The phrase's origin and overall meaning is as Gary wrote, but it
shouldn't be perceived as (necessarily) having any negative
connotations. The "driving in a nail" meaning, while true to its
origin, is perhaps a little strong for its actual meaning in common
usage.
Usually, when a native English speaker says that they are saying
something to "drive a (or the) point home," what they mean is:
"I am giving you further examples and/or explication so that you will
fully understand my meaning/explanation/answer/point-of-view/etc."
Like any other phrase it can have many shades of meaning depending on
the context and tone of its usage.
A demagogue, in any field or endeavor, might use it as part of an
attempt to cow his subjects into accepting his point of view.
(Another idiom?...oops.) He might use it to say, "You idiots. This
should be obvious, but I'll give it to you in baby words this time."
An Admiral might use it when giving orders to his subordinates to
make sure that they knew _exactly_ what his intentions and objectives
were.
A philosopher might use it to show that he was giving a further
explanation of a metaphysical precept so that his students could
better understand his insights.
Again, context and tone is everything.
Regardless, what it usually means in colloquial English is something
along the line of, "Just to be sure that you really know what I mean
I'll add this."
When someone says, "That really drove the point home." what they
almost always mean is something like (or along the line of ;-) "Oh
yeah! That last bit really made it all come clear. Now I understand
what you were talking about."
On 4/28/06, Gary (Lists) <<mailto:email@hidden>
email@hidden> wrote:
...
This refers to driving a spike, nail or other such object, like with a
hammer.
An off-list note because I was perplexed: as a French guy I'd never
heard that expression "drive the point home", and now I see it twice in
one hour in the same thread. Can you confirm that you did not influence
each other with a post off-list or something, and that this is really
one of those odd coincidences which make like a continuous mystery?
