Quote Originally Posted by bbshriver View Post
That's what I was going for... "nearly miss" is the same as "barely hit".

But that's different than a "near miss". In one you're saying "I almost missed, but I did, in fact, hit" where in the other you're saying "I missed, but came very near to the target".
The problem with this is that "near miss", at least in as much as I've learned from watching submarine movies and the like, is that you were "almost hit".

However, broken down by the English language, "near miss" means either "hit" or "barely hit".

Either way, it's a pretty stupid expression. The debate over it in this thread alone ought to be evidence enough of that fact.