Reader question: 'Look mate, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!"

Could you explain “scare the daylight out of”?

Now every language has its more colorful moments and today we will look at an expression that is full of such drama.

First let’s imagine you are walking down the street and just when you turn a corner a man with a huge dog comes the other way, forcing you to drop your bag and scream. “ahhh!”

After a few seconds, you calm down and then the man quickly apologizes for frightening you and you respond saying, “Wow you scared the daylights out of me.”

Now basically this means you really terrified me.

In English we think or refer to someone who is alive as having a light on inside.

“The daylights” can also be used to refer to someone’s vital life signs e.g., “Pacman beat the daylights out of Hatton scoring a knockout in the second round.” In this case the defeated boxer on the floor looks like he is dead and has thus had the lights beaten out of him.

The phrase can also be used when you are frightened significantly to the point where you think you were in a life or death situation – and in this case the term “living” is often added, e.g. “you scared the living daylights out of me.”

So I don’t know about you but I’m feeling a little nervous after all this talk which reminds me – when I was a kid I used to prefer to sleep with the light on.

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本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

以上討論問題來自翻吧（translate.chinadaily.com.cn）

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