[Ads-l] "them's the breaks"

[Shapiro, Fred]

When I referred to "I got a bad break," I was actually thinking of the Lou Gehrig speech.  (I recently watched the film Pride of the Yankees.  I hate the Yankees, but was really impressed by the fact that Babe Ruth was played by ... Babe Ruth.)

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2022 4:41 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "them's the breaks"

>
> I am probably just missing something, but it seems to me that the OED is
> omitting an expression larger than "them's the breaks."  I don't see in any of
> the OED senses that the word "break" can refer to a stroke of fortune that
> could be bad.  Think of the expression "I got a bad break."
>
> Fred

Or, a quote which was one sentence away from making it into the Yale Book of Quotes:
"For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break."
Which was immediately followed by the more well known: "Yet today I consider myself
the luckiest man on the face of the earth." (Lou Gehrig, 1939).

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Caf03e9361212442f6b7e08da605902bd%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637928232659019790%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=a8ClpkxGOEpwxnz16jmvW1wkv1Xfv%2FhQUmvaSsaWOqM%3D&reserved=0

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org