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5. After you have distinguished the opinions of the commentator and the author, express your own opinions on the above statements.

3.2 D. Vocabulary in Focus

1. “All Creatures Great and Dying” is an allusion to Biblical all creatures great and small.

Allusion is a figure of style indirectly referring to some famous phenomenon, person, statement etc.

Study the following allusions.

Achilles’ heel – vulnerable spot or weak point. (Thesis dipped her son Achilles in the river Styx, making him invulnerable, except in the heel by which she held on to him. That is the spot where he was mortally wounded by an arrow.)

Armageddon - vast, decisive battle. The Bible prophesies that the final battle between the forces of good and evil will take place before the end of the world at a place called Armageddon.)

Catch-22 - a complex situation impossible to escape from as each part of the problem should be dealt with first. (From the title of the novel by the US writer Joseph Heller, first published in 1962. The novel is about a group of people in the US air force who find themselves in a number of funny situations caused by silly military rules.)

Crocodile tears - false tears, insincere show of grief (It used to be believed that crocodiles shed tears while devouring (to eat sth quickly because you are very hungry) their victims.)

Cross Rubicon - take a decisive, irrevocable step. (In 49 B.C., Caesar’s enemies ordered him to return from his conquests without his army. Caesar knew that to cross the Rubicon River with his army would be to invade Roman soil and start a civil war – a step from which there was no going back, but he took that gamble.)

Cry wolf - give a false alarm. (This is an allusion to the fable in which a shepherd boy cries the alarm “wolf” as a joke.)

Dog in the manger - a person, preventing others from using what he doesn’t need. (A dog in one of Aesop’s fables positioned himself in a manger [feed box for cattle] and prevented an ox from eating hay.)

Freudian slip - slip of the tongue by which it is thought person unintentionally reveals his true feelings

Manna from the heaven - sth you need very much and get very unexpectedly. (According to the Bible, the food that god gave to the Israelites in the desert after they had escaped from Egypt.)

Midas touch - talent for making money in any enterprise. ( Midas, mythical king of Phrygia, had the power of turning everything he touched into gold.)

Murphy’s law – satirical maxim stating that if anything can go wrong it will.

Pandora’s box - source of extensive unforeseen troubles. (Beautiful Pandora, the first mortal woman according to Greek mythology, received a box she was forbidden to open, but she did, releasing all the ills that have since plagued the world.)

Parkinson’s law – satirical maxim about the lack of productivity, stating that work expands to fill the time available for its completion; also that the number of subordinates increase regardless of the amount of work produced.)

Pyrrhic victory - victory achieved at ruinous cost. (Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, sustained unacceptably high losses in defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 B.C.)

Sour grapes - criticism of sth that you can’t have, caused by annoyance. (A fox in one Aesop’s fables, frustrated in his efforts to reach some grapes, tried to save face by saying that they were sour.)

Voice in the wilderness - sb whose suggestions are ignored

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