Butter No Parsnips

Dec 09 2024 124 ep. 36 mins 14

Butter No Parsnips Podcast artwork

Every week on Butter No Parsnips, your hosts Emily Moyers and Kyle Imperatore take you on an adventure through the weird, wacky, wonderful, and sometimes wicked history of one wayside word. Strange characters, delightful bits, and general joyousness abound, join them as they test each other's etymological expertise!

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121. Bunco

Dec 09 2024 39 mins

Emily and Kyle roll the dice and try out some good old fashioned games of chance. If they play their cards right, they just might learn the history of the word bunco. The word arrived at the intersection of a card game and a dice game, both of which involved betting against a bank like in Blackjack or Roulette. However, you might not want to take your chances at these gambling game

120. Infangthief

Dec 02 2024 33 mins

Kyle and Emily have been caught red handed! This week they’re exploring crime and punishment of the most Medieval kind, as they discuss the meaning and origin of infangthief. They begin with the origins of this criminal word--which, if you’re wondering, IS related to fangs… a little. But the thief relation is a little more concrete, as this word pulls our hosts deep into Medi

119. Brougham

Nov 25 2024 36 mins

Get ready to shine your fender and groom your horses, because this week Emily and Kyle are talking all things brougham, a car and carriage for those looking to travel in style. Our hosts explore the history of a carriage so iconic in Victorian London that it can be seen in the works of Charles Dickens, the world of Sherlock Holmes, and more. They talk about a host of other horse-dr

118. Macritude

Nov 18 2024 37 mins

This week, Kyle and Emily get lean and green, or perhaps lean and mean! They discuss the meaning and origin of the word macritude, and it leads them into a classic culinary rivalry. Kyle begins with the origins of this obscure word, in language and in medicine. But he soon pivots to macritude’s much juicier usage in the age-old rivalry between the Brits and the French. Our hosts

117. Dree

Nov 11 2024 29 mins

Emily and Kyle take a trip up north and discuss a surprisingly versatile and incredibly useful word, dree. As per usual, it’s the little words that pack a punch! Our hosts discuss the Germanic origins of the Scots language, and the connection between Norse history and a word often only heard in Scotland, Yorkshire, and Northern Ireland. But Emily and Kyle agree that dree, and its

116. Samovar

Nov 04 2024 32 mins

It’s teatime for Kyle and Emily! But today they’ve decided to ditch the modern day kettle and instead do things the old fashioned way, as they explore the history of the samovar. Kyle teaches Emily about an ingenious device for boiling water--one which has been well used by Russian tea lovers for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Our hosts discuss the special place tea has

115. Charnel

Oct 28 2024 28 mins

Get ready for some spooky scary skeleton action, because this week Emily and Kyle have a bone to pick with the word charnel. Our hosts discuss why the average grave in a Medieval graveyard might not be as old as you’d assume, and explore what happens when a church has more skulls and bones than they know what to do with. Kyle might be shocked and appalled at this space efficient

114. Mortsafe

Oct 21 2024 36 mins

Kyle and Emily get grave this week, discussing what might become of them after they have shuffled off this mortal coil, and digging into the history of the word mortsafe. This Victorian invention has our hosts asking a delightfully macabre question: Do we need to keep the living safe from the dead… or the dead safe from the living? Turns out Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was more

113. Thaumaturgy w/ Amy Vorpahl

Oct 14 2024 48 mins

This week, Emily and Kyle are joined by Amy Vorpahl, a Dungeons and Dragons pro you might recognize from Critical Role, D20, and the recently released Goblin Mode! Amy and Kyle are guided by their DM Emily on an adventure into the magical world of thaumaturgy. Thaumaturgy might be familiar to the DnD players out there, but the history of the thaumaturge goes all the way through Anc

112. Miasma

Oct 07 2024 35 mins

There’s something in the air this week on Butter No Parsnips… and it just might be toxic. Kyle and Emily strap on their beaked masks and dive into the history of the word miasma. The roots of the word lie not just in a literal cloud of vapor, but also in the noxious atmosphere of shame and moral pollution. It turns out that even the most famous physicians like Hippocrates and G