h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This has been bugging me, and several friends. It's a common phrase, lately much used for ironic effect as in "Chaos, Panic, Disorder. My work here is done." (and who originated *that?).

It's so common it seems almost to have passed into the language. But from WHERE? It sounds like something from a Western. I've guessed at the Lone Ranger, but I can't confirm it.

PLEASE - does anyone know who originally said "My work here is done" as a sort of tagline or catchphrase?

And are there any other "famous" uses of it? (i.e. in film scripts - one of my friends suggested that Bill Murray may have said it in Ghostbusters, but this proved not to be the case...)

Thanks in advance.

H.

The Mr. Bean movie?
Milton's Paradise Lost?
A Warner Bros. cartoon?
A Mel Brooks movie?
Damn Yankees?
Or and a big OR Bart Simpson?

It was my boy. A mere six days of honest work he did in his life when stepped back and said "my work here is done." Then he settled down on the couch with a cosmicpolitan, propped his feet up on the coffee table, hit the 'ON' button on the remote control, and sat back to see what would happen next.

He was such a promising lad, too. *sigh* Now he sits around getting flabby and waiting for the tithes to come rolling in, living his life in memories of the good-ol'-days, back when he still had a reputation as a shaker and mover.

Kids. Humph. You never know how they're gonna turn out.

Don't know if this is where it started, but I hear it at the end of an advert in the U.S. for Sprint PCS (the "other" cell phone system), said by a guy in a black trenchcoat. You're right, though -- seems almost ubiquitous lately.

SC

According to my 'Oxford Dictionary of Quotations', it was penned by that famous wordsmith 'Anonymous', and comes from a blacksmith's gravestone dated 1746.

My sledge and anvil lie declined
My bellows too have lost their wind
My fire's extinct, my forge decayed,
And in the dust my vice is laid
My coals are spent, my iron's gone
My nails are drove, my work is done.

OK, it's not quite 'My work here is done', but this sort of thing is often adapted / misquoted and the change lives on.

Leonard Nimoy: "My work here is done."
Barney: "But you didn't do anything."
LN: "Oh, *chuckles*, didn't I?"
*Beams up as if he were Spock.*

This is from the Simpsons, but I don't think it's the original by any means.
Could the original quote be from Spock in the original series?

It sounds a bit superhero-y to me, don't we have any comic book nerds around here to go with all the computer


k

Was it Jesus? I know he is quoted as saying "It is finished" just before he died (tempararily, of course ) - so maybe that's been paraphrased...

No, I checked in an online bible and couldn't find any matches. God did in fact rest when his work (creation) was finished, but he didn't talk about it (despite what his Mammy said earlier in this thread). Jesus said very little after he came back the dead.

It wasn't Gandalf, was it? I haven't got a copy of TLOTR to hand.

Erm... was it Mary Poppins?

Was it Mary Poppins?

Blimey, simulpost! Must be true then!

I just did some googling and I am pretty sure it was Mary Poppins



k

I thought she said "Oim feeneeshed 'ere guvna".

That was Dick van Dyke - 'Gor blimey Mary Poppins!'

How could you suggest that somebody 'practically prfect in every way' would have diction like that?!

If anybody can find a firmly accredited version that predates 1746, I'll accept it. Until then, I'm sticking with that
gravestone. Apparently, the verse has cropped up on a number of blacksmiths' tombstones, so it probably predates 1746. IMHO, 'My work is done' is close enough to 'My work here is done'.

If anybody can find a firmly accredited version that predates 1746, or a firmly accredited version of 'My work here is done', I'll accept it. Until then, I'm sticking with that gravestone. Apparently, the verse has cropped up on a number of blacksmiths' tombstones, so it probably predates 1746. IMHO, 'My work is done' is close enough to 'My work here is done'.

I don't think the two are the same at all. "My work is done" means I am finished and now I am going to rest. "My work here is done" means I've sorted you lot out and now I am going on to my next assignment. It's the sort of thing Dr Who would say, or the lone gunslinger who comes to town. I'll watch the end of Mary Poppins this evening and check it out.

I agree that they are totally different things. Will you be going to your local video library for that Gnomon, or is it one you happen to have lying about the house

k

>"Chaos, Panic, Disorder. My work here is done." (and who originated *that?).<
I'll claim that one on behalf of Spikey, King of the Goblins (U148884), infrequent user of this site, whose been signing his e-mail;s like that for several years now.
I will e-mail and ask him the origin, if it's not original...