Fill Me In #357: The best conspiracies have a grain of truth in them.

This week, the Fill Me In studio is invaded by barnacles! Or actually, just one barnacle -- THE Barnacle, a.k.a. Ben Zimmer, linguist to the stars. There's still some baseball and sandwich talk, but it's word-related, so stick around for that. Also in the news: Lollapuzzoola, the greatest crossword puzzle tournament ever held annually on a Saturday in August! Hayley Gold & friends are doing a Twitch stream on Thursday, August 18 at 9pm Eastern Ben Zimmer's "sunsetted" podcast, Spectacular Vernacular, is still available online. Also available, his new video content with Wired If you get bored, write something for the Fill Me In wiki. And if you're feeling philanthropic, donate to our Patreon. Do you enjoy our show? Actually, it doesn't matter! Please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. This will help new listeners find our show, and you'll be inducted into the Quintuple Decker Turkey Club. Drop us a note or a Tweet or a postcard or a phone call — we'd love to hear from you. Helpful links: Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fill-me-in/id1364379980 Google Play link: https://player.fm/series/fill-me-in-2151002 Amazon/Audible link: https://www.amazon.com/item_name/dp/B08JJRM927 RSS feed: http://bemoresmarter.libsyn.com/rss Contact us: Email ([email protected]) / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Google Voice (315-510-9892) We're putting these words here to help with search engine optimization. We don't think it will work, but you probably haven't read this far, so it doesn't matter: baseball, crossword, crosswords, etymology, game, hunt, movies, musicals, mystery, oscar, pizza, puzzle, puzzles, soup, trivia, words