Vaccines Are Full of Bull? Animal-Related Words for Diseases and Cures
In earlier episodes of Animalogy Podcast, we talked about parts of our anatomy named for their resemblance to animals, such as muscle and co...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
Arts
Animalogy \ The Animals in Our Everyday Words & Phrases
ANIMALOGY is a podcast about language, the animal-related words and phrases we use every day, and how they reflect and affect our relationship with (and treatment of) animals. Hosted by Coll...
Episodes
20 of 27 episodes
Don’t Get Fleeced or Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes: Expressions from the Hair of Sheep
Have you ever been "fleeced"? Have you ever "gone in search of the golden fleece" or "pulled the wool over someone's eyes"? Are your opinion...
Berserk for Bears: Words from our Ursine Animals
We have many words built from the English word for "bear," the Latin word for "bear," and the Greek word for "bear," and we have many expres...
Drawing Listeners Like Flies (Hopefully): Words from our Winged Insects
The word “fly” is a very old word, and of course we have many expressions and nouns that contain the word "fly" itself, but do you know that...
What's in a Name? The Soul of an Animal
In a pivotal scene in David Lynch’s film, The Elephant Man, the main character turns on those who are cruelly taunting him and declares “I a...
Geographical Place Names with Animal Origins
If I asked you to name some cities and countries named after animals, how many could you come up with? You might think of obvious ones, such...
Piggyback: Animal Words with No Animal Origins
"Piggyback" has nothing to do with pigs! In fact, there are many seemingly animal-related words and phrases in the English language that hav...
Animals in Our Bones: Anatomy Terms from Animals
By now you would have listened to the Animalogy episodes about the words muscle, coccyx, and tragus — all parts of our body. All words from...
Vegetarians Eat Meat: The History and Future of the Word
The word meat goes back at least as far as 731 AD, but it didn't mean then what it does today. Its meaning was much broader. Understanding t...
Animal Characteristics in Word Histories: Who They Are in What We Say
Whereas the word veal in English simply means “flesh of a calf” and pork in English means “flesh of a pig used as food,” hidden in many of t...
Old English Pigs and Old French Pork: The Linguistic Cleaving of Animals
Roughly 10,000 new words entered the English language during the Norman occupation and assimilation, particularly those having to do with th...
No Critters Harmed: Colors Inspired by Living Animals
In a previous episode on words for different colors, an episode called Ingrained: A Crush of Color, I talked about the names we have for col...
Ingrained: A Crush of Color
When something is ingrained , it’s "deeply rooted" or "firmly fixed," pertaining to qualities, dispositions, or habits. This figurative use...
Toady: Lick My Boots and Curry My Favor
A toady is a person who flatters and ingratiates himself or herself to another person in a servile way; a toady is a sycophant, a flatterer,...
Who Owns the Word "Milk"?
For years, the dairy industry has been trying to make it illegal for nondairy milk companies to use the word “milk," asserting that the word...
Animals in the Alphabet
Animalogy is all about the animal-related words and phrases in the English language, but did you know there are animals in the very letters...
Tragedy: A Goat's Lament
Tragedy n. "goat song" Named for the dramatic plays of the ancient Greeks, characterized by a protagonist whose flaw or error in judgment le...
The Semantics of Meat (with Paul Shapiro)
Semantics play a significant role in shaping public perception about animals and animal welfare. The meat, dairy, and egg industries go to g...
Don't Get My Goat - I'm Not Kidding
In this episode of Animalogy, we explore the goat-related words and expressions in our everyday language — particularly those formed by the...
Falconry: Fed Up and Looking Haggard
The practice of hunting wild birds with trained birds -- for fun is called falconry. Though it came into its own almost 1,000 years ago in E...