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Throw To The Wolves
"Throw to the wolves" is an English metaphorical idiom, meaning to sacrifice someone to save or benefit oneself or one's group. " Throw under the bus" is a more modern equivalent. "Throw to the wolves" is also sometimes used more generally to describe abandoning someone for any reason (such as some unwanted trait or property of the victim herself), cognate with " throw to the lions" and " throw to the dogs", which also derive from the supposedly man-eating appetites of a beast, or " kick to the curb". Origins and use The story and its derivative metaphor are found in America and Europe, from at least the 19th century. A Russian idiom with the same meaning is "lighten the sleigh" (облегчить сани). The idiom was current among American immigrants from Russia – including especially ethnic Germans – to the American Great Plains. In Russia, many folktales concerning wolves are told. One such type of tale concerns a troika or other sleigh, or a convoy of sleighs, bese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Throw Under The Bus
To "throw (someone) under the bus" is an idiomatic phrase in English meaning to blame or abandon a person for selfish reasons. It is typically used to describe a disavowal of a previously amicable relationship to avoid being associated with something controversial or embarrassing. Origins It seems possible that the expression throw/push/shove someone under the bus comes from Britain in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The earliest known usage of this phrase was 21 June 1982, when Julian Critchley of ''The Times'' (London) wrote "President Galtieri had pushed her under the bus which the gossips had said was the only means of her removal." After Julian Critchley, a relatively early use is attributed by the website Double-Tongued Dictionary to a 1991 article in the ''Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph''. Cyndi Lauper is sometimes wrongly quoted as saying in ''The Washington Post'' in 1984: "In the rock 'n' roll business, you are either on the bus or under it. Playing 'Feelings' with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damnatio Ad Bestias
''Damnatio ad bestias'' (Latin for "condemnation to beasts") was a form of Roman capital punishment where the condemned person was killed by wild animals, usually lions or other big cats. This form of execution, which first appeared during the Roman Republic around the 2nd century BC, had been part of a wider class of blood sports called ''Bestiarii''. The act of ''damnatio ad bestias'' was considered a common form of entertainment for the lower class citizens of Rome (plebeians). Killing by wild animals, such as Barbary lions, formed part of the inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre in AD 80. Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, this penalty was also applied to the worst of criminals, runaway slaves, and Christians. History The exact purpose of the early ''damnatio ad bestias'' is not known and might have been a religious sacrifice rather than a legal punishment, especially in the regions where lions existed naturally and were revered by the population, such as Africa, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Throw To The Dogs
Throwing is an action which consists in acceleration, accelerating a projectile and then releasing it so that it follows a ballistics, ballistic trajectory, usually with the aim of impact (mechanics), impacting a remote target. This action is best characterized for animals with prehensibility, prehensile limbs: in this case the projectile is grasping, grasped, while the limb segments impart a motion of the hand through compounded mechanical advantage. For other animals, the definition of throwing is somewhat unclear, as other actions such as spitting or Spray (liquid drop), spraying may or may not be included. Primates are the most capable throwers in the animal kingdom, and they typically throw feces as a form of agonistic behavior. Of all primates, humans are by far the most capable throwers. They throw a large variety of projectiles, with a much greater efficacy and accuracy. Humans have thrown projectiles for hunting and in warfare – first through rock throwing, rock-thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kick To The Curb
A kick is a physical strike using the leg, in unison usually with an area of the knee or lower using the foot, heel, tibia (shin), ball of the foot, blade of the foot, toes or knee (the latter is also known as a knee strike). This type of attack is used frequently by hooved animals as well as humans in the context of stand-up fighting. Kicks play a significant role in many forms of martial arts, such as capoeira, kalaripayattu, karate, kickboxing, kung fu, MMA, Muay thai, pankration, pradal serey, savate, sikaran, silat, taekwondo, vovinam, and Yaw-Yan. Kicks are a universal act of aggression among humans. Kicking is also prominent from its use in many sports, especially those called football. The best known of these sports is association football, also known as soccer. History The English verb to kick appears only in the late 14th century, apparently as a loan from Old Norse, originally in the sense of a hooved animal delivering strikes with his hind legs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Woman Throwing Her Baby To Wolves (Geoffroy, 1845)
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: * Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and people of Russia, regardless of ethnicity * Russophone, Russian-speaking person (, ''russkogovoryashchy'', ''russkoyazychny'') *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *Russian alphabet *Russian cuisine * Russian culture * Russian studies Russian may also refer to: * Russian dressing *''The Russians'', a book by Hedrick Smith * Russian (comics), fictional Marvel Comics supervillain from ''The Punisher'' series *Russian (solitaire), a card game * "Russians" (song), from the album ''The Dream of the Blue Turtles'' by Sting *"Russian", from the album '' Tubular Bells 2003'' by Mike Oldfield *"Russian", from the album '' '' by Caravan Palace *Nik Russian, the perpetrator of a con committed in 2002 *The South African na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Germans In Russia, Ukraine And The Soviet Union
The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military service in the Russian Empire, large groups of Germans from Russia emigrated to the Americas (mainly Canada, the United States, Brazil and Argentina), where they founded many towns. In 1914, an estimate put the remaining number of ethnic Germans living in the Russian Empire at 2,416,290. During Stalin's dictatorship, ethnic German families were decimated and deported to gulag concentration camps located in Siberia and other parts of Central Asia, leading to the genocide of Germans from Russia. In 1989, the Soviet Union declared to have an ethnic German population of roughly 2 million. By 2002, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many ethnic Germans had emigrated (mainly to Germany) and the population fell by half to roughl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troika (driving)
A troika (, "triplet" or "trio") is a traditional Russian harness driving combination, using three horses abreast, usually pulling a sleigh. It differs from most other three-horse combinations in that the horses are harnessed abreast. The middle horse is usually harnessed in a horse collar and shaft bow; the side horses are usually in breastcollar harness. The troika is traditionally driven so that the middle horse trots and the side horses canter; the right-hand horse will be on the right lead and the left-hand horse on the left lead. The troika is often claimed to be the world's only harness combination with different gaits of the horses. The term "troika" is sometimes used to refer to any three-horse team harnessed abreast, regardless of harness style or what horse-drawn vehicle is used. At full speed a troika can reach , which was a very high speed on land for vehicles in the 17th–19th centuries, making the troika closely associated with the fast ride. The troika was de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Ántonia
''My Ántonia'' ( ) is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions on both children, affecting them for life. This novel is considered Cather's first masterpiece. Cather was praised for bringing the American West to life and making it personally interesting. Title The title refers to Ántonia, a young woman immigrant to the western prairies of the US. The story is told by her friend Jim, who arrives there at age ten to live with his grandparents. Jim thinks of her as his close friend, my Ántonia. The name is pronounced as it would be in Czech. Narration Cather chose a first-person narrator because she felt that novels depi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His early long poems ''Pauline'' (1833) and ''Paracelsus'' (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem ''Sordello'' was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection ''Men and Women'' (1855). His ''Dramatis Personae'' (1864) and book-length epic poem ''The Ring and the Book'' (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Silent Speaker
''The Silent Speaker'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1946. It was published just after World War II, and key plot elements reflect the lingering effects of the war: housing shortages and restrictions on consumer goods, including government regulation of prices, featuring the conflict between a federal price regulatory body and a national business association, paralleling the conflicts between the Office of Price Administration and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. ''The Silent Speaker'' was Stout's first full-length Nero Wolfe novel since '' Where There's a Will'' in 1940. "Thereafter, though he would continue writing for another thirty years, his stories would all be Nero Wolfe stories," wrote biographer John McAleer. "He liked Wolfe and Archie. After all, they were an essential part of himself. 'During the war years I missed them,' he told me." Plot introduction The head of a Federa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending his orchids, or eating the gourmet meals prepared by his chef, Fritz Brenner. Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's sharp-witted, dapper young confidential assistant with an eye for attractive women, narrates the cases and does the legwork for the detective genius. Stout published 33 novels and 41 novellas and short stories featuring Wolfe from 1934 to 1975, with most of them set in New York City. The stories have been adapted for film, radio, television and the stage. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated for Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was a nomine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
