This is the allusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzmann, tell language to stare right at the

camera and say cheese.

Coming up in today's show...

Let's limber up with a little word history.

Listener Shannon wants to know whether pilot referred to a specific role or job or person

before airplanes.

The yeshannon it did, about 400 years before the first flight in the early 1500s.

The word appeared in English to mean a person who steers a ship from the Italian pilotto,

which was from the Greek pedon, meaning a rudder or, by extension, the person who controls

the rudder etymologically with their foot.

From the mid 1800s, pilot denoted people who flew balloons, and the first recorded use

for someone flying a plane is from 1907.

Because the pilot was leading or guiding that eventually begat the sense of a pilot being

a prototype, like a TV pilot.

So there you go Shannon, pilot, on with the show.

I've got a somewhat complicated family and have several step-parents.

Although I never really call them that.

I've always just known them as their first name.

It could be a bit jarring to explain how you related to this person who refused to call

your dad that lives in your house with your mum.

I am a step-child and I'm also a step-mom.

And yet I find that I tend to avoid the term altogether.

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