Podcast: The Allusionist (LS 70 · TOP 0.05% what is this?)
Episode: 121. No Title
Pub date: 2020-09-14

Notes from The Listener:

Live performance of a podcast episode about how deeply embedded notions of gender are in the English language. It ranges widely through the past in an attempt to explain the fundamental inequalities of how we address each other: why is it that a woman's title must reflect her marital status, and why does an honorific need to signify a gender anyway? There are compromises that we try instead — "Ms" and the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, notably — and although imperfect they have a surprisingly long history

In 2014, a seemingly trivial and boring incident at the bank propelled me down a linguistic road via medieval werewolves, Ms Marvel and confusingly inscribed gravestones, to find out why the English language is riddled with all this gender. What’s it FOR? How did it GET there? Will it go AWAY now please? It is, at the very least, taking up brainspace and not paying any rent.

This is a recording of a live performance at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room in St Louis, Missouri on 23 November 2019, and there were visuals happening, so I’ll drop in sometimes to explain them, and I’ve also put a transcript and pictures at theallusionist.org/notitle.

There are swears in this. There are also arguments that will be very useful to you if you ever come up against a denier of singular they. You will definitely win.

The show features Martin Austwick and Richard Zaltzman. The original music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s songs at palebirdmusic.com or on Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. He also composed the music for the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers.

I make two other podcasts, Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This.

The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Helen Zaltzman, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.