the history of the word, and how the Victorian Brits dealt with material that gave them stirrings in their trousers. Sorry, ‘sit-down-upons’. ‘Inexpressibles’! If they couldn’t even express trousers, it’s little wonder they struggled to cope with pornography.
Content note: though the episode is educational and thoroughly untitillating - I know, I know, what a disappointment - the nature of the topic is such that the episode may not be suitable for all audiences or circumstances.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/pornography.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
I will be donating all ad revenue from this episode to organisations fighting systemic inequality and police brutality towards Black people. This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at http://betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code allusionist.
Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Bombas works year-round with the Ally Coalition, and has a new collection of socks for Pride month. Shop and get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
Twenty years ago, a 1939 poster printed by the British government with the words ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ turned up in a second-hand bookshop in Northern England. And lo! A decor trend was born: teatowels, T-shirts, mugs, phone cases, condoms, and a zillion riffs on the phrase.
Bookshop owner Stuart Manley talks about unearthing the poster that spawned countless imitations; author Owen Hatherley explains why the poster was NOT, in fact, an exemplar of Blitz Spirit and British bulldog courage and whatnot; and psychologist and therapist Jane Gregory considers whether being told to keep calm can keep us calm.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/keepcalm.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
BetterHelp online licensed professional counselling. Get started today at http://betterhelp.com/allusionist and receive a 10% discount off your first month with the discount code allusionist.
Mejuri, ethically sourced fine jewelry for everyday wear, without the markups. Visit mejuri.com/allusionist for 10% off your first order.
Molekule, air purification reinvented. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and at checkout enter the code allusionist10.
Bombas socks, thoughtfully engineered for comfort and durability - and for every pair of socks you buy, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need. Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Bombas.com/allusionist.
Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, in the interests of temporarily trying to stop that feeling where you think your brain is trying to claw its way out of your skull, read the punchlines to classic jokes.
This episode, including a transcript, resides at theallusionist.org/punchlines; see if you can figure out all the jokes they belong to.
Find all the Allusionist episodes - other Tranquillusionists and also ones that are actually about something - at theallusionist.org.
The original music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, which are mercifully unconnected to current events, if you’re seeking some escape from those.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, for the purposes of calming a frazzled brain, read the winners of Best In Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
This episode resides at theallusionist.org/best-in-show; you can find all the Allusionist episodes, including other Tranquillusionists, at theallusionist.org.
The original music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
Hope you are safe and well in body and mind.
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, for the purposes of quelling anxiety and stress and sleeplessness, read the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, with the words arranged in reverse alphabetical order.
This episode resides at theallusionist.org/nmiigea; you can find all the Allusionist episodes, including other Tranquillusionists, at theallusionist.org.
The original music is by Martin Austwick, based on the chords of ‘Imagine’ in alphabetical order. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
Hope you are safe and well in body and mind.
We interrupt the Allusionist break to bring an emergency calming episode. I asked you listeners which words you find soothing. Here they are. Put this episode on a loop to help you sleep; play it to quell your inner monologue; use it as an unreasonably long text tone; whatever you want.
View a list of the words at theallusionist.org/tranquillusionist, and find all the Allusionist episodes at theallusionist.org.
Martin Austwick composed the beautiful music. Find his songs at palebirdmusic.com, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Listen to them all for free on your podding app or at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
Hope you are safe and well in body and mind.
As the climate changes, so does the vocabulary around it - to amplify concern, to dampen concern, to serve corporate concerns… It is linguistically fraught! Journalist Amy Westervelt of the podcast Drilled, Alice Bell from the climate charity Possible, and Robin Webster from Climate Outreach explain some of the shifts in terminology, the squabbles and the industry interference - and how to communicate about climate in a way that does result in useful action.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/alarm-bells.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• The RealReal, authenticated luxury consignment fashion, accessories, jewellery, art and homewares. Shop instore, on app or at therealreal.com and get 20% off select items with the promo code REAL.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
• Sanditon on PBS, the adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel. Hear interviews with the cast on the Masterpiece Studio podcast on your podblasters or at pbs.org/masterpiecestudio.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Today’s episode is something a bit different to usual. A few months ago, I was a guest on the podcast Ologies, a terrific show where the very funny and delightful and curious Alie Ward interviews an ologist of some kind - bisonologist (ologist of bisons), ludologist (video games), corvid thanatology (crow funerals!).
Alie interviewed me as an etymologist (I’m not a qualified etymologist, mind; just an enthusiast), and we cover etymologies of words including ‘buxom’, ‘mediocre’, ‘coccyx’, ‘lacuna’, bust some etymological myths, discuss some broader attitudes towards language, and wonder why so many people hate the word ‘moist’. Here’s some of our conversation; you can hear the full-length version on Ologies.
There are a couple of swears in it, including what Alie calls ‘the Swiss Army Knife of cussing’.
Visit theallusionist.org/zaltzology for more about this episode, and hear the full-length version of the conversation with Alie on Ologies alieward.com/ologies/etymology.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• The RealReal, authenticated luxury consignment fashion, accessories, jewellery, art and homewares. Shop instore, on app or at therealreal.com and get 20% off select items with the promo code REAL.
• Progressive. See your insurance options and start a quote online at progressive.com.
• Sanditon on PBS, the adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel. Hear interviews with the cast on the Masterpiece Studio podcast on your podblasters or at pbs.org/masterpiecestudio.
For your last Allusionist of 2019, here is a quiz all about words for you to play along with as you listen. Get a pen and paper to jot down your answers, or there’s an interactive answer form all ready for you at theallusionist.org/2019quiz.
Let me know how you score in the quiz a at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The show will be back in January 2020. For all Allusionist episodes, extra material, transcripts, merch etc, visit http://theallusionist.org.
If you enjoyed this quiz, you can also play the 2018 quiz at theallusionist.org/2018quiz.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Support our work by making a donation at radiotopia.fm, and along with the warm glow of satisfaction at helping us make more of the podcasts you like, you can get such rewards as challenge coins, stickers, AND an audio recording of the Allusionist 2019 live show No Title! Yours for a one-off donation of $4.35. I wanted a numerical amount that looked like a word, and 435 is pretty much YES in calculator font, plus 80085 seemed too expensive. Anyway, go and pledge for it at radiotopia.fm!
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
To celebrate Radiotopia’s fundraiser, here’s a special episode about the word that brought us all together… aaand a lot of you hate it.
This piece was recorded in front of a live audience at PodCon in Seattle.
If you love podcasts, or more specifically this podcast, or slightly less specifically but still quite specifically the podcasts in the Radiotopia collective, get involved by making a donation at Radiotopia.fm! You can get swag that’s exclusive to this fundraiser, or just purchase the glow of satisfaction at funding the audiotainment we make.
Get your regular dose of the Allusionist at theallusionist.org.
Words engraved into metal are intended to last, though you don’t know who in the future is going to be reading them - your grandchildren wearing your wedding ring, the stranger who found your long-lost multitool, yourself at a time of need.
Steven Yardley of Milne & Yardley talks about the disappearing craft of hand engraving. Max Ullmann of the antique jewellery shop A.R. Ullmann Ltd shows the objects engraved in centuries past. Wearing their grandmothers’ rings, Lisa Hack connects to family she doesn’t know, and Freddy McConnell *to the family he does. When *Eeva Sarlin’s ex-boyfriend lost her Leatherman multitool, she thought she’d never see it again - and were it not for an engraving, she wouldn’t have. And Arlie Adlington, who reports this episode, had words engraved into his ring to remind him of his reality when others threaten to ruin it.
Go to theallusionist.org/precious to read more about this episode and find a transcript. Hear the first part of the pair of episodes about engraving at theallusionist.org/epitaph.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest independent podcasts. Support our work by making a donation at radiotopia.fm, and get such rewards as challenge coins, stickers, and the glow of satisfaction of helping us make more of the podcasts you like.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
When Dave Nadelberg of Mortified used to visit his mother’s grave, he would look around at the nearby gravestones and see similar - or even the exact same - epitaphs for lots of different people. And it made him curious: who were these people, really? What were their personalities, what happened in their lives? And didn’t they deserve something more meaningful, more personal, than these bland and repetitive epitaphs? So when Dave’s father died a few years later, Dave was determined to choose better words to represent him in perpetuity.
Go to theallusionist.org/epitaph to read more about this episode and find a transcript.
Dave Nadelberg is the founder of Mortified: find the podcast, live events, books, TV series and documentary at getmortified.com.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is on tour in North America - for all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Molekule air purification. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and enter the code ALLUSIONIST10 at checkout.
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
On 9 November 1989, the demolition of the Berlin Wall began. Within a year, Germany was unified. East Germany dissolved and was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany, took on its currency and its rules - and its lexicon. Both West and East Germany had already been speaking German, of course; but there were differences, from the years of very concerted separation, the attempts at isolating East Germany from what was considered Western culture and capitalism, and the specifically East German concepts that had their own vocabulary. What was that vocabulary, and where did it go?
Go to theallusionist.org/eastwest to find out more about this episode and the people who appear on it.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is on tour in North America - for all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Molekule air purification. For 10% off your first air purifier order, visit molekule.com and enter the code ALLUSIONIST10 at checkout.
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
In the last Food Season episode of the current batch, we get into the language of restaurant service - specifically those terms that give some of us fiery indigestion, like “Enjoy!” or “Are you still working on that?” Restaurant psychologist Stephani Robson and former server Sara Brooke Curtis explain how what servers say is affected by such things as restaurant furniture, tipping, the need to turn a table around quickly for the next diners, and customer moods and caprices.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/enjoy.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is on tour in North America - come to see us! For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Also! I’m making a NEW PODCAST! Veronica Mars Investigations, wherein Jenny Owen Youngs (of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast) and I investigate every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Find Veronica Mars Investigations in your podcast-getting app of choice, and at VMIpod on the social medias and VMIpod.com.
This month, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Freshbooks accounting software for small businesses. Get started at FreshBooks.com/BUYNOW.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Late 2019 will see the biggest apple launch of our lifetimes. 22 years in the making, ripening on millions of trees into picture-perfect redness, here comes the WA38, more snazzily known as the Cosmic Crisp. The name was the result of a year of focus groups, taste tests and word associations - a far cry from when apples were named after whichever end of a cat they resembled.
This episode is a collaboration with The Sporkful podcast, where we have released companion episodes about apples: hear us talking about the naming of apples on this episode of the Allusionist, and on their episode ‘A New Apple Is Born’ we get into the particulars of how new apples are begotten. Find The Sporkful on your podcatchers and at thesporkful.com.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/apples.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is on tour in North America - come to see us! For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Also! I’m making a NEW PODCAST! Veronica Mars Investigations, wherein Jenny Owen Youngs (of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast) and I investigate every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Find Veronica Mars Investigations in your podcast-getting app of choice, and at VMIpod on the social medias and VMIpod.com.
In October 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• BetterHelp online counselling. Get started at betterhelp.com/allusionist, and use the code ALLUSIONIST for 10% off your first month.
• Freshbooks accounting software for small businesses. Get 60% off a Lite, Plus or Premium plan for 6 months when you buy before 23rd October 2019. Get started at FreshBooks.com/BUYNOW.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try it for free.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Ever misspelled a word or committed a typo? It wasn’t your fault; you were demonically possessed. Ian Chillag from Everything is Alive podcast introduces us to Titivillus, the typo demon.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/typo-demon.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is heading off on a tour of North America from October. For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Also! I’m making a NEW PODCAST! Veronica Mars Investigations, wherein Jenny Owen Youngs (of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast) and I investigate every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Find Veronica Mars Investigations in your podcast-getting app of choice, and at VMIpod on the social medias and VMIpod.com.
In September 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text **ALLUSIONIST **to 484848 to try it for free.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
When is cheese not cheese, or crab not crab? When it’s spelled cheez or krab or even ch’eese or cra’b… Novelty spellings for foods-that-aren’t-made-out-of-the-thing-they-sound-like-they’re-made-out-of go back a pretty long way - ‘cheez’ was THE cheese-like substance of the 1920s - but right now, with plant-based foods on the rise, we’re seeing more of them. Branding consultant and name developer Nancy Friedman casts her expert glance over the apostrophes and deliberate misspellings on foodstuffs; and vegan restaurant owner Melanie Boudens recounts how, this summer, the words ‘cheddar cheese’ on her menu landed her in trouble.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/foood.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show No Title is playing in London in September and in the US from October. For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Also! I’m making a NEW PODCAST! Veronica Mars Investigations, wherein Jenny Owen Youngs (of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast) and I investigate every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Find Veronica Mars Investigations in your podcast-getting app of choice, and at VMIpod on the social medias and .com.
In September 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text **ALLUSIONIST **to 484848 to try it for free.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
It’s Food Season at the Allusionist. Last episode we learned all about compiling recipes, turning food into words. This time, we meet someone who turns words into food - no, she doesn’t make Alphabetti Spaghetti. When Kate Young of the Little Library Cafe spots a foodstuff or a feast in a novel, she finds ways to cook it in reality, whether it’s delicious (Babette’s Feast), evil (Edmund’s Turkish delight in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe) or poisonous (the crab and avocado in The Bell Jar).
Find out more at theallusionist.org/words-into-food.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show is coming to London in September. For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
Also! I’m making a NEW PODCAST! Veronica Mars Investigations, wherein Jenny Owen Youngs (of Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast) and I investigate every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Find Veronica Mars Investigations in your podcast-getting app of choice, and at VMIpod on the social medias and .com.
In August 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text **ALLUSIONIST **to 484848 to try it for free.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
When recipe writing is done well, the skill and effort involved might not be evident. But explaining the different steps clearly so that people of varying culinary abilities and equipment can cook it, and indeed want to make it, and translating flavour and physical actions and sensory experiences into words - all that takes work. Recipe writers MiMi Aye and Felicity Cloake and cookbook editor Rachel Greenhaus consider the verbal ingredients of a well-written recipe.
Find out more at theallusionist.org/food-into-words.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist live show is coming to London in September. For all event listings, visit theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them at radiotopia.fm.
In August 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the language-learning app that will help you speak a new language with confidence. Visit babbel.com to find out more, and text **ALLUSIONIST **to 484848 to try it for free.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
I don’t know exactly when or where, but at some point in the past few years, I stopped putting punctuation at the end of sentences. Why? The internet made me do it! Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch, cohost of Lingthusiasm podcast and the author of the new book Because Internet, explains how the internet changes the rules of language.
Find out more at theallusionist.org/new-rules.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. And it’s our annual survey season! Could you do me a big ole favour and spend a few minutes filling in the Survlusionist at surveynerds.com/allusionist? I will, of course, be using your opinions and information for nothing but the most nefarious purposes (like, er, trying to make the show better for you).
In July 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
• Remember Reading, a new family podcast from HarperCollins about classic children’s books. Find it on your podcast apps and at RememberReading.com.
Oysters, fragrances, canoeing, space stations, God, hats, and of course people - the word ‘bisexual’ has described a great deal of different things, with different meanings, in its fairly short existence. And that whole time, it has had a pretty bumpy ride.
Mark Wilkinson studied 70 years of Times newspapers to trace how the British mainstream press used the term.
Find out more at theallusionist.org/bisexual.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In June 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the app that teaches you a new language with confidence. If you’re in the USA, text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try a Babbel lesson for free. Elsewhere? Check out the courses at babbel.com and on the Babbel app.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
To mark the 100th* episode of the Allusionist, here’s a celebratory parade of language-related facts: some of your favourites from the Allusionist back catalogue, some of my favourites from the Allusionist back catalogue, and a load of fresh facts making their Allusionist debut.
*short hundred, not long hundred.
Thanks for listening to the Allusionist! If you’ve liked any of the 100 episodes, tell someone else about it.
Content note: this episode contains swears.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/hundredth.
The Allusionist live tour of the new show, No Title, has landed in Australia! Get your tickets for Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin from theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In May 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the app that teaches you a new language with confidence. If you’re in the USA, text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try a Babbel lesson for free. Elsewhere? Check out the courses at babbel.com and on the Babbel app.
• Beer52, the craft beer discovery club. Each month they’ll deliver to you eight different craft beers, PLUS a snack, PLUS a copy of the award-winning Ferment magazine. If you’re in the UK, Beer52 will give you your first case for free; you just need to pay the £5.95 postage. Claim your free case today at beer52.com/allusionist.
• Progressive. Get your car insurance quote online at progressive.com and see how much you could be saving. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
When there were no safe spaces to be gay, Polari allowed gay men to identify and communicate with each other, and to keep things secret from outsiders. Professor Paul Baker, author of the Polari dictionary and the new book Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language, explains how Polari emerged from criminal cant and London’s theatres and docks to be used a code language for gay men in the oppressive 1950s - and then, not long after, it entered the slang lexicons of the general public, via popular sketch comedy and the mouth of an annoyed princess.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/polari.
The all new Allusionist live show, No Title, is touring in New Zealand and Australia. We’ve added extra shows in Christchurch and Melbourne, and will also be on in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin. Leg it to theallusionist.org/events to get tickets.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In May 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the app that teaches you a new language with confidence. If you’re in the USA, text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try a Babbel lesson for free. Elsewhere? Check out the courses at babbel.com and on the Babbel app.
• Beer52, the craft beer discovery club. Each month they’ll deliver to you eight different craft beers, PLUS a snack, PLUS a copy of the award-winning Ferment magazine. If you’re in the UK, Beer52 will give you your first case for free; you just need to pay the £5.95 postage. Claim your free case today at beer52.com/allusionist.
Today: three pieces about alter egos, when your name - the words by which the world knows you - is replaced by another for particular purposes, such as competing in roller derby, writing popular but disreputable detective novels, or being legally anonymous, unidentified, or fake.
NB There is one strong swear in this episode.
Find out more about this episode and the people and facts in it at theallusionist.org/alter-ego.
The all new Allusionist live show, No Title, is touring in New Zealand and Australia. We’ve added extra shows in Wellington and Christchurch; Melbourne already sold out; so rush to theallusionist.org/events to get tickets for Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In April 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the app that teaches you a new language with confidence. If you’re in the USA, text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try a Babbel lesson for free.
“There are two ways to say ‘The future is now’: you can say it optimistically, like, ‘The future is now! Isn't that cool?’ Or you could be like, ‘The future is now, and we're totally screwed.’” Rose Eveleth, of the future-envisioning podcast Flash Forward, tracks the past and present of one of her favourite phrases.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/future.
The all new Allusionist live show, No Title, is touring in New Zealand and Australia. Visit theallusionist.org/events for information about venues, dates and tickets for shows in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and a couple more TBA Australian cities.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In April 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Babbel, the app that teaches you a new language with confidence. If you’re in the USA, text ALLUSIONIST to 484848 to try a Babbel lesson for free.
“Trust isn't a brand that you should use. It's a social glue that, when it breaks down, has really huge consequences to our lives.” Trust expert and author Rachel Botsman explains why we need to protect this word that has remained steadfast throughout its existence, but may now be too popular for its own good.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/trust.
The all new Allusionist live show, No Title, is heading to New Zealand! Tickets for Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are on sale now; find out more at theallusionist.org/events. Australia: you’ll be our next stop.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In March 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Bombas, socks that won’t let you - or themselves - down. Buy your expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and get 20% off your first purchase.
• Molekule, a complete reinvention of the air purifier. For $75 off your first order, use the discount code ALLUSIONIST at the checkout at molekule.com.
• American Masters, the PBS podcast featuring new conversations with contemporary artists and cultural figures, along with a mix of previously unreleased interviews from the award-winning documentary film series. Subscribe in your podgatherer of choice.
When you’re watching a fantasy or science fiction show, and the characters are speaking a language that does not exist in this world but sounds like it could - that doesn’t happen by accident, or improvisation. A lot - a LOT! - of work goes into inventing new languages that sound real. Conlanger David Peterson talks about how he created languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/verisimilitude.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In March 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Babbel, the no.1 selling language-learning app in the world. Try it for free at babbel.com or download the Babbel app.
• The Proprioceptive Writing Center. Find out about the upcoming West Coast USA courses in this meditative writing practice at pwriting.org.
• Molekule, a complete reinvention of the air purifier. For $75 off your first order, use the discount code ALLUSIONIST at the checkout at molekule.com.
On 15 November 1992, the New York Times printed a ‘Lexicon of Grunge’, a list of slang terms from the Seattle music scene. ‘Harsh realm’ = bummer. ‘Wack slacks’ = old ripped jeans. ‘Swingin’ on the flippity-flop’ = hanging out.
Not familiar with any of these? It’s OK, that’s not because you’re a cob nobbler (= loser). They were all made up. By Megan Jasper. Now the CEO of Sub Pop records, she recounts her linguistic prank.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/grungehoax.
NB there are a few swears in this episode.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In February 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Babbel, the no.1 selling language-learning app in the world. Try it for free at babbel.com or download the Babbel app.
• The Proprioceptive Writing Center. Find out about the upcoming West Coast USA courses in this meditative writing practice at pwriting.org.
‘Idle’, ‘trivial’, ‘scurrilous’: the word ‘gossip’ is often accompanied by uncomplimentary adjectives. But don’t dismiss it; from childbirth to Hollywood to political analysis to whisper networks, gossip may be more useful and serious than you realise. Lainey Lui, founder of laineygossip.com, and Buzzfeed News’ senior culture writer (and doctor of celebrity gossip) Anne Helen Petersen explain why.
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/gossip.
NB there are a few swears in this episode.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In February 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Babbel, the no.1 selling language-learning app in the world. Try it for free at babbel.com or download the Babbel app.
• The Proprioceptive Writing Center. Find out about the upcoming West Coast USA courses in this meditative writing practice at pwriting.org.
If you wince when you hear someone say “a whole nother level”, “hone in on” or “right from the gecko”, here’s some bad news: you might have to get used to it. The English language is full of words and expressions that were mistakes that stuck around. Countdown’s Susie Dent holds our hands and takes us on a tour of misspellings, mishearings, scrambled letters and bear cubs.
In the new Minillusionist at the end of the episode, we’re back on your favourite subject: swearing! And why the blazes are there all these fake acronym etymologies for swears?
Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/err.
Follow Susie Dent on Twitter @susie_dent for regular doses of etymology, and to keep up with her writing and tour dates.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the finest podcasts on the interwaves. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.
In January 2019, the Allusionist is sponsored by:
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for creating and running a good-looking and well-working website. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and use the code ALLUSION to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
• Babbel, the no.1 selling language-learning app in the world. Try it for free at babbel.com or download the Babbel app.
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. Get a pen and paper, or fill in your answers online at http://theallusionist.org/2018quiz.
Also! I’ve put together an Allusionist print-at-home puzzle book, featuring a wordsearch, crossword, some jollity with portmanteaus, eponyms and scandals ending in -gate. It’s available exclusively if you donate any amount to Radiotopia’s 2018 fundraiser from now until it ends on 21 December 2018. Let me reiterate: ANY amount, from $1 to $∞! Head to http://radiotopia.fm to get your puzzles.
Let me know how you fare in the quiz and puzzles at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The show will be back on 23 January 2019. For all Allusionist episodes, extra material, transcripts, event listings etc, visit http://theallusionist.org.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm – and if you can afford to help our shows keep going, become a donor in our 2018 fundraiser at https://www.radiotopia.fm/donate-2018z.
Throughout the year, the people who appear on the Allusionist tell me a lot of interesting stuff. Not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away in preparation for this moment: the annual bonus episode! Get ready for gory 19th century London slang, the rise and fall of superhero capes, the post-WW1 trend for nudism, and more.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/bonus2018.
There is one swear in this episode.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm – and if you can afford to help our shows keep going, become a donor in our 2018 fundraiser at https://www.radiotopia.fm/donate-2018z.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow. And come to see the debut performance of the brand new Allusionist 2019 live show at SF Sketchfest, 7.30pm 25 January! Tickets are on sale now: https://tinyurl.com/allusionistSFsketchfest2019
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
SQUARESPACE. Design and run a website with ease using Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/allusion for a free trial, and for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain, use the code ALLUSION.
MYTHOLOGIES. Subscribe to the new Mythologies podcast from Parcast in your podblaster of choice, or find it at parcast.com/mythology.
Jim Glaub and Dylan Parker didn’t think too much of it when, every year, a few letters were delivered to their New York apartment addressed to Santa.
But then one year, 400 letters arrived. And they decided they had to answer them.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/dear-santa, and visit http://miracleon22ndstreet.com to learn more about the nonprofit Jim and Dylan now run, donate, and get involved.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm – and if you can afford to help our shows keep going, become a donor in our 2018 fundraiser at https://www.radiotopia.fm/donate-2018z.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow. And come to see the debut performance of the brand new Allusionist 2019 live show at SF Sketchfest, 7.30pm 25 January! Tickets are on sale now: https://tinyurl.com/allusionistSFsketchfest2019
Today’s episode is sponsored by Care/Of, a monthly subscription service that delivers personalised vitamin packs to your door. It’s like an advent calendar full of health supplements! For 25% off your first month of personalised Care/of vitamins, visit TakeCareOf.com and enter the discount code ALLUSIONIST.
This is a story of feats of speed and endurance, of record-breakers, of champions… Typing champions.
Recorded live at the Hot Docs Podcast Festival in the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto on 4 November 2018, WPM is performed by me and Martin Austwick. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/wpm.
**There is one swear word in this episode. See if you can spot it.**
Get very cute T-shirts, totes and onesies with an exclusive typing artwork by Eleni Kalorkoti at http://theallusionist.org/merch.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
1. OXFORD GAMES makes games, word-based and not, which are great fun to play at all ages. Allusionist listeners get 20% off purchases at oxfordgames.co.uk with the discount code ALL20.
2. BABBEL is the number 1 selling language learning app in the world, with courses in 14 different languages from beginner to advanced levels. You can even give Babbel courses as gifts! Go to babbel.com and use the offer code ALLUSION to get 50% off your first three months.
Why did you change your name? And why did you choose the name you chose?
Listeners answer these two questions. Hear their stories of gender identity, family fallouts, marriages, divorces, doxxing, cults, and…just not liking your given name very much.
Find more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/name-changers.
This episode is part of Name Season here at the Allusionist, along with episode 83. Yes, As In, about having a name that is more usually a noun or adjective; 86. Name Therapy, about the issues people face with their names; and 87. Name v. Law, about the Icelandic Naming Committee and a name change that took 25 years.
The Allusionist live tour is ON NOW, at cities in the US and Canada during October and November 2018: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
SQUARESPACE. Design your website at squarespace.com/allusion, and use the offer code ALLUSION to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
BOMBAS. Shop for expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and save 20% by entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
Iceland has quite exacting laws about what its citizens can be named, and only around 4,000 names are on the officially approved list. If you want a name that deviates from that list, you have to send an application to the Icelandic Naming Committee, whose three members will decide whether or not you’re allowed it. And if they say you’re not…you might have to take things pretty far.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/icelandic-names.
The Allusionist live tour is ON NOW, at cities in the US and Canada during October and November 2018: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsor, Babbel. Learn fourteen languages in quick, fun and interactive lessons. Try Babbel for free via their app or babbel.com.
“It’s the word that you use the most often and the soonest to describe yourself, and yet nobody’s really ever talked about how it kind of makes me feel like this.” Until Duana Taha, who, after a lifetime of feelings about her own unique name, became the Name Therapist.
Duana offers advice on how to name your baby/future adult, so their name works shouted across a playground, whispered into an ear, scribbled on a coffee cup. She also deals with your concerns about being named after a relative or parent’s ex, having a name that elicits playground taunts, or doesn’t describe you as an individual at all.
Find more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/name-therapy.
The Allusionist live tour is ON NOW, at cities in the US and Canada during October and November 2018: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
SQUARESPACE. Design your website at squarespace.com/allusion, and use the offer code ALLUSION to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
BOMBAS. Shop for expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and save 20% by entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
“I wanted a story that actually lives, and actually dies, and disappears.”
In 2003, artist and author Shelley Jackson started the Skin Project: a story printed, word by word, as tattoos on volunteers. https://ineradicablestain.com/skindex.html
Find more about this episode at https://theallusionist.org/skin-story.
The Allusionist live tour comes to the US, Canada, and Ireland during autumn 2018: show listings are at https://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and https://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at https://radiotopia.fm.
This episode is sponsored by the sleep brand Casper. Get $50 towards select mattresses by going to Casper.com/allusionist and using the promo code ALLUSIONIST at checkout.
Why would you write books or poems or plays with only one vowel? Or in palindromes? Or only using the example sentences in dictionaries? Sometimes you need to force yourself to jump a few hurdles (and perhaps the rest of the obstacle course) before your creativity will be unleashed.
Find more about this episode at theallusionist.org/trammels. Jez Burrows is the author of the book Dictionary Stories, which is out now; find his work at jezburrows.com. Ross Sutherland makes the podcast Imaginary Advice; find him at rosssutherland.co.uk.
The Allusionist live tour comes to the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland during autumn 2018: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
SQUARESPACE. Design your website at squarespace.com/allusion, and use the offer code ALLUSION to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
BOMBAS. Shop for expertly engineered socks at bombas.com/allusionist and save 20% by entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
“Really? As in the animal/foodstuff/music genre?”
“Is that a stripper name?”
“What were your parents thinking?”
When your name is a word that is more usually a noun or adjective than a human moniker, you hear the same questions a lot. But there’s a story in every name, and yours is probably a more interesting story than most.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/nounnames. WARNING: there are a few swears in it. (But none of the people have swear names, thankfully.)
The Allusionist live tour comes to the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland during autumn 2018: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to Babbel for sponsoring this episode. Try their language-learning courses for free at babbel.com.
When you’re feeling unwell, what’s the book you read to make yourself feel better? And why does it work? Clinical psychologist Jane Gregory explains why she sometimes prescribes novel-reading to her patients; and academic Guy Cuthbertson tells how post-WW1 Britain was soothed by Agatha Christie.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/convalescence.
The Allusionist live tour comes to the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland during autumn 2018: live show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events. If your town is not listed, check back soon, because more gigs will soon be added.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors, Squarespace and Audible.
Design your own website using Squarespace: try it out at squarespace.com/allusion, then use the offer code ALLUSION for a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Audible has a huge library of audiobooks, including many classics of convalescence literature. Listeners in the USA can get a free audiobook by taking out a thirty-day trial at audible.com/allusionist, or by texting ALLUSIONIST to 500500.
Today, we’re dipping into the Allusionist mailbag full of listeners’ linguistic requests, with the help of special guest Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder and The West Wing Weekly podcasts.
What is the expression ‘beyond the pale’ on about? How do you express the absence of feeling? Does ‘testify’ have anything to do with testicles? Do avocados have anything to do with testicles? How does the phrase “It’s all Greek to me” relate to food styling? Can you have a caper with capers? Are sharks misunderstood, etymologically and morally? And finally: where do allusions come from?
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/shark-week.
The Allusionist live tour comes to the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland during late 2018: live show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events. If your town is not listed, check back soon, because more gigs will soon be added!
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to today’s sponsors, Squarespace and Babbel.
Design your own website using Squarespace: try it out at squarespace.com/allusion, then use the offer code ALLUSION for a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain.
You can learn fourteen languages through Babbel. To get 50% off your first 3 months of Babbel, use the code ALLUSION when you go to babbel.com/allusion.
Today will be fine. But wait: fine as in ‘OK’, fine as in ‘really rather good’, or fine as in ‘no precipitation’? When you’re a TV weather forecaster, you have to deal with the mismatch of your specialist vocabulary with that of the meteorological laypeople watching – as well as cover all the weather across a whole country, translate conditions into something the viewer can identify with, and warn people about cyclones without making them too panicked. Or not panicked enough to take sensible cyclone precautions. Nate Byrne, who presents the weather for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News Breakfast, breezes in to shower us with meteorological knowledge.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/warm-front.
See the Allusionist on stages in Australia and New Zealand in June and July 2018: live show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events. Northern hemisphere-dwellers: check back soon, because more gigs are about to be added!
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
This episode is sponsored by SimpliSafe. Visit http://simplisafe.com/allusionist to learn about how SimpliSafe can protect your home.
Strange or obtuse; a stinging homophobic slur; a radical political rejection of normativity; a broad term encompassing every and any variation on sexual orientation and gender identity: the word ‘queer’ has a multifarious past and complicated present. Tracing its movements are Kathy Tu and Tobin Low from Nancy podcast, Eric Marcus from Making Gay History, historian and author Amy Sueyoshi, and Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/queer. Content note: this episodes contains discussions of sexuality and sexual acts, as well as some problematic terms.
See the Allusionist live in Australia and New Zealand in the next month: show listings are at http://theallusionist.org/events
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
This episode is sponsored by Bombas and Babbel.
Get a 20% discount on Bombas’s expertly engineered socks by visiting http://bombas.com/allusionist and entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
There are fourteen languages you can learn via Babbel, the number 1 selling language app in the world. To get 50% off your first 3 months of Babbel, use the code ALLUSION when you go to babbel.com/allusion.
You are born and raised in a household speaking a language. Then you start going to school, and that language is banned. If you speak it, you’ll be punished physically or psychologically. Across your country, there are people like you who associate their first language with shame, or not even being a language at all. This is the predicament of the Scots language.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/scots.
I have several events coming up – in the next few weeks, the live Allusionist stage spectacular is hitting Australia and New Zealand. Check the listings at http://theallusionist.org/events
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
This episode is sponsored by Bombas and Babbel.
Get a 20% discount on Bombas’s expertly engineered socks by visiting http://bombas.com/allusionist and entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
There are fourteen languages you can learn via Babbel, the number 1 selling language app in the world. To get 50% off your first 3 months of Babbel, use the code ALLUSION when you go to babbel.com/allusion.
There are two main places in the world where the Welsh language is spoken: Wales, and the Chubut Province in Patagonia. How did this ancient language take root in rural Argentina, 12,000km away from its home base?
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/survival1.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
I have several events coming up – live Allusionists and Bugles and the Radiotopia tour. Check the listings at http://theallusionist.org/events
This episode is sponsored by Bombas. Get a 20% discount on their expertly engineered socks by visiting http://bombas.com/allusionist and entering the offer ALLUSIONIST in the checkout code space.
Pavement/sidewalk; football/soccer; bum bag/fanny pack: we know that the English language is different in the UK and the USA. But why? Linguist Lynne Murphy points out the geographical, cultural and social influences that separate the common language.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/across-the-pond.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
Radiotopia is going on tour! Join us in May at theatres in Atlanta, Durham, DC, Philly, NYC and Boston. Get your tickets at http://radiotopia.fm/live. You can also see the Allusionist live in Australia – http://theallusionist.org/events
Today’s sponsors are Squarespace and Babbel. Start your website at http://squarespace.com/allusion and to get a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain, use the code ALLUSION.
Learn a new language with Babbel and get 50% off your first 3 months: use the code ALLUSION when you go to http://babbel.com/allusion.
Today we’re going inside to open up the unofficial dictionary of San Quentin state prison, compiled by Earlonne Woods of Ear Hustle podcast.
Content note: this episode contains some Adult Terms.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/ear-hustling.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves – such as Ear Hustle. Hear all the shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
The Allusionist’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
Radiotopia is going on tour! Join us in May at theatres in Atlanta, Durham, DC, Philly, NYC and Boston. Get your tickets at http://radiotopia.fm/live. You can also see the Allusionist live in Australia – http://theallusionist.org/events
Today’s episode is sponsored by Babbel. Learn a new language with 50% off your first 3 months: use the code ALLUSION when you go to babbel.com/allusion.
CONTENT WARNING: there is swearing in this episode. But the happy news is: swearing is good for you! Dr Emma Byrne, author of Swearing Is Good For You, explains how swearing can be beneficial to your physical health and emotional wellbeing, while Matt Fidler of Very Bad Words podcast gives some tips to ensure you swear properly to optimise the positive effects.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/swear-pill.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them all at http://radiotopia.fm, and see several of us perform live in May on the Radiotopia East Coast Tour. Tickets are on sale now at http://radiotopia.fm/live.
Today’s sponsors are:
i. Squarespace: start building your website at http://squarespace.com, and when you sign up, use the offer code ALLUSION for 10% off your first purchase of your website or domain.
ii. Babbel, the world’s no.1 selling language learning app. To get 50% off your first 3 months of learning one of 14 languages, go to http://babbel.com/allusion and use the code ALLUSION.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
Up in the sky: look! It’s an adjective! It’s a noun! It’s…Adjectivenoun!
Your friendly neighbourhood superheroes might have thrilling and varied powers and spandex garments, but the way their names are concocted have followed only a handful of formulae in the past 80 years, since Superman sent superheroes soaring.
(Yes, alliteration is one such naming formula.)
Glen Weldon of Pop Culture Happy Hour traces the supername’s development from Adjective+Gender through Colour+Noun to Normal Name and Lone Noun.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/supername.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them all at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
This episode is sponsored by Audible – listeners in the US can get a free audiobook by taking out a trial membership at http://audible.com/allusionist or by texting 500-500.
Radiotopia is going on tour! Join us in May at theatres in Atlanta, Durham, DC, Philly, NYC and Boston. Get your tickets at http://radiotopia.fm/live.
“Hey.”
“Going to the supermarket, want me to get you anything?”
“Puppies or ice cream?”
“What’s your glasses prescription?”
“I wanna ***** your *********.”
If you’ve used a dating app, maybe you’ve received one of the above messages from a stranger, or sent them. Striking up an interaction with someone is a tricky business. Why Oh Why and Longest Shortest Time host Andrea Silenzi opens up her phone to analyse the kinds of opening messages people send on dating apps, and how easily they can land badly.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/hey, and hear Andrea hosting The Longest Shortest Time podcast on your podblasters of choice.
Content note: this episode contains a couple of instances of Adult Language and references to Adult Behaviours.
Today’s sponsors are Squarespace – try it out at http://squarespace.com, and when you sign up, use the offer code ALLUSION – and Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller which you can hear on all the podcatchers and at https://www.inflectionpointradio.org.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them all at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
It’s a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. And in that year, he’s caused a lot of changes in the job of constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh of TrumpConLaw podcast – in particular, one verb is now off limits.
Plus: Paul Anthony Jones, aka etymologist extraordinaire Haggard Hawks, describes how politicians’ names work their way into our vocabularies.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/trump. Today’s sponsors are Squarespace – http://squarespace.com, offer code ALLUSION – and Audible – http://audible.com/allusionist.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them all at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
It’s the annual bonus episode. Throughout the year, the people who appear on the show tell me a lot of interesting stuff, not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away in preparation for this moment. This year, hear about the history of roller skates, zazzification, giant origami, the heat death of the universe and more.
Find information about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/bonus2017.
Come to see the live Allusionist show at SF Sketchfest, 10pm 12 January at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale now at http://tinyurl.com/allusionistsfsketchfest2017.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them at http://radiotopia.fm.
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this episode. http://mailchimp.com.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the impoverished and destitute members of British society. So how come his name is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry “God bless us every one” Christmas?
Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle of 99% Invisible report from the streets of Victorian London at the annual Dickens Christmas Fair in Daly City, California, while historian Greg Jenner explains the origins of the festive traditions for which Dickens gets the credit, without even wanting the credit – in fact, his motivation for writing A Christmas Carol was far from a cash-in on Christmas.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/dickens-christmas.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them at http://radiotopia.fm.
Come to see the live Allusionist show at SF Sketchfest, 10pm 12 January at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale now at http://tinyurl.com/allusionistsfsketchfest2017.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
Somebody has really ticked you off. You’re all steamed up inside and you want to vent that rage using words, but you don’t want to confront them directly because you’re either too polite or too cowardly. So do you:
A. Subtweet them.
B. With your finger, scrawl an insulting message into the dirt on their car.
C. Get a small sheet of lead, scratch into it a message cursing your enemies, roll it up and throw it into your nearest sacred spring?
Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s 1700-2000 years ago and you’re living in the Ancient Roman Empire, so the answer is C.
Stephen Clews, the manager of the Roman baths at Bath, shows us the curses that were sloshing around in the waters for hundreds of years.
NB One category A and one category B swear appear in this episode.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/curse-tablets.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Hear them all at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
You’re holding a letter. What’s inside? A weather report from 5,000 miles away? Some devastating family history? A single word? A heartfelt dispatch from your past self that’s about to change the course of your life?
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-2.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. It’s Radiotopia’s annual fundraiser: to keep our shows going, become a supporter (and get some excellent gifts!) at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
From Me To You’s Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley didn’t know each other well. But when Brian was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Alison offered to write him letters. 100 letters later, their lives were changed.
One of the newest members of Radiotopia is Ear Hustle, a podcast made inside San Quentin by and about the men incarcerated there, in collaboration with Nigel Poor. In prison, a letter is a precious thing.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-1. The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. It’s Radiotopia’s annual fundraiser: to keep our shows going, become a supporter (and get some excellent gifts!) at http://radiotopia.fm.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms – words that derive from people’s names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word ‘guy’. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/guy.
CONTENT NOTE: the episode contains a description of 17th century torture and execution.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.
You’ve encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science fiction.
This episode is a collaboration with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds; listen to his episode about technobabble, featuring ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD TECHNOBABBLERS, at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org.
The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.
Crossword-solving is often a solitary activity – over breakfast; on the train; on the loo… But a few times a year, crossword puzzle enthusiasts gather in their hundreds to compete to be the fastest, most accurate crossword-solver. This episode comes to you from a church basement on the Upper East Side of New York City, wherein takes place America’s second largest crossword puzzle tournament: Lollapuzzoola.
For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/lollapuzzoola.
Come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September; tickets are on sale now at http://kingsplace.co.uk/radiotopia.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm, and be a pal and tell us your thoughts about our shows in the annual listener survey: http://surveynerds.com/allusionist.
They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they’re not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what’s going on with indefinite hyperbolic numerals like ‘zillion’, ‘squillion’ and ‘kajillion’.
For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/zillions.
Come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September; tickets are on sale now at http://kingsplace.co.uk/radiotopia.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.
Translation, A Love Story:
Translator listens to The Allusionist. Translator hears about the podcast The Memory Palace. Translator listens to The Memory Palace. Translator immediately becomes smitten with The Memory Palace. Translator translates The Memory Palace from English to Brazilian Portuguese, and turns it into a book – O Palácio da Memória – which will be published in Brazil two weeks hence.
But, like any love story, it’s not quite that simple.
Literary translator Caetano Galindo recounts the trials and treats of turning Nate DiMeo’s English language audio into Brazilian Portuguese text.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/translation, and hear The Memory Palace at http://thememorypalace.us.
The Allusionist is on a break during July. There’ll be a new episode out on 4 August; meanwhile, stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow. And come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.
It’s August 2007. Lauren Marks is a 27-year-old actor and a PhD student, spending the month directing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She’s in a bar, standing onstage, performing a karaoke duet of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’…and then a blood vessel in her brain bursts. When she wakes up in hospital, days later, she has no internal monologue, and a vocabulary of only forty words.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/eclipse, and more about Lauren at http://astitchoftime.com.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Find all our shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
As discussed in episode 51, Under the Covers part II, the vocabulary for sex and associated body parts is tricky to navigate in many ways – but even more so if you are trans or gender non-binary.
CONTENT NOTE: this episode contains strong language and frank discussions of sex and bodies.
There’s more about the episode at http://theallusionist.org/joins.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Find all our shows at http://radiotopia.fm.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder wants people to stop saying ‘namaste’ after a yoga session.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/namaste.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Join us for Radiotopia’s live tour of west coast cities this May – http://radiotopia.fm/live.
“Sometimes you want to make the dictionary sexy but it’s just not a sexy thing,” says Kory Stamper, lexicographer for the Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Sorry if this is disillusioning news for you. The dictionary is not a sexy thing, but as Kory explains, it is a fascinating, complicated, exacting thing.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/authority.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Join us for Radiotopia’s live tour of west coast cities this May – http://radiotopia.fm/live.
“Recognizing someone’s humanity is crucial. Calling someone a migrant, calling someone an asylum seeker, calling them a refugee: these are official categories. But in many ways, depending on how they use them, they can change and become more negative.”
So says propaganda and migration specialist Emma Briant, as she explains the dangers of conflating and misusing terms like ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’, while British/Asian/but-kinda-not author Nikesh Shukla wonders where he’s from – where he is really from.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/migration.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Join us for Radiotopia’s live tour of west coast cities this May – http://radiotopia.fm
Sometimes words can become your worst enemy. Clinical psychologist Jane Gregory tells how to defuse their power. There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/behave-rerun.
The main part of this episode is a rerun, but there’s new material as well – get ready for a thrill-ride into medieval accounting technology.
Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Join us for Radiotopia’s live tour of west coast cities this May – http://radiotopia.fm
The term ‘sanctuary cities’ has been in the news a lot in the past few weeks, as places in the USA declare themselves to be havens for undocumented immigrants. Though ‘sanctuary’ has a history of meaning safety for the persecuted, it has an even longer history of meaning something quite different: refuge for criminals.
Rosalind Brown, a canon at Durham Cathedral, and historian John Jenkins explain how and why, for 1000 years, churches in England offered shelter to murders and thieves fleeing justice.
For more information about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/sanctuary; and listen to the 99% Invisible episodes about the modern sanctuary movement at http://99pi.org.
Find the show at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Does the available vocabulary for sex leave something to be desired? Namely desire? (And also the ability to use it wthout laughing/dying of embarrassment?) Aiding in the search for a better sex lexicon – sexicon – are Kaitlin Prest of fellow Radiotopia podcast The Heart, and romance novelist Mhairi McFarlane.
CONTENT NOTE: this episode contains Sexual Language from the start.
For more information about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/covers-ii.
Find the show at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Escape into the loving embrace of a romance novel – although don’t think you’ll be able to escape gender politics while you’re in there. Bea and Leah Koch, proprietors of America’s sole romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, consider the genre; and publisher Lisa Milton scrolls through the 109-year history of the imprint that epitomises romance novels, Mills & Boon.
For more information about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/covers-i.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Why is gaslighting ‘gaslighting’? What do bodily fluids have to do with personality traits? Why does ‘cataract’ mean a waterfall and an eye condition? And do doctors really say ‘Stat!’ or is that just in ER?
To round off 2016, here’s the bonus edition of The Allusionist, featuring listeners’ etymology requests and extra material from guests who’ve appeared on the show this year. For links and more information about the episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/bonus2016.
The show will return in early February. Meanwhile, catch up on the back catalogue at http://theallusionist.org, and stay in touch at http://facebook.com/allusionistshow and http://twitter.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm from http://PRX.org.
There’s a word that has become shorthand for ‘the war on Christmas’ with a side of ‘political correctness gone mad’: Winterval.
It began in November 1998. Newspapers furiously accused Birmingham City Council of renaming Christmas when it ran festive events under the name ‘Winterval’. The council’s then-head of events Mike Chubb explains the true meaning of Winterval.
For more information about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/winterval.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Today: a tale of darkness, gathering storms, and a terrifying creature that resembles a human man…
No, nothing topical: it’s The Year Without A Summer, the story of how Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. This piece first appeared on Eric Molinsky’s excellent podcast Imaginary Worlds. Hear all the episodes at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org.
For more information, visit http://theallusionist.org/frankenstein.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Each of the 50 states in the USA has its own motto. The motto might be found on the state seal, or the state flag; more often than not, it might be in Latin, or Spanish, or Chinook; it might be a phrase or a single word. And if you think you know what yours is, check that it is not in fact an advertising slogan.
PRX.org staff reveal their state mottos – or what they thought were their state mottos, until this episode ruined it for them – and how those words have shaped their perception of their state and their selves.
For more information about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/state-mottos.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
If you love eponyms like Roman Mars loves eponyms, I’m afraid physician Isaac Siemens is here to deliver some bad news: medics are ditching them, in favour of terms that a) contain information about what the ailment actually is, and/or b) don’t honour Nazi war criminals. Eponyms are controversial things.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, and Radiotopia needs you! This month is our fundraiser. To support independent audio, become a donor at http://radiotopia.fm (you can also get the fundraiser-exclusive Radiotopia challenge coin for your trouble).
Visit http://theallusionist.org/name-that-disease for more information about this episode.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
What is your beautiful brain up to as you comprehend language? Cognitive psychologist Jenni Rodd takes a peek.
Visit http://theallusionist.org/brain for more information about this topic.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
If you don’t have a Rosetta Stone to hand, deciphering extinct languages can be a real puzzle, even though they didn’t intend to be. They didn’t intend to become extinct, either, but such is the life (and death) of languages.
NB: there is a CATEGORY B swear word towards the end of this episode. But it IS there for educational purposes only.
ALSO NB: After the episode was released, I was alerted that listener Ryan’s request was about a FAKE Mike Pence statement. I CAN NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN, RYAN! The etymological content still stands.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/vestiges. It is a companion to episode 42: The Key part I: Rosetta, which is at http://theallusionist.org/rosetta.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Languages die. But if they’re lucky, a thousand-odd years later, someone unearths an artefact that brings them back to life.
Laura Welcher of the Rosetta Project shows us the Rosetta Disk, a slice of electroplated nickel three inches in diameter that bears text in 1500 languages for future linguists to decipher. Ilona Regulski of the British Museum describes how its namesake, the Rosetta Stone, unlocked hieroglyphics.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/rosetta. Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
When you choose to spend the winter in Antarctica, you’ll be prepared for it to be cold. You know that nobody will be leaving or arriving until springtime. And you’re braced for months of darkness. But a few weeks after the last sunset, you might find you can’t even string a sentence together. And even if you can, that sentence may only make sense in Antarctica.
To explain why are Antarctica veteran Allison ‘Sandwich’ Barden, endocrinologist Tom Baranski, and astrophysicists Amy Lowitz and Christine Moran, reporting from the South Pole in the depths of winter.
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/antarctica.
Find me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Which are you: Millennial, Generation X, Baby Boomer, Silent Generation, an impressively young-looking Arthurian Generation? Or are you an individual who refuses to be labelled? Demographer Neil Howe, author Miranda Sawyer and Megan Tan, the host of Millennial podcast, consider whether the generational names are useful or reductive. Or both.
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/generation-what. Seek me out at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
“How are you?”
“Oh, fine – and you?”
“Yeah, not bad. Nice day today, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it was a bit chilly this morning, but now the sun’s come out…” [Continue until the lift arrives, or until the end of time.]
Small talk is usually not conveying much vital information, nor is it especially interesting. But beneath that comfort blanket of tedium lies a valuable social function.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/smalltalk. Chitchat with me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Got a company or a product or a website you need to name? Well, be wary of the potential pitfalls: trademark disputes; pronounceability; being mistaken for a dead body… Name developer Nancy Friedman explains how she helps companies find the right names, and why so many currently end in ‘-ify’. Plus: The Allusionist’s origin story, with Radiotopiskipper Roman Mars.
Read Nancy’s excellent blog about naming and trends in the language of commerce at http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/brands. Greet me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
‘Classics’ started off meaning Latin and Greek works, then works that smacked of similar, and now – what, exactly? Books that are full of bonnets and dust? Author Kevin Smokler and bookseller Jonathan Main unpick what constitutes a classic, old or new.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/biglit. Announce your favourite classics at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
Open up a dictionary, and you’ll find the history of human behaviour, the key to your own psychological state, and a lot of fun words about cats. Dictionary.com’s Renae Hurlbutt and Jane Solomon lead the way.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/word-of-the-day. Visit me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org.
‘Continent’, as in a land mass, is much more complicated semantically than the bodily function control sense of ‘continent’.
Plus: more ‘please’, and how ‘thank you’ is not necessarily an expression of gratitude.
TL;DR: trust nothing.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/continental. Visit me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org. Radiotopia is having its first ever live show, featuring many of the shows performing new stories at the theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, 4th May 2016. It’ll be excellent! Get your tickets at http://radiotopia.fm/ace.
There’s an ocean between Britain and the USA, but an even wider division between each country’s use of a particular word: ‘please’.
Linguists Lynne Murphy and Rachele De Felice explain how one nation’s obsequiousness is another nation’s obnoxiousness.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/please. Please greet me at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm from PRX.org. Radiotopia is having its first ever live show, featuring many of the shows performing new stories at the theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, 4th May 2016. It’ll be excellent! Get your tickets at http://radiotopia.fm/ace.
Around the world, there are several places called Soho, getting their names from an acronym/portmanteau-ish composite of local streets or neighbouring areas. But not the original Soho in London. In fact, London’s place names are an etymological hotchpotch: landmarks present and long gone; 1000-year-old vanity projects; and Cockfosters.
This is a companion piece to the 99% Invisible episode ‘The Soho Effect’: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-soho-effect.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/soho. Say ‘soHO!’ at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
Breaking up is hard to do, and it’s hard to put into appropriate words. Comedian Rosie Wilby seeks a better term for ‘ex’, and family law barrister Nick Allen runs through the vocabulary of divorce.
NOTE: this episode is not full of bawdy talk, but there are adult themes and a couple of category B swearwords.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/post-love. Don’t go breaking my heart: say hi at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
The 2016 US election isn’t going away anytime soon, so let’s seek refuge in etymology. Consider the linguistically appropriate age of a senator, and whether Congress should get sexy.
And we revisit the UK Election Lexicon – http://theallusionist.com/electionlexicon – for the origin of words like ‘campaign’, ‘ballot’, ‘democracy’, ‘poll’, ‘debate’ and ‘argue’.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/us-electionlexicon. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Spot the Radiotopians in this episode.
You’re looking for your perfect partner, but dating sites keep matching you with duds. So what do you do? Conduct an elaborate linguistic experiment, of course!
At least, that was futurist Amy Webb’s response to the situation. But did it work?
For full show notes and links, visit http://theallusionist.org/wltm-ii. Hear WLTM part I at http://theallusionist.org/wltm-i.
Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
Your online dating profile is the latest spin on a 300-year-old tradition of advertising yourself in order to find a spouse, a sexual partner, or someone to take care of your pigs.
Francesca Beauman, author of Shapely Ankle Preferr’d: A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad, digs into lonely hearts ads to see how British society and desires have evolved over the past three centuries.
For full show notes and links, visit http://theallusionist.org/wltm-i. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
For the last episode of 2015, here’s a melange of etymologies requested by listeners, and anecdotes there wasn’t room for in the show earlier this year. We’ve got Klingon! Acid trips! The plural of ‘octopus’! An unwitting cameo from Cliff Richard!
Warning: this episode contains references to drugs, sex and genitals, plus some mild swears (category B/C).
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/bonus2015, and say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow. The show will return on 27th January 2016.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
CONTENT WARNING: Be wary of listening to this episode around young children, as there may be life spoilers. Historian Greg Jenner traces the origins of that mythical beardy man who turns up in December with gifts. Helen Zaltzman also ensures her permanent removal from everybody’s Christmas card lists.
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/christmas and say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
There’s a language which is said to be the smallest language in the world. It has around 123 words, five vowels, nine consonants, and apparently you can become fluent in it with around 30 hours’ study. It was invented by linguist Sonja Lang in 2001, and it’s called Toki Pona. And fellow Radiotopian Nate DiMeo, from the Memory Palace, decided we should learn it together.
Find the Memory Palace at http://thememorypalace.us/. Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/tokipona and say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
It’s cathartic; it’s a useful historical record; and it might help you behave better on public transport. Neil Katcher and Dave Nadelberg from Mortified discuss the art and practice of keeping a diary.
Find the Mortified podcast, stage shows, documentary, TV series and books at http://getmortified.com.
Roman Mars also stops by to talk about the Radiotopia fundraiser. To support the collective, become a donor at http://on.prx.org/radiotopia-forever.
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/diaries. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer from the podcast Criminal stop by to talk about the linguistic challenges of crime reporting. They also share their episode ‘Pants on Fire’, about lying. It’s an extremely useful handbook if you fancy becoming either a human polygraph, or an excellent liar.
Radiotopia needs your support. Become a donor at http://on.prx.org/radiotopia-forever.
Find Criminal at http://thisiscriminal.com. Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/criminallusionist. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
La la la, dum di di dum, a wop bop a loo bop a wop bom bom – why are songs riddled with non-words masquerading as words? Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder and songwriter Tony Hazzard explain.
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/vocables. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow, and find Song Exploder at http://songexploder.net.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
Radiotopia needs your support. Become a donor at http://on.prx.org/radiotopia-forever.
Naming something after yourself: a grand display of egomania, or the humble willingness to be overshadowed by your own product? Stationery expert James Ward tells the tale of the people who begat the eponymous ballpoint pens Bic and Biro, because, according to 99% Invisible’s Roman Mars, “When it comes to word origins, an eponym is the shortest bet you’re going to get a good story out of it.”
Read more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/ballpoint. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
Why do we all sound like idiots when we talk to babies? Don’t be embarrassed, we’re helping them acquire language. Child psychologist Ben Jeffes explains.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/baby-talk. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn’t seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance, however – that’s really difficult. How do you put a wordless form of communication into words?
Audio describer Alice Sanders and choreographer Steven Hoggett take the issue for a twirl.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/dance. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
The messiness of English is the price of its success. It is the most widely spoken language in the world, geographically, being an official language in 88 different countries, and there are countless different versions of it all over the world. With so many speakers in so many places, it would be impossible to establish a single ‘correct’ form of English; and, as became evident in Fix part I, to try to do so is a losing game.
In Europe, a new strain of English is emerging. It’s not spoken very widely, but it is used by some of the most powerful people in the world. Hampton and Michael Catlin, founders of the collaborative online dictionary Wordset, lead us into this linguistic netherworld. Beware: excessive suffixes.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/fix-ii. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
The English language is a mess. And if you don’t like it, what are you going to do about it – fix it? Good luck with that.
In the early 18th century, a movement of grammarians and authors wanted to set up an official authority to regulate English, like French had in the Academie Francaise. But is trying to fix a language a good move? Linguists Liv Walsh and Thomas Godard weigh up the evidence.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/fix-i. Say hello at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
Words are all over the place. So how do you turn them into fun games? Here to show the way is Leslie Scott, founder of Oxford Games and inventor of more than forty games – including word games such as Ex Libris, Anagram and Flummoxed, and the non-word game Jenga.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/word-play.
Tell me about the word games you’ve invented at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
‘Step-‘, as in stepparents or stepchildren, originated in grief. Family structures have evolved, but are stepmothers now so tainted by fairytale associations with the word ‘wicked’ that we need new terminology?
Lore’s Aaron Mahnke stops by to describe the lovelessness, literary tropes and life expectancy around ‘step-‘.
There is more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/step.
Share your feelings about steprelations at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
Emoji allow communication without words. Could emoji be the universal language of the 21st century? Matt Gray and Tom Scott, founders of the emoji-only messaging platform emoj.li, talk through the pitfalls; and History Today’s Dr Kate Wiles finds the 500- and 5,000-year-old precedents for emoji.
CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains one category B swear word, plus reference to penises growing on trees.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/emoji, including a fine selection of medieval marginalia. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
“The poison is shame. The antidote is pride.”
It’s June; the President of the USA has officially designated it LGBT Pride Month, and there’ll be Pride events around the world. But how did the word ‘pride’ came to be the banner word for demonstrations and celebrations of LGBT rights and culture?
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/pride. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
This episode was produced by me and Eleanor McDowall of Falling Tree, with help from Peregrine Andrews. The music is by Martin Austwick.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
What does brunch have to do with Lewis Carroll? Fall down the rabbit hole of brunch semantics with Dan Pashman of the Sporkful podcast http://sporkful.com.
There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/brunch. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
I know this is a show about words, but forget the words for a moment; look at the spaces between the words. Without the spaces, the words would be nigh incomprehensible. Dr Kate Wiles explains the history of the space.
Visit theallusionist.org/spaces to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow. Also please give us your thoughts about podcasts at surveynerds.com/allusionist.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
Cryptic crosswords: delightful brain exercise, or the infernal taunting of the incomprehensible? Either way, crossword setter John Feetenby explains how they’re made and how to solve them.
Visit theallusionist.org/crosswords to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow. Also please give us your thoughts about podcasts at surveynerds.com/allusionist.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
You’d think you could trust dictionaries, but it turns out, they are riddled with LIES.
Visit theallusionist.org/mountweazel to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow. Also please give us your thoughts about podcasts at surveynerds.com/allusionist
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
Those words on museum walls that you can’t be bothered to read? They’re more important than you think…
Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami explains why.
Visit theallusionist.org/museums to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
Every week since September 1989, a radio station in Finland has broadcast a weekly news bulletin…in Latin.
WHY?
Let’s find out!
Visit theallusionist.org/latin to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow.
The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.
WARNING: this episode contains lots of swearing and words which some of you may find offensive. If, however, you love offensive words, you will enjoy this episode, which is all about how the C-word doesn’t deserve to be the pariah of cusses.
Visit http://theallusionist.org/c-bomb to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow, and convene at facebook.com/allusionistshow. Subscribe on iTunes http://tinyurl.com/iTunesAllusionist.
The Allusionist is a proud member of http://Radiotopia.fm for http://PRX.org.
