[Lexicog] "It ain't over til' the fat lady sings"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I assume the response below is a joke.  Here is what the recently published Yale Book of Quotations, which presents original research for many of the most famous quotations, has:

Ralph Carpenter, U.S. sports publicist, ca. 1932 - 1995

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

Quoted in Dallas Morning News, 10 Mar. 1976.  Carpenter was sports information director at Texas Tech University when he uttered thi sline during a basketball game with Texas A&M.  Sportscaster Dan Cook used the expression in a television broadcast, 10 May 1978, before a Washington Bullets - San Antonio Spurs playoff basketball game (Cook has usually been credited as the originator).  "The fat lady" was then picked up and popularized by Washington coach Dick Motta.  However, a 1976 booklet, Southern Words and Sayings by Fabia Rue Smith and Charles Rayford Smith, includes the saying "Church ain't out 'till the fat lady sings," suggesting an ultimate origin in Southern proverbial lore.  Ralph Keyes, "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" (1992), records the recollections of several Southerners remembering similar phrases used as early as the 1950s.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________________
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com [lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Margaret Marks [margaret.marks at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 5:32 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] "It ain't over til' the fat lady sings"

2008/5/8 Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org>:
> Recently I came across the expression "It ain't over til' the fat lady
>  sings."
>  I was interested in finding out where the expression comes from. Who is the
>  fat lady?
>  I found different contradictory explanations about the origin (opera,
>  church, sports; Southern expression).
>

Hi Fritz,

This is actually an old British saying, and not many people know its
origin. It is based on the life of Queen Victoria. Although she
survived her German husband for many years, and mourned him for a long
time, she eventually realized she was better off without him and is
reported to have sung on her deathbed. I think her son was even older
than Prince Charles when he became king, so he had to wait a long time
for her to die.

Regards

Margaret Marks

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