logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2023
1h 6m

Etymology (WORD ORIGINS) Encore with Hel...

ALIE WARD
About this episode

The brilliant and dazzling Helen Zaltzman pops in with some new asides in this encore episode of Ologies. Helen, host of the podcasts The Allusionist, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, and a person who technically for a living researches the origins of language and thus is an etymologist, visits Alie's apartment to chat about various word origins, gender in language, the Bible a.k.a. The Oxford English Dictionary, origins of the filthiest slang, emoji decoding, mediocrity, step parents, babies wearing glasses, Greek kimonos, the romance of languages and the fundamental truth that language is always changing whether you want it to or not. Also tomatoes, pliable boobs, avocados, and fish trails.

Follow Helen on Twitter & Instagram

Listen to episodes of The Allusionist mentioned in the show: No Title and Sorry

This week's donation was made to POPS the Club

More episode sources and links

Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes

Sponsors of Ologies

Transcripts and bleeped episodes

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!

Follow @Ologies on Twitter and Instagram

Follow @AlieWard on Twitter and Instagram

Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media, Steven Ray Morris and Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

Up next
Yesterday
Blattodeology (YES, COCKROACHES) with Dominic Evangelista
Dazzling colors. Remote habitats. Gentle parenting. Fantastic genitalia. And yeah, swimming through sewers to surprise you. It’s cockroaches and I promise you will find something to love about them in this chat with cockroach evangelist and Blattodeologist Dr. Dominic Evangelista ... Show More
1h 8m
Oct 8
Haunted Hydrology (SPOOKY LAKES) with Geo Rutherford
Mudbank bones. River wrecks. Salty seas. Pink ponds. Poison dust devils. Steamy streams.. It’s Haunted Hydrology with your favorite Spooky Lakes ambassador, the artist and author Geo Rutherford who is widely known as Geodesaurus. Geo covers the dark history of The Great Lakes, a ... Show More
1h 13m
Oct 1
Serpopsychology (WHAT’S CREEPY?) with Frank McAndrew
Are you creepy? How would you know? What’s “creepy” as opposed to scary or eerie? We talk to the pioneer of this research, Serpopsychologist, Dr. Frank McAndrew, a professor emeritus at Knox College. We chat: dates that give you the willies, Weary Willie the Clown, haunted dolls, ... Show More
1h 9m
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
Bridgit Mendler, Frida Sofia Guzmán Muñoz & Ella Beatty?
🚨 COME SEE US IN LONDON & DUBLIN NEXT WEEK! BUY TIX HERE! 🚨 On today's JAM-PACKED episode of Who's There, our weekly call-in show, we learn the difference between Spaghetti Warehouse and Spaghetti Factory, the truth about PopCrave's founder, the name of Normani's debut album, t ... Show More
1h 30m
Feb 2024
The Cult of Love Is Blind
Would you sacrifice your phone, passport, dignity, and freedom to move into an isolated pod for 10 days and compete against a sorority of strangers in search of True Love™, all for a world of fiendish reality TV consumers to see??? Sounds like cult behavior to me!!! This week, ju ... Show More
53m 37s
Feb 2024
Your English Five a Day #16.3
E182: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, your host, Anna. Tune in to Week 16, Day 3 of Your English Five a Day, a series designed to enrich your vocabulary by five words each weekday. 🌟 Today's journey starts with the nouns "assumption" and "mentor". Next, ... Show More
14m 12s
Feb 2024
Liv Reads Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy (Book 2)
Liv reads Quintus Smyrnaeus' The Fall of Troy, translated by AS Way. In the only surviving source retelling the end of the Trojan War, Troy reels after the Amazon Penthesilea's death. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!This is not a standard n ... Show More
54m 57s
Feb 2024
But He’s Such a Nice Guy! Ovid’s Ars Amatoria in Mythological Practice
Liv continues the horror that is Ovid's Ars Amatoria by looking at his tips and tricks being utilized in Augustan Imperial Roman epic poetry. It's dark. Be warned. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!CW/TW: This work is horrifying and promotes ... Show More
40m 5s
Feb 2024
🔒 Exploring English Vocabulary: Remote Working with Lindsay
Subscriber-only episodeE186: 🎙️  Welcome to another Bonus Episode, Plus Members! Thank you for tuning in once again. Today, we're delving into the nitty-gritty of some vocabulary discussed in my recent chat with Lindsay in Episode 185: Native English Conversation: Remote Working ... Show More
10 m
Feb 2024
Your English Five a Day #16.2
E181: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with Anna! Join us for Week 16, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day, where we dive into enriching your vocabulary with five new words or phrases each weekday. 🔥 Today's lesson begins with the noun "wear and tear", and then we e ... Show More
14m 6s
May 2023
Momin - Cultural resilience and determined adaptation
🇵🇸🇫🇷 This episode’s guest is Momin, he is Palestinian and found asylum in France, 4 years ago.With Momin, we talked about: The role of the country’s locals when integrating a new cultureThe commitment it takes to become native speaker of a completely new languageSeeing cultur ... Show More
18m 46s
Feb 2024
Your English Five a Day #16.1
E180: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, Anna! Tune in to Week 16, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day, where we boost your active vocabulary with five new words every weekday. 🌟 Today's list kicks off with "tactic" and then we look at the verb "establish". N ... Show More
13m 35s
Feb 2024
The Pledge: Who Really Wrote the Pledge of Allegiance?
In today's Episode, Dana, Zaron and Jason tackle a 130-year-old mystery. Although American schoolchildren still recite The Pledge every morning in nearly every classroom, we still aren't sure who actually wrote it. And all these years later, the long-accepted story is showing som ... Show More
46m 18s