Stick, everyone knows that William Makepeace Thackery was never on “The Virginian” starring Lee J. Cobb, James Drury and of course, Doug McClure as “Trampus”, unless he did a guest shot I didn’t know about. Wait…he wrote the novel? Was that before or after the series?

Babe, you’ll always be cool to me…in all your Tape Op and Golf Digest glory. I’m just impressed you looked it up at all! (That whole thing was kind of Michaelish of you…we’ll call that a “k of M” from now on.)

I still think you’re cool.

Hunting around in my literature database, I’ve found a few examples that suggest it might be an eighteenth-century Irish expression. Its appearances all refer to wagers. The classic case, and the earliest I’ve found, appears in Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth, published in 1800: “‘Done,’ says my master; ‘I’ll lay you a hundred golden guineas to a tester you don’t.’ ‘Done,’ says the gauger; and done and done’s enough between two gentlemen.” [Tester: a slang term for sixpence; gauger: an exciseman’s assistant who checked the capacity of casks.] This book, hardly known nowadays, was an early example of the historical novel, and was set in Ireland, Maria Edgeworth’s homeland.

From these and other instances, it seems that the usual convention was that a bet was agreed on the mere word of the two principals if both said “done”. They both being gentlemen, or assumed to be such, their word was their bond and there was no question of going back on the agreement once it had been made. Hence “done and done” meant that a binding agreement had been mutually accepted. Another example is in The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray, dated 1859: “I’ll take your bet — there. And so Done and Done.”

… anybody know what the phrase “done and done” means? Where does it come from? I mean, I use it because it makes me sound cool, but now I’m curious.

In all fairness, the drummer was working on no sleep, at 2:30 in the morning, with 8 shots of espresso, and instead of 4 limbs and a drumkit, all he had to work with were a set of keys and two of my fingers.

Let me tell you though, Mister Pointy Finger can swing his ass off!

Wow. I feel like I just had a good time.