Done and Done

A1 is how steak is done.
Well begun is half done.
What’s done is done.
This is a done deal.

Are we done yet?

These phrases done got me thinking about the word done a bit today.

There’s one done phrase that tops them all, and maybe I only think that because there’s twice the dones, but I also appreciate how remarkable the phrase itself is: done and done.

This is, more or less, the past tense of it is what it is—the king of all platitudes.

Done is, of course, the past participle of do. However, we don’t really use it that way most of the time. Instead, done usually becomes an adjective. Instead of I’ve done today’s work, you’re more likely to say I’m done with today’s work.

This shift seems to have happened gradually during the 1400s, when pen was being put to paper at an unprecedented rate, and just before English would begin to appear in print for the first time.

The word do comes from our old friend PIE—Proto-Indo-European—where it means something like to set in place. If something is done, then, it is in its proper place.

Why two dones, though? Why done and done?

The earliest surviving instance comes from 1712, when a collection of poems called Whig and Tory: or, Wit on both Sides was printed. Two people would bet on something, and when they agreed to the terms of the bet up front, each side said done.

So, whenever you hear someone say, “done and done,” you can visualize them having just made some great wager with another rich gentleman or something. Both sides have now agreed, so two people agree that it is now a done deal.

Today, two people seldom agree whenever done and done is spoken aloud. More often, it’s one person describing a tough task, or multiple tasks that have been completed—many things are now done, and done, and done.