| 词汇 | between the devil and the deep blue sea |
| 词源 | between the devil and the deep blue sea. The Devil didn’t inspire this old saying, as many people believe. It is thought to be a nautical expression, as its earliest recorded use in 1621 in- dicates, the “devil” in it referring not to Satan but to a seam be- tween planks in a wooden ship’s deck, specifically the long seam nearest to either side of a ship. This seam was “the devil to get at” and any sailor caulking it in a heavy sea risked falling overboard. The seam that ran around a ship’s hull at the water- line, another one difficult and dangerous to get at, was also called “the devil,” and these two devils inspired the memorable alliterative phrase between the devil and the deep blue sea— someone caught on the horns of a dilemma, caught between difficulties that are equally dangerous. Similarly, “the devil to pay” refers to “paying”—waterproofing with pitch—the devil on a ship. Pay here comes from the Latin picare, for the process, and the original phrase was “the devil to pay and no hot pitch.” |
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