"strike blood first"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From the Allmusic biography of The Primes (R&B vocal group whose
sister group, The Primettes, became The Supremes):

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:a9fexqwkldae~T1
"The Primettes struck recording blood first at Lupine Records, backing
artists like Don Revel and Gene Martin, and even recorded a single,
'Pretty Baby.'"

At first this struck me as an idiom blend of "strike gold" and "draw
first blood". But "strike first blood" is an attested variant of "draw
first blood", and both "draw" and "strike" occasionally appear with
"blood first" instead of "first blood".

Googlecounts:
"draw|draws|drew|drawing first blood": 260,000
"strike|strikes|struck|striking first blood": 5,610
"draw|draws|drew|drawing blood first": 4,160
"strike|strikes|struck|striking blood first": 57


--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org