"Let's do this"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 12:34 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>> "Alright, let's do this!"
>
> Earliest I have found so far is 1997:
>
> Saturday Night Live
> Season 23: Episode 5
> http://snltranscripts.jt.org/97/97edonuts.phtml
> said by Director in sketch about making Dunkin Donuts commercial

"Let's do this" was showing up in rap lyrics for at least a decade
before that. See e.g. Levi 167, "Something Fresh to Swing To" (1987):
"My job's to rock, so c'mon and let's do this."

http://rapgenius.com/Levi-167-something-fresh-to-swing-to-lyrics

And in the intro to "Colors" (1988), Ice-T can be heard to say, "Yo
Ease, let's do this."

http://rapgenius.com/Ice-t-colors-lyrics

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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