OUT OF SIGHT

[Michael McKernan]

Having done my best to search the ADS-L archives for previous discusion of
the expression 'out of sight,' and coming up with nothing useful, I, a
newcomer to the list, but brash enought to already have chimed in on
numerous occasions (and to have been corrected on several, thanks!) post
the following query:

Can anyone tell me the earliest use of the expression 'out of sight' in its
non-literal meaning of 'extraordinary' or 'particularly special'?

I ask because I have been working on an 1890s personal diary from
small-town Missouri, USA, which contains an interesting amount of slang and
ideomatic expressions, including several uses of this 'out of sight'
expression as a positive descriptor of various items or events which the
diarist felt were particularly remarkable.

NB:  this is not the 'out of sight, out of mind' aphoristic formulation
which I have typically encountered when searching for 'out of sight.'  Nor
is it a usage which means anything like the literal 'unseeable' meaning.

Here is one example from the diary:

>Fri., Nov. 26, 1897
>It was chocolate bonbon, some of her own make, and it was just out of sight!

My own reaction to this phrase is too colored by my memories of it as what
seemed to be a proprietary expression of youth/counterculture in the late
1960s and early 1970s to be very objective...

Thanks in advance for your help.



Michael McKernan, Ph.D.