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

Spock, Mr.
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Spock, Mr. See star trek.
spoil the Egyptians To plunder an enemy, especially
through deception or subterfuge. According
to Exodus 12:36 the Israelite women were told to
take what ever they could from their Egyptian captors
before the fl ight from Egypt: “And the LORD
gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians,
so that they lent unto them such things as
they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.”
When the workers realized their dismissal was inevitable
they elected to spoil the Egyptians by stealing every tool
they could lay their hands on.
spread one’s net To prepare to capture or
ensnare someone or something. <strong>The</strong> expression is
of biblical origin, appearing at Proverbs 29:5: “A
man that fl attereth his neighbour spreadeth a net
for his feet.” <strong>The</strong> government will have to spread its
net very wide if it is to make any signifi cant impact on
tax evasion.
spread the gospel To spread news of some kind;
to support a par tic u lar belief, outlook, etc. <strong>The</strong>
allusion is to the spreading of the Christian message,
as undertaken originally by Christ’s disciples
(Mark 16:15). “Fifa is taking a risk in spreading the
World Cup gospel” (Guardian, January 2, 2002).
Squeers, Wackford See dotheboys hall.
SS A ruthless and much feared military or ga niza
tion synonymous with brutal oppression. <strong>The</strong>
SS, or Schutzstaffel (German for “protective echelon”),
was one of the most dreaded parts of the
Nazi establishment. Recruiting dedicated Nazis
devoted to Adolf hitler and its own commander
Heinrich Himmler, the SS were responsible for
carry ing out many of the worst atrocities of the
Nazi era. Its members dominated both the military
and civil structures of the Third Reich. People
in the crowd complained that the soldiers had behaved
like the SS, beating up protesters indiscriminately. See
also night of the long knives.
stadium (staydeebm) A sports arena with tiered
seating for spectators. <strong>The</strong> word comes from the
Greek stadion, which denoted a length of around
606 feet. This was the distance run by competitors
on the sports track at Olympia, and in time the
word came to be applied to the arena itself. Legend
has it that Hercules himself set the length of
the track at Olympia. <strong>The</strong> competitors entered the
stadium to a deafening roar.
staff of Aesculapius (eskblaypeebs) Emblem of
the medical profession, including the American
Medical Association and the Royal Medical Corps,
consisting of a staff with a serpent entwined
around. Aesculapius was the god of medicine or
healing in Roman mythology, equivalent to the
Greek Asclepius, who was reputed to have learned
his skills from the centaur Chiron and become the
fi rst physician prior to being slain by Zeus for
compromising the god’s power over living things.
Doctors with the or ga ni za tion wear badges bearing the
staff of Aesculapius to denote their role as healers. See
also caduceus.
Stalin (stahlin) An authoritarian, tyrannical
lead er. Josef Stalin ( Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili;
1879–1953) succeeded Lenin as the leader of
Communist Rus sia in 1922 and under his rule
countless thousands of Rus sians were imprisoned
in the gulags of Siberia or condemned to death,
especially during the purges he instituted during
the 1930s. Millions more died of starvation as a
result of the disastrous collectivization of