The Big Four

Do you have some time tonight? I have to talk to—we have to talk about some things I’ve been thinking about. I can feel the butterflies begin to flutter in your stomach look reflected in your monitor as you read this email. It’s not one of the Big Four, you can relax. It’s taken me a couple of days to arrive at this point, so I want to talk about it with you.

This message struck me like a ton of bricks, pinning me in its glare like a deer in the headlights. I felt like an abandoned car pushed over a cliff. Hold that metaphor. Quels sont les quatre enormes? I thought that perhaps counting off these things could ameliorate my fears, help me grasp the situation. I asked her to list the Big Four.

The big four thing was a joke. The cliche "We need to talk" that always ends in

1. I want to break up
2. I want to get married
3. I've cheated on you
4. I'm pregnant

At any rate, none of the above apply.

Eventually, we did tackle each of the Big Four, with results as appropriate, but, at that moment, the Earth resumed its rotation around the sun.

The three Major Powers (Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, and Georges Clemenceau) that did most of the talking at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, add one Vittorio Orlando.

Vittorio Orlando, the leader of Italy at the time, is not considered by many as a fourth "major power". Nether the less, some resources cite the Paris Peace Conference as being talks between four major allies as opposed to the three true allies that were allied from the start.

Italy was not really a Major Power at all. She was a weak country in turmoil with a slow pace of industrialization and a soon-to-be reputation of switching sides during wars.

_{See: The Big Three}

The nickname of four California railroad barons who planned, funded, and built the western half of the Transcontinental Railroad which was completed at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. The Big Four were Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington and Charles Crocker.

Also refers to the thrash metal bands considered the most successful
from the San Francisco Bay Area - namely, Metallica, Megadeth,
Slayer and Anthrax (although there is some disagreement about the
latter - some argue Testament should be in their place).