The landing of India's Chandrayaan-3 near the south pole of the moon brought to my mind the phrase shoot for the moon (definition: "to try to do or get something that is very difficult to do or get" — Merriam-Webster).
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But when was first use? Hmmm. That was quite a hunt. Google Ngram shows a tiny bump in the 1910s, and then nothing until 1930s, when its use rises from there with a dip around 1980.
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| Google Ngram results for the phrase shoot for the moon |
After some search, I found shoot for the moon (appearing in quotes, which indicates that it was perhaps a fairly new idiom at that point) in Law Notes from February 1915. Who'd've thought that lawyers would be among the first to land on shoot for the moon??
(Interesting aside: According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, shoot the moon—the above phrase without the "for"—means something quite different: "leave without paying rent," which is British slang from about 1823.)
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| Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
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