Where does the saying "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings" come from?

Answer 1

Two people got it right,cheyennet&po8t1,Yogi Berra said it at a yankee game,which the yanks came back to win.

Answer 2

I'm fairly certain it derives from opera.

Traditionally at the end of the opera it would be a somewhat large (OK, fat) lady who would come out and sing (most opera singers are on the large size - I think it's something to do with lung capacity.....)

Operas are rather long - some might say too long, and I suppose people would sit there and say "is it over yet?" every time someone else died, or something! The response would come back "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings"

Not very politically correct in this day and age, but useful anyway!!

Answer 3

The somewhat Runyonesque dictum, "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," is attributed to Anonymous in The Columbia World of Quotations (1996), which compares it to "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." I think I've heard somewhere, "The fight's not over till the last bell." The saying is not about opera, but about waiting before jumping to a conclusion.
But as regards opera: the last piece in an opera is actually only rarely the fat lady singing an aria. There's usually a big scene with lots of people singing and sometimes moving about (a finale), in which the music may get pretty loud. It may seem a little turgid to some, especially if the opera is by Wagner, but that's not really the right word. Busy, confusing, noisy, might be more appropriate

Answer 4

First let's get it straight: it's "the OPERA ain't over till the fat lady sings." Amazingly, we know exactly who originated this expression and approximately when.

It was first used around 1976 in a column in the San Antonio News-Express by sportswriter Dan Cook. Cook does not recall the precise date or what the column was about.

Cook, who is also a sportscaster for KENS-TV in San Antonio, repeated the line during a broadcast in April 1978. He was trying to buck up local basketball fans who were dejected because the San Antonio Spurs were down three games to one in the playoffs against the Washington Bullets.

Bullets coach Dick Motta heard the broadcast and used the expression himself to caution fans against overconfidence after his team finished off the Spurs and took on Philadelphia.

The phrase became the team's rallying cry as they went on to win the championship. From there it entered the common pot of the language.

Most newsies aspire to nothing grander than a Pulitzer prize. But Cook can tell his grandkids he's in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs.

Answer 5

It a proverb. Mary C. Walker, who wrote a memoir, "The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung," about
her decades-long struggle with cancer, died Sunday. She was 67. ////Her
book, "The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung: An Inspiring Story of Love, Hope and
Triumph," is an unsparing but gentle story of her illness, from the
deterioration of her hips to the myriad visits to military hospitals in
Washington and San Antonio, where the family settled in the summer of
1975.

Walker selected the title because she was a sports fan and knew Dan
Cook, her husband said. Cook, who retired this summer after 51 years as
a San Antonio Express-News sports columnist, is credited with coining
the phrase "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings ."

Answer 6

It ain't over til the fat lady sings!" is a phrase made popular during the baseball playing days of Yogi Berra

Answer 7

I had always heard it came from the opera, due to the fact the "larger boned lady" usually had the lead singing part and she would end the opera. But a southern lady once told me it was related to church -going folks, and the fact that the fat lady sang at the end of church.

Answer 8

Because the star of the Opera used to generally be a fat lady, and she was generally singing in the final aria of the opera, in anutshell thats where it originates from :o)

Answer 9

This saying came from the Opera. At one time the opera wasnt over till the fat lady sang. Today, I believe that is different.

Answer 10

When the lead lady, usally quite a big lass, comes back on stage at the end of the opera for a final assault on your eardrums that means it time to grab your coat as its nearly home time.