For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 27, 2015

LOL…said as a Queen….

Now don’t go losing your head, Elly.

Make it a picnic supper: big mugs of milk and fresh baked banana bread with a little peanut butter spread on top. That doesn’t sound all that bad.

There has been no proof that Marie Antoinette ever said that. It was made up by the philosopher Jean Rosseau, which was an anecdote and the individual who said it was never named. The saying has mutated over the years and been misattributed to just about everyone. As for Marie Antoinette, receipts were found showing she gave considerable amounts of money out of her own purse to soup kitchens and churches who ran relief organizations, which hardly seems the behavior of someone who would utter “let them eat cake”.

I like ‘Carrot Cake’.

I’m reminded of the 80’s when the Reagan administration wanted to cut funding for the school lunch program.They tried to declare ketchup a vegetable (really!), and make cake a bread substitute. (honest!)That’s right – so if the school ran out of bread, they could “let them eat cake.”(I think it was the work of David Stockman, Reagan’s budget wizard.)

Actually, Dad should cook supper.Scrambled eggs, bacon, some frozen vegetables – ta DA!

Hey John, what’s the matter with calling in for pizza? Or going to the grocery store yourself? Are you that much of a chauvinist?

Except that she bought the rest of the unsold items, thus giving a lot more money to the school. Plus having spent hours baking and selling.

Actually, I think using the “actual” quote in this case is much funnier than changing “cake” to “cookies”. The way Lynn presents it is with Elly pretending to BE Marie Antionette, therefore showing her (Elly’s) wit and intelligence.

Lynn’s Notes:

This is one of my favourite punch lines. If you can work a famous line into a gag, it’s very, very satisfying.

There’s an urban fantasy (“Knight Life” by Peter David) in which King Arthur comes back to life and runs for mayor of New York City. Morgan Le Fay, of course, is still around, and she mentions what she’s been doing in the interim—mostly giving advice..“Tell them to eat cake, Marie! French peasants love dessert! They’ll thank you for suggesting it.”

Wonder if they will chop Ellie’s head off?

howtheduck: It has been found pre-Marie. Another version blamed on her was, “Why are they demanding bread when you can buy those darling little cakes for two sou?” Of course, the peasants didn’t have two sou either, nor any way to earn them, but the self-described elite has never noticed that any time in history.