Chrysti The Wordsmith: The Fat Lady Sings

Good day this is Christie the wordsmith. The Prov.. Look Before You Leap and practice what you preach are of considerable antiquity both having been traced to writings from ancient Greece. A proverb of recent American Vintage is the opera ain't over until the fat lady sings. Meaning don't pronounce the outcome of a contest until it's played out. As far as anyone can tell the expression made its printed debut in the March 10th 1976 sports edition of The Dallas Morning News which quoted Texas Tech sports information director Ralph carpenter commenting on who might prevail in a tied to basketball battle between Texas Tech and Texas A&M Carpenter said. The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings. Two years later in 1978 San Antonio sportscaster Dan Cooke reprise the expression on national television when the San Antonio Spurs battled the Washington Bullets in the NBA playoffs. When the playoffs came to a close that year the opera ain't

over till the fat lady sings was familiar to millions of American sports fans. The expression suggests of course the iconic image of a heroically proportioned soprano with a horned helmet singing the final aria of an opera. Some suggest the opera proverb is simply a new riff on the traditional Southern expression church ain't out until the fat lady sings. From the studios of KGO L.T. F am in Bozeman Montana. I'm Christie the wordsmith. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.