I've heard the expression "it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings", but I have never really understood what it is supposed to mean.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 13, 2000

Answers

It's based on the observation that operas tend to be long and boring (in the opinion of those who don't like operas, anyway), and since they're all singing in some language that most of the audience doesn't understand (e.g., Italian), it's hard to tell when the opera will be over ... it just seems to drag on and on forever. I don't remember whether it was W.C. Fields, or Will Rogers, or some other humorist, who said, "It [the opera] ain't over until the Fat Lady [usually a Norse goddess with full battle armor, a spear, and a plumed head-dress] sings."

I'm sure that other, more literary, forum participants can elaborate upon this...

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), January 13, 2000.

From The Straht Dope:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_243b.html

Dear Cecil:

What's the origin of the expression, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings"? --Dolly G., Oakland, California

Dear Dolly:

First let's get it straight: it's "the OPERA ain't over till the fat lady sings." Amazingly, we know exactly who originated this expression and approximately when.

It was first used around 1976 in a column in the San Antonio News-Express by sportswriter Dan Cook. Cook does not recall the precise date or what the column was about.

Cook, who is also a sportscaster for KENS-TV in San Antonio, repeated the line during a broadcast in April 1978. He was trying to buck up local basketball fans who were dejected because the San Antonio Spurs were down three games to one in the playoffs against the Washington Bullets.

Bullets coach Dick Motta heard the broadcast and used the expression himself to caution fans against overconfidence after his team finished off the Spurs and took on Philadelphia.

The phrase became the team's rallying cry as they went on to win the championship. From there it entered the common pot of the language.

Most newsies aspire to nothing grander than a Pulitzer prize. But Cook can tell his grandkids he's in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs.

--CECIL ADAMS

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 13, 2000.

---in this context, it might be when..

--YOUR credit history/payment/check/utility bill/job/network suffers a "glitch", one that you know in your heart is mostlikley y2k related, but get no satisfactory answer for

--YOUR sewer backs up/phone or 911 doesn't work/power surge fries some equipment, etc

--YOUR plane gets re-routed hundreds of miles away from your connecting flight, when a FAA puter system suffers something that is immediately labeled before they know what it is as "not y2k related"

--any of that stuff happens, look behind you, and as you do, slip in the earplugs, there's a big babe with a bigger voice right there

-- zog (zzogy@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

Ladylogic,

I thought you were banned from the forum. Did they reinstate you?

-- Male (Mailogic@aol.con), January 13, 2000.

When that fat assed (Lady-Logic-less) gets the hint and leaves this forum.

-- skinny (humorme@dot.com), January 13, 2000.

NOT Fat. Just pleasingly plump...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 13, 2000.

http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/library/faq/sports.htm

The opera ain't over til the fat lady sings.

DAN COOK, sports broadcaster and writer for the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, on television newscast in April 1978, after the first basketball game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Washington Bullets, to illustrate that while the Spurs had won once, the series was not over yet. Bullets coach Dick Motta borrowed the phrase later during the Bullet's eventually successful championship drive, and it became widely known and was often mistakenly attributed to him.--The Washington Post, June 11, 1978, p. D6. Cook may well have said isn't, but this remark is generally heard with ain't.

-- Total Trivia (sky@falling.com), January 13, 2000.

You'll know WHEN, because after she sings, she dies, the lights go out, and it's all over.

Git: thanks for the "Straight Dope" ref. A local paper carried it, but discontinued, to my dismay.

-- A (A@AisA.com), January 14, 2000.