Talk:Allusion

message: I removed the following:-
*In Nick Park's Animation The Wrong Trousers (1993) Wallace says "All's Well That Ends Well" which may allude to Shakespeare's problem play "All's Well That Ends Well".
for two reasons:
There were a lot of references to "The Wrong Trousers" all over WP which seemed to have been posted by the same user to whip up interest in a book he is trying to publish about this film and
In Welcome to Collinwood George Clooney's character says to Sam Rockwell's, "You're an idiot".  Is this an allusion to Dostoevsky? I think not. Paul Tracy|\talk 19:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong Trousers 

message: I've deleted explications of two metaphors that weren't allusive. An allusion to "let the cat out of the bag" would refer somehow to "the familiar feline item" or something. --Wetman 17:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletions

message: In all my months on WP I have yet to make any serious edits... I thought I would try to find some books on the subject and try improving this article.
This is a basic suggestion for how to structure an expansion of this article. Feel free to change it..
*Introduction (commonly-accepted definition of allusion and how it differs from similar terms)
*Usage (how/why allusion is used by writers, poets, or in everyday speech)
:Etymology
:Historical usage (early usage of the word)
:Modern usage (how it has changed in meaning, if at all)
*Common categorizations of allusion (end each section with a brief and diverse list of examples)
:Literary/Poetic (e.g. Allusions to/by Shakespeare)
:Religious/Mythological (Christianity, Islam, Greek mythology)
:Nontextual (allusion to art, music, etc)
:Historical (well-known historical or current events)
:Other (more obscure categories, such as alluding to another poet's poetic form)
KingTT 17:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested expansion

message: I'm changing "Types of Allusions" to "Examples of Allusions".
These aren't really types or categories, just...examples.
Th900bbepr 22:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Types" vs. "Examples" 

message: I can't help but wonder at the notability here of entries on "Cassandra", "15 Minutes of Fame" etc.? And moreso, I can't figure out what the purpose  here is - is the intention to eventually have an unabridged list of the sources of all allusions ever made in modern speech (that's a daunting thought!)? , or to just hodgepodge together random bits of info? I would argue for the removal of these items - or at the absolute very least, if it's felt that such examples are necessary to explain what an allusion is (I'm skeptical)  just group the examples together (instead of giving each of them their own paragraph and heading) and let the wikilinks to their articles do the work. any thoughts? Warchef (talk) 17:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Purpose of examples?

message: This is how the page begins:
An allusion is a swaqq term to, or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of art, either directly or by implication. M.H. Abrams defined allusion as "a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage".[1] It is left to the reader or hearer to make the connection (Fowler); an overt allusion is a misnomer for what is simply a reference.
What the hell is a swaqq!?? Is this some kind of vandalism? It’s always embarrassing when someone tries to write on English grammar and usage, and then makes blunders in those areas, especially when they occur in the first sentence (actually in the first line of the first sentence).  There may be difficult themes and subjects in English, but the topic of allusions is not one of them; their function is simple to describe. So I was disappointed to see the obscure and long-winded nature of these musings, couched in sub-standard English at that.  And, for that matter, the term “overt allusion” is most definitely NOT a “misnomer for what is simply a reference”. 
There has been a fair amount of discussion here on this page, so I’m surprised nobody has picked up the glaring deficiencies therein. I will have a crack at it myself if no one else wants to. A definition culled from any small dictionary would be far more preferable to this load of old cobblers, which would only confuse students looking for a simple answer to a simple question. Myles325a (talk) 09:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The degraded text has been repaired. This article needs semi-protection and adult supervision.--Wetman (talk) 15:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  this page worse than useless 

message: In my opinion, the first sentence of an article is the most vital one. The current first sentence of the article is complex, and people could be drawn in to the Wikipedia article more if it was simplified.
The current sentence is:
"Allusion is a figure of speech, in which one refers covertly or indirectly to an object or circumstance that has occurred or existed in an external context."
Confusing, no?
68.228.111.2 (talk) 15:51, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Sentence 

message: wikipedia says:  
*  The origin of allusion is in the Latin verb ludere, lusus est "to play with, jest." 
britannica says: 
* The word allusion comes from the late Latin allusio meaning “a play on words” or “game” and is a derivative of the Latin word alludere, meaning “to play around” or “to refer to mockingly.”  (direct fair use quotation from )
Can somebody with a knowledge of Latin, and a copy of the OED, please figure out what our version should really say?  Please do NOT just delete the origin-sentence from mainspace; though I understand 'wikipedia is wp:not a dictionary', if britannica covers the word-origin in their article on this exact topic, then it behooves us to consider whether we also ought cover such factoid, rather than knee-jerk delete as Out Of Scope.  (Or if I'm just wrong, feel free to knee-jerk delete.  :-)      Thanks.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  etymology 

message: Also, have updated the first couple of sentences, which I see were discussed a couple of places above this talkpage section.  Currently mainspace now says:  
*  Allusion is a figure of speech, in which one refers covertly or indirectly to an object or circumstance from an external context.
*  It is left to the audience to make the connection;
*  where the connection is directly and explicitly stated (as opposed to indirectly implied) by the author, an allusion is instead usually termed a reference.
You can see further up the talkpage, we used to claim "overt allusion" is a misnomer, for instance.  The version I modified was less-assertive, but still seemed incorrect (talked about being "in depth" which bit I removed).  Also potentially helpful, found when I was looking up allusion... http://www.britannica.com/list/10-frequently-confused-literary-terms  ... note the mention of "literary and pop culture references" under the Connotation subsection. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  lede , again