"cheek music", 1800, 1802

[Dan Goncharoff]

Did it ever change to headlights? I might still get inclined to knock
the living daylights out of somebody.
DanG



On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 9:06 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

>
> 350 -- [A Miss Dunstan tumbles against a Miss Slammerkin] who,
> stepping back, asked her, in an angry tone, if she had a mind to be
> running her rigs, telling her, at the same time, that she would _"dim
> her daylights."_
> ["running her rigs" = rig, n.5, P. 1.a. ="To make a fool or mockery
> of; to ridicule", from 1735--; or P. 2. = "to behave recklessly; to
> run riot", from 1750--.]
> ["dim <someone's> daylights" not in OED?  When did this expression
> arise? (Google Books has only this one source with "her" -- and none
> with "his"!)  When did it mutate to "headlights"? (Also not in OED,
> and too many of the GBooks hits are literal for me to follow that up.)]

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