spray and pray
v. phr.— «A clerk at the Outdoorsman, Route 12, in West Boylston, said the gun has an effective range of only about 40 yards. “It’s basically spray and pray that you hit something,” he said. “I see no use for them really.”» —“Assault rifles hot item in face of ban” by Walter H. Crockett Jr. Sunday Telegram (Worcester, Massachusetts) Mar. 19, 1989. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant step into the historic streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where the simple cry of “Down bucket!” could serve as a kind of local password. After they ponder that and other language of...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...