"Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecmo> wrote in message 
news:4ab3db6b$1@news.povray.org...
>I can think of handful of examples of this.  In most of these cases, the 
>meaning has changed to the opposite, and it's quite confusing.
>
> "Gunning for you."  I my mind, it was just a few years ago when this 
> meant, "I'm rooting for you." or "I'm behind you 100%."  Now, it's just 
> the opposite.  "I'm coming after you." or "I'm going to try to stop you." 
> I believe the phrase probably originated in the trenches, and when you 
> left the trench, you surely hoped that your friends were gunning for you. 
> Or perhaps it had to do with tail-gunners.  If no one was gunning for you, 
> you were simply up there flying around while someone else was shooting at 
> you! I can still find a couple examples of the older definition on the 
> Web, so you don't think I'm just smoking crack. ;-)
> http://www.definition-of.com/gunning+for+you
> http://www.allwords.com/word-gun.html
>

I was actually wrong about this.  Using Google's book search, I was able to 
find the term dating back to at least 1905, and it was always used in the 
sense of "I'm coming after you."  But here is where things get tricky.  I 
might say, "I'm gunning for Obama to win," meaning "I want Obama to win." 
But if I said, "I'm gunning for Obama," it would mean that exact opposite. 
Very strange, and both are correct usages.

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