Someone who’s anxious about performing may break out in a flop sweat. The term comes from the theatre slang, where worries that one’s production is a flop may cause nervous perspiration. In the 1987 film Broadcast News, Albert Brooks’s character breaks into a flop sweat when he finally gets a shot at hosting the newscast, only to be so rattled that he starts sweating heavily, to the point where it soaks right through his shirt. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Worries of Failure Cause Flop Sweat”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Every once in a while, I’ll find out that a word that I think I’ve understood all this time, I had wrong, a word or a phrase.
And the term that I’m thinking about this time that I just learned about is flop sweat.
Flop sweat?
Yeah.
What did you think?
I thought it was a flop sweat was when you’re really, really sweating, and it’s so much that the drops are just gigantic and they’re just flopping off of you.
Oh, but then you figured out.
I figured out that that’s not the case.
Do you know what it really is?
Flop sweat is when you’re nervous about a situation, right?
Right.
Right?
Let’s say that you’re going up before the Supreme Court and you’ve never been there before and not 100% sure about your case.
I don’t know.
Right.
But a flop sweat is a sweat that breaks out in times of tension.
Right.
But why is it called a flop sweat?
That I don’t know.
Well, this is really cool. It comes from the world of theater and the fear that your production is going to flop.
Oh, interesting.
Isn’t that cool?
I didn’t know that.
Yeah.
I never stopped to think about why flop.
Right?
Yeah.
There’s that famous scene in broadcast news where Albert Brooks’ character is just, he breaks down into a flop sweat.
But yeah, I’ve traced it back as far back as the 1940s when it was still used in quotes.
And it was used in the theater to talk about actors or producers or writers who were just terrified on, say, opening night.
Oh, my God.
Is this going to be a flop or not?
It’s that frightening.
We all know that feeling, right?
Yes.
Is this big thing, is the proposal going to be accepted?
Will she say yes?
Am I going to get the job?
And we all know, at least I think so, and I’m wondering if our listeners have this experience, when you think you know what a word means and then, you know, you’re a lot older and you realize, oh, I didn’t understand that term at all.
It’s interesting how often a misunderstanding of a word, though, is still operational.
Yes.
You still kind of get by even though you don’t fully know the dimensions of it.
Right. Well, if you had an experience like that, we’d love to hear about it. You can call us to talk about that or any aspect of language. The number is 877-929-9673 or send it to us in email.
That address is words@waywordradio.org.
