You got a very different take than what I wrote - especially in the captain going down the ship example.
Unless the Captain saw everyone off in lifeboats and then stayed on the ship (very unlikely), it’s far from what you are describing and I was clear on that.
I also pointed out that the actual reality on the ground is almost never what the mental image or PR is meant to instill, and is often (in reality) a way to take someone out somewhere and pin all the blame on them.
I very much doubt, for instance, in ANY of those examples I gave, they actually did what they were said to have done in the way and for the reasons they were said to have done it.
But there are situations where it definitely is the easier way out to do it that way literally.
Someone who gets into an obstinate fight with a boss over a minor issue, or who does something common and then when it turns out it’s a problem stands up and tries to defend it, and then gets fired, would be a common use of the idiom in my experience.
A Phyrric victory, ‘he picked that hill to die on’, he died tilting at windmills’, etc. could also be used.
Unless the Captain saw everyone off in lifeboats and then stayed on the ship (very unlikely), it’s far from what you are describing and I was clear on that.
I also pointed out that the actual reality on the ground is almost never what the mental image or PR is meant to instill, and is often (in reality) a way to take someone out somewhere and pin all the blame on them.
I very much doubt, for instance, in ANY of those examples I gave, they actually did what they were said to have done in the way and for the reasons they were said to have done it.
But there are situations where it definitely is the easier way out to do it that way literally.
Someone who gets into an obstinate fight with a boss over a minor issue, or who does something common and then when it turns out it’s a problem stands up and tries to defend it, and then gets fired, would be a common use of the idiom in my experience.
A Phyrric victory, ‘he picked that hill to die on’, he died tilting at windmills’, etc. could also be used.