Jim Jordan, Still a Hard-Liner, Finds Himself at G.O.P.’s Epicenter
Once a tormentor of Republican speakers, the Ohio representative, an unapologetic right-wing pugilist, has become a potential speaker himself.
Once a tormentor of Republican speakers, the Ohio representative, an unapologetic right-wing pugilist, has become a potential speaker himself.
Washington Memo
I.R.S. and Apple Get Very Different Receptions
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Wednesday’s I.R.S. hearing felt like an inquisition, but senators seemed to lack the desire to beat up on Apple.
Rivals Try to Beat Apple to the Punch
Amazon.com,
Motorola Mobility and Nokia are crowding this week with announcements
for new hand-held devices in an effort to get ahead of Apple's
introduction of its next iPhone.
beat someone to the punch and beat someone to the draw
Fig. to do something before someone else does it. I wanted to have the new car, but Sally beat me to the punch. I planned to write a book about using the new software program, but someone else beat me to the draw.
The austerity debate
Dismal pugilists
Mudslinging between economists is a distraction from the real issues 76
dismal science 經濟學
pugilists 空手打架者
pu·gi·lism (pyū'jə-lĭz'əm)
n.
The skill, practice, and sport of fighting with the fists; boxing.
[From Latin pugil, pugilist.]
pugilist pu'gi·list n.pugilistic pu'gi·lis'tic adj.
UNAPOLOGETIC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
The living daylights
MeaningA person's eyes; more recently, the life force or consciousness.
Origin
The release of the 1987 film The Living Daylights, the fifteenth in the James Bond series, reawakened usage of this old phrase. When we refer to someone having the living daylights beaten, scared, or knocked out of them, we just mean that they have been badly beaten or scared, or knocked unconscious. The imagery is of someone being so discomforted as to lose the power of sight. Like similar examples, such as 'beat the stuffing out of', the phrase is often used with an air of exaggeration and not always meant to be taken literally.
The original 18th century meaning of 'daylights' was quite specific and literal; it meant 'eyes'. That meaning has now long fallen out of use. The word was occasionally used to denote other items to do with seeing - spectacles, windows etc. (see daylight robbery), but usage of 'daylights' was largely limited to the eyes and to threats to close them by force. The first known citation of the word is one such example, in Henry Fielding's novel Amelia, 1752:
"Good woman! I don't use to be so treated. If the lady says such another word to me, d--n me, I will darken her daylights."Francis Grose, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796, reinforces the pugilistic usage:
"Plump his peepers, or daylights; give him a blow in the eyes."The 'eyes' meaning of the word was going out of use even in the 19th century, hence the emergence then of 'knocking or beating the daylights out of someone'. The phrase is intended to indicate a severe beating, but perhaps not quite that severe. There was also a later variant of the phrase - 'beat the living daylight out of...'. When referring to eyes, 'daylights' makes sense, whereas the singular 'daylight' doesn't, again indicating that the link between 'eyes' and 'daylights' was becoming defunct.
The first usage of 'beating the daylights out' that I can find is in Augustus Peirce's poem The Rebelliad, 1842:
The people used to turn about,By the time that the intensifier 'living' was added, the phrase had lost all association with eyes. The earliest known version of that form was printed in several US newspapers in the 1890s, for example, The Decatur Morning Review, September 1890:
And knock the rulers' daylights out
"'I'm not going to be insulted by a miserable rabbit', and he started to club the living daylights out of the beast with his gun."
The 20th century version of the phrase is the American 'punch someone's lights out'. The precursor to this form of the phrase was a widely syndicated newspaper report of the 1956 fight between Sugar Ray Robinson and Carl (Bobo) Olson: "Robinson's knockout punch turned out the lights for Bobo in the second round."
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