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Has Amazon finally cracked the code for the online-grocery business? WSJ Heard on the Street columnist Dan Gallagher tells us what the e-commerce giant is doing and how it stacks up against competitors. Then, while some dating apps have lost their charm, Raya has a long waitlist of interested users. WSJ Style News desk reporter Lane Florsheim explains its appeal. Julie Chang hosts.
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Listener Erica commented: "Perhaps an idea for a bonus ep of Four Letter Word season would be one on two-letter words: there’s an established list that Scrabble nerds end up memorizing, and it’s full of weirdness." In fact, there are TWO established lists, NASPA, the North American Scrabble Players Association, which has currently 107 two-letter words, and Collins Scrabble Words, formerly known as SOWPODS, used by the rest of the world and contains at present 127 two-letter words.
And this episode, we're going to hear all those two-letter words. If you don't agree with their Scrabbular validity, don't blame me! Some of the inclusions were a surprise!
Visit theallusionist.org/two for more information about today's two-letter words, plus a transcript of the episode.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes info about every episode, livestreams where I read from my ever-growing collection of dictionaries, and the charming and nurturing Allusioverse Discord community, where we're watching the current season of Great British Sewing Bee and soon the new season of Great British Bake Off.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. The music is by Martin Austwick; download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and on Bandcamp, and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… If I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by:
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Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte has led investigations into Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Leititia James, and the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud.
With a background a lot like Trump’s—and a little like Mr. Beast’s—who is Pulte? And what kind of damage could a vengeful FHFA director do?
Guest: Rachel Siegel, reporter covering the economics of real estate and housing for the Washington Post.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Rich Harris, creator of Svelte and software engineer at Vercel, joins Ryan on the show to dive into the evolution and future of web frameworks. They discuss the birth and growth of Svelte during the rise of mobile, the challenges of building robust and efficient web applications, how companies can back more open-source community projects, and the dirty little secret about asynchronous operations and component frameworks.
Episode notes:
Svelte is a UI framework that uses a compiler to let you write components using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It’s ranked as one of developer’s most admired web frameworks in this year’s Developer Survey.
Keep up with the Svelte community on the Svelte Society page.
Find Rich on Blue Sky and GitHub.
Congrats to Paul Pladijs, who won a Populist badge for answering the question How can one change the timestamp of an old commit in Git?.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Amanda Holmes reads Thomas Gray’s “Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
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Dana El Kurd outlines what is happening in higher education, how and why the Trump administration is attacking universities, and the role Palestine plays in all of this.
Sources:
Clifford Ando – The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump - https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-crisis-of-the-university-started-long-before-trump/
Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism - https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
Ken Stern on IHRA definition - https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5326047/kenneth-stern-antimsietim-executive-order-free-speech
2023 Pew Research Center Poll on Black Lives Matter - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/06/14/views-on-the-black-lives-matter-movement/
Marc Bousquet – How the University Works - https://nyupress.org/9780814799758/how-the-university-works/
PBS Reporting on Harvard University negotiations with Trump administration - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/harvard-nearing-settlement-with-trump-to-pay-500-million-and-regain-federal-funding
The Intercept’s reporting on Columbia University settlement with the Trump administration - https://theintercept.com/2025/04/16/columbia-middle-eastern-studies-trump-attacks/
Middle East Studies Association statement on Columbia University settlement - https://mesana.org/advocacy/letters-from-the-board/2025/03/28/joint-statement-regarding-columbia-university-and-the-department-of-education
Results of the Middle East Scholar Barometer - https://criticalissues.umd.edu/sites/criticalissues.umd.edu/files/November%202023%20MESB%20Results.pdf
Human Rights Watch statement on the IHRA definition - https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/04/human-rights-and-other-civil-society-groups-urge-united-nations-respect-human
Axios reporting on The Nexus Project and Trump’s use of antisemitism investigations - https://www.axios.com/2025/03/31/college-campus-antisemitism-trump-nexus-project
American Association of University Professors – Academic Freedom - https://www.aaup.org/issues-higher-education/academic-freedom/faqs-academic-freedom
2024 Announcement of 40 new AAUP chapters - https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/winter-2025/warm-welcome-new-or-reestablished-aaup-chapters
Executive Order on Combatting Antisemitism - https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/
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