knock the living daylights out of vs scud

knock the living daylights out of

verb
  • To beat or strike someone. 

  • To greatly excel against (someone or something). 

  • To thoroughly and decisively defeat someone in a physical fight, especially by knocking out that person. 

scud

verb
  • To hit or slap. 

  • To race along swiftly (especially used of clouds). 

  • To skim flat stones so they skip along the water. 

  • To speed. 

  • To run, or be driven, before a high wind with no sails set. 

adj
  • Naked. 

noun
  • The drink Irn-Bru. 

  • A gust of wind. 

  • A loose formation of small ragged cloud fragments (or fog) not attached to a larger higher cloud layer. 

  • A swift runner. 

  • The act of scudding. 

  • A form of garden hoe. 

  • Any swimming amphipod. 

  • A scab on a wound. 

  • A small flight of larks, or other birds, less than a flock. 

  • Pornography. 

  • A slap; a sharp stroke. 

  • Clouds or rain driven by the wind. 

How often have the words knock the living daylights out of and scud occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )