The Endless Knot
We discuss etymology, history, literature, science, and language, and the connections between them.
It’s time for some Old Norse, sagas, and daring Viking explorers! In this episode we talk to author Grace Tierney about her newest book, Words the Vikings Gave Us. We had a ton of fun in this conversation, and we’re sure you will too!
Grace Tierney’s blog, Wordfoolery
Our video on Runes, and NativLang’s matching video
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It’s April Fool’s Day, and time for the annual Podcast Switcheroo, where podcasters trade episodes to give their audience something a little different and introduce them to a new show.
This year we’ve got an episode from “The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly)”, all about the joys and embarrassments of singing karaoke. In this episode hosts Adam Wainwright and Ed Cunard discuss questions like is a karaoke performance a cover song? What do musicians have to say about karaoke? What are the barriers to making music, and creativity in general? They also talk to punk and folk singer-songwriter Frank Turner about some of his most memorable karaoke experiences and about how he feels about cover songs, singalongs at concerts, and karaoke versions of his songs. After you’ve listened to this, why not add them to your subscriptions?
Thanks to Moxie from “Your Brain on Facts” for organizing this event, and happy April Fool’s Day to everyone!
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St Patrick standing on a snake in Purgatory: England, 1451 (London, British Library, MS Royal 17 B XLIII, f 132v)
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! In this episode we talk about the saint’s history, then dig into the potato — its etymology, its history, and how it’s changed the world. With some tangents about batteries, famines, and travel in the Roman world.
Article about Irish Famine Relief by the Choctaw Nation
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We’re talking about bread again! This time, about ancient Greek bread — its vocabulary, the many types of bread and how they were made, and the economic aspects of bread production. Josh shares his practical experiences of baking along with his research into the classical Greek world.
Josh on Twitter: @jpnudell
Our previous episode on bread, “Loaf”
Thank you to Emma Pauly for editing and transcribing this episode.
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We start off the new year with a three-part discussion of statistics, insurance, stocks, astrologers, coffee, and more. We also trace some of the vocabulary that has come to English from Arabic, along with important mathematical concepts.
Podcast recommendation: Khameleon Classics
Cocktail: The Revolver
Ep 39 From Fossil Hunters to Mammoth Cheese
video “How Do We Perceive a Poem?”
Ripat, Pauline. “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers At Rome.” Classical Philology, vol. 106, no. 2, The University of Chicago Press, 2011, pp. 115–54, https://doi.org/10.1086/659835
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Our hundredth episode! We’re celebrating reaching three digits — and more than 6 years — with a whole bunch of our podcasting friends! These are just some of the amazing creators who make the independent podcasting world so wonderful, and we’re very happy to be connected to them all. Please check out their shows at the links below. We also give you a brief “State of the Pod” update. Thank you to everyone who’s been with us so far, and here’s to the next century (of episodes)!
Thank you to Christine Couisineau for help editing and transcribing this episode.
Let’s Talk about Myths, Baby Podcast
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We talked to Jeremy Swist about his work on the reception of antiquity in heavy metal music. He discussed the ways the genre looks to the past for stories and imagery, and the many fantastic songs and albums that have been produced from this mix. We also talked about the problems with racism and white nationalism that can plague the intersection of the ancient world and metal music.
Playlist of the songs Jeremy mentioned
Pour Forth Surquidous track
Heavy Metal and the Ancient World on Facebook
Thank you to Emma Pauly for editing and transcribing this episode.
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“The Beautiful Ugly” cocktail, from Nectar of the Gods
It’s Halloween, and the monsters are out! In this episode we tackle Monster Theory (as formulated by J.J. Cohen) , examine the linguistic and cultural origins of a range of Classical and classic movie monsters, look at how they connect to the history of currency and money, and explore the intersections of monsters and the New Woman. We also sample a beautiful cocktail from the upcoming cocktail book Nectar of the Gods by Liv Albert from “Let’s Talk about Myths, Baby”. Thank you, Liv!
Monster Theory by J.J. Cohen
Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture by Liz Gloyn
Our podcast episode interviewing Dr. Gloyn
Hesiod passage about Medusa is Theogony 270ff; more info about Medusa here
Ovid passage about Medusa is Metamorphoses 4.753ff
General sources for this episode
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We speak to Bet Hucks about Roman importation and love of Egyptian art and other cultural material, the importance of thinking about material remains in assemblages and considering the contexts in which they were displayed, and some innovative ways of bringing the physical experiences of the past to modern audiences. Oh, and also, crocodiles!
Bet’s Twitter: @RomanAegyptiaca
Thanks to Emma Pauly for editing and transcription of this episode.
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What do you think the earliest English word was? How could we possibly look for such a thing, and what do the possible options tell us about early English history and the movement of peoples in the early medieval period? We tackle these questions, in an episode about Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Celts, Tacitus, Bede, and more.
Reminder: Mark will be running another session of his Speakeasy seminar course, The Origins of English: Learning to Think Like an Etymologist, which is open to anyone who’s interested. Registration is now open at Speakeasy.com for the session running on Sunday afternoons (Eastern time) from September 12th October 3rd.
Recipe for Old English cocktail
Jabzy’s Anglo-Saxon Invasion video
The Early Greek Alphabets: Origin, Diffusion, chpt 4 by Rosalind Thomas
Why do Poles call Italy WŁOCHY? (video)
Bonus episode about the term “Anglo-Saxon” from December 2019
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It’s time for a reckoning! Or, to be more accurate, a number of reckonings. We talk to Dr. Stephen Chrisomalis, a linguistic anthropologist who specializes in the anthropology of mathematics and the interaction of language, cognition, and culture, about his new book Reckonings. It’s a fascinating discussion of how we write and represent numbers, and how that’s changed over the years. Why don’t we use Roman numerals any more? It’s more complicated than you might think…
Announcement: Mark will be running another session of his Speakeasy seminar course, The Origins of English: Learning to Think Like an Etymologist, which is open to anyone who’s interested. Registration is now open at Speakeasy.com for the session running on Sunday afternoons (Eastern time) from September 12th October 3rd.
Glossographia (blog)
Twitter: @schrisomalis
Wayne State University faculty page
Reckonings webpage
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We talked to Isobel Williams about her fascinating and illuminating new translation of selected poems of Catullus, illustrated with her drawings of the Japanese art of rope binding, shibari. Our discussion ranges over the connections between the world of shibari and the emotional struggles depicted in Catullus’s poetry, the way translation and learning Latin can feel like being tied up in, and untangling, knots, and much more.
Content Note: fetish, sex, brief mention of sexual violence, discussion of enslavement and use of slavery as metaphor
Blog about drawing shibari (Japanese rope bondage): Boulevardisme
Straight blog about drawing: Drawing from an uncomfortable position
Website: Isobel Williams
Twitter: @otium_Catulle
Instagram: @isobelwilliams2525
From Isobel: “For the online book launch, I compiled a video (>20 minutes) of self and others reading in Latin and English from the book. It starts with Sappho in ancient Greek and ends with Shakespeare, to show the continuity Sappho -> Catullus -> Ovid -> Shakespeare (it contains no Ovid). The video is here 'Catullus: Shibari Carmina' - readings and performances - YouTube”
Link to the book for Canada and US: Catullus: Shibari Carmina | Independent Publishers Group
James Methven’s Precious Asses – highly recommended
Irish poet and mediaevalist Bernard O’Donoghue – Poet, Academic, Medievalist and Literary Critic
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A day after Independence Day in the US, we investigate the history of the name “America” and two related cocktails, with some side trips into the sack of Rome in 410 CE and the use of the Fall of Rome as a historical parallel for the United States. This episode completes our mini series on country names, in the season of national holidays in north America.
Cocktails: Americano & Negroni
Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo
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This episode is being released for Canada Day, but it’s not a celebration. This year, even more than most, we feel that this day needs to be one of reckoning with our past and trying to make a better present and future. So we talk about the history of the word Canuck and the various stories that Canadians tell themselves about their county, and we also discuss the role of Classics in the early history of the colonial project in Canada, as well as how to think about Classics today in relation to Indigenous issues. And then we finish with some quick etymologies of uniquely Canadian words and phrases. Content note: there is brief mention of residential schools and discussion of historical racism.
Jacques Cartier Heritage Minute
Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles
Brill’s Companion to Classics in the Early Americas
“Only in Canada, You Say?” by Katherine Barber
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Wall painting - idyllic landscape with porta sacra and tholos - Pompeii (VIII 7 28 - sanctuary of Isis - ekklesiasterion) - Napoli MAN 8558 - 01. Photo by ArchaiOptix
We talk to Dr. Victoria Austen about Roman gardens. What defines a garden? Where were the gardens at Rome, and what were they for? How did Romans think about gardens and gardening, and what roles did they play in literature, philosophy, and the public relations efforts of emperors?
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We talk about the history of the book, the reading habits of the ancient Romans, the pliability of sheep skins, and the mechanisms of semantic change that cause words to evolve over time. Oh, and we discuss Charles Darwin’s own language for his new theory.
The "Codex Cocktail" was created for us by Ed Bedford — recipe here
Our new page of cocktails from the podcast
McCutcheon, R. W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book.” Book History, vol. 18, 2015, pp. 1–32., www.jstor.org/stable/43956366
“In Ancient Rome” by Joseph Howley, in Further Reading, edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. 2020.
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This year for April Fool's Day we're taking part in a podcast switcheroo where podcasters are trading episodes to introduce their audiences to other podcasts they think you might enjoy. So we're having the great folks from Bunny Trails, Shauna and Dan, showcase one of their episodes, about the phrase “Queen Bee”.
Shownotes for this episode (including transcript)
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We speak to Dr. Carolyn Willekes about horses in antiquity: their development and domestication, their use in warfare, their training and breeding, and her many adventures riding horses across Greece, Turkey, Mongolia, and Canada.
Aven: Hi everyone. This isn't a regular episode of the Endless Knot podcast. Just a quick announcement.
Mark: I wanted to let you all know about something new that I'm doing: an online seminar series. It's basically a short course open to anyone, on the Speakeasy platform. The title is: "The origins of English: learning to think like an etymologist" and it's going to be four one-hour classes on zoom, in which, through a series of linguistic puzzles, we will follow in the footsteps of etymologists and historical linguists to reconstruct the relationships between languages and long forgotten roots of English words.
The class is limited to 12 people and starts on Thursday, March 4th, at 7:00 PM eastern time, running on the three following Thursdays at the same time. If you're interested, you can go to our website at alliterative.net, and there's a link to the Speakeasy page, where you can buy a ticket.
Or if you'd like to take part, but the timing doesn't work for you, you can leave Speakeasy a message about what would be better, and we'll try and take that into consideration when we schedule the next session. Because if this goes well, I'm hoping not only to be able to repeat it, but also do some different courses on Old English poetry, on the development of English from the early middle ages to today, and more
Aven: So if you think this sounds fun, please go to our website at www.Alliterative.net for more information.
Mark: Hope to get to meet you online sometime soon!
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.
Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae
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