1. Ban The Pun.
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2015
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In late 2014, China announced it was to ban puns. Helen Zaltzman wishes she could ban puns in her own family.
Warning: this episode features some hideous incidences of wordplay.
Visit http://theallusionist.org/puns to find out more about this episode.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For radio topia from PRX, this is the Allusionist. |
| 0:08.1 | That's Allusionist with an A, not an I, I can't promise illusions, I can only promise little |
| 0:13.4 | linguistic adventures for you the listener with me Helen Zoltzmann. |
| 0:18.0 | Coming up in today's show, we'll put the pun into punch myself in the head just to make |
| 0:22.0 | the word play stop. |
| 0:25.6 | To warm up, here's some word history. |
| 0:28.6 | And as this is the first episode of the show, let's begin with Hello, or Hello, Hello, |
| 0:35.6 | Hello, depending on which value you favor. |
| 0:38.5 | There are even some outliers who say hello. |
| 0:41.1 | Regardless, the term probably started out with the old high German shout of Hello, or |
| 0:45.6 | Hello, or which they used to call at ferrymen. |
| 0:48.5 | This went through various situations as something you'd bellow at people to get their attention, |
| 0:52.2 | but the word really got its big break with the invention of the telephone. |
| 0:56.2 | It was light bulb fan Thomas Edison, who endorsed Hello as the thing to say when he picked |
| 1:01.0 | up the phone. |
| 1:02.0 | The telephone's inventor Alexander Graham Bell was keen for people to open with a hoi. |
| 1:07.3 | It would have made phone conversations a lot more practical sounding. |
| 1:12.2 | And now on with the show. |
| 1:17.0 | Towards the end of 2014, some news broke that devastated everyone around me. |
| 1:22.1 | China was to ban puns. |
| 1:27.2 | China has a very rich history of punning. |
| 1:29.8 | The language is absolutely full of homophones, words and parts of words that sound like |
... |
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