> >It's much like the way that actors say "break a leg" before >performances to avoid jinxing an actor (apparently, wishing one good >luck is bad luck and vice versa -- go figure). > I have heard, in my brief days doing theatre tech (where brief is equal to two weeks), that the phrase is a reference not to someone's lower limb but to the "leg" curtain on stage -- "breaking" a leg refers to ruining the curtain by hauling it back and forth for a multitude of encores. Thus, "breaking a leg" would be the result of a wildly successful play. This could be entirely apocryphal. Claire