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It's the annual etymology quizlusionist! I’m on a family holiday for the first time since 1988, so enlisted my brother Andy Zaltzman of the Bugle podcast to test his/your wits on singing goats, explosives, mythological Greek sweeteners, attics, left-handedness and whales.
Can you beat Andy’s score? Play along using the interactive scoresheet at the bottom of this post.
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Have you ever wondered why the planets in our solar system are all named after Roman deities, except two of them? One of those exceptions is Earth. The other is Uranus.
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“Anxiety is the parrot sidekick that rides on my shoulder and occasionally squawks warnings in my ear,” says Tim Clare, poet and podcaster and author of the book Coward: Why We Get Anxious & What We Can Do About It. We talk about anxiety, cowardice, magic bullets vs silver bullets, the scary Bible, and seagulls.
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Quiz time! Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway of Home Cooking podcast join to deliver questions about food etymology, as well as what are the two words that make a dance track, and whether 'za' is an acceptable abbreviation for 'pizza'.
Play along and keep track of your score using the interactive scoresheet further down this post.
Read moreThis is the Alloooooooooosionist, in which we learn about the etymology of some scary words for Halloween, with the help of Paul Bae of The Black Tapes and The Big Loop podcasts, and Chelsey Weber-Smith of the podcast American Hysteria. Beware of demons! Satan! The bogeyman! Lemurs!
Wait - lemurs??
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To mark the 100th episode of the Allusionist, here’s a celebratory parade of language-related facts.
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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.
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On your marks...
Get set...
GO!
It's the Etymolympics, where the gymnastics should be gymnaked and the hurdles are a bloodbath.
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Plus: more 'please'. Following the previous episode, listeners from several continents have contributed their local experience of 'please' usage, in what eventually will surely be considered the definitive global study of human niceties. Also, Lynne Murphy and Rachele De Felice return to explain how 'thank you' is not necessarily an expression of gratitude.
TL;DR: trust nothing.
Yeah but come on, what IS a continent? Anyone?
How the continents - whatever the hell they are - got their names.
Learn about Pangaea and Panthalassa, so you’re prepared when the next supercontinent shows up.
How and why non-European countries can compete in the Eurovision Song Contest.
“This is a shocked pair of girls who have just heard the apologetic U.S. soldier say that he looked like a bum. In English slang, he said he looked like his own backside.” Thanks to listener Mike for sending me this 1942 advice for Americans visiting Britain. So many linguistic obstacles for transatlantic travel(l)ers!
There's a transcript of this episode at theallusionist.org/transcripts/continental.
Linguist and 'please' investigator Lynne Murphy's blog is separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com and she is @lynneguist on Twitter. Rachele De Felice is @racagain on Twitter.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with music by Martin Austwick. Martin's continental drift-inspired instrument-free instrumental was the result of combining boredom, Garageband for iPad and all the homemade percussion options offered by a B&B room in Utah.
