What patty shot at and missed

where does the phrase "what patty shot at and missed" come from??

If you spell it "what Paddy shot at" you'll get lots more Google hits. the "and missed" cuts the results. It's very clear that "what Paddy shot at" = nothing, no results, in a number of contexts. Our own archives have it as a hand in cribbage, worth 0 points. The origin is not obvious, but perhaps there's an ethnic slur involved in shooting at nothing, and missing.