Where does them term "break a leg" orginate from?

Answer 1

I belive i heard from my theater arts teacher that it orginated in the theater world becuse people would say it for good luck no wait you say it before things for good luck just not theater or sports because if you broke a leg that would be bad. Sorry that was no help it was like a big scrible .

Answer 2

Unfortunately, firefly chose to cut and paste just one piece of an article. If she looked at the whole thing in context, she would discover that the list is a COLLECTION of suggested explanations.. and they cannot ALL be true!

More important, the author of the page insists that NONE of them are correct!

To quote it:
"We may discard all of these on the grounds of varying degrees of implausibility. "


The fact that other languages have very similar expressions --for me the German "Hals- und Beinbrueck" [break (your) neck and leg!] does it-- shows that the alternate means of "break" and "leg" just will not do. The expression is referring to a literal human leg and fracturing it, NOT some other action bending.

As the page cited suggests, the expression appears to be fairly recent in English, and very likely borrowed from the German expression mentioned above, probably via German or Yiddish-speaking immigrants involved in the theater (of whom there were many).

And it DOES seem to relate to a superstitious notion that wishing something may cause the opposite. .. so the expression serves as a wish for good luck and health. . .

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bre1.htm

Answer 3

Of all theatrical superstitions, this attempt to ward off the forces of darkness by wishing one’s fellow performers the opposite of good luck is the one that’s perhaps best known outside the profession. It belongs with other superstitions, such as that it’s bad luck to whistle in a theatre, that you should never utter the final line of a play at the dress rehearsal, or that you must never say the name of the Scottish Play in the green room. Actors have always been a superstitious bunch, as you might expect from a profession in which employment is sporadic, audiences fickle and reputations fragile.

The saying is widely used among actors and musicians in the theatre today, sometimes before every performance, but more often reserved for first night. Where it comes from has for decades been a source of dispute and I’ve collected the following speculations:

In earlier times, actors wished one another “may you break your leg”, in the hope that the performance would be so successful that the performer would be called forth to take a bow — to bend his knee.
At one time audiences showed their appreciation by throwing money on the stage; to pick the coins up, actors had to break their legs, that is, kneel or bend down.
The curtains on either side of a stage were called the legs, so that to pass through the legs was to make it out on to the stage ready to give a good performance, or perhaps expressing the hope that you will need to pass through them at the end of the show to take a curtain call, implying your performance had been good.
The saying really refers to getting one’s big break, that the performance will be good enough to ensure success in one’s career.
The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt had a leg amputated in 1915, which didn’t stop her performing; it is considered good luck to mention her in the hope that some of her theatrical prowess will rub off by association.
John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Lincoln, broke his leg when he jumped on to the stage to escape afterward. Somehow, reminding fellow actors of this event is supposed to lead to good luck in the performance.

Answer 4

It's from an old superstition that wishing the opposite of good luck will ward off evil. Thus, break a leg really meant have a great performance.

Answer 5

It originated in the theatre of the Shakespearean era, when everything was very superstitious(Such as saying MacBeth before a performance). It was thought that to wish someone good luck would jinx a performer, and it would end in disaster, and so, they began saying 'Break a leg' to jinx a good performance...