@silent() function

Hi everybody.
The latest version of QM introduced the “meta” functions for inspecting item and category information about calculated cells. They are very useful.
Among them I have found a @silent() function. The help gives the following description:

@silent (Category)
Permutes the returned values from other meta functions for each item along the specified category.
Category:Category to permute with

Sorry, but I could not figure out what this function achieves.
Mike: may you please shed some light?
Thanks.