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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.
In order of appearance, we hear from:
Translator and author Caetano Galindo describes how the countril Brazil got its name; he appeared on the Brief History of Brazilian Portuguese episode.
Lexicographer and Countdown's Dictionary Corner-er Susie Dent brings us some pleasing words; she provided more joyful etymologies on the Siblings of Chaos episode.
Academic and author of Women and Dictionary-Making Lindsay Rose Russell explains the terms ‘walking dictionary’ and ‘sleeping dictionary’; she discussed the undersung roles of women in dictionary-making in the Cairns episode.
Writer, documentary star and Maintenance Phase cohost Aubrey Gordon notes the origins and misuse of the BMI and body positivity movement; she talked about how people talk about fat in Fat part 1 and part 2.
Historian Dean Vuletic explains why we say "Nul points!" about Eurovision Song Contest losers; he dug into Eurovision’s linguistic complications and controversies in Eurovision part 1 and part 2.
Council funeral officer and author of the book Ashes To Admin Evie King on alternatives to cremation; in the Death episode she talked about her job arranging funerals for people who have nobody else to do it.
Griefcast's Cariad Lloyd describes Victorian Brits' strict rules for grief, and the misuse of the concept of five stages of grief; in the Death episode she considered how we could talk about death better.
Plus! Renaming updates, movie-named knitwear, and my portmanteaus and portmantNOs of the year.
Content notes: this episode contains discussions of death, grief, anti-fat bias, eugenics and racism; I've included warnings in the audio before each section where relevant, so you know which specific parts to skip if you need to.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
Hy-Brasil, the disappearing island.
Jay’s Mourning Warehouse, leaning into “the perceived necessity of expensive and elaborate clothes, jewellery and public performance. In showing their prevalence through time, Jays could adapt them to the contemporary masses.”
ctrl+F for the word ‘mourning’ - there’s a whole section about Jay’s, as well as a bunch of other grief shopping options of yore.
AMA BMI update and its impact.
“Richmond’s public school system has maintained a steady pace of renaming schools from Confederate leaders to historical figures from the city. With these latest changes, Richmond became the city with the most name changes. This decision has also made Virginia the state with the most name changes in the nation.”
Aubrey Gordon’s documentary Your Fat Friend has several screenings coming up in early 2024, as well as an online watchparty next week.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community - where I post all my latest, vilest portmantNOs. And we watch things together: on 27 December join us for a medley of festive specials, including Pottery Throwdown, Bake Off and Veronica Mars.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
pavage, noun, historical: a tax or toll to cover the paving of streets.
Origin Middle English: from Old French, from paver ‘to pave’.
CREDITS:
This episode was written, edited, produced etc etc etc by me, Helen Zaltzman.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social and instagram.com/allusionistshow
Back in the second half of January 2024 with a new episode - HZ.
Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by:
• Ravensburger, who make all sorts of jigsaw puzzles, including light-up 3D puzzles and puzzles you can use as pen holders afterwards. Buy Ravensburger puzzles in your preferred puzzle emporium and from Ravensburger's official websites.
• Kitsch, fun and useful skincare, haircare and accessories and styling tools. Get 30% off your entire order at MyKitsch.com/allusionist.
• Bombas, whose mission is to make the comfiest clothes ever, and match every item sold with an equal item donated. Go to bombas.com/allusionist to get 20% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free 2-week trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.
• Canva, great design at your fingertips to level up your videos/presentations/websites etc. And you can collaborate: get a FREE 45-day extended trial when you go to Canva.me/allusionist. -
MP3 • APPLE PODCASTS • RSS • GOOGLE • TRANSCRIPT
Lipreading has been in the news this month, thanks to gossip-stoking mouth movements at the Golden Globes that the amateur lipreaders of The Internet rushed to interpret. But lipreading tutor Helen Barrow describes how reading lips really works - the confusable consonants, the importance of context and body language - and gossip maven Lainey Lui explains why these regularly occurring lipreading gossip stories are unworthy of a second or even first glance.
Content note: this episode contains three Category B swears. Collect them all!EXTRA MATERIALS:
There are transcripts of every episode, including this one, at theallusionist.org/transcripts.
Lipreading alphabet - practice those visemes.
There’s quite a lot of lipreading in detective fiction: Helen Barrow alluded to the lipreading Sherlock Holmes rival Judith Lee, and there’s Colin Dexter’s The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, and The Listening Eye by Patricia Wentworth, for starters. And there was the real Sue Thomas who inspired the TV drama Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye.
Content warning: ableism. “Reformers wanted to eliminate ‘manualism’, the use of sign language, and replace it with ‘oralism’, the exclusive use of speech and lipreading.”
“These videos don’t tend to reveal big secrets. They tend to contain loose phrases that set off viewers’ imaginations. The veracity of lip readings that circulate on TikTok is not guaranteed.”
Previous cases include Bennifer and Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn and Bill Paxton (CW cancer) and John Terry (CW racism)…
Listen to Lainey on the Gossip episode of this show, for more about the history and usefulness and philosophy of gossip.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community. We’re having weekly gatherings to watch the current season of Great Pottery Throwdown and will soon add the Canadian version to our lives.
I appear on a recent episode of Pop This! podcast, talking about the truly baffling 2000 film Duets, directed by Bruce Paltrow and starring his daughter Gwyneth. Listen here. And here is a playlist of me being a guest on other people’s podcasts.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
blunge, verb: mix (clay or other materials) with water in a revolving apparatus, for use in ceramics.
Derivatives: blunger, noun.
Origin 19th century: blend of blend and plunge.
CREDITS:
Helen Barrow teaches lipreading and hearing loss management. Find out more about her classes, and additional events such as the hard of hearing captioned screening of Barbie she has coming up, at her website lipreading.me.uk.
Lainey Lui is the professional gossip of LaineyGossip.com and The Squawk on Substack.
Thanks to Tracey Burch of the Association of Teachers of Lipreading to Adults, and to Shedunnit podcast.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
Back in two weeks with a new episode - HZ.
Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by:
• Kitsch, fun and useful skincare, haircare and accessories and styling tools. Get 30% off your entire order at MyKitsch.com/allusionist.
• Bombas, whose mission is to make the comfiest clothes ever, and match every item sold with an equal item donated. Go to bombas.com/allusionist to get 20% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free 2-week trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.