214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For today’s instalment of Four Letter Word season, we’re hopping from ‘bane’ to ‘bain’ to ‘bath’, via poison gardens, doll’s eyes, alchemists, placentas and waterborne curses.
Visit theallusionist.org/bane for more information about today's topics, plus a transcript of the episode.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes info about every episode, livestreams with me, Martin and my ever-growing collection of dictionaries, and the charming and nurturing Allusioverse Discord community, where we're watching the current seasons of Great British Sewing Bee.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Martin Austwick appears and also composed the music, including his new song 'Poison Garden'. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and on Bandcamp, and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, am still receiving languages post from when it used to live here. |
| 0:10.0 | Can I stop forwarding it now? It's been years. |
| 0:13.0 | By the way, if you've never beheld inwitches.tumbler.com, do, do behold it. |
| 0:20.0 | To go with every episode's In Witch, there is a lovingly chosen gif, |
| 0:25.4 | thanks to Usher who curates them. |
| 0:27.9 | Do I sometimes worry about the in-witch I've written, |
| 0:30.0 | giving Usher a hell of a chore? |
| 0:31.8 | I do. |
| 0:32.8 | Do I do it anyway? |
| 0:34.1 | Yes. |
| 0:34.7 | Sorry. |
| 0:36.3 | For today's |
| 0:37.5 | installment of four-letter word season, |
| 0:39.7 | we are hopping from Bain |
| 0:41.3 | to Ban to Bath |
| 0:43.2 | via doll's eyes, placenters |
| 0:45.7 | and curses. |
| 0:47.3 | Listen to other episodes in four-letter |
| 0:49.2 | word season down your pod feed, |
| 0:51.2 | including ones about the scandal suffix |
| 0:53.4 | gate, the word park, the F word and the |
| 0:56.6 | C word, and the D word, which is Dino. That one's not a read word at all. On with the show. |
... |
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