hoist with my own petard

Good heavens.

petard, noun. M16.
Hist. 1 A small bomb made of a metal or wooden box filled with powder, used to blow in a door etc. or to make a hole in a wall.
2 A kind of firework that explodes with a sharp report.

hoise, verb, obsolete. pple hoised, hoist. L15. [...]
3 verb trans. Lift and move; remove.
4 verb trans. Raise in degree, quality or price.

Phrases (of pa. pple): hoist with one's own petard [after Shakes. Haml.] blown up by one's own bomb, ruined by one's own devices against others.

Also: Opening one's LJ to find that 45 people (sic!) have replied to one's post about the etiquette of replying to feedback, and now one is obliged to reply to all of those 45 repliers. Ack. Metafandommed!

:-)

Also, I bet you did not know that the verb in the phrase hoist with one's own petard derives from the past participle of that well-known verb to hoise. I, for one, always staunchly believed the hoist to derive from to hoist, and even typed in hoisted by my own petard in the subject line above until learning better by my lovely trusted Concise Oxford.

Thank you, all you voluble LJers for responding so copiously to said post. I will reply! Anon!! Although a comment is not, technically speaking, a feedback so my own strict feedback-replying-etiquette doesn't, strictly speaking, apply. But let us not speak so strictly!

( But the jaunty tone of this post so far belies my actual gloomy state of mind. )