Semantic shift of _knock yourself out_?

[Wilson Gray]

>From some random TV drama:

A. "I should have done this! I would have done that! I could have done
the other!"

B. "Hey, don't _knock yourself out_! You did the best you knew how, at
the time."


Usually, the cliche, "don't _beat yourself up_" occurs in such a
context. Perhaps it was too cliched for the screenwriter and he
decided to write differentm without regard to the fact that one of my
pet peeves is the screwing-up of cliches. I once suffered the horror
of living around the corner from a shop named, "To Each _Their_ Own."

Aaarrrggghhh!!!

"To each _his_ own" is an old saw, the title of a major motion
picture, and the title of a Top-40 song!
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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