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Reader question: What does "my heart is in the right place" mean?

My comments: It means there's something wrong with you.

I'm kidding. If your heart is in the right place, you're fine. You're good. You're kind. You have a good conscience. You're perfectly alright.

Perhaps not perfectly alright, for whenever people say your heart is in the right place, they must be discussing something annoying, rude or intolerable about you.

They might imply as much at any rate if they do not explicitly say so. You see, the phrase – a useful idiom it is – is never left standing on its own. There's usually a preceding "although" or a "but" trailing behind. Take this song (Love me for me) by Ashlee Simpson, for example:

No I didn't really mean to say that

I'm mixed up, so what 

...

My head is spinning but my heart is in the right place

Got the picture? I may have said something, but I don't mean it. One way of looking at it is that I'm good at heart and so you can trust me. Another way of looking at is, of course, that "my heart is in the right place" admits to some wrongdoing – in this case, saying things that might have hurt.

In short, "one's heart is in the right place" means they're good even though they may not appear to be so. That's the full picture.

Here are media examples:

1. A headline: America's heart is in the right place – usually.

- Telegraph.co.uk (January 6, 2007)

2. His heart is in the right place, but he can't seem to do anything right.

- The Conservative Case Against Bush, Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2007.

3. This movie's heart is in the right place, which is one way of saying it's terrible.

- Nina's Heavenly Delights, New York Post, November 30, 2007.

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Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.