PODCAST

The Allusionist

Helen Zaltzman

Adventures in language with Helen Zaltzman. TheAllusionist.org

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All Episodes

00:46:10

219. Making Trouble

The Allusionist ·

2025/10/26

A change of scene for one episode: recently the brilliant poet and performer Molly Naylor interviewed me for her podcast Making Trouble, about creativity, and she kindly let me run a version of that episode here for you. We're talking about ideas, but also long-term creative careers, mortality, podcasting, external validation, and Molly offers some great prompts for either sparking ideas or making a dinner conversation a bit more lively. Find her work at mollynaylor.com, and listen to Making Trouble

00:39:49

218. Banned Books

The Allusionist ·

2025/10/07

It's Banned Books Week. Honorary youth chair Iris Mogul and Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, talk about what it is, why it matters so much, and how you can get involved.Visit theallusionist.org/bannedbooks for more information and many links about today's topics, plus a transcript of the episode. Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes info about every episode; livestreams with

00:37:24

217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee

The Allusionist ·

2025/09/24

In their heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, there were more than 200 - possibly more than 400 - feminist restaurants and coffee shops in the USA and Canada. These places were aiming to change ways of working, and upend the hierarchies of restaurants; to provide food that was ethically sourced and affordable to customers, while providing staff with a decent wage; to signal to particular kinds of people that a space was specifically for them. They didn't always succeed, and often they didn't last for more

00:26:43

216. Four Letter Words: Terisk

The Allusionist ·

2025/09/08

Watching the film Legally Blonde one day with the subtitles on, numerous perfectly innocuous words were partially asterisked out, because of a technological problem I can't name here lest this episode be blocked from your podfeed, thus becoming an example of the problem itself.Who's to blame? A 900-year-old man from Lincolnshire. Although he didn't ask for this either. Content note: this episode contains SWEARS. Educational though! Visit theallusionist.org/terisk for more information about

00:19:25

215. Two-Letter Words

The Allusionist ·

2025/08/26

Listener Erica commented: "Perhaps an idea for a bonus ep of Four Letter Word season would be one on two-letter words: there’s an established list that Scrabble nerds end up memorizing, and it’s full of weirdness." In fact, there are TWO established lists, NASPA, the North American Scrabble Players Association, which has currently 107 two-letter words, and Collins Scrabble Words, formerly known as SOWPODS, used by the rest of the world and contains at present 127 two-letter words.And this episode,

00:35:43

214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath

The Allusionist ·

2025/08/13

For today’s instalment of Four Letter Word season, we’re hopping from ‘bane’ to ‘bain’ to ‘bath’, via poison gardens, doll’s eyes, alchemists, placentas and waterborne curses.Visit theallusionist.org/bane for more information about today's topics, plus a transcript of the episode. Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes info about every episode, livestreams with me, Martin and my ever-growing collection of

00:51:19

213. Four Letter Words: Dino

The Allusionist ·

2025/07/21

The latest four letter word of Four Letter Word season is dino. 'Dinosaur' is derived from Greek 'terrible lizard', and they could have called it 'whopping great lizard' or 'sublime lizard' or 'hey cool lizard', but no. TERRIBLE. Professor Hannah McGregor of Material Girls podcast and author of the book Clever Girl: Jurassic Park explains humans' relationship with language for dinosaurs, and why 'terrible' might be a perfect choice.Visit theallusionist.org/dino for more information about dinos,

00:48:04

212. Four Letter Words: Park

The Allusionist ·

2025/07/08

Get in, winner: we're going on a field trip. We're spending the day in five of Vancouver's city parks with Justin McElroy, Municipal Affairs Reporter for the CBC and ranker of Vancouver's 243 parks at VancouverParkGuide.ca. Together we ponder: what IS a park? You think you know, then along comes a slab of concrete called a park to test your taxonomy.Visit theallusionist.org/park for photos of the parks and more information about them, plus a transcript of the episode. Events are happening! Get

00:37:03

211. Four Letter Words: -gate

The Allusionist ·

2025/06/23

The other day was the 53rd anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which not only caused a lot of political uproar, it had a big linguistic legacy: the suffix -gate to mean a scandal. Today, as part of Four Letter Word season, we have a list of -gates - royal, sporting, political, food, showbiz - it's a non-exhaustive list because there are so many, and new ones are being spawned all the time. Content warning for all sorts of bad human behaviour.At theallusionist.org/gate you'll find a

00:24:02

210. 4x4x4 Quiz

The Allusionist ·

2025/06/07

Four Letter Word season continues with a quiz (which is a four-letter word itself) about four letter words. Test your etymological knowledge, and hear about the original nepo baby, John Venn's invention that wasn't the venn diagram, brat, gunk, rube, the time(s) Led Zeppelin changed their name, and plenty more.Play along while you listen - there's an interactive scoresheet at theallusionist.org/444, where there's also a transcript of this episode, plus links to more information about topics

00:50:39

209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-bomb

The Allusionist ·

2025/05/25

Ten years ago, on the fourth episode of the show, I investigated why the C-word is considered a worse swear than the others. Since then - well really just in the last three years or so - there has been a huge development: the word has hit the mainstream as a compliment, in the forms of serving it and -y. Linguists Nicole Holliday and Kelly Elizabeth Wright discuss this use of the word originating in the ballroom culture of New York City in the 1990s, and what it means to turn such a strong swear

00:44:13

208. Four Letter Words: Ffff

The Allusionist ·

2025/05/15

Welcome to Four Letter Word season!We're kicking off with one of the most versatile words: it can be a noun, verb, punctuation, expostulation, full sentence on its own; it can be an intensifier, an insult and a compliment... and a Category A swear, which is why I've had to sanitise it for the title lest your pod app takes exception. And of course, content note: this episode contains many category A swears, plus some sexual references. Lexicographer and editor Jesse Sheidlower joins to talk about

43:08

208. Four Letter Words: Ffff

The Allusionist ·

2025/05/11

Welcome to four letter word season! We're kicking off with one of the most versatile words: it can be a noun, verb, punctuation, expostulation, full sentence on its own; it can be an intensifier, an insult and a compliment... and a Category A swear, which is why I've had to sanitise it for the title lest your pod app takes exception. And, of course, content note: this episode contains many category A swears, plus some sexual references. Lexicographer and editor Jesse Sheidlower joins to talk about

1:43

several bits of news! (nothing bad)

The Allusionist ·

2025/04/29

Hello! It's me, your real imaginary friend, Helen Zaltzman. Someone wrote to me recently saying, “I haven't seen a new episode, are you OK?” I'm OK, thank you! I took a break for some work things such as the return of my other podcast Answer Me This, and also to have a vacation. Hadn't had one of those for a bit. It was very nice. Strongly recommend vacation. But the show will be back on the 9th May with a season about… four letter words! That's right: some of your favourite

39:24

207. Randomly Selected Words from the Dictionary

The Allusionist ·

2025/01/17

Happy tenth birthday to this show! To celebrate, here's every randomly selected word from the dictionary from the first decade of the show. Visit theallusionist.org/randomlyselectedwords to read the transcript and get other Tranquillusionist episodes. The podcast is taking a break until early May 2025, but the Allusioverse will continue to be in full swing: become a member at theallusionist.org/donate. You get regular livestreams with me reading from my ever-expanding collection of dictionaries,

45:35

206. Bonus 2024

The Allusionist ·

2024/12/23

It's the annual parade of Bonus Bits - things this year's guests said that I couldn't fit into their episodes, and/or weren't about language, but now is their time to shine. We've got tricorn hats, changing your dog's name, Boston cream pie, parmesan vs vomit, the placebo effect's negative sibling, the universal blank, headache poetry and bawdy riddles. And more! Thanks to, in order of appearance: Joanna Kopaczyk, Juliana Pache, Ben Zimmer, Stacey Mei Yan Fong, A.J. Jacobs, Zazie Todd and Caroline

53:40

205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog

The Allusionist ·

2024/12/06

In Lexicat part 1, we met the author Mary Robinette Kowal and her cat Elsie, and learned about how they communicate via a set of buttons programmed with words. In part 2, two talking dogs, Bastian and Parker - and their humans, Joelle Andres and Sascha Crasnow - join us too, and explain how they discovered some very unexpected things about what their animal companions are thinking and feeling thanks to the buttons, and how they changed the ways they communicate with other humans too. And animal

51:54

204. Lexicat, part 1

The Allusionist ·

2024/11/24

Elsie the cat has a set of 120 buttons programmed with words. She uses them to lie, swear, apologise, express grief and frustration and love to her human, the author Mary Robinette Kowal, who talks about what's involved in learning to communicate via language buttons with companion animals. And animal behaviour expert Zazie Todd explains how animals might be interacting with human language. This is the first half of a two-parter: in the next episode, some talking dogs - and their humans - come to

49:56

203. Flyting

The Allusionist ·

2024/11/09

In 15th and 16th century Scotland, in the highest courts of the land, you'd find esteemed poets hurling insults at each other. This was flyting, a sort of medieval equivalent of battle rap, and it was so popular at the time that the King himself wrote instructions for how to do it well. Writer and Scots language campaigner Ishbel McFarlane and historical linguist Joanna Kopaczyk explain the art of flyting, where an insult becomes slander, what's going on within the speech act of performative

42:52

202. Singlish Singlish

The Allusionist ·

2024/10/29

There's so much more to say about Singlish after last episode that we're saying some more of it this episode. Poet and academic Gwee Li Sui, author of Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to how Singaporeans Communicate, describes the resistance he received in Singapore when he published Singlish translations of literary works - and why they are important and celebratory for Singlish. And Stacey Mei Yan Fong, baker and author of 50 Pies, 50 States, explains how the language that used to be embarrassing

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