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

especially his fabulous banquets, after his retirement
to Rome around 66. He spent enormous
sums on entertaining his guests and was credited
with being the fi rst to introduce cherries to Italy.
Any sumptuous feast or other display of opulence
may now be dubbed a Lucullan banquet. <strong>The</strong>
word is sometimes encountered in the forms
Lucullian or Lucullean. When a person dines
well alone it may be said on such an occasion that
Lucullus sups with Lucullus, in reference to the
reply that Lucullus gave when asked who his guests
would be one eve ning when a particularly fi ne
meal was being prepared. Guests at the castle were
treated to a Lucullan banquet, with the fi nest wines and
choicest meats.
Lucy Stoner (stoner) A woman who keeps her
maiden name after getting married. Lucy Stone
(1818–93) was a U.S. suffragist who refused to
change her surname on her marriage, with the
support of her husband. She went on to found the
American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.
<strong>The</strong> minister was not best pleased when his new daughterin-
law declared she was a Lucy Stoner and would be
keeping her own name.
Luddite (ludit) A person who opposes the use of
new technology or other innovations. <strong>The</strong> original
Luddites were textile workers in En gland who
feared the loss of their jobs when newly invented
machines threatened to take over the work of
hand- loom weavers. <strong>The</strong>y attacked many factories
between 1799 and 1816, destroying the hated
machinery, but failed to stop the inevitable spread
of improved industrial technology. <strong>The</strong>y named
themselves after one Ned Ludd, who was reputed
to have destroyed machines in a Leicestershire factory
30 years earlier. “I’m just a senile old Luddite,
I suppose” (Ian Maitland, Cathedral, 1993).
Luke Skywalker See star wars.
lukewarm Laodicea See laodicean.
Lurch (lerch) A tall, ungainly person. <strong>The</strong> allusion
is to the towering butler in the addams family
comic strip, tele vi sion series, and fi lms. Uncle
Joe was a huge man with a deep voice and a shambling
gait, like Lurch.
Lusitania (loositayneeb) Emblem of a tragic
nautical disaster. During World War I, the British
Cunard passenger liner Lusitania was sailing from
Liverpool to New York when it was torpedoed off
Ireland by a German submarine on May 7, 1915;
1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans
(among them the millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt
and the theater producer Carl Frohman). <strong>The</strong> loss
of the Lusitania provoked a strong reaction on both
sides of the Atlantic and proved a signifi cant step
toward the United States entering the war in 1917
(it has even been suggested that the British Admiralty
realized the danger the ship was in but deliberately
put it at risk so that the United States would
be persuaded to enter the war). It was a maritime
crime on the scale of the sinking of the Lusitania.
Luthor, Lex See superman.
lyceum (liseebm) A school; a public concert or
lecture hall. <strong>The</strong> original Lyceum was the open- air
school in a grove on the banks of the Ilissus River in
Athens where Aristotle engaged his pupils in discussions
of philosophy. “I did not see why the
schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest,
and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not
the State’s schoolmaster, but I supported myself by
voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the
lyceum
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