Secrets of My Legacy

Why isn’t it over ’til the fat lady sings?

In the 1970s, Washington sports columnist Dan Cook wrote, “The opera isn’t over ’til the fat lady sings.” Later, basketball coach Dick Motta, referring to the Bulls’ slim playoff chances, misquoted Cook when he said, “It isn’t over ’til the fat lady sings,” and it stuck. The inspiration might have been the old American proverb, “Church ain’t out ’til the fat lady sings,” but regardless, it’s now accepted in sports as meaning: where there’s life, there’s hope.

Where did we get the expression second string?

In sports jargon, the second string is the second-best group of players on a given team. The term has also found its way into business, where it is used in much the same way. In fact, it comes from medieval archers, who always carried an extra string in case the one on their bow broke. Therefore the second string had to be as good as the first, as did the third and fourth strings.

Why do we say a person isn’t “up to scratch?”

During the early days of bare-knuckle boxing, a line was scratched across the centre of the ring, dividing it into two halves. This is where the fighters met to start the contest, or where they “toed the line” to begin each round. If, as the fight progressed, one of the boxers was unable to toe the line without help from his seconds, it was said he had failed to come “up to scratch.”

Why is a boxing ring square?

In the days of bare-knuckle boxing, before modern rules, a circle was drawn in the dirt and prize fighters were ringed by the fans. When one of the men was knocked out of that circle, he was simply pushed back into the ring by the crowd. In 1867, Marcus of Queensbury introduced a number of rules to boxing, including three-minute rounds and a roped-off square, which fans continued to call the “boxing ring.”

Why do we call the genuine article “the real McCoy”?

In the 1890s, a great boxer known as Kid McCoy couldn’t get the champion to fight him, and so to seem beatable, he began to throw the odd bout, and fans never knew if they’d see the “real McCoy.” The plan worked, and he became the welterweight champion of the world. Once, while in a bar, McCoy was challenged by a drunken patron who didn’t believe that he was the great boxer, and McCoy flattened him. When the man came around, he declared that the man who had knocked him out was indeed the “real McCoy.”

Why is a fistfight called “duking it out”?

“Duking it out” and “Put up your dukes” are both expressions from the early 1800s when bare-knuckle boxing was considered a lowerclass activity. When Frederick Augustus, the then duke of York took up the sport, English high society was shocked. The “Duke” gained so much admiration from the other boxers, however, that they began referring to their fists as their “dukes of York” and eventually as their “dukes.”

How did tennis get the terms seeded and love?

Tennis was popularized by the French nobility, and because a zero looked like an egg that’s what they called it. Egg in French is l’oeuf, which became love in English. The seeding or placing of the best players within favourable tournament positions required other players to graciously cede — yield or give up — the spots. In time, the word mutated to the spelling of its homonym, seed, and so players were said to be seeded.

Why are golf assistants called “caddies”?

In medieval France the first-born sons of nobility were known as the “caput,” or head, of the family, while the younger, less valuable boys were called “capdets,” or little heads, and were often sent to the military to train as officers. In English, “capdets” became “cadets,” which the Scots abbreviated to “cads” or “caddies,” meaning any useless street kid who could be hired for the day to carry around a bag of golf clubs.