hit or miss

Example: “Their service is hit or miss: sometimes fast, sometimes forgotten.”

Origin: Documented from around 1600, almost certainly growing out of some kind of aiming or shooting at a target, where every attempt has exactly two possible outcomes and nothing in between. Several specific sporting origins have been proposed — archery, dating the underlying image to the 1500s; firearms; even baseball, where a batter either connects with a pitch or swings through it — but no single one is clearly established as the actual source, and the phrase may simply reflect the general, ancient human experience of aiming at anything and either succeeding or failing. Once established, the phrase transferred easily from literal marksmanship to any effort or outcome that swings unpredictably between success and failure with no reliable pattern.