The idea for this article came to me about a week ago, when somebody told me to "Break a leg".
I was about to do a TV acting job the next day, and this is a saying that is often said to actors.
I have been acting now for many years, and have never known the real meaning of this saying or why people say it to actors who are about to go out on stage, but now I do, because I have researched it.
"Break a leg" actually seems to have few origins.
A superstitious origin - it is thought to stop evil spirits from deliberately spoiling a performance.
To wish an actor "good luck" is thought to evoke the spirits to watch and put in an appearance when least expected, thus by wishing an actor "good luck" you would be giving them the opposite.
Another origin is traced back to the days of William Shakespeare (during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st) when to "break a leg" literally meant to bow with a bend at the knee.
As at the end of a successful performance an actor would bow to the applause, it was used as a term to wish the actor luck for such a performance that they would be required to bow to their satisfied audience.
Although a little later on it was also used as a term for giving birth to an illegitimate child and so it is hard to give this as an absolute origin of the saying.
Audiences in classical Greece would stomp their feet quite violently in order to add sound to their applause for a successful performance.
This could be an earlier origin of the saying, although it is not certain whether any audience members actually stamped their feet so violently that they broke their leg! I would say though that if one did give such a performance, then it could be hailed as a great success.
There are more modern events that may have triggered the use of the term: when John Wilkes Booth leapt to the stage in the Ford Theatre after firing the shots that would assassinate Abraham Lincoln, he broke his leg.
Although for obvious reasons this was not a successful performance, it could be linked to the comedian's term for "killing" the audience, which describes a successful act.
Finally, getting into show business is always referred to as getting a "break" or "breaking" into the business.
By being given your "break" you are getting a leg on the ladder and in the door.
Hence "break a leg" could be a wish for the actor about to act, to do such a fantastic performance that they are given their "break" and "leg in" to the bigger world of acting (i.
e TV and Film).
Personally I take the Shakespearean origin as my favourite for the origin of this particular saying - Shakespeare wrote plays, and acted in them.
He is the icon of all actors, the super hero of the acting world.
Every actor wants to be in a Shakespeare play.
I have done three now, and look forward to more.
I will tell you something, once you are dressed in those Elizabethan costumes, and you are in the open air about to go onto the plain stage in the clearing of an "Italian Garden", and your co-actor turns to you just before you make your first entrance and whispers "Break a leg", it just feels so so right! Whatever the origin, there are thousands of these sayings and colloquialisms and who knows where any of them come from or who said them.
I feel a research project coming on!