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

Tommy
472
that much earlier they had been applied to a pair
of lively young men who featured in Pierce Egan’s
Life in London; or, <strong>The</strong> Day and Night Scenes of Jerry
Hawthorn, Esq, and His Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom
(1821). “It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon to see
him bang his head on the door, bounce back, look
a little dazed, and then remember the terrifying
‘nightmare’ he was escaping from, and shoot for
cover behind the sofa” ( Jon Hadwick, Owl Light,
1991).
Tommy A soldier in the British army. Associated
particularly with soldiers fi ghting in World War I,
the nickname was actually familiar to British soldiers
through most of the 19th century as a shortened
form of Tommy Atkins, the name given on the
specimen forms handed out to new recruits as a
guide to fi lling out their own enlistment documents.
“O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’
‘Tommy, go away’; / But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister
Atkins’, when the band begins to play” (Rudyard
Kipling, “Tommy,” Barrack Room Ballads, 1892).
tomorrow is another day Fortunes can change
radically from day to day. Common to the extent
of being a cliché, this is the closing line of the classic
1939 movie gone with the wind, in which it
is delivered by Vivien Leigh in the guise of Scarlett
O’Hara as she resolves to make up for some of her
earlier mistakes by devoting her energies to restoring
her neglected Tara estate: “After all, tomorrow
is another day.” This was also to have been the
title of a sequel Margaret Mitchell planned to
write to her original novel, upon which the fi lm
was based. It is undeniable that today’s events have
been disappointing, but tomorrow is another day.
tomorrow will take care of itself Do not worry
about the future until it comes. <strong>The</strong> proverb comes
from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount: “Take therefore
no thought for the morrow: for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself ” (Matthew
6:34). His grandmother was notorious for her procrastination
in such matters. She was a great believer in the
philosophy tomorrow will take care of itself. See also
suffi cient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Tom, Uncle See uncle tom.
Tom Paine A po liti cal radical, especially one
committed to the cause of liberty. Tom Paine
(1737–1809) was born in En gland but became
identifi ed with the cause of liberty and revolution
in other countries, fi ghting for the Americans in
the American Revolution and subsequently becoming
a member of the French revolutionary parliament.
His most infl uential publications were <strong>The</strong>
Rights of Man (1791–92) and <strong>The</strong> Age of Reason
(1794). As a po liti cal thinker he was sometimes described
as a modern Tom Paine.
Tom Sawyer (soyer, soier) Archetype of a mischievous,
resourceful young boy. <strong>The</strong> central
character of the novel <strong>The</strong> Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1876) by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens;
1835–1910), he famously exercises his creativity
to get out of school and to escape the risk
of doing any hard work. <strong>The</strong> kids on the corner
seemed to have more in common with Darth Vader than
they did with Tom Sawyer. See also huckleberry
fi nn.
Tom Thumb A very small person. Tom Thumb,
just the size of his father’s thumb, was originally a
nursery tale character, whose adventures were in
wide circulation by the 16th century. In the 19th
century the diminutive Charles Sherwood Stratton
(1838–83), just 40 inches in height, was