The Allusionist

Somebody has really ticked you off. You’re all steamed up inside and you want to vent that rage using words, but you don’t want to confront them directly because you’re either too polite or too cowardly. So do you:A. Subtweet them.B. With your finger, scrawl an insulting message into the dirt on their car.C. Get a small sheet of lead, scratch into it a message cursing your enemies, roll it up and throw it into your nearest sacred spring? Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s 1,700-2,000 years ago and you’re living in the Ancient Roman Empire, so the answer is C. Stephen Clews, the manager of the Roman baths at Bath, shows us the curses that were sloshing around in the waters for hundreds of years. NB One category A and one category B swear appear in this episode. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/curse-tablets. The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’re holding a letter. What’s inside? A weather report from 5,000 miles away? Some devastating family history? A single word? A heartfelt dispatch from your past self that’s about to change the course of your life? Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-2. The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From Me To You’s Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley didn’t know each other well. But when Brian was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Alison offered to write him letters. 100 letters later, their lives were changed. Ear Hustle is a podcast made inside San Quentin by and about the men incarcerated there, in collaboration with Nigel Poor. In prison, a letter is a precious thing. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-1. The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms – words that derive from people’s names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word ‘guy’. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/guy. CONTENT NOTE: the episode contains a description of 17th century torture and execution. The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’ve encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science fiction. This episode is a collaboration with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds; listen to his episode about technobabble, featuring ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD TECHNOBABBLERS, at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org. The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Accent is identity. It’s a way of encoding and signaling – almost completely at an unconscious level for most people – who they feel like they are, who they want to be seen as, what group they feel like they belong to.” The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz investigates how accents have evolved in the UK and USA. Hear Twenty Thousand Hertz at http://20k.org and find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/evolution-of-accents. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Crossword-solving is often a solitary activity – over breakfast; on the train; on the loo… But a few times a year, crossword puzzle enthusiasts gather in their hundreds to compete to be the fastest, most accurate crossword-solver. This episode comes to you from a church basement on the Upper East Side of New York City, wherein takes place America’s second largest crossword puzzle tournament: Lollapuzzoola. For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/lollapuzzoola. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“It’s sort of frozen body language; that’s what handwriting analysis is about.” Since it caught on a couple of hundred years ago, graphology – analysing handwriting to deduce characteristics of the writer – has struggled to be taken seriously as a practice. But undoubtedly, there are things about ourselves that we can’t help but reveal in our handwriting. Graphologist Adam Brand explains the ‘pseudoscience/useful art’. For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/graphology. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they’re not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what’s going on with indefinite hyperbolic numerals like ‘zillion’, ‘squillion’ and ‘kajillion’. For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/zillions. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Translation, A Love Story: Translator listens to The Allusionist. Translator hears about the podcast The Memory Palace. Translator listens to The Memory Palace. Translator immediately becomes smitten with The Memory Palace. Translator translates The Memory Palace from English to Brazilian Portuguese, and turns it into a book – O Palácio da Memória – which will be published in Brazil two weeks hence. But, like any love story, it’s not quite that simple. Literary translator Caetano Galindo recounts the trials and treats of turning Nate DiMeo’s English language audio into Brazilian Portuguese text. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/translation, and hear The Memory Palace at http://thememorypalace.us. The Allusionist is on a break during July. There’ll be a new episode out on 4 August; meanwhile, stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow. And come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September.Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionistSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.