Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee?

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 03:50 PM 4/18/2005, you wrote:
>In answer to Larry's question below, as one who has always heard "Nobody
>does it like Sara Lee", I've never heard the first half of the slogan, nor
>seen any printed representation of it.
>
>I agree that hearing the first half would have made "Nobody does it like
>Sara Lee" impossible as the second half.
>
>allen
>maberry at myuw.net
>
>
>On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 1:06 PM -0400 4/18/05, David Bowie wrote:
> > >From:    Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> > >>At 08:45 PM 4/17/2005 -0400, Bethany Dumas(?) wrote:
> > >
> > >>>I gave my intro to lx students a question on a recent test
> > >>>requiring analysis of the advertising slogan, "Nobody Doesn't Like
> > >>>Sara Lee." It turned out that until they saw the words on the test
> > >>>- and checked some URLs -- some of them thought the slogan was
> > >>>"Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee."
> > >
> > >>>(We never know what we are really teaching, do we?)
> > >
> > >>Only some of them?  I always heard it as "does it like"--presumably
> > >>bakes like she does, that is.  Two reasons, perhaps: The negative
> > >>nasal is hard to hear in song.  But more importantly, I couldn't say
> > >>"nobody doesn't like"; I'd say "there's nobody who doesn't like ...."
> > >>  So my grammar simply wouldn't "hear" the sentence you're citing.
> > >>Does anyone know where the slogan originated?
> > >
> > >>This reminds me again of the song "It's not unusual to be loved by
> > >>anyone"--totally ungrammatical for me.
> > >
> > >For my part, i never knew the slogan was anything other than "nobody
> > >does it like..." until i learned the shocking truth on this very list
> > >three or four years ago.
> > >
> > >This is, BTW, *not* because the actual slogan's ungrammatical to me--i
> > >can happily use the "nobody doesn't like" construction. However, since
> > >i'd only ever heard the slogan, and since "Nobody does it like Sara Lee"
> > >makes perfect sense as a slogan, my initial mishearing presumably became
> > >lodged in my brain--it's *still* heard for me to hear the correct
> > >jingle, even though i know what it's supposed to be now.
> > >
> >
> > Did all of you who misheard in as "Nobody does it like Sara Lee" also
> > hear the first line of the jingle ("Everybody doesn't like
> > something") and the connecting "but"?  For me, this would preclude
> > the mishearing, since there's no obvious connection, much less a
> > "but" connection, between "Everybody doesn't like something" and
> > "nobody does it like Sara Lee", whereas the actual second line
> > ("Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee") makes perfect sense here, although
> > for some it may not make perfect English.  Maybe they discontinued
> > the first line some time ago; I haven't caught the jingle lately in
> > either one-line or two-line versions, so I don't know.
> >
> > Larry
> >

Good point.  I don't remember tuning in to the first part at all; if I had,
I could have accepted "nobody doesn't like"--although I wouldn't say either
line.  Funny, I could say "everybody dislikes something"; explain that?