And it didn’t actually come directly from soap opera. Funnily enough, space opera was also originally intended as an insulting term, referring to sci-fi stories with hackneyed plots and writing styles. Star Wars is usually provided as the standard example. This is usually used to refer to science-fiction stories on an epic scale that take place in space. You may also be aware of the related term space opera, derived from soap opera. Soap refers to the fact that soap was often advertised during early soap operas, and opera as a somewhat ironic reference to their melodramatic storylines (particularly American soap operas). It was originally intended as a faintly disparaging term.

Perhaps that’s why, even though I’ve occasionally wondered briefly as to the origins of the term, I’ve never really thought about it very deeply.Īs is often the case, the story is pretty simple. Soap operas, after all, aren’t about soap, and they’re certainly not operas.Īt the same time, it feels quite appropriate, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s just because we’re so used to the term that we don’t question how seemingly odd it is. It’s clearly an unusual term, not obviously linked to that which it describes.

This of course made me think about the term soap opera itself. How these thoughts link together like a chain! The other day, while writing about the word omnibus, I thought of a Sunday soap-opera omnibus as an example of how we use the word.

Soap opera meaning