
92 episodes

The Endless Knot Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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- History
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4.6 • 40 Ratings
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Aven & Mark discuss etymology, history, literature, language, and cocktails, and the sometimes surprising connections between them all.
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Meta-Etymology
We talk about the etymology of “Etymology” itself, and then discuss the basics of historical linguistics, including Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law, and more. We also talk about Isidore of Seville, the etymological puns of Latin poets, and the way Mark does his research for his videos.
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Alexander the Great, with Meg Finlayson
This episode is all about Alexander the Great, and especially about his reception by later Greeks & Romans, the middle ages, and modern popular culture. We had the pleasure of interviewing Meg Finlayson who studies Alexander and his reception and shared her knowledge, enthusiasm, and dreams of a new Alexander movie with Colin Farrell playing Philip!
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Who's on Your Calendar?
Happy holidays! In this seasonal episode we discuss the origins of the modern Western calendar, the names of the months and days of the week, and the sources we have for Roman calendars and Germanic gods. Happy new year, and may it be better than the last!
Our poster store
Crosscut Distillery
Sabbath
Millennial
Ovid's Fasti
Herbert-Brown, Geraldine. “Fasti: the Poet, the Prince, and the Plebs” in A Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox, Wiley-Blackwell. 2013.
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Election Talk to Take Your Mind off the Election
It’s election night 2020 in the US, and our video from 4 years ago about the language of politics is relevant once again. We discuss the changing vocabulary of democracy and what it can tell us about shifting attitudes towards popular rule and politicians. It may not be a complete break from political coverage, but at least it’s mostly about the distant past, not the uncertain future!
Ballot Box Cocktail
Mashed Radish blog post on Candidate
Mashed Radish blog post on Poll
Anatoly Liberman on Booth
“Sublime” video
“Sublime” podcast
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Linoleum: It's Not As Boring As You Think!
n this episode we go from the origin of the world to the many uses of olive oil, with discussions of Roman mosaics, and trademark law along the way. This is the third of our episodes on Intellectual Property, following Episode 42: Bugging Out! on patents and Episode 57: Freebooting, Piracy, & Copyright on copyright. Also, it’s the start of Season 6, and we want to thank everyone who’s joined us over the last 5 years. It’s been a blast, and here’s to another half decade!
“The asàrotos òikos mosaic as an elite status symbol” by Ehud Fathy
Ancient History Encyclopedia — the olive
Oxford Dictionaries blog post on “gasoline”
Hesiod, Theogony
First oil derrick — picture
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Recipes and Authority, from Intelligent Speech
Back in June we had the pleasure of being part of the Intelligent Speech Conference 2020 — this year, held entirely online. It was a day filled with amazing podcasters and great conversations, and in this short episode we’re sharing the talk that we gave at the event. It’s about the word Recipe and early cookbooks, medicine, and women’s magazines. If you’d like to see the images that accompanied the presentation, you can watch the talk on YouTube, where the questions and post-talk discussion are also included.
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Intelligent Speech Conference
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Customer Reviews
HelloOkay
So fun! I love this podcast. A great accompaniment to chores and working out - keeps my mind active and engaged.
Very fun and informative
Covers a broad range of topics related to classical culture, medieval culture, and modern culture and how things we celebrate (or denigrate) today have connections to the past, with emphasis on how words have changed.
Eh...
Sold as risky & thought provoking. But its just parochial pearl clutching from bubble dwelling academics.
The hosts seem to be regressive lefties fully marinated in orthodox establishment hoaxes. The content is quite Interesting smart stuff, but leans towards safe pablum and virtue signaling.
I will unsubscribe and check them out in 6 months.
My hope is these guys will grow some courage and reconsider the emotional incontinence they had during this trite moral-panic.
Their aping the hoax of racism has kept their tenure positions “safe”. What a waste of grey matter.
Yawn .....