
Soprano Amalie Materna (1844-1918) as the character Brünnhilde in Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” at Bayreuth, Germany, 1876 – conjectural origin of the idiom “when the fat lady sings.”
What can anyone say about people that will cling to the body of a jet aircraft as it takes off, and then as it begins to reach altitude, fall to their deaths? Or stow away in a wheel well, where they are crushed by the mechanisms, or freeze to death at altitude?
Morons.
And desperate.
But still, morons.
They are utterly lacking common sense, stupid, and fundamentally absent the knowledge or intelligence to understand that such actions would be fool hardy at best, and – as it turned out – fatal at worst.
What would you say?
How would anyone describe it?
And yet, “it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.”
So goes a colloquial saying meaning “don’t count your chickens until the eggs are hatched.”
Speaking of eggs, they can’t be unscrambled.
And this matter may very well be exactly illustrative of that axiom.
But, I do hear her warming up.
The so-called “fat lady,” that is.
There’s also this to consider: Read the rest of this entry »