It aint over till the fat lady sings

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on May 07, 2010 at 16:00

In Reply to: It aint over till the fat lady sings posted by Tiamat on May 07, 2010 at 14:53:

: A phrase used all the time now is 'it aint over till the fat lady sings.'
: This makes no sense in operatic terms since the fat lady usually sang in the first act. I heard the phrase originally as: it 'aint over till the fat lady dies'. This is more usual in opera and makes sense. Does anyone else remember the original?

I can picture Moe waking Curly up with a sharp elbow to the ribs, saying "All right, the fat lady's dead; let's scram" but I'm having a hard time picturing a scenario where someone would teach a budding opera buff that the way you know when it's over is when the fat lady dies. Then again I don't know any opera buffs and maybe they're more earthy than I thought.

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