The Allusionist

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Episodes

Date Title & Description Contributors
2024-12-06

  205. Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog

In Lexicat part 1, we met the author Mary Robinette Kowal and her 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 Cra...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-11-24

  204. Lexicat, part 1

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 l...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-11-09

  203. Flyting

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 ...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-10-29

  202. Singlish Singlish

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 ...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-10-12

  201. Singlish

"If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an already existing language, you kind of get this sense that “I'm just bad at language,” says Bibek Gurung, a former linguist who grew up in Singapore ...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-09-28

  Tranquillusionist: 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 l...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-09-13

  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. Play along with me - there's a score sheet you can use ...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-08-30

  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 pages of ideas for episodes I have been keeping for nearly a decade, and present to you 199 that I have not yet made into podcasts (except for this one). Find the episode's transcrip...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-08-12

  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 soci...
  Helen Zaltzman author
2024-06-30

  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. Offering a peek into the apiary are the Bee's executive director Corrie Loeffler, and Ben ...
  Helen Zaltzman author