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

Joan of Arc
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/ We’ve got the money, too.” <strong>The</strong> word has since
been applied to similar outbursts of patriotic fervour
in various countries around the world. It has been
suggested the word “Jingo” may have had its origins
in the patter of 17th- century stage conjurers, who
used it as a euphemism for “Jesus.” “A mood of bellicose
jingoism, unknown since the days of Suez in
November 1956, swept the land, directed against
‘the Argies’ ” (Kenneth O. Morgan, <strong>The</strong> People’s Peace,
1990).
Joan of Arc A woman who heroically dedicates
herself to a par tic u lar cause. Joan of Arc (c. 1412–
31) was a young French peasant girl who devoted
herself to throwing the En glish out of France,
apparently on the instruction of “angelic voices.”
She won the confi dence of the French dauphin and
went on to inspire French soldiers to recapture
many towns before being betrayed to the En glish,
tried as a witch, and burned at the stake. “Who do
you think you are, Joan of Arc?” (Kim Newman,
Bad Dreams, 1990).
Job, patience of See patience of job.
Job’s comforter ( jobz) A person whose attempts
to give comfort to another in distress only serve to
intensify the other’s misery. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the
biblical Job, who is visited by three sympathetic
friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (described as
“miserable comforters” in Job 16:2), who tactlessly
attribute his current misfortunes to his disobedience
to God. As soon as news of his disappointment got
abroad his front doorbell did not stop ringing with Job’s
comforters come to trawl through the ashes of his dream.
Job’s wife ( jobz) A wicked woman; a woman
who offers evil advice to others. In the biblical
story of Job and his multifarious sufferings, his
wife does little to alleviate his agony, merely advising
him to “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9–10). In
some medieval versions of the story she actually
exacerbates Job’s pain by tossing water on his boils
or by whipping him. This Job’s wife waged an unceasing
campaign to have all aid to the refugees cut off and
redirected to causes more to her liking.
Jocasta See oedipus complex.
Joe Palooka (pblookb) <strong>The</strong> plain- thinking, honest,
man in the street. <strong>The</strong> character Joe Palooka, a
simpleminded boxing champion with little education
but an appealingly kindhearted nature, made
his fi rst appearance in a comic strip published in
1928 and quickly caught on as an archetype of the
average American. In modern usage, his name has
acquired a mildly pejorative tone, critical of the
general public’s lack of intelligence or imagination.
A town of incompetents may, by the same
token, be dubbed Palookaville. I don’t expect every
Joe Palooka to understand what we’re trying to do.
John Bircher (bercher) A right- wing extremist.
John Birch was a U.S. military intelligence offi cer
and Baptist missionary who was killed by Chinese
communists in 1945. Extremists identifi ed him as
the fi rst U.S. casualty of the cold war and 13
years after his death founded the John Birch Society
to oppose what they perceived as the communist
threat to the U.S. Constitution. Critics of the
John Birch Society have labeled its members ultraconservative
and reactionary. Her father is a real
John Bircher and thinks all students are idle layabouts.
John Brown A fanatical supporter of a par tic u lar
cause. <strong>The</strong> abolitionist John Brown (1800–59) was
determined to rid the United States of slavery and
is remembered as one of the leaders of a raid made