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

adventures revolve around the sheriff’s attempts
to capture the famous outlaw and disperse his
band of merry men. Like the Sheriff of Nottingham,
the state believes itself to be entitled to a generous share
of everyone else’s personal wealth.
Sherlock Holmes (sherlok homz) An ace detective.
<strong>The</strong> brilliant, eccentric private detective Sherlock
Holmes was the creation of the British novelist
and short- story writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(1859–1930). He made his fi rst appearance in A
Study in Scarlet in 1887, together with his devoted
friend and biographer doctor watson, and his
adventures quickly attracted a huge readership.
Doyle’s attempt to kill Holmes off in 1902 by throwing
him off the Reichenbach Falls in the clutches of
his archenemy Professor Moriarty led only to concerted
calls for his revival, and Doyle felt obliged to
resurrect him for a further series of cases. Holmes
has been brought to life in numerous movies as well
as on radio, tele vi sion, and the stage and his methods
of deduction through minute observation of details
continue to fascinate and beguile. Holmes himself
professes to think little of his talents, modestly
informing Watson that his deductions are “elementary.”
Doyle is said to have modeled his detective’s
techniques upon those of Dr. Joseph Bell of the
Edinburgh Infi rmary. <strong>The</strong> police have so little to go on
that even Sherlock Holmes would fi nd it diffi cult to know
what conclusions to draw. See also elementary, my dear
watson; three- pipe problem.
Sherwood Forest See robin hood.
She Who Must Be Obeyed A wife or other
woman whose orders are always followed. <strong>The</strong>
term is an allusion to the 1887 novel She by the
British writer H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925), in
which he describes a fi ctional lost African city
ruled by Ayesha, a 2,000- year- old beauty possessed
of eternal youth and an iron will. <strong>The</strong> phrase was
later adopted by British novelist John Mortimer in
his Horace Rumpole stories as the means by which
the lawyer Rumpole refers to his reportedly ferocious
wife. “Simon Draper took to calling her
‘She who must be obeyed’—if not to her face”
(M. Brown, Richard Branson: <strong>The</strong> Inside Story, 1989).
shibboleth (shibbleth) A watchword or a generally
accepted rule or fundamental precept; a phrase that
is diffi cult to pronounce or a peculiarity of behavior,
dress, etc., that is diffi cult to master and thus may be
used to test whether a person belongs to a par tic u lar
class, profession, or other group. In its original biblical
context ( Judges 12:1–16) the word (meaning
“stream in fl ood” in Hebrew) was used by Jephthah
to tell the Gileadites from their enemies the
Ephraimites, who pronounced the word sibboleth
and thus betrayed their identity and were summarily
put to death. “If it works, then some of the old shibboleths
about Saturday night being family entertainment
night will be buried alongside Noel’s House
Party” (Guardian, July 2, 2001).
Shiloah (shilob) A place of heavenly peace and
rest. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to Isaiah 8:6–7, in which Isaiah
refers to the “waters of Shiloah that go softly,” and
also to John 9:1–11, in which Christ heals a blind
man by sending him to wash his eyes in the pool of
Shiloah, or Siloam, just outside Jerusalem. (Shiloah
comes from the Hebrew word shalah, “to
send”; Siloam is the Greek form used in the Book
of John.) After a lifetime of trouble and misfortune he
found himself able to enjoy a brief respite beside the
softly fl owing waters of Shiloah.
shining light A person who is recognized as one
of the foremost fi gures in a par tic u lar fi eld; a person
shining light
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