shoot blanks

[Victor Steinbok]

In my limited experience, "shooting blanks" is more common, but I have
heard "firing blanks" too. But I can't recall anyone using any other
form of the verb "fire" in this context. But personal observations of
this nature are notoriously faulty... so I'm with Paul on this.

     VS-)

On 11/30/2010 10:56 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Paul Frank<paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>  wrote:
>> If Google is any indication, the expression "to shoot blanks" is much
>> more common than "to fire blanks" in this sense.
> FWIW, I've never some across "*fire* blanks" till now.
>
> --
> -Wilson

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