Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 275. The idiom today is between a rock
and a hard place. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone finds
themselves or ends up between a rock and a hard place, it means he or she is in a
very difficult predicament, usually with two very unpleasant choices. Like if I do
this, I got this problem if I do that I got that problem, and both are not good.
And it's hard to choose which is the least dangerous or you know, the least
one that you want to try to avoid. So you end up between a rock and a hard place.
All right. Let's continue. One belief of the origin is that, that it comes
directly from ancient Greek mythology. Okay. In the story of Homer's Odyssey, the
character Odessa's must go between Charybdis. i guess a dangerous whirlpool. Okay.
You know, because he is actually on a ship and a cliff here and a
man-eating monster that dwells along the cliff. So he's got to go between the two
of them and it's dangerous. Because you know, you got the whirlpool on this side, and
you got the man-eating monster on that side and it's a very narrow area that he
has to go through. So it was between a rock and a hard place. Yeah. I guess the rock
must have been the man-eating rock basically the cliffs and the whirlpool
must have been the hard place in this case. All right. Let's continue here
though. A second possibility of an origin relates to a financial crisis of the US
bankers panic of 1907. Okay. Many of the miners demanded more pay and better
conditions. Yeah. I think the financial crisis cost the miners I think they were
they were cutting their pay or they made their pay more difficult. And they
demanded more pay or better better conditions. The mining companies refused
to pay more and the miners were left with the choice of underpaid
wage being a rock. And being unemployed a hard place. So this is what some people
think. So you got some people think the Greek mythology story is , is the real
origin. And you've got some others thinking that this 1907 bankers panic
with the miners was the one that actually developed into this phrase, So it
could be either one. Let's continue here. All right/ We just got a couple of
examples of the way in his use today. All right example number one. Ever since the
2008 financial crisis, the PIGS countries.. Remember pigs you know, was it Portugal
Ireland and Italy so we had two I's Greece and Spain they were the ones were
in all the financial trouble in Europe. Well the ones that were in more
financial trouble. We should say of Europe have been caught between a rock
and a hard place. Okay. Either take out more loans and go deeper into debt which
they could already not afford to pay. Or just completely collapse and go bankrupt
which they didn't seem to want to allow them to do. So they were really caught
between a rock and a hard place. Both choices were very bad there's no good
choice here. All right and number two. We could say that Forman you know kind of
like a low-level supervisor was caught between a rock and a hard place. He had
to either fire his good friend or his best most productive worker. Really he
doesn't want to have to do either one of these things. So he is caught between a
rock and a hard place. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank
you for your time. Bye-bye.