Thank You Google

I just had to do a little research this A.M. I don't know about you, my blog buddies, but I've never heard the phrase "shoot the lights out," although I assumed it was a GOOD thing :)

I'm guessing the Principal is a golf or basketball fan:

Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:27:58 EDT
Reply-To: American Dialect Society <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: American Dialect Society Mailing List <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: "Shoot the lights out" (1968, golf?)
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SHOOT THE LIGHTS OUT--26,600 Google hits
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I like Rutgers' Quincy Douby for the NBA draft. It's said that he can "shoot
the lights out." We did "lights out" before, but not "shoot the lights out."
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I thought this might come from basketball, but the early citations appear to
come from golf.
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(GOOGLE NEWS)
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_Offseason Primer: Cleveland Cavaliers_
(http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_17729.shtml)
Hoops World (subscription) - Jun 1
... The New York City product is an athlete with amazing range that can
shoot the lights out. Douby led the Big East in scoring as a junior with 24 PPG.
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31 March 1968, Panama City (FL) News-herald, pg. 24?
"I don't understand the scores they are shooting," said Miller Barber after
carding a 67 for a 205 total. "My game is as good as it can be and I'm not
leading the tournament. This course is not that easy, yet everybody is shooting
the lights out."
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15 May 1969, Odessa (TX) American and other newspapers:
"I'm playing pretty well now. It's a funny thing, though. Sometimes you
think you're not playing well, and you shoot the lights out. You just never can
tell."
(Jack Nicklaus. AP story--ed.)
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