Happy tenth birthday to this show! To celebrate, here's every randomly selected word from the dictionary from the first decade of the show.
Read moreAllusionist 206. Bonus 2024
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!
Read moreTranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations
This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, give your brain a break by temporarily supplanting your interior monologue with words that don't make you feel feelings. Note: this is NOT a normal episode of the Allusionist, where you might learn something about language and your brain might be stimulated. The Tranquillusionist's purpose is to soothe your brain and for you to learn very little, except for something about Zeus's attitude to bad drivers.
Today: constellations that got demoted into ex-constellations. Featuring airborne pregnancy, cats of the skies, and one of the 18th century's most unpopular multi-hyphenates.
Read moreAllusionist 200: 200th episode celebratory quiz!
I can scarce believe that I've made 200 episodes of this show, but here we are! To celebrate, here is a quiz about language where all the questions were set by YOU, the beautiful brainy listeners.
Read moreAllusionist 199: 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet
Next episode is the 200th, therefore this is the 199th. I raid the 66-page documents of ideas for episodes, that I have been keeping for nearly a decade, and present to you 199 ideas that I have not yet made into podcasts (except for this one).
Read moreAllusionist 198: Queer Arab Glossary
Since 2019, Marwan Kaabour has been collecting Arabic slang words used by and about queer people, first for the online community Takweer, and now the newly published Queer Arab Glossary. "When researching for this book, I discovered so much of the sociopolitical, cultural, linguistic, and historical layers that make up the words," he says. He also discovered quite a lot about frying, white beans and worms (metaphorical ones).
Read moreAllusionist 197. Word Play 7: Word Sport
At the Scripps National Spelling Bee, behind the spectacle of kids vying to be champion spellers, a whole lot of work goes on to make words into this word sport.
Read moreAllusionist 196. Word Play 6: Beeing
I went to the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, to marvel at kids spelling words I had mostly never even heard of. But when you’re at Bee Week, the competitive spelling is merely the tip of the icebee.
Read moreAllusionist 191. Hypochondria
The word 'hypochondria' has travelled from meaning physical ailments in a particular region of your body, to ones that are only in your mind. It has been in fashion, and thoroughly out; it has been subject to a range of treatments; it has been lucrative for quacks; and it's a very understandable form of anxiety - which I have, and so does Caroline Crampton, author of the new book A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria.
Read moreAllusionist 187. Bonus 2023
It's our annual end of year parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about, including a mythical disappearing island, geese, human dictionaries, the dubious history of the Body Mass Index, Victorian death department stores, and much more.
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