no harm, no foul



no harm, no foul

there is no problem if no serious damage was done In his excitement, he deleted all the files, but they were restored later from a backup copy - no harm, no foul.
Etymology: from the use of this phrase in basketball (a sport) to say that if an action that is against the rules has no effect on the results of the game, there should be no foul (punishment)
See also: foul

Common Names:

NameGenderPronouncedUsage
Lanre-Western African, Yoruba
Khajag-Armenian
PetrePE-tre (Romanian)Romanian, Macedonian, Georgian
Armin['a:min]
ChimoCHEE-mo (Spanish)Catalan, Spanish
JerryJER-eeEnglish