Volcanoes. Trees. Drunk butterflies. Mars missions. Slug sex. Death. Beauty standards. Anxiety busters. Beer science. Bee drama. Take away a pocket full of science knowledge and charming, bizarre stories about what fuels these professional -ologists' obsessions. Humorist and science correspondent Alie Ward asks smart people stupid questions and the answers might change your life.
Etymology (WORD ORIGINS) Encore with Helen Zaltzman
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.
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Listen to episodes of The Allusionist mentioned in the show at theallusionist.org/notitle and theallusionist.org/sorry
This week's donation was made to POPStheclub.com
More links at alieward.com/ologies/etymology
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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