[NEohioPAL]The story behind "Break a leg"?

[Mark Cipra]

For what it's worth:

When I first had "break a leg" explained to me, not too long after those first
written references in the 50's, my theater-superstition-mentor made a point of
saying:  "Never wish a theater person 'good luck'; luck has nothing to do with
it."  I don't doubt there's an element of "fooling the pixies" in the phrase,
but this has always stuck with me.

My personal preference has always been for the Booth story ... it sounds like
the kind of cruel in-joke we hear a lot in the theater.  My guess is it was
first used at a command performance for the President (there were periodic
revivals of interest in Booth's physician Dr. Mudd, which could explain the
time lapse).  The other stories always sounded too convoluted ("Bow so deeply
that ...") or too generic ("Walk through the first leg").

Just a guess, but "merde" is close to the French for "marvel" ("merveille") and
"merit" ("merite") so it might have originated as a pun on one of these.

At 12:14 PM 10/8/2004 -0400, you wrote: 

>
> Someone asked me today about the origin of blessing actors with the phrase,
> "break a leg".  I confessed I didn't have a clue.  Also, my dance friends
> wish each other well with the French word "merde" which means...well, I know
> what that means...but I don't know the WHY behind it.
>
> Can anyone enlighten me about the orgins of these?
>
> To my fellow cast members in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"
> at Olde Towne Hall Theatre in North Ridgeville..."break a leg" and "merde"
> for tonight's opening!
>
> Ron Dauphin
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
> ----------
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Mark T. Cipra           H:  (216) 295-5763              B:  (216) 433-6372
"Although arguments about the dating of [Shakespeare's Sonnets] are almost as
numerous and contradictory as those about who is dating whom in the poems ..."
        - Russ McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare