– What did she say? – Not to put too fine a point on it, she said you sexually harassed her.
This expression means 'used to apologise for a possibly impolite statement one is making.' But why does this sequence of words mean that? What does mean to put a point on something? And then how is a fine point different from a point?
Best Answer
No one seems to know exactly what the literal meaning of the words is. That meaning has been lost in time. It's just a fixed expression these days.
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/09/fine-tuning-2.html http://throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/dickenss-fine-point.html
It seems that the language is figurative. A fine point, whatever that is, is the opposite of something that is blunt. So, not to put a fine point on something is to be blunt, and in fact you can just say it like that:
I would say it like that personally.