Whatever happened, the words home and hone have very different meanings and substituting hone for home has completely changed the meaning of the phrase.
I think sloppy enunciation or mis-hearing may have been responsible.
To "home in on" meand to go directly to the point of a matter.
"To hone in on" makes no sense because hone means a stone, a whetstone, whine or pine for, grumble, moan, and as a 4th definition on Shorter OED as : sharpen on a whetsone ,sharpen, streamline, focus.
That sound you hear, dear MaxQ, is the sound of standards crashing all around us!

Last edited by wow; 01/25/2007 6:56 PM.