Name: English Tutor Nick P Idioms (275) Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Uploaded: 2019-09-21T14:26:43.000Z
Duration: 3 min 59 s
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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

Reflexive pronouns

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