Query: "Winner, winner, chicken dinner"

[Alice Faber]

Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> At 10:47 AM -0500 5/11/08, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>>> One of my students has asked me about "Winner, winner, chicken
>>> dinner" -- something I had never heard of before.   Would anyone
>>> known anything about it?  I asked my student to e-mail me what he
>>> had told me so I could forward it accurately to ads-l.  Any
>>> information/insight about it would be much appreciated.
>>>
>> I don't know about the "at least 20 years" part, but it's been
>> popularized over the last couple of years (long enough for it to have
>> become tiresome) by one of the hosts on ESPN's SportsCenter, who uses
>> it typically as a voice-over accompanying the showing of a walk-off
>> hit in the bottom of the last inning in a baseball game.
>
> That's a catchphrase of John Buccigross -- I don't recall hearing any of the
> other SportsCenter hosts use it. Wikipedia says he's been an ESPN anchor since
> 1996.
>

Yeah, I was pretty sure it was Buccigross. Going back to the student,
Gerald might suggest to him that he check out Buccigross' column (a
bi-weekly during hockey season); his email address is at the bottom of
every column, and he might well respond to a question of where he picked
up the phrase (if he even remembers!).

--
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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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