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

E.T. phone home
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E.T. phone home A reaction, impressed or otherwise,
to some scientifi cally outlandish suggestion,
often relating to the possibility of communication
with and between alien life forms. <strong>The</strong> original
E.T. (short for “extra- terrestrial”) was the bizarre
but lovable space alien depicted in the 1982 Steven
Spielberg fi lm E.T.: <strong>The</strong> Extra- Terrestrial.
Stranded on earth, E.T. befriends some human
children, who look after him until the opportunity
comes for him to “phone home” (a phrase he manages
to utter in strangled En glish) and be rescued
by his alien family. <strong>The</strong> professor argued that some
signals from deep space appeared to follow predetermined
patterns—very E.T. phone home!
Et tu, Brute? (et too brootay) Expression of
reproachful surprise at a betrayal (usually a relatively
minor act of disloyalty) by a friend or colleague.
<strong>The</strong> words, meaning “You too, Brutus?”
were allegedly spoken by Julius Caesar when he
discovered his close friend Marcus Junius Brutus
(85–42 b.c.) among his murderers on the Ides of
March in 44 b.c. According to Suetonius (a.d. c.
69–c. 122), Caesar actually spoke the line in Greek,
but the Latin form is more familiar today from its
use in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar
(1599–1600). “Some months afterwards, when the
much- belaboured head of affairs was in very truth
made to retire, when unkind shells were thrown
against him in great numbers, when he exclaimed,
‘Et tu, Brute!’ till the words were ste reo typed
upon his lips, all men in all places talked much
about the great Gatherum Castle confederation”
(Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage, 1861).
Eucharist See last supper.
Euclidean (yooklideebn) Of or relating to a system
of geometry based on the discoveries of the
Greek mathematician Euclid, who lived in Alexandria
in the third century b.c. Euclid’s teachings dominated
geometry for some 2,000 years. Such was his
dominance that for many years geometry itself was
informally known as Euclid. <strong>The</strong> term Euclidean may
also be interpreted more generally as meaning
“clearly presented” or “well ordered.” “Quoin is not a
Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical
mathematics. I know not that it has been defi ned
before” (Herman Melville, Moby- Dick, 1851).
euhemerism (yooheembrizbm) <strong>The</strong> belief that the
gods of mythology were derived from real historical
characters. <strong>The</strong> word comes from the name of the
Sicilian Greek phi los o pher Euhemerus, who lived
in the fourth century b.c. and fi rst suggested the
theory in his book Sacred History. According to Euhemerus,
the idea came to him after he read an inscription
supporting the theory on a gold pillar on an
island in the Indian Ocean. <strong>The</strong> discovery of the temple
did little to discourage those scholars who were passionately
attached to the theory of euhemerism, the idea that
the heroes of myth were based on real characters.
Eumaeus (yoomaybs) A swineherd. Going back
to Greek legend, the original Eumaeus was a slave
and swineherd under Ulysses. <strong>The</strong> pigs are kept in a
state- of- the- art piggery and tended by scientists, a far
cry from the Eumaeus of legend.
Eumenides See furies.
Euphorbia (yooforbeeb) A genus of plants of the
spurge family. This pop u lar ornamental plant takes
its name from Euphorbus, a Greek physician who
fl ourished in the fi rst century a.d. Tradition claims
that the plant was named in honor of Euphorbus
by one of his patients, King Juba II of Mauritania.
She planted some Euphorbia around the front gate.