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 , faldage. That's why, when I found the links of my above post, I limited the search to the phrase in conjunction with "bush".
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We've been using 'go by' for years. I myself use it quite occasionally in the following context:
I'm looking forward to next weekend's party. It should be pretty good if last week's one was anything to go by.
Nah. It's not a new term. Been around for ages. Dubya heard it on the radio or read it in a book (whilst colouring in the pictures, presumably). Doubtless he has a special dialect adviser who looks up these words for him. Of course (and it's not unknown to happen), he may have misused it.
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I dunno, Rubrick. I think we agree it's pretty common as a verbal phrase; what wow was pointing out is its new? use as a noun phrase. I think.
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I'm gonna agree with Rubrick on this one. As faldage noted, you get a lot of hits if you google "go by": but as ASp notes, many of them are verb usages; e.g. "I will go by the store today." However, even a search for "+a go-by", to limit the hits to noun usage, still gets 2350 hits, many of which seem to "fit" the usage we're discussing. For example: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1159/2/minport.html: "T. Use linguistics’ or some other pattern recognition as a go by for developing standard" (appears to be from fall of 2000) Edit: Earliest usages appear to be mostly from Britain or India, but often the meaning appears to be somewhat different: sometime "a test", and sometime "a dead letter". E.g, from August 3, 1998: "by then, the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement had been a go-by". From December 1996: Coverage of social areas is also given a go-by because news managers believe that readers are more interested in "hard" news than in 'soft' news. http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2755286http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z3C52486 (near end)
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Ah, 'scuse me, but I used the SEARCh at the AWAD/board to see if it had been discussed -- not a Google! Sorry I wasn't clearer. And about "making bold" ... it is indeed an old way to ask permission to do something (sort of) before the fact. Sometimes the phrases I use I learned from my parents ... and sometimes, writing here, I feel as if I am speaking Middle English to an erudite Modern Group ! 
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Giving something the "go by" is covered in tsuwm's purple prose above. It means to pass something by, to leave it behind, as in "I failed the exam in AWADeering this term; I'll take something else next term and give AWAD the go by". This usage is really not all that uncommon - I've seen it in a number of books, and I don't typically read books which were written in 1642 or whatever date the OED gives. 1642, incidentally, was the year in which Abel Tasman gave New Zealand the once-over before giving it the go by.
As a general rule if Dubya has used a phrase he's got it wrong, except by sheer accident. If you want an example, try the semantic variations he's added to the meaning of the words "peace" and "war". Tolstoy should have been so innovative.
"Make so bold" is a real anachronism though. It was in fairly common use up until the middle of the Victorian period and remained in use in formal English up until about the turn of the 19th century. You would typically see it used in an expression such as "May I make so bold as to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage?", thus adding yet another anachronism to another anachronism and so on ad infinitum.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Welcome back, Kiwi! "Make so bold" is a real anachronism though. Does anyone ever uses or hear the phrase "May I be so bold as to", or has that one also slid out of the language? As a general rule if Dubya has used a phrase he's got it wrong.bushwhack-count©: #1
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"ask for your daughter's hand in marriage"
I always thought the phrase's oddity lay in the notion that her hand was the portion sought.
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Whatever trips your trigger!
TEd
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