Sir, – Frank Farrell (August 13th) takes you to task for daring to use the sentence “Hoist, it might be said, on his own petard” in your Editorial of August 11th.
“Turning the muzzles of the guns Magdala wards, and getting a piece of lighted rope [the party] blazed away as vigorously as possible . . . and tried to hoist Theodore on his own petard [my italics]” – Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898).
So, is it possible that one could be either hoist “with”, “by” or “on” one’s own petard? It would appear so! – Yours, etc,