"Fat Lady Sings" in Dallas Morning News

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> tournament finals.  "Hey, Ralph," said Bill Morgan, "this Morgan, the
> league information director, is going to be a tight one after all."
> "Right," said Ralph, "The opera ain't over until the fat lady sings."
>         Dallas Morning News, March 10, 1976, section B, page 2
>
> This citation calls into question the usual attribution of the phrase to
> Dan Cook, since the earliest Cook evidence is 1976.  (It may well be,

I meant to type "the earliest Cook evidence is 1978."  Note that the
garbled portion about "this Morgan, the league information director" is
present in the original.

Fred Shapiro


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