![]() ![]() As a matter of fact, like, the exact opposite. Because there is such a rootedness around the Hellmouth and there’s a lot of Christian shit in this show, as we have talked about a few times. That’s actually kind of cool, maybe unintentional. JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: She is always wearing a cross. So that’s interesting as well, to think, like, Buffy means something as religious as that. JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: And Molly being short for Mary? Which it’s not any shorter than. HZ: Oh, people are wild, Kristin, with nicknames. ![]() KRISTIN RUSSO: How the hell do you get from Elizabeth to Buffy? But I wonder how many people with the full name Elizabeth there are who use this shortening. JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: Yeah, stuff it, network. And apparently the network really hated the title. But I haven’t seen Joss Whedon confirm it. Buffy Sainte-Marie would be a cool name icon. But I had seen some people speculating that he named her after Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Canadian musician. HZ: It’s a name you can imagine someone giving their cat and you wouldn’t think that odd. So, why not pick a name, like you said, that you would take the least seriously. KRISTIN RUSSO: That’s the kind of stuff I had in my head as well, that the name was picked to specifically turn the idea of a tiny blond girl in the alley, who could kick your ass, on its head. But a B movie that had something more going on, that was my dream.” To juxtapose that with ‘vampire slayer’ just felt like that kind of thing, a B movie. There is no way you could hear the name Buffy and think, this is an important person. He was asked about it in an interview, ages ago - I think 2003? And he said, “It was the name I could think of that I took the least seriously. Well, there’s not a linguistics history so much as there is Joss Whedon history. But is there any kind of linguistics history around why the name or nickname Buffy would be chosen for a vampire-slaying heroine? When I first saw the show, it threw me off, especially as no one really comments on her name being unusual.” KRISTIN RUSSO: We’re gonna start at what I felt would be a good beginning place, which was a question from Alicia: “Why is Buffy named Buffy? I’ve heard it’s short for Elizabeth, which sounds odd to my ears. HZ: Well, I love to answer lots of questions. JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: We have a lot of questions for you. HZ: But the truth is, we just haven’t spent enough time together yet to get to the point where we have beef. KRISTIN RUSSO: I know, it does: it makes it sound like we used to be close but then, like, something came between us. HZ: It makes it sound like Kristin and I have got beef. Please welcome my friend, and Kristin’s less close friend, Helen Zaltzman. But today, we are breaking out the linguistic microscope with a very special guest, to examine elements of language in the show. JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: Oh! Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Buffering the Vampire Slayer, a podcast where we’re usually talking about Buffy one episode at a time. Just to quickly mention there is one show left on the Your Name Here tour of Aotearoa New Zealand, at the Auckland Writers’ Festival on 27 August 2022. It’s not really the season to listen to that again… but I’m already being deluged with online ads for luxury advent calendars so maybe the season is fine, yeah, do it, listen to this first though. Many thanks to Buffering the Vampire Slayer for getting me on to face their listeners’ language questions with hosts Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs, who is also my cohost on my other podcast VMI, and you’ll remember her from this show a couple of years ago, she cowrote and performed our Festive Hit for 2020 which was a lovely episode. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the TV show - and at the time of recording, I had only seen a handful of episodes - because this Bufflusionist is packed full of the etymological goods: vampires, covens, military slang, spooky Latin, wigs, and liquid beef. A version of this episode originally appeared on the podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer. ![]() Today’s episode is all about language matters in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yes. This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, invite language over the threshold. Visit /bufflusionist to listen to this episode and find out more about it
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