# Origin of phrase "Let's do this thing."

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 16, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762 "2006-07-16T18:20:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762/1 "2006-07-16T18:20:23Z")

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Usually uttered by some ultracool individual who is grimly determined to do something unpleasant or difficult, but necessary. First heard by me on “The Simpsons,” in the episode spoofing “Behind the Music,” in which one of Bart’s posse utters those deathless words.

But who said it first?

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762/2 "2006-07-16T18:57:14Z")

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Phrase that appears on Usenet in the 1994-96 period. Don’t know if that helps.

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**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762/3 "2006-07-16T19:05:01Z")

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I don’t know if he’s ever posted to Usenet, but Kevin Spacey said “Let’s do this thing…let’s finish it” in Swimming with Sharks (1994).

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**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762/4 "2006-07-16T19:08:34Z")

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Gary Gilmore, the first convict to be executed in the USA after a long hiatus in 1977, had as his last words: “Let’s do it”.

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**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-phrase-lets-do-this-thing/364762/5 "2006-07-16T19:14:25Z")

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It’s been a standard mob movie line for a while it seems, but I don’t know the first use of it in a mafia setting. It’s almost always used to be a euphanism for killing somebody without saying it, but everybody knows.