[Ads-l] words connected to a single provenance

[Dan Goncharoff]

As I wrote earlier, "final solution" from WWII

Also, almost every line from The Star-Spangled Banner and America the
Beautiful.

On Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:47 PM James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Aug 2018 02:20:07 Zone-0700 GEOFFREY NUNBERG <
> nunbergg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> <quote>
> I’ve been trying to come up with words in more-or-less general use that
> are associated with a single prominent historical or literary provenance
> — not hapax legomena, but items like “infamy,” which for most people who
> know it brings FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech to mind but which is used in
> other contexts as well. </quote>
>
> both single words and phrases:
>
> from Julius Caesar:  Cross the Rubicon, the die is cast, Et tu Brute
> and from Brutus: Sic Semper Tyrannus
>
> Pyrrhic victory
>
> from Russia: Potemkin village
>
> from the French Revolution: Liberte Egalite et Fraternite, Reign of
> Terror, let them eat cake
>
> from the Peninsular War: guerilla
>
> Waterloo (as a metaphor, e.g. "met his Waterloo")
>
> a recent article on Manafort/Cohen reads "Birnam Wood has now come to
> Dunsinane"
>
> from the Spanish Civil War: Fifth Column
>
> from World War II: quisling, ground zero, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor
> (metaphor for a sneak attack), I shall return
>
> from the Alamo: line in the sand
>
> from Poe: For the love of God, Montresor, purloined letter (gold bug is
> sometimes used as a technical term for a monalphabetic cypher)
>
> Benedict Arnold (= traitor).  I believe in France the equivalent is
> "Ragusa" after the Duke of Ragusa
>
> Ravachol (in French meaning a damn fool or butcher)
>
> Trojan horse
>
> from Mark Twain: Connecticut Yankee and perhaps "whitewashing a fence"
>
> tilting at windmills
>
> scarlet letter
>
> Walden Pond
>
> of the people, by the people, and for the people
>
> two that come to mind from the Old Testament: shibboleth,
> David-and-Goliath as a metaphor
>
> Headless Horseman
>
> Beam me up, Scotty (sometimes followed by "there's no intelligent life
> down her")
>
> munchkin, I don't believe we're in Kansas any more, and hasn't "Dorothy"
> acquired a meaning in the LGBT community?
>
> in hoc signo vinces (which somehow appeared on Pall Mall cigarette
> packages)
>
> aside to Laurence Horn: "cowabunga" is from the Howdy Doody TV show; how
> Bart Simpson picked it up I don't know.  Surprisingly, despite many
> possibilities, the only other enduring word from Howdy Doody is the name
> "Chief Thunderthud"---in the Viewnam War the F-105 Thunderchief became
> known as the "Thud")
>
> - Jim Landau
>
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