Catch it while it was fliyng

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on June 04, 2004

In Reply to: Catch it while it was fliyng posted by CjK on June 04, 2004

: : can anybody help with the meaning of this

: It was discussed just last week. Look in this :

: www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 32 messages 162.html

One of the posters in the original thread mentioned above, guessed at a possible U.S. baseball connection for this phrase. But I don't think there is such a connection. A baseball hit into the air by the batter is called a "fly ball" but it's rarely (if ever) referred to as "flying". Fielders try to catch such a ball "on the fly", but not "while it is flying" or even "while it flies".

I should also mention that I've never heard either variation of this phrase. I'm from the Northeastern U.S.