"cheek music", 1800, 1802

[George Thompson]

I suppose the "blue" meant gin -- don't know why.  It appears in the
expression "blue ruin".

"Daylights" was a prizefighters' term for "eyes":  _"dim her daylights."_
would mean "black her eyes".


     The hunt was somewhat annoyed by the number of pirates who located
themselves upon the runways, and intercepting the course of the river,
killed and poached a number nearly equal to that obtained by the sportsmen. One
of these lawless intruders, who, probably excited by an over dose of *blue
ruin*, was disposed to be troublesome and impertinent, received from one of
the drivers of the hunt his pay down, in undepreciated Kentucky currency,
producing a total obscurity of his *day-lights* and a most copious effusion
of claret.

New-York American, November 1, 1822, p. 2, col. 5  (I forget what was being
hunted.)



blue ruin = HDAS: 1811 (English); 1821, 1833, (US)

day-lights = HDAS: 1752 (English); 1833 (US)

On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

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



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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