It's a good thing

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 07:08:32PM -0400, Leslie Savan wrote:
>     The press is quoting Martha Stewart's signature line a lot these
> days: "It's a good thing." It's a good way to imply that she's done a
> bad thing.
>     I THINK I heard "It's a good thing" (with just a dab of irony) long
> before it became a Martha shtick. But maybe I'm wrong. And I really have
> no sense of the chronology.
>     Does anyone know if Stewart "coined" it--as much as one can coin
> these four words strung together? Or did she merely popularize it, and
> did people started saying it more because of Martha, maybe even feeling
> Martha-like as they said it? Or was it already an entrenched popular
> phrase, and did Martha just borrow it as her own personal slogan? Any
> ideas? Any chronology?

I believe the locus classicus for this phrase is _1066 and All That,_ the
1930 history parody.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED