> Shouldn't have worn that petard if you didn't want to be hoisted by it.
A petard is a bomb, not a piece of clothing.
A petard is a bomb, not a piece of clothing.
> Britta: Shouldn't have worn that petard if you didn't want to be hoisted by it.
> Jeff: ...What do you think the expression "hoisted by your own petard" is referencing?
> Britta: I guess I just assumed that in the old days a petard was a special outfit like a leotard, with a lot of fancy buckles and loops on it, and that rich people would wear them when they were feeling especially smug, but then poor people would tie a rope through one of the loops, and hoist them up a pole and then let them dangle there as punishment for being cocky.
> Jeff: Never look it up. Your explanation is way better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/community/comments/7vs6ec/brittas_m...
You seem to be referring to the more normal use of it
The literal meaning of the phrase is that when your own bomb's explosion blows you backwards that leads to the derivative understanding of having experienced an ironic reversal or poetic justice in whatever situation is being experienced.
In todays world we now have the culturally apropos Petard Clothes for custom hoisting. [3] So, we actually have a double entendre [4] that should tell us all not to get hoisted by our own petards when telling HN posters not to wear their bombs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard
[2] http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/ironic_revers...