scare the living daylights out of vs startle

scare the living daylights out of

verb
  • To scare something or someone to a large degree. 

startle

verb
  • To excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise. 

  • To move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start. 

noun
  • A sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger. 

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