This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Baker, John]

        Thanks, Bill.  Of course, as Barbara Need noted, the collocation
is undistinctive and must have been used many times before Poundstone
made it part of her act, leading to its becoming an Internet meme.

        I had noticed that Poundstone was quoted as having used the
line, but my source was later than the SNL usage.  It's interesting to
see who stole from whom.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 6:14 PM
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Subject: Re: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Paula Poundstone in the Dallas paper (BEHIND THE LAUGHS - Comic Paula
Poundstone is her own favorite target _The Dallas Morning News_ -
Saturday, June 25, 1988 Author: Ken Perkins: p. 5C):
"She was one of those angry moms that use to get mad at absolutely
everything. I remember the time I knocked a Flintstone glass off the
kitchen table, and she said, "Dammit, that's why we can't have nice
things .""

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Baker, John
> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 2:15 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
>
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> --------
>
>         How old is this meme?  The earliest I see is from the Hartford

> Courant, 2/10/1999, quoting Colin Quinn on Saturday Night Live the
> previous week:  "American warplanes attacked newly installed Iraqi
> anti-ship missile launchers along the Persian Gulf. An enraged Saddam
> Hussein scolded his troops saying, 'You see, this is why we can't have

> nice things!'"
>
>
>         Anything earlier?
>
>
> John Baker

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