This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Helen Zoltzmann's The Illusionist is a show about language and words. That's kind of like saying that this show is about architecture and design. about that large. My favorite words are eponyms. If you don't know what an eponym is, you are

about to find out. Because I love eponyms so much, each year Helen produces an episode

of the illusionist about eponyms, which feature me talking a little bit, and we put two of those episodes together for you to enjoy.

One quick note, Helen is from the UK where they often refer to Ballpoint pens as biros. You would have picked that up through context,

but I just wanted to eliminate that half second of confusion that you might have if you're not from there.

All right, without further ado, here is Helen's Altzman's, the illusionist.

A while ago, Roman tweeted the following. I would totally listen to an ongoing radio series

comprised solely of the stories behind eponyms.

Firstly, I thought, what's an eponym?

noun, a word or name derived from the name of a person or a person after whom a discovery

invention place etc is named. Secondly I wondered what it was about eponyms that

got Romans so excited. An eponym just just almost by definition, has some kind of story, even if it isn't the origin story, it has something where it got the eponym attached to it, which is a good enough story to be re-told and so for that reason I just I kind of love them and it sort of starts a good conversation. I think that's what that's what I love love about up and I've always like silhouette because I think it's a little bit of a slur if I have this right the idea like a really elaborate painting portraiture was in fashion,

silhouette was the head of the French Treasury,

was cutting back into their version of austerity.

And that's right at the time when outline drawings were becoming in fashion which are clearly not as elaborate,

didn't require an artist, didn't require months of time, and so that type of a portrait was a la silhouette like a

really like stripped down simple didn't require a skill and I love that because it it's a bit of a slide at the same time as being descriptive.

And so I love those ones like that.

Well if you like silhouette Roman you're probably going to love

Baudlerization after the English editor Thomas Baudler who in 1818 released a

version of Shakespeare's plays that he'd reworked to make them more suitable for women and children.

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