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The Allusionist

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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 73. Supername!

February 23, 2018 The Allusionist
A73 super logo.jpg

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.

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In episodes Tags names, nomenclature, superheroes, Superman, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Black Power, gender, Stan Lee, Marvel, DC, comics, comic books, Glen Weldon, language, words, Pop Culture Happy Hour, naming, PCHH, cartoons, movies, films, television, TV, alliteration, The Black Panthers, civil rights movement, Michael the bee, race, representation, Batman
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The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.