Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
I have often come across this idiom but still, I don't know when to say or use it!
Even after several internet searches, I have trouble understanding the meaning of this idiom, and more precisely, when to use it.
I got the fact that it means – more or less – that "almost" is not enough, but the situations when to use it is still not crystal clear for me.
Could somebody enlighten me, give me examples? Thanks in advance!
(Please consider that I have to teach this idiom to my students who are actually studying English as a foreign language.)
Best Answer
Charles Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder & Fred Shapiro, The [Yale] Dictionary of Modern Proverbs (2012) has this entry:
The literal meaning of the saying is derived from the fact that you win points in horseshoes by landing your horseshoe within a horseshoe's breadth of the stake, even if it doesn't ring the stake or touch the stake. Hence, "close" counts in horseshoes. Likewise a hand grenade that explodes in the vicinity of its target, rather than directly on it, can still inflict lethal damage—as can a nuclear bomb.
Wikipedia's entry for horseshoes offers this account of the scoring system, although many people play informally by different house rules:
I suspect that the variant "almost doesn't count..." is more obscure to hearers because it doesn't emphasize the notion of physical closeness that lies at the core of the exceptions to the rule.