To talk rapidy and, usually, interminably. We seem to have made this up from two or more other American expressions, all referring to lightning. As long ago as 1830 . . . mail coaches, though drawn by horses, moved with such rapidity as to leave a “blue streak” behind them. And if one “made a streak for home” . . . he ran like lightning.

—Charles Earle Funk, from Heavens to Betsy! and Other Curious Sayings, 1955.