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  • 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.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 275. The idiom today is between a rock

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