I was thinking about how long it took me to understand why the phrase "second to none" was seen as positive.

I knew it was used to mean the subject of the phrase was good at something, but I always thought the literal meaning of it was that the doing nothing would have had a better outcome than letting the subject do it and it was used ironically. But now I understand it means that the subject is so good at doing the thing, there is nothing that is better than them.