Fat Chance

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Fran Sherpa, and I’m from Midland, Texas.

Well, hello, Fran. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

The other day I was emailing a friend of mine from Nepal. He’s idiomatic in English. He’s a doctor, and I’m well-educated. But I was, I used the phrase, I was just writing, and I went, well, fat chance, like, as would translate nowadays, is just like, that’s really going to happen.

Mm—

And I was thinking, you know, I wonder if he’s going to understand that, even if he is idiomatic. I wonder if he’ll understand it. And then I started thinking, I wonder how many Americans still would understand that or use that. So I just kind of was wondering where it came from and if it’s still in use.

Yeah, fat chance has been around for, gosh, since, what, the 19th century? I still use it, too. Don’t you, Grant?

Oh, yeah, sure. It’s definitely something you say when somebody says something that really is just pie in the sky. People are like, I’m going to get that big job and I’m going to win. And you’re like, fat chance.

Oh, wow. So it’s not just from the 70s.

Oh, no. No, I’m a child of the 70s, so maybe that has something to do with it. But no, no, it’s still around. You’ll find it in literature and newspaper articles and blog postings and pretty much every kind of text that’s out there today, except maybe news transcripts.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it’s just one of those sort of verbal jokes, sort of like young folks today saying, that’s sick, meaning that’s really good.

Right.

What’s really interesting, do you ever say a fat lot, like, I know a fat lot about that, meaning I don’t know anything about that?

You know, very occasionally. It’s the same fat in that. Fat chance and fat lot. It’s the same fat where it’s the reverse of what you think. I found a use of fat lot from 1844, and it’s in the lexicon of language from St. Gregory’s College. It might be made up. I don’t know. It looks like it might be a little satirical. But in any case, this is in the UK. And they describe it this way. I think it’s perfect. This adjective, fat, denotes privation or negation, meaning and includes the idea of contempt. So it’s this whole idea that it’s not just that you’re saying the opposite, but you’re also saying with a little bit of a knife in the gut, right? Just a little bit of like, a little twist there.

Yes, I have heard my British friends say fat lot a lot.

Oh, really? I never say it. I wonder if that’s more British than it is American.

I’m betting it is.

I think it may very well be. And I see here in one of the dictionaries that in New Zealand they might say a fat show.

A fat show?

I haven’t heard that one yet.

Yeah, me neither. Is our show a fat show? Is the white words a fat show?

Fat, yeah, yeah.

Fat-headed.

Fat-headed.

No comment? Is that what you said, Fran?

What?

So, yeah, fat chance, still widely used. Very interesting term in terms that it’s got so much more history. It sounds contemporary, and yet it goes back to at least the mid-1800s. It’s cool.

Well, Fran, it’s been great talking with you.

Yes, it’s been very interesting talking with you guys. Informative. I appreciate it very much.

We aim to be.

All right. Have fun. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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