Comment by anonymars
12 hours ago
Okay, I'll be directly aggressive. They were helpful and added thoughtful discussion, while your response added nothing but bitterness
That they were responding to someone else who couldn't see how it worked means it wasn't just pedantic nitpicking
I concur. I found this discussion on the phrase very enlightening and aided both my understanding of the idiom and how I should use it in the future.
I'm not really 100% certain this is the correct or only meaning, for what it's worth, so don't take me as authority. It's just the common thread I've been able to gather from context over time. If you're gonna use it (I rarely do) it'd be worth researching it to make sure you're using it correctly...