Reader question:

Please explain “break a leg” in this: “And do not wish me luck by saying: ‘Break a leg, honey.’”

My comments:

This sounds like a son or daughter admonishing their mother or father.

Yes, “break a leg” means good luck and it doesn’t sound nice to the ear. It sounds brutal, especially to the uninitiated.

I recall when Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and one of the richest men on earth hosted the popular comedy show Saturday Night Live, his mother said exactly that.

“Break a leg tonight.” she told her son. “I love you very much.”

To people who don’t know the history of “Break a leg”, this sounds brutal, especially from a mother.

So let’s get to the history of the expression, break a leg.

In theater, people don’t wish each other good luck by saying, well, good luck. They don’t do that because they’re superstitious – in this matter. They believe if you wish actors and actresses good luck, accidents are prone to follow. They’ll, say, fall off the stage and break their neck or a leg or two, as it were.

Insofar as hearsay, this has actually happened. We don’t know for certain if it has definitely happened but, as Mark Twain liked to say, it might have happened.

It certainly could have happened.

So, in consequence, theater people say “break a leg” instead – believing that calling out bad luck will prevent it from happening.

Here’s a more or less full and complete explanation, from StraightDope.com (What’s the origin of “break a leg” in show business? August 8, 2000):

“Break a leg,” is, of course, what way actors wish each other instead of “good luck” before a performance. The expression has been common among the thespian crowd since the early 1900s.

There are a number of theories about the origin. The most colorful is that the phrase refers to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theater, when Booth jumped from Lincoln’s box to the stage, breaking his leg. However, the phrase was first recorded in print in the early 1900s, and is unlikely to refer to an incident half a century earlier.

Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Catchphrases, suggests that “break a leg” originated as a translation of a similar expression used by German actors: Hals- und Beinbruch (literally, “a broken neck and a broken leg.”) The German phrase traces back to early aviators, possibly during World War I, spreading gradually to the German stage and then to British and American theaters.

Why would people twist a wish for dreadful injury into one for good luck? Evan Morris, of www.word-detective.com, suggests that, “Popular folklore down through the ages is full of warnings against wishing your friends good luck. To do so is to tempt evil spirits or demons to do your friend harm. Better to outwit the demons (who must be rather dim, it seems to me) by wishing your friend bad fortune.”

Morris goes on to cite the stage directions for the opening night a few years ago of the reconstructed Globe Theater in London, which “supposedly called for two actors to swing dramatically from a balcony down to the stage on ropes. One of the actors slipped and, you guessed it, broke his leg.”

Straight Dope Staff Dex wants to add that it’s not wise to use the phrase outside of the theatre. He was having a conversation with a cantor, about to lead a religious service for 1,000 people, and he smiled, “Break a leg.” The cantor wasn’t familiar with the phrase or with the theatre tradition, and Dex says the look he got would have withered an artichoke.

Okay. And by the way, heed the above advice and try to limit its use to show business.

In other words, try not to say “break a leg” to an Olympic gymnast who’s going to attempt incredible somersaults over the high bar or the pommel horse.

Just, silently, wish for the best.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場(chǎng)無(wú)關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問(wèn)題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國(guó)家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣）