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Tiếng Việt

Break a leg

Good luck — said to someone about to perform.

Chúc may mắn!

Câu chúc dành cho người sắp lên biểu diễn hoặc thi thố.

Break a leg

Examples

  • Break a leg out there tonight!

    Chúc tối nay lên sân khấu gặp nhiều may mắn!

  • He hugged his daughter before the recital and whispered, "Break a leg."

    Trước buổi biểu diễn, anh ấy ôm con gái và thì thầm: "Chúc con may mắn."

In Popular Culture

  • Speech

    To those who might not have known, "break a leg" in the theater means—that's what they say before opening night. And it's supposed to mean, "Good luck."

    Với ai chưa biết thì trong giới sân khấu, "break a leg" là câu người ta nói trước đêm công diễn đầu tiên. Và nó có nghĩa là "Chúc may mắn."

    Ronald Reagan

    Remarks in Columbus to Members of Ohio Veterans Organizations (1982)

Origin

In short

Theatre superstition held that wishing an actor good luck would curse the performance, so the company wished them harm instead.

The phrase belongs to the stage, and to a very old piece of backstage superstition. Actors held that saying "good luck" to a performer about to go on would invite exactly the opposite, so the wish was inverted: you wished them injury, and the malicious spirits listening were satisfied and left the performance alone.

Why a leg in particular is less settled. One account points at the line of the stage curtain, called the leg, which a performer crossed only when called out to take a bow — so to break a leg was to be applauded back on. Another notes that a deep curtsy or bow bends the knee sharply, and that bending the leg came to stand in for taking a call.

What is clear is that the expression is recorded in American theatre from the 1920s onward and spread outward from it, first to other performers and then to anyone facing an audition, an interview or an examination. The superstition faded; the phrase did not.

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