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Joined: Jul 2000
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old hand
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Ok, Max, here's the "definitive" answer on fiasco from Merriam-Webster's Buzzword for kids:

The Italian "fiasco" refers to a round-bottomed, straw-covered bottle traditionally used to hold inexpensive wines. The phrase "fare fiasco" literally means "to make a bottle," but it is used in Italian as an expression for "to fail." No one knows for sure how this meaning came about. One theory claims that it started when a famous 17th-century comic actor gave a performance involving a bottle. The performance was supposedly so bad it led to the expression meaning "to fail." No evidence supports this story, so, as the Italians would say, don't let it "hang the bottle on you"—that is to say, don't let it trick you.


#38378 08/19/01 11:15 PM
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M
Carpal Tunnel
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stranger
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So am I to take it fiasco is not derived from the automobile named Fiat? (Blinking innocently...)


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