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I have a question about "shoot one's way into" here:

Lanza killed his mother then shot his way into the Newtown school on Dec. 14, 2012, and gunned down 20 children and six educators before committing suicide.

I checked dictionaries, and couldn't find the phrase "shoot one's way into". Could this be some regional idiom or journalistic jargon?

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  • @snailboat What is a productive pattern? – meatie Nov 21 '14 at 22:27
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    Some examples, "bulldozed his way into the end zone", "shoved his way to the front", and "danced his way into first place". – ColleenV parted ways Nov 21 '14 at 22:45
  • Yes, not every usage will be found in a dictionary. – J.R.♦ Nov 21 '14 at 22:53
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    @meatie, in addition to dictionaries, you can try Google's ngram search; for example: * his way into will show examples of the pattern. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Nov 21 '14 at 22:59
  • corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=34927410 – snailcar♦ Nov 21 '14 at 23:07
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No. It is not a regional idiom, or an idiom of any kind. It is not journalistic jargon.

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