shoot to kill at

[Wilson Gray]

I don't know why, but "shoot to kill _at_" appears to me to take into
consideration the possibility that the shooter might miss and need
more than one shot to get the job done.

-Wilson

On 8/13/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      shoot to kill at
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I saw the following in today's New York Times email update:
>
> It is the first written proof that border guards were told to shoot
> to kill at anyone trying to escape to West Germany.
>
> It sounds odd to me, but evidently for the writer "shoot to kill" is
> a unit that, like "shoot", can take "at" rather than a phrase such
> that it would be natural to say "shoot to kill anyone..." -- which is
> what I would have tended towards.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
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