Today’s episode is something a bit different to usual. A few months ago, I was a guest on the podcast Ologies, a terrific show where the very funny and delightful and curious Alie Ward interviews an ologist of some kind - bisonologist (ologist of bisons), ludologist (video games), corvid thanatology (crow funerals!).

Alie interviewed me as an etymologist (I’m not a qualified etymologist, mind; just an enthusiast (and definitely not an entomologist)), and we cover etymologies of words including ‘buxom’, ‘mediocre’, ‘coccyx’, ‘lacuna’, bust some etymological myths, discuss some broader attitudes towards language, and wonder why so many people hate the word ‘moist’. Here’s some of our conversation; you can hear the full-length version on Ologies.

There are a couple of swears in it, including what Alie calls ‘ the Swiss Army Knife of cussing’.

The transcript is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/zaltzology.

Other relevant Allusionist episodes include Detonating the C Bomb, about swears; Latin Lives! about the Finnish news broadcast in Latin (vale, Nuntii Latini); and The Authority, for more about ‘on fleek’.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:

rantipole