The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), a native of
Genoa, is generally identifi ed as the discoverer of
the American continent (although the Vikings may
have got there centuries earlier), setting foot on
the Bahamas in 1492 in the course of a voyage paid
for by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. NASA has
assumed the mantle of the modern world’s Columbus.
come, let us reason together An appeal to someone
to come to terms, especially someone who
might otherwise be considered beyond salvation.
<strong>The</strong> phrase is a quotation from Isaiah 1:18: “Come
now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.” Management has made friendly
overtures to the union, clearly believing that a “come, let
us reason together” approach will do them more good in
the long run than being belligerent.
comédie humaine (komaydee yoomen) <strong>The</strong>
human condition. Employed in its original French
form (meaning “human comedy”), the expression
was applied by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac
(1799–1850) to his epic series of 90 novels,
which encompassed the whole breadth of human
society as he perceived it in the fi rst half of the
19th century. Scenes like this are shocking and unexpected,
but such is the extraordinary and unpredictable
nature of the comédie humaine.
come in from the cold To return from a state of
exile, isolation, or peril far from safety. <strong>The</strong>
expression has been especially associated with
the world of espionage since the publication of the
cold war spy thriller <strong>The</strong> Spy Who Came in from
the Cold by John Le Carré in 1963, which related
the events surrounding the return of a British agent
from East Germany. “Said his friend- cum- mentor,
Irving Layton, in looking back over the period, ‘I
had a very sharp feeling in the early fi fties that
poetry in Canada had come in from the cold and
was starting to gain momentum’ ” (Loranne S.
Dorman and Clive L. Rawlins, Leonard Cohen:
Prophet of the Heart, 1990).
comforter, Job’s See job’s comforter.
Conan the Barbarian
comin’ in on a wing and a prayer Narrowly succeeding
in making it back to safety. <strong>The</strong> allusion is
to a song written by Harold Adamson and Jimmy
McHugh in 1943, during World War II, about a
pi lot struggling to land a badly damaged plane:
“Tho’ there’s one motor gone, we can still carry
on / Comin’ in on a wing and a pray’r.” With their
best player injured, the team is comin’ in on a wing and
a prayer.
Comstockery (komstokbree) Censorship of literature
and the arts. <strong>The</strong> word was inspired by the
campaigning efforts of Anthony Comstock (1844–
1915) to oppose obscenity in the arts and in the
wider community in his role as secretary of the
New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, a
position he occupied for 42 years. Among his targets
in the literary world were the works of
George Bernard Shaw, who responded in 1905 by
coining the word “Comstockery.” This proposed new
law against the distribution of mildly pornographic
advertising smacks of Comstockery.
Conan the Barbarian (konbn) Archetype of a
muscle- bound, unsophisticated warrior- hero of
limited intelligence. He made his fi rst appearance
in the 1930s in short stories written by Robert E.
Howard for Weird Tales magazine and later became
a pop u lar comic- strip hero. He was brought to the
big screen in the movies Conan the Barbarian (1982)
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