Queen Anne is dead

Queen Anne is dead

A sarcastic phrase said in response to outdated news. A: "Did you know that Kelly is getting a divorce?" B: "Oh please, that happened months ago. Did you know that Queen Anne is dead?"
See also: Anne, dead, queen
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

Queen Anne's dead

used humorously or ironically to suggest that a piece of supposed ‘news’ is in fact stale, or more broadly that a person who says something is simply stating the obvious or restating a well-worn or accepted truth. informal
The expression is first recorded in 1798 , by which time Queen Anne had indeed been dead for 84 years; but there is evidence of an earlier version, ‘Queen Elizabeth is dead’, from the 1730s.
2005 Liverpool Daily Echo ‘McFadden's gone past the three French players there’, said Lawrenson , who can also tell us that Queen Anne is dead, night follows day and bears defecate in the woods.
See also: dead, queen
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • Anne
  • Queen Anne's dead
  • the Dutch have taken Holland
  • Excuse me for living!
  • Excuse me for breathing!
  • tell me something I don't know
  • excuse you
  • I should cocoa
  • I should cocoa!
  • cocoa
References in periodicals archive
Although this may seem to have been very old news indeed - "Queen Anne is dead" with a vengeance - there were various reasons why the career of Anne Boleyn should have been in Ford's mind.
Touching touchets: Perkin Warbeck and the Buggery Statute
for their own Interest and Advantage." In 1711 "Queen Anne is dead" was no cliche but a rumor spread to cause panic--and a profitable bear market--on the Exchange.
White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929