I can shoot as well as you...You take one shot while I hold the object for you, and then I take the next one, you acting as holder for me.
(Addressing her husband, quoted by Courtney Ryley Cooper in Annie Oakley: Woman at Arms)
Nicknamed by Chief Sitting Bull as Little Sure-Shot, Annie Oakley (1860 - 1926) became a marvel in her own lifetime on account of her shooting skills. She became so famous that her name is used as noun phrase to describe a free ticket or pass. These free passes were named after one of Annie's crack shot tricks done by flinging a playing card in the air and shooting out the spots. The upshot (pardon the pun) looks like a complimentary ticket, which was normally punched so that it could not be resold.
In 1885 Annie and Butler joined Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show that toured worldwide for almost two decades. The American sharpshooter's amazing feats included “shooting a cigarette from her husband's lips, hitting a dime tossed up 90 feet away from her, and cutting a playing card with a single shot - edge on”. Annie was so accurate she could shoot out the pips on playing cards. After each show, she signed her bullet-riddled targets and they were stamped as souvenir s and often handed out to children as free passes. Before long an “Annie Oakley” came to mean a free pass to any event.
President of the American Baseball League Ban Johnson, extended the expression further by applying her name to describe a base on balls; as in a “free pass” to first base.
Since the playing card riddled with bullet holes also resembled a perforated or punched ticket, the holder of a meal ticket of early 20th century self service cafeterias in the United States was entitled to a free meal. Later the meaning extended to the expression “That’s just the ticket!” describing something that’s “exactly right!”.
Annie Get Your Gun written by Irving Berlin in 1946 was based on her extraordinary life; in 1950 the film version of the musical come out. And did you know that when Annie Oakley was not on stage demonstrating her sharp-shooting skills, she favored a quiet Quaker lifestyle and an embroidery needle to a rifle? In comparison to a different Western character, Calamity Jane, she possessed a reputation for discretion, kindheartedness and charity.
Sources
Weird Words: www.psc.edu/~burkardt/wordplay/weird_words
A Word With You:
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