the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question

the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question

A question that is very important and/or difficult to answer. Taken from the title of the 1950s television game show based on the earlier radio program Take It or Leave It, which popularized the phrase "the sixty-four-dollar question." The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question now is whether he should choose his former opponent as a running mate. A: "Do you want to get Italian or Chinese tonight?" B: "Well, that's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn't it?"See also: question

the 64,000 dollar question

If a question is the 64,000 dollar question, it is very important but very difficult to answer. Why should I, young, healthy and female, suddenly lose my hair? The sixty-four thousand dollar question remained unanswered. Note: Other large sums of money are sometimes used instead of 64,000 dollar. They asked the million-dollar question: `So what makes a good marriage?' The billion-dollar question is: how much are those benefits worth? Note: In the United States in the 1940s, there was a radio quiz show called `Take It or Leave It'. Contestants had to answer questions for prizes ranging from two dollars for an easy question to $64 for the hardest. A similar television quiz show in the 1950s increased the prize to $64,000 dollars. See also: dollar, question

the sixty-four thousand dollar question

something that is not known and on which a great deal depends. This expression dates from the 1940s and was originally the sixty-four dollar question , from a question posed for the top prize in a broadcast quiz show. 1996 Independent Will conversion make the society a better business? That is the $64,000 question. See also: dollar, question, thousand

the sixty-four thousand dollar ˈquestion

(also the million dollar ˈquestion) a very important question which is difficult or impossible to answer: The sixty-four thousand dollar question for modern astronomy is ‘Is there life elsewhere in the universe?’This phrase originated in the 1940s as ‘the sixty-four dollar question’. It came from a popular US radio quiz programme at the time on which the top prize was $64.See also: dollar, question, thousand

sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, the

The hardest question of all; the crucial question. This term comes from the name of a popular television quiz show of the 1950s in which $64,000 was the top prize. It in turn may have been an inflation of the earlier sixty-four dollar question, named for the top prize on a CBS radio quiz show Take It or Leave It, which ran throughout the 1940s. This cliché may soon join its forerunner in obsolescence.