gossip

11 November 2020

Gossip, as we all know, is rumor and unsubstantiated news of a titillating or sensational nature. But surprisingly, its origin is in the Christian rite of baptism.

The word dates back to the Old English word godsibb, meaning a godparent or sponsor at a baptism. It’s a compound of god (n., deity) + sibb (adj., marking a kinship, relationship). The sibb is the same root as in sibling.

The word appears in Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf to the English). Wulfstan, who often styled himself as “the Wolf” in his writing, was the archbishop of York. He wrote the sermon c.1015 C.E., and it is an apocalyptic sermon blaming the predations of the Vikings on the sins of the English people. In the version of the sermon found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 419, Wulfstan writes:

And godsibbas & godbearn to fela man forspilde wide geond þas ðeode.

(And too many gossips & godchildren have been destroyed widely throughout this nation.)

The word eventually expanded in meaning to refer to a close friend of either sex, the type of person one might choose to be a godparent to one’s children. This sense appears in the beast fable The Fox and the Wolf found in Oxford, Bodleian MS Digby 86, which was copied c.1275. In this passage, the fox is acting the role of confessor to the wolf:

“Gossip,” quod þe wolf, “forȝef hit me,
Ich habbe ofte sehid qued bi þe.
Men seide þat þou on þine live
Misferdest mid mine wive:
Ich þe aperseivede one stounde,
And in bedde togedere ou founde.
Ich wes ofte ou ful ney,
And in bedde togedere ou sey.
Ich wende, also oþre doþ,
Þat Ihc iseie were soþ,
And þerfore þou were me loþ.
Gode gossip, ne be þou nohut wroþ.”

(“Gossip,” said the wolf, “forgive me,”
I have often said evil things about you.
Men said that that you on your life
You sinned with my wife:
I then perceived one occasion,
And found you together in bed.
I was often very near you,
And saw you together in bed,
I believed, as other do,
That what I saw was true,
And therefore you were loathsome to me.
Good gossip, don’t be angry.)

And eventually the sense shifted to refer to a person who engages in idle talk, that is a friend with whom one shares confidences. This sense appears in Thomas Drant’s translation of Horace’s satires. He opens the fable of country mouse and city mouse thusly:

Full gosseplike, the father sage,
beginnes his fable then

Drant uses the word to refer to a man, but the word would more often be applied to women, as witnessed by John Lyly’s 1580 edition of his Euphues:

Faire Lady, if it be the guise of Italy to welcome straungers with straungnesse, I must needes say the custome is straunge and the country barbarous, if the manner of Ladyes to salute Gentlemen with coynesse, then I am enforced to think the women voyde of curtesie to use such welcome, and the men past shame that will come. But heereafter I will eyther bringe a stoole on mine arme for an unbidden guest, or a visarde on my face for a shamelesse gossippe.

The verb to gossip, meaning to engage in rumormongering dates to at least 1631, when Michael Drayton uses it in his poem “The Moone-Calfe”:

Amongst the rest, at the Worlds labour there,
For good old Women, most especiall were,
Which had bene iolly Wenches in their dayes,
Through all the Parish, and had borne the prayse,
For merry Tales: one Mother Red-Cap hight,
And Mother Howlet somewhat ill of sight,
For she had hurt her eyes with watching late;
Them Mother Bumby a mad iocund Mate
As euer Gossipt, and with her there came
Olde Gammer Gurton, a right plesant Dame,
As the best of them; being thus together,
The bus'nesse done for which they had come thither.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the verb was turned back into a noun, this time referring to the talk and rumor itself. On 14 December 1791, the Times of London runs what looks to be the opening scene of a play entitled The Gossip Shop about a place where people gather to hear news from abroad:

The Gossip Shop.
A Serio-Comic Operatical Farce,
As It Is Now Performing Opposite Burlington-House in Piccadilly

The description of the location indicates that the shop is supposed to be Fortnum and Mason, a department store which still exists at that spot. I don’t know whether this is the first scene in an actual play, or if it’s just a short, humorous piece the paper ran. Regardless, the word is being used as a noun to mean rumor and sensational news.

And on 31 October 1792, the newspaper the World runs this tidbit about operatic soprano Anna Storace:

Storace, Green-Room Gossip has it, is no longer the captive of her once favorite composer.

And on 8 May 1794, the Oracle and Public Advertiser writes about the port of Ostend in what is now Belgium:

The coffee houses are places for gossip and play—but few papers are to be found there; and, what may be thought rather extraordinary, not a Parisian Print is here to be seen or obtained.

The word has come a long way from godparent to salacious news.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. god-sibb.

“The Drama.” World (London), 31 October 1792, 2. Gale News Vault.

Drayton, Michael. “The Moone-Calfe.” The Battaile of Agincourt. London: Augustine Mathewes for William Lee, 1631, 237. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“The Gossip Shop.” Times (London), 14 December 1791, 2. Gale News Vault.

Horace. A Medicinable Morall. Thomas Drant, trans. London: Thomas Marshe, 1566, sig. Hviij. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Lyly, John. Euphues. London: Gabriel Cawood, 1580, 11r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. god-sib(be, n.

“Ostend.” Oracle and Public Advertiser (London), 8 May 1794, 3. Gale News Vault.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. gossip, n., gossip, v.

Treharne, Elaine. “The Fox and the Wolf.” Old and Middle English, c.890–c.1400: An Anthology, second edition. Maldon, MA: Blackwell, 2004,336.

Wulfstan. “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.” In Dorothy Behurum, ed. The Homilies of Wulfstan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957, 258.

n——r / n-word

10 November 2020

[Note: This word is perhaps the most offensive one in present-day English. I use the n-word in this entry only because the word has various forms and spellings that have changed over time and that connote different meanings. It’s impossible to clearly explain such differences when the word is expurgated. In this entry, I expurgate the double-g spelling of the n-word everywhere except the first reference, even in quotations where I mark the expurgation in square brackets, while leaving the older, variant forms intact. My hope is that this will allow a clear explanation of the word’s history while minimizing the offense it may cause.

 If anyone is offended by my use of the word in this entry, please accept my apologies, and let me know how I have offended or erred. I will listen and make changes as appropriate.

In this entry, I explain the word’s history. For commentary on why it is not appropriate for White people to use the word, see my post on “Should a White Person Ever Use the N-word?”]

The history of the word nigger is etymologically straightforward and semantically complex. When used by White people, the word has, from its first appearance in English, been a derogatory one. But as used by Black people, the word has a range of nuanced senses and connotations, although these uses by Black people remain controversial, with some saying the word is so polluted that it should never be used by anyone.

The n-word is borrowed from the French nègre, which borrowed it from the Spanish negro, a word which was also borrowed into English directly from Spanish at about the same time. The root literally means black. In French, it appears by 1516 as a noun in the sense of a Black person and as an adjective by 1611. But while n——r and negro both started out as simple descriptive terms, without any negative connotation, n——r quickly acquired such negative connotations in English usage.

The word appears in English with the form neiger in Thomas Hacket’s 1568 translation from the French of André Thevet’s The New Found Worlde. The passage quoted here uses the word as a description of skin color but with a connotation of White racial superiority. It also portrays an Early Modern version of scientific racism, where environmental conditions were thought to affect the bodily humors and cause the darkening of the skin and purportedly making Black persons inferior to White persons:

Then to the skin of this people so burned, there resteth but the earthly parte of the humor, the others being dispersed which causeth the coulour. I said they were fearful, bicause of the inward coldnesse: for hardinesse and manhoode commeth not, but with a vehement heate of the heart. The which causeth the Englishmen, & those that are vnder the North Pole, which co[n]trary are cold without, but maruelous hot within, to be hardy, couragious, & ful of great boldnesse. Therfore these Neigers haue their heade curled, their téethe white, great lips, croked legges, the women vnconstant, with many other vices which wold be to long to reherse

The word, with the spelling niger, appears a few years later in Edward Hellowe’s 1577 translation of the letters of Antonio de Guevara. Here the word is merely descriptive, with no implications of racial difference, although the passage does reflect anti-Semitic attitudes:

There is not any nation in this world, be it never so barbarous, that hath not some place to retire unto, or some captein to defend them, the Garamants of Asia, the Massagetes bordering upo[n] the Indians, & the Nigers of Aethiop, bearing witness, except you most miserable Iewes, the which in all places and countries be fugitives and captiues.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) distinguishes these earlier variants from the double-g spelling, placing them in separate entries. But this distinction makes little sense to me. Both forms follow the same etymological path, and their senses are not all that different. The one entry simply contains older forms of the same word.

The double-g spelling appears by 1608 in a letter by Anthony Marlowe, a representative of the East India Company, to his superiors back in London describing an encounter that happened in August 1607. Marlowe uses the word to denote indigenous Brazilians, not Africans, and his use is a patronizing one, connoting a sense of White racial superiority:

August 6 came to anchor in Serro Leona river, this place proved a happy place to us, for here at little charge we got up our men with limes, water and fish. In this river the Portugal hath trade, commodities gold and elephant's teeth, it is a goodly river, the navigation of it bold and good for any ship to come on the south side.

The King and people n[——]rs, simple and harmless.

By the late eighteenth century, the n-word is clearly being used as a term of contempt. Here is an example from a British song mocking George Washington and the troops of the Continental Army upon the occasion of Washington assuming command of the Army on 3 July 1775 at Cambridge Massachusetts:

Full many a child went into camp,
All dressed in homespun kersey,
To see the greatest rebel scamp
That ever cross'd o'er Jersey.

The rebel clowns, oh! what a sight!
Too awkward was their figure.
'Twas yonder stood a pious wight,
And here and there a n[——]r.

Upon a stump, he placed (himself,)
Great Washington did he,
And through the nose of lawyer Close
Proclaimed great Liberty.

So, as used by White people, the n-word became progressively more derogatory over the centuries, but its use among Black people is more nuanced.

There is a history of Black people in America using the term neutrally, but often this is in conversation with White people—the enslaved person using the term of the oppressor to curry favor or at least avoid punishment—and often such instances that are recorded are ventriloquized or mediated by White writers. The Oxford English Dictionary, in its sense A.I.1.c. “used by black people (esp. African Americans) as a neutral or favourable term” gives four nineteenth-century examples, but all four are by White writers attempting to portray Black speech, including an example from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Many of the uses in this sense are a form of verbal blackface, where White writers attempt to use Black dialect to mock and denigrate as a form of entertainment for White readers.

Instead, when we look at how actual Black writers in the nineteenth century use the n-word, they adopt it when they are quoting White people, speaking to White people from a position of subservience, or speaking among themselves but using the word to connote their servile or abject condition.

There are a fair number of published works by Black American writers in the nineteenth century, many of them narratives by formerly enslaved persons. But in these narratives the word is rarely used, except when quoting White people. For example, Frederick Douglass’s 1846 Narrative of the Life, which is perhaps the most famous of these narratives, uses the word eight times, always quoting a White person.

But there are some examples in these narratives of Black people using the term among themselves. For example, there is this passage from Lewis Clarke’s 1845 autobiography describing his emotions upon arriving in Canada and to freedom. Note, though, that Clarke’s use is in the context of master-slave power differential and connotes a servile position. It is not a word a free person would use to describe themselves:

When I stepped ashore here, I said, sure enough I AM FREE. Good heaven! what a sensation, when it first visits the bosom of a full grown man—one, born to bondage—one, who had been taught from early infancy, that this was his inevitable lot for life. Not till then, did I dare to cherish for a moment the feeling that one of the limbs of my body, was my own. The slaves often say, when cut in the hand or foot, "plague on the old foot, or the old hand, it is master's—let him take care of it—N[——]r don 't care if he never get well." My hands, my feet, were now my own. But what to do with them was the next question.

Solomon Northup in his 1853 Twelve Years a Slave shows how the word could be used among enslaved Blacks to mark a social hierarchy:

Patsey is twenty-three—also from Buford's plantation. She is in no wise connected with the others, but glories in the fact that she is the offspring of a "Guinea n[——]r," brought over to Cuba in a slave ship, and in the course of trade transferred to Buford, who was her mother's owner.

John Andrew Jackson, in his 1862 narrative, uses the word adjectively to mark something that is associated with or belonging to enslaved persons, in this case the slave quarters:

Mack English, having turned a wishful eye on Rose, wrapped himself up in his big cloak, and went to the n[——]r-house in the night, and called a slave named Esau, and told him to tell Rose to come to him as he wanted her.

And in her 1862 narrative Harriet Jacobs shows a Black woman using the word in a sense that would be common among Black speakers by the turn of the twenty-first century, that of a strong and assertive Black person:

If dey did know whar you are, dey won't know now. Dey'll be disapinted dis time. Dat's all I got to say. If dey comes rummagin 'mong my tings, dey'll get one bressed sarssin from dis 'ere n[——]r.

In the early twentieth century we see the appearance of the non-rhotic variant n[——]ah in Leon Harris’s 1925 telling of the story of the Black folk-hero John Henry. In this passage, the character Shine is speaking to fellow Black railroad workers. They are free men, but performing menial labor:

“Howdy n[——]ahs,” he commenced, “how’s you all dis mawnin’. ‘Lo ole man! Wot you doin’ sittin’ up heah lookin’ lak Rain-In-De-Face?”

He dropped the hammer and hand drill, threw his head back, opened wide his mouth and began singing:

“Keeps on a-rainin’, podnor,
N[——]ah can’t make no time.”

Harris, a Black writer, originally published his version of the John Henry story in the Black journal The Messenger. When called upon to reprint it in 1957 for Phylon Quarterly, a journal that focuses on culture and race in the United States but with a more racially mixed readership, n[——]ah was changed to folkses and nobody. Why the change was made is not known. Perhaps it was imposed by the editors. Or perhaps the intervening years had made the word more unacceptable. Or perhaps Harris thought it inappropriate to use it when writing for a more racially diverse readership.

Harris’s use of the non-rhotic n[——]ah presages the use of n[——]a by later rap artists and other Black speakers. And since the late twentieth century and the advent of Hip-Hop culture, some Black speakers and writers have actively tried to reclaim the n-word and use it positively, although that attempt has been criticized by those who consider the word irredeemable and object to any use of it. Much of the controversy over whether or not the term should ever by used focuses on this non-rhotic variant. And some even consider n[——]a to be a distinct word.

In her dictionary of Black speech, Black Talk, Geneva Smitherman gives seven distinct senses for n[——]a when used by Black people:

1. a close friend
2. a person rooted in Black culture and experience
3. a neutral term for a Black person
4. a Black woman’s term for her Black boyfriend
5. a rebellious, assertive, unconventional Black man
6. the negative, stereotypical sense of the n-word as used by Whites
7. a cool person, rooted in Hip-Hop culture.

I’m not going to give examples of each of these senses, but an example of Smitherman’s sense number six can be found in the 1992 rap song “Mnniiggaahh” by the duo Goldmoney:

I'm a n[——]a
But that is just the way that I choose to act
It ain't got nothin' to do with bein' black
“All n[——]s are black”
Shut up, fool, how ya figure?
'Cause where I'm from there's a lot of white n[——]s
Like the one who likes to stick his tongue out
At a girl when he meets 'er

Attempts to avoid using the word led to creation of the euphemism n-word, which is recorded from the early 1980s, but is probably older, as evidenced by this use in the 1971 poem “What It Means to Be an ‘N’” by Frenchy Jolene Hodges:

If what is said reaches you
Though you don’t know where or when,
It’s a cinch you’ve had the experience
You know what it means to an “N”.

And use of n-word is clearly in place by 1981 as evidenced by this article in the 17 July 1981 issue of Ohio’s Chillicothe Gazette:

She said she won’t stand for the use of what she calls the “N-word” in her presence.

So, when used by White people, the term’s history renders it as a term of abuse and contempt, regardless of the intentions of the speaker. But when used by Black people, the term is complex and nuanced, with many meanings, negative, neutral, and even positive, but even in such positive uses there are many who object to its use.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Brackens, Odis (Bigg Money Odis) and Ramon Russel Gooden (Pee-Wee). “Mnniiggaahh.” In Lawrence A. Stanley, Rap: The Lyrics, New York: Penguin, 1992, 143. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Clarke, Lewis. Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clarke. Boston: David H. Ela, 1845, 38–39. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Harris, Leon R. “That Steel-Drivin’ Man.” Phylon Quarterly, 18.4, 1957, 402–03. JSTOR.

———. “The Steel-Drivin’ Man” (1925). In Alan Dundes, Mother Wit From the Laughing Barrell. New York: Garland, 1981, 563–64. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Hellowes, Edward, trans. The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthonie of Gueuara. London: Ralph Newberrie, 1577, 389. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Hodges, Frenchy Jolene. “What It Means to Be an “N.” Black Wisdom. Detroit, Broadside Press, 1971, 25. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Jackson, John Andrew. The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina. London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1862, 12–13. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Jacobs, Harriet A. The Deeper Wrong, or, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. L. Maria Child, ed. London: W. Tweedie, 1862, 158. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Marlowe, Anthony. “Letter, 22 June 1608.” Letters Received by the East India Company From Its Servants in the East, vol. 1. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1896, 10. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Musgrave, Jane. “Love is the Key to Mixed Marriages.” Chillicothe Gazette (Ohio), 17 July 1981, 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“North American Slave Narratives.” Documenting the American South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Library.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853, 186. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2003, s.v. n[——]r, n. and adj., neger, n. and adj.2, Negro, n. and adj.; March 2004, s.v. N-word, n.

Smitherman, Geneva. Black Talk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, 210–11.

Thevet, André. The New Found Worlde. Thomas Hacket, trans. London: Henry Bynnemann, 1568 25. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“Trip to Cambridge.” Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution. Frank Moore, ed. New York: D. Appleton, 1856, 101. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

dollar princess

Poster for the 2019 movie Downton Abbey, featuring Elizabeth McGovern as the “dollar princess” Cora, Countess of Grantham, and Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham

9 November 2020

Dollar princess is a name for an American heiress who marries into impoverished European nobility, a transaction where she gets a title and elevated social status and his finances are restored. The concept of a dollar princess is probably best known to present-day audiences through the character of Cora Crawley, the Countess of Grantham in the television series (2010–15) and film (2019) Downton Abbey. She plays an American heiress who has rescued the fortunes of a financially unlucky English earl. Although the term is not used in either the series or the movie.

The term was inspired by the German musical Die Dollarprinzessin, libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Fritz Grünbaum and music by Leo Fall. The play opened in Vienna in 1907. The play was translated and brought to England, where it had a very successful run there and later in the United States. The earliest English-language reference to the play that I can find is from the Daily Mail of 5 December 1907:

Mr. George Edwards [sic] returned to London on Tuesday from Vienna, bringing home as the result of his visit no fewer than five contracts for musical plays. Two of these are for new works by Franz Lebar, composer of the “The Merry Widow,” two are by Oscar Strauss, and the fifth is “The Dollar Princess,” an opera by Dr. Fals [sic], a rising young Viennese composer, now being performed with great success at the An Der Wien Theatre, Vienna.

And this, from the P.I.P.: Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times of 11 July 1908, gives a synopsis of the main plot line:

Next Christmas, Mr. George Edwardes will produce “The Dollar Princess” somewhere in the North of England. This play, which he acquired during a recent trip abroad, tell us all about a certain American millionaire who has a very smart secretary, with whom his daughter—that is to say, the daughter of the secretary’s employer—falls in love. At first, I understand, the secretary does not quite reciprocate her feelings towards him, but finally—well—“they both live happily ever afterwards.”

Although in the play the “princess” is metaphorical. She doesn’t marry into royalty, rather her wealth has already made her a kind of American royalty. While many of the servants in her house are fallen nobles, the fate of many European noble houses during the First World War, the man she marries is well-bred but distinctly middle class. So, while she does not actually marry into nobility, the idea of European nobility relying on wealthy American patrons for their livelihoods is very much present.

Dollar princess moves beyond the title of the play by the 1920s, acquiring the meaning we know today. The earliest use of the general term that I can find is from the American magazine Current Opinion of February 1921. The article is titled “The American Dollar Princess in Greece” and is about Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark, born Nonie May Stewart, who married Prince Christopher, youngest son of the King George I of Greece. Anastasia was the aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Before her marriage to the prince, she had two previous marriages, the latest to Indiana businessman William Leeds. Typically, the male noble is portrayed as a gold-digger, getting the better part of the marriage arrangement, but this article reverses that and portrays her in unflattering light:

No Byzantine empress was too reckless or too unconventional for the Venizelist press in its quest for a personality with which to compare that Princess Anastasia, who, before marrying into the royal house of Greece, was plain Mrs. Leeds, an American widow of vast wealth. Before Venizelos fell, his press at Athens invented sensational biographies of this lady. She was supposed to have gone through the divorce courts of Chicago as sensationally as any queen of the films; she was an obscure little high school girl when she took it into her head to elope with the first of the various men from whom she later extracted alimony, and that was how the vast fortune of the “dollar princess” was accumulated; she broke the heart of a tobacco king before she came in for the wealth of a tin plate king, and all the tin plate in America is assumed in a certain Greek press to belong now to the Princess.

A year later, the term turns up in an American short story, “The Game of Poverty,” by Philip Gibbs:

“I suppose you’re amused with yourself,” she went on. “You introduce a dollar-princess in disguise to poor but honest folk, and then breeze away, careless of having stirred up a witch’s cauldron of trouble and wrecked a number of innocent and happy lives.

And it also makes it into the 1922 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

The place of the novel which educates or develops was taken by the romantic variety which preceded the expressionist type. Thomas Mann, who so sucessfully told the tale of Buddenbrooks, approximated to this type with his novel Königliche Hoheit, somewhat of a fairy tale in its story of the marriage of an impoverished German prince with an intellectual dollar-princess.

While an American woman marrying into European nobility is often portrayed as a real-life fairy tale, the term dollar princess turns that on its head with its rather cynical take on the lives of the rich and famous.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

“The American Dollar Princess in Greece.” Current Opinion, 70.2, February 1921, 180. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Five New Operas.” Daily Mail, 5 December 1907, 5. Gale News Vault: Daily Mail Historical Archive.

“German Literature.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, twelfth edition, vol. 31. London: 1922, 228. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Gibbs, Philip. “The Game of Poverty.” Everybody’s Magazine, 46.6, June 1922, 50. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“P.I.P. Playgoer.” P.I.P.: Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times (London), 11 July 1908, 20. Gale News Vault: British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800–1900.

Photo credit: Focus Features and Universal Pictures International, 2019, imdb.com.

opera ain't over until the fat lady sings

Soprano Amalie Materna appearing as Brünnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth, c. 1876

7 November 2020

[Edit, 31 March 2025: Marked typo in original quotation and added the source, which was missing from the list.]

The phrases it’s not over until the fat lady sings is used as a warning against overconfidence, expressing the fact that situations can change and outcomes cannot be assured. It is another way of expressing don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. But it is also a phrase that has a lot of variations in its history, and the fat lady doesn’t come on stage until very close to the end.

The phrase dates to the late nineteenth century, and the first variations use the metaphor of church music. The earliest form of it that I’m aware of is a reprint of a piece originally appearing in the 10 October 1872 edition of the Cincinnati, Ohio Volksblatt, a paper catering to the German-American community there. The phrase is used in reference to the presidential election of that year between Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley. I cannot find a copy of the original Volksblatt piece, and I don’t know if it was printed in English or in German, but the Cincinnati Enquirer reprints it the next day in English:

As long as the organ is playing church is not out. With Indiana and New York Greeley can spare Ohio and Pennsylvania.

We see no reason whatever to despair of Greeley’s election.

The metaphor of church music, sometimes organ music, sometimes singing, continues in variations of the phrase up to the present. And many of the uses of the phrase are in reference to electoral politics, an endeavor where the results cannot be known for certain until the votes are all tabulated. (Scroll down to see a longer list of the variations that have been used over the years.)

But we also see it, of course, in sports, which like politics is subject to sudden shifts in fortune. This one appears in the 17 August 1898 edition of the Birmingham, Alabama Age-Herald in reference to the National League baseball pennant race of that year:

But Buck Ewing’s braves are made of fighting stuff and the admirers of the Bean Eaters should not for a moment lose sight of the fact that the Porkopolis representatives are still on earth. The old saying of “Church isn’t out till singing’s over,” is applicable to base ball as well as camp meetings.

While the church metaphor continues to be used in sporting contexts through to today, as sportswriters picked up the phrase, they often dropped the metaphor. Church became the game, and the music was often absent. Here’s an early example from the Richmond, Indiana Evening Item of 4 October 1916:

The bird who chirps “The game ain’t over until the last man is out,” makes us think of them great proverb, not from Ben Franklin, “Breakfast ain’t over until the egg is off the chin.”

The breakfast variant is a wonderful one, but I’ve been unable to find any earlier uses of it, and the reference to Ben Franklin is undoubtedly in jest—Franklin was famed for including such aphorisms in his Poor Richard’s Almanac, but he didn’t use this one. It appears again in later sports writing, but it’s probably not much older than 1916.

Journalist Arthur “Bugs” Baer seemed to have been fond of the phrase, as he used variants of it on several occasions. Here is one where he mixes metaphors of baseball and boxing in a jab at the pugnacious nature of Brooklyn Dodgers fans. From the Atlanta Constitution of 29 April 1920:

A Brooklyn baseball game ain’t over until the last fan is counted out.

And the sports metaphor wasn’t always confined to sporting contexts. Here’s one from 10 June 1924 using the phrase to express optimism about a decline in the local birthrate in Bayonne, New Jersey:

However, as soon as Jarvis got the sad news off his chest he was himself once more and as he waved good by he was heard to shout something about “just watch us next month, the game ain’t over until the last man is out.”

There are also variations that use metaphors other than church or sports, such as meetings, sessions of the legislature, or fights. Here’s an early one about the flower business from the Fort Worth, Texas publication Southern Florist of 3 March 1922:

We decided that we would play more and work harder than we ever did in our lives before. While the first month and a half has not been so bright—with the money tight and collections slow—we have got a good ten and a half months good running yet. And besides, the meeting ain’t over until the shouting begins. And I doubt very much if we have sense enough to know when we are licked.

And of course, there is it ain’t over until it’s over. This variation on the phrase is often attributed to baseball great Yogi Berra, who was famed for uttering such tautological and oxymoronic profundities. But whether or not he ever uttered this exact wording is somewhat in doubt. Lots of people refer to Berra having said it long after the fact, but there are no recorded quotations of him doing so at the time. As Berra himself noted in Sports Illustrated of 17 March 1986, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

But the New York Times of 30 June 1974 did report him saying something similar:

The last team to bring a National League pennant to New York was also managed by Berra. He is not yet ready to admit that this year’s Mets can’t repeat. “You’re not out of it,” he insisted recently, “until you’re out of it.”

But it’s not over until it’s over predates this utterance of Berra’s. The phrase first appears in Jesse Bier’s 1963 Trial at Bannock:

“You know how I'd do it. Pin a medal on him! Send him home—home: for the ladies. But it's yours now. You do it.”

“All right. You've made the case already anyhow.”

“I'm hurting, Ira, but don't tell me that. It ain't over until it is over! Link did all right.” He moistened his lips. “And Phil will hit hard, all over the place. I'd head him off.

And finally, we get to the opera and the fat lady. The metaphor here is of a large, Wagnerian soprano singing the final aria of a performance, but this metaphor doesn’t appear until relatively recently.

The first variation of the phrase that uses opera that I know of is from the Rockford Register-Star of 22 November 1962. Writer Jim Murray is referring to an actual opera, but in this column he uses an operatic performance he attended as a metaphor for a boxing match:

Everyone dies in the third act. There’s so many bodies sprawled around it looks like an air raid. There’s an old saying, an opera is never over till the last man is dead.

And the fat lady premieres in the 10 March 1976 edition of the Dallas Morning News:

Despite his obvious allegiance to the Red Raiders, Texas Tech sports information director Ralph Carpenter was the picture of professional objectivity when the Aggies rallied for a 72-72 tie late in the SWC tournament finals. “Hey, Ralph,” said Bill Morgan, “this Morgan, the league information director, is going to be a tight one after all.” “Right,” said Ralph, “The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

[sic, the words the league information director are apparently not part of the quotation, but an editorial identification of Morgan.]

That same year, a pamphlet titled Southern Words and Sayings places the fat lady in a church, blending the two variants:

Church ain’t out ‘till the fat lady sings — It ain’t over yet.

The opera/fat lady variant cropped up a few times in the late 1970s until it was famously uttered by basketball coach Dick Motta of the Washington Bullets in their race to the National Basketball Association championship of 1978. As quoted in the Binghamton, New York Evening Press of 8 May 1978:

Only two teams in NBC [sic] history have come back from 3–1 deficits in playoff history—Los Angeles over Phoenix in 1970 and Boston over Philadelphia in 1968. But Motta isn’t ready to claim victory just yet.

“The opera ain’t over,” he said, “til the fat lady sings.”

Suddenly the fat lady was singing operatic arias all over the place. There is an explosion in the use of the phrase over the next few weeks, as the Bullets went on to the win the championship, cementing this variant of the phrase into the general vocabulary. So much so that only a month later this classified real estate ad could be run a month later in the Miami Herald of 10 June 1978 without explanation:

FAT LADY SINGS

In this screened pool shaded in orange grove, marble bath, barrel tile roof. 3,000 sq, ft. of living. 1 acre..$85,000 Call now.

And with that, the curtain closes.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Ahern, Gene. “Ain’t Nature Wonderful!” Evening Item (Richmond, Indiana), 4 October 1916, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Baer, Arthur “Bugs.” “Two and Three.” Atlanta Constitution, 29 April 1920, 14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Bier, Jesse. Trial at Bannock. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963, 328. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Birth Rate Down; Jarvis Is Sad Again.” Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey), 10 June 1924. 10. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Blair, Sam. “A Cakewalk this Time.” Dallas Morning News, 10 March 1976, 2B/2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Champs Take Lead for Pennant.” Age-Herald (Birmingham, Alabama), 17 August 1898, 8. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Classified Ad. Miami Herald, 10 June 1978, 12–D, NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Cooper, F.A. “Here Is an Optimist” (letter). Southern Florist (Fort Worth, Texas), 12.23, 3 March 1922, 16. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Murray, Jim. “New Form of Opera.” Rockford Register-Star (Illinois), 22 November 1962, D3. Cited by Garson O’Toole, Quote Investigator.

O’Toole, Garson. “It Ain’t Over ‘Til the Fat Lady Sings.” The Quote Investigator, 10 February 2015.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2004, s.v. over, adv. and int.

Rapoport, Ron. “Elvin the Bullets’ Enforcer.” Evening Press (Binghamton, New York), 8 May 1978, 1-C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Shapiro, Fred R. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006, 58.

Smith, Fabia Rue and Charles Rayford Smith. Southern Words and Sayings (1976). Jackson, Mississippi: Office Supply Company, 1993.

Smith, Red. “A ‘Character’ Named Berra. New York Times, 30 June 1974, 191. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Spirit of the German Press: How the Volksblatt Views the Matter.” Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio), 11 October 1872, 5. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers. (Citing the Cincinnati Volksblatt of 10 October 1872.)

Photo credit: unknown photographer, c. 1876, public domain image.

Church music variations

“Lower Rate to Washington.” Fort Worth Gazette (Texas), 17 August 1894. 7. Newspapers.com.

The impression is still strong among railroad passenger agents that there will be further reductions in the rate to the Washington encampment of the Knights of Pythias.

“Church is never out till the people get through singing,” said one of them this morning, and all of them talk as if they understood the language of this parable.

“M’Kinley a Sure Winner.” New York Tribune, 2 May 1896, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Questioning Chauncey Depew, supporter of Levi Morton, governor of New York, in the Republican nomination race, eventually won by William McKinley

“Do you think the Governor still has a chance?”

“While there is life there is hope. It doesn’t do to count on anything as a certainty until all is over. Church is never out until they stop singing. I admit that Major McKinley looks like the winner, but I am with Morton as long as he is to be considered as a candidate.”

“Hanna Back in the City.” New York Tribune, 20 August 1896, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Quoting Richard C. Kerens of St. Louis, member of the Republican National Committee about the presidential race:

There is an old saying that “church is never out until they quit singing,” and every day shows that the fight is far from being over in Missouri.

“Baseball Briefs.” Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), 31 May 1910, 6. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Some bleacher wag said that church is never out until the singin’s over and told the crowd to wait for the finish.

Miner, A.J. “Coal Dust.” Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader (Pennsylvania), 27 November 1911, 8. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Church is not out until the Amen is said” and all such sayings apply to the Lehigh students who gathered up all the wood in the Bethlehems [sic] for a bonfire celebration and then Lafayette won 11 to nothing.

“Tariff Bill Nearly Ready for the Senate.” The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, 51.2, 12 July 1913, 46. HathiTrust Digital Archive. https://www.hathitrust.org/

While upon the face of the action of the caucus it would appear the administration has reason to feel hopeful of the outcome of the bill, some of the “war-horses” in the Senate are not quite so sanguine. There is an old saying that “church is not out ’till the singing’s done,” and with the narrow margin which the Democrats have in the Senate, it is believed that at least the wool and sugar schedules are still in the balance.

“Baltimore & Ohio Ry.—Connellsville, Pa., Lodge 1049.” The Railway Maintenance of Way Employes Journal, 36.12, December 1927, 40. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

If you are carrying an up-to-date union card you can present it to your foreman and say, “I am one of your best friends as far as my seniority will go,[”] but without this card about all you can do is to say, “Amen.” Now my good “nons,” church is not out until we have all gone home, so what do you say, let's all get right and stay until the usher comes to our pew?

“The Evolution of ‘Sockdolager.’” American Chess Bulletin, 25.1, January 1928, 31. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Long years ago it was the habit of some friends at Pete's to bolster up their courage when playing a losing game by saying, “church is not out till they sing the doxology.” Then, perhaps a little later, a move would be made that swept away the last ray of hope and a bystander would remark, “There is the doxology.” So in time a masterly move came to be known as a ‘doxologer.” And again in time that was corrupted into “sockdolager.” This seems like going around Robin Hood's barn to coin a word, but I think it is the way it came about.

Head, Louis P. “Reed Hailed as Sole Hope to Stop Smith.” Dallas Morning News, 23 June 1928, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

It is a Democratic convention with all of the mercurial possibilities that from 1856 or thereabout down to now have hedged about the deliberations of the party. There is no program that can not be upset and the astute dopesters familiar with other conventions in other years keep constantly in mind the adage that “church is never out until the singing is over.”

“‘Old Jim’ Not Buried Yet, Ferguson Says.” Houston Chronicle, 1 August 1934, 16. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Texas Governor James E. Ferguson quoted:

I don’t want them to forget that they have written my obituary and buried me about six times before this and I want them to be correct about the proposition and not keep me or my friends in doubt. I expect to have a lot of fun yet and these politicians must not forget that church is never out until they sing.

Alexander, Jack. “A Reporter at Large.” New Yorker, 31 October 1936, 34. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

But remember, we’re not home until it is in the bag. Church isn’t out until the organ stops playing. So let’s keep going and make this a banner year with an overwhelming victory for the Fifteenth Assembly and the Democratic Party.

“The Crown of Man.” Dallas Morning News, 12 May 1938, 2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Reprinted from the Hillsboro Mirror of uncertain date:

The ladies are usually a bit too previous. They blossomed out in spring raiment and then the weather turned cool, forcing them back into heavier clothing, perhaps into long-handled underwear. Men who are still clinging to their wool hats show their superior judgment. They know that church is never out till the singing’s done.

United Press. “Close Pennant Race Is Not Unusual.” Sacramento Bee, 22 September 1949, 20. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

That old dugout bromide: “Church isn’t out ‘till the last hymn is sung,” got some statistical backing today from the Pacific Coast League baseball headquarters.

Associated Press. “Olympics.” Evening Star (Washington, DC), 22 February 1952, C-2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Context: bobsledding

To reporters, however, Ostler refused to claim victory until the Americans had come down.

“So long as the organ is till playing church is not out,” he said in German.

“Coleman Loses Bid to Control Caucus.” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), 4 July 1956, 2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

On the major test, the anti-Coleman force defeated pro-administration forces 22 to 17 in electing Mayor John McLaurin of Brandon, permanent chairman, over Tally Riddell of Quitman.

Despite that apparent setback, Governor Coleman told newsmen, “Church is not out until the singing is over.”

Biltmores Beat Majors On Kraft-manship, 5–3. Globe and Mail (Toronto), 20 February 1958, 24. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Around the rink...Kraft’s second goal was a pearl of persistence....Being checked near the goalmouth, he lifted a backhander as he fell....Guelph coach Ed Bush insists the team can’t be counted out of the playoffs....“Church is never out until the choir stops singing,” he said.

Beddoes, Dick. “By Dick Beddoes.” Globe and Mail (Toronto), 17 December 1968, 30. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Pal Hal Ballard, very jubilant the other night after Leafs scored two goals with less than three minutes to play to beat St. Louis 3–2: “Church is never out until the choir stops singing.”

Beddoes, Dick. “By Dick Beddoes.” Globe and Mail (Toronto), 12 July 1969, 31. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Scribble in a hockey program from last Feb. 8, quoting Harold Ballard after Leafs scored a late goal to win: “Church is never out until the choir stops singing.”

Sports variations

“World Series Gossip.” Binghamton Press (New York), 10 October 1916, 12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

The bird chirping “The game ain’t over until the last man is out” reminds fans of the great proverb, “Breakfast ain’t over until the egg is off the chin.”

“Base Ball Dope.” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (Pennsylvania), 12 October 1916, 12. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

The bird chirping “The game ain’t over until the last man is out” reminds fans of the great proverb, “Breakfast ain’t over until the egg is off the chin.”

“The Saturday Evening Roast.” Green Bay Press-Gazette (Wisconsin), 10 February 1917, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

The old song, “Breakfast isn’t over ‘till the egg is off the chin,” has sort of lost its meaning.”

Baer, Arthur “Bugs.” “The Best Fighters.” Pittsburgh Press Sporting Edition (Pennsylvania), 9 December 1920, 32. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

In barroom skirmishing there are no rules. The fight ain’t over until the black crepe is on the door bell.

Powell, Herbert Preston. “The Go-Getter.” The World’s Best Book of Minstrelsy. Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, 1926,  291. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

GALLEGHER.     There, now, King, don’t lose your shirt. Never say die. Heads up, the game ain’t over until the last man is out.

Co-Co.                Listen! (He reads.) You are warned that unless you step down from the throne of Kannibal Island you will be thrown off. The whole army is in revolt, and I am in absolute power.  Only your Royal Guards remain to you, and we have stolen their feather dusters. We will attack in five minutes. Signed, MUSH, King-elect of the Kannibal Islands.

Baer, Arthur “Bugs.” “‘Bugs’ Baer Says.” Springfield Republican (Massachusetts), 7 October 1933, 6. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

It proved that a game ain’t over until the last umpire takes his shin guards off.

Whittemore, J.O. “Winter Is Young Yet, So Suez Cannot Collect.” Boston Globe, 7 January 1934, C4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Grindle yawned. “They’s a lotta things you show a in’trest in. Suez, but a hoss-race ain’t over until they come under th’ wire an’ a baseball game ain’t over until th’ last man is out, nor a foot-ball game until th’ final whistle blows, an’ here you be, th’ fust week in January, claimin’ th’ little wager we made with th’ winter only jest fairly set in.”

Strobridge, Stuart. “Minneapolis Park Tennis Stars Sweep to Victory in National Tournament.” Minneapolis Tribune, 15 August 1934, 14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

As the featherweight New Yorker puts it, “A tennis match ain’t over until the last ball is served.”

Norton, Pete. “The Morning After.” Tampa Morning Tribune (Florida), 17 September 1942, 15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

But to all the wise guys, just remember that the race ain’t over until they count Brooklyn out. A Dodgers fan from way back.

Ryan, Bob. “Celts Clinch Division Title, 137–111,” Boston Globe, 18 March 1972. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“It’s a tremendous thrill at this point,” said Heinie. [“]But from the experience of past years, I knowg [sic] that it’s only a momentary jubilation. It ain’t over until you win the last game of the playoffs.”

General variations

Mencken, H.L. The American Language, third edition. New York: Knopf, 1926, 402–03. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Eighty-seven years ago them old-timers that you heard about in school signed the Declaration of Independence, and put the kibosh on the English king, George III. From that day to this, this has been a free country. An American citizen don't have to take offen his hat to nobody, excepting maybe God. He is the equal to anybody on this earth, high or low. If anybody steps on his toes, then they have got a fight on their hands, and it ain't over until the other fellow is licked.

“Such Is Life.” Enquirer and Evening News (Battle Creek, Michigan), 28 August 1935, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

It useta be,” the Tired Taxpayer recalled, “that the country breathed easier after congress was over. Mebby adjournment’s what we needed.”

“Useta be is right,” the Watchful Waiter snorted. “Only now’days congress ain’t over until the supreme court’s met and passed on the bills. We won’t know what some of them bills are worth until the judges get on the bench and start readin’ the riot act to the legislators.

Peebles, Dick. “Straight as an Arrow.” Houston Chronicle, 3 June 1965, Section 6, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

The touring pros have taken to playing a game called, “Top This” or the “Tournament Ain’t Over Until the Last Shot Has Been Fired.”

opera/fat lady variations

Wizig, Jerry. “DeBolt in No Hurry for Tour.” Houston Chronicle, 15 April 1976, 2-2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Context: golf

Then Williams drew on an East Texas colloquialism to deliver his message that this AAII still is wide open, “Church isn’t out,” said Williams, “until the fat lady sings.”

Lauck, Dan. “Notre Dame Reshuffles the Pack.” Newsday, 3 January 1978, 88. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“That made it a real ballgame,” MacAfee said. “It was a two-touchdown lead, rather than three.” It sobered the Irish and put some pizzazz back into the Texans. A two-touchdown deficit is not insurmountable at all. And like most Texans would tell you, the Opry ain’t over ‘tll the fat lady sings.

Attner, Paul. “‘Fat Lady’ Sings for Bullets, 101–99.” Washington Post, 13 May 1978, D1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Last week when the Bullets led in the series 3–1, Coach Dick Motta cautioned against undue optimism by saying, “The opera is not over until the fat lady sings.” She sang loud and clear last night for Washington.

Kale, Wilford. “Howell Is Still a Hit with Some.” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), 10 June 1978, A-3. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

In the corner of the hall, hand-lettered on a sheet, was this message:

“The convention ain’t over until the fat lady sings for Rufus.” —a takeoff for candidate Rufus Phillips on the Washington Bullets’ professional basketball team’s new motto—“The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

Some delegates said they didn’t understand the sign. Others just pointed and laughed. It was that kind of night.

Lafourcade, Emile. “Chehardy ‘Strength’” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 2 July 1978, 8–3. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings” is a refrain that has gained national popularity since the beginning of the National Basketball Association playoffs a few weeks ago.

The way Jefferson Parish politics has been going, a local rendition of the refrain might be: “The election ain’t assured until the fat man endorses.”

And anyone even remotely familiar with parish politics knows the “fat man” (and you say it with whispered reverence and never to his face) is former assessor Lawrence A. Chehardy.

Smith, Jack. “A Patient Fear He’s Suffered Softening of the Brain.” Morning Union (Springfield, Massachusetts), 5 July 1978, 19. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

As Dr. Johnson himself said, if I’m not mistaken, “The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

Smardz, Zofia. “Republicans: Party Fears Aragona May Spoil Hogan’s Bid.” Washington Star (Washington, DC), 30 July 1978, D–3. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Candidate Martin Aragona on race for Prince George’s county executive

Sure, we would’ve rathered [sic] not to have a primary, but we’ve got one. And we know we’ve got to win the heat before we can win the race. So, to borrow a phrase from the Redskins—we’re in this until the fat lady sings.”

blue mirage / red mirage

2020 U. S. presidential election results as of 1:30 pm EST, 6 November 2020

6 November 2020

In October 2020, the terms blue mirage and red mirage began appearing in news coverage of U. S. presidential election. The terms relate to the shifting perceptions of which party would be ahead at different points while the tallying of votes was underway (cf. red state / blue state / purple state).

While it has always been common for the lead in various elections to swing back and forth as the results from different districts are reported, it was anticipated that these swings would be especially noticeable given the large number of early in-person and vote-by-mail ballots in the 2020 election, a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and people’s desire to avoid crowded polling places. That would mean that an early lead in the initial reports could evaporate, not only during the course of election night, but over the subsequent days and even weeks as mail ballots were counted.

It was widely anticipated that early in-person votes would favor the Democrats in most states, but that lead would be overcome by a Republican-heavy, in-person vote on election day itself. And in many states that Republican lead would itself be overcome as the vote-by-mail ballots were counted. These early leads would be ephemeral and mere mirages.

The earliest use of the terms blue mirage and red mirage that I’m aware of is in a Reuters report of 22 October 2020. It’s likely that there are earlier uses, especially oral ones.

The states that count mail-in votes before Election Day are likely to give Biden an early lead, since opinion polls and early voting data suggest those ballots favour the Democrat. Conversely, the states that do not tally mail-in votes until 3 November will likely swing initially for Trump.

These so-called red or blue mirages will disappear as more ballots are counted, though experts say it may take days or even weeks to process the huge number of mail-in ballots, spurred by voters seeking to avoid crowded polling stations because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Whether these terms will survive to become part of the permanent political lexicon, or if they will become mere mirages themselves, remains to be seen.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Reuters. “Explainer | Red Mirage, Blue Mirage: Beware of Early US Election Wins.” News24 (South Africa), 22 October 2020. Nexis Uni.

Image credit: David Wilton, 2020, generated with 270towin.com.