"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Now, yes The ironic usage could not have become very current until the literal usage had become a familiar and tiresome cliche'.

It's not yet clear just when that was, but WWII still looks like the right period to me.

JL
"Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
Subject: Re: "It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know and hear this saying primarily in a sarcastic sense. Like the TV
show cop who has to go undercover to a strip bar; with a leer, he says
"it's a dirty job . . . ".

Do others see it mostly this way now?

>
> >Earlier still, from Agatha Christie's _The Seven Dials
> Mystery_ (1929):
> >
> >-----
> >"I'll go," said Ronny. "It's a rotten job, but somebody's
> got to do it,"
> >he looked at Jimmy.
>
> From N'archive:
>
> ----------
>
> _Daily Northwestern_ (Oshkosh WI), 10 July 1919: p. 6:
>
> <> accept the mandatory over Constantinople. It's rather a nasty
> job, but someone will have to do it.>>
>


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