Talk:between the devil and the deep blue sea

caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
I believe that it refers to the situation that the Israelites found themselves in, trapped between the egyptian army led by pharaoh (who represented the devil) and the red sea. Moses represented God. Frisco54 (talk) 05:45, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There's no need to look that far for an explanation. The second part is obviously chosen because of alliteration: both devil and deep start with the same sound. This is common in figures of speech: "bite the bullet", "cool, calm and collected", "fight fire with fire", "good to go", "have a heart", "jump for joy", "labor of love", "make a mountain out of a molehill", etc. Combined with the overall rhythm of the phrase, it makes it easier to remember. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:14, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I heard that the devil is the seam(s) between the planks of a wooden ship. To make them watertight, you have to caulk them: hammer in (usually cord-like) material (with caulking tools) and then impregnate the seam and material with some sealant. Unfortunately that caulking does not live forever, it has to be redone: you remove the old material and put in the new one. One convenient method is to let the ship fall dry on a sandbank, it needs no convenient dry dock around. However, the tide will rise again and refloat the ship in some hours ... so you are between the devil (the right now not watertight seams) and the deep blue sea (the tide coming back in).


 * Not exactly. There are a range of urban myths for this phrase. The 'devil' is the garboard seam(s), the first plank on the keel in a wood vessel. A vessel may survive a long time with teams manning the bilge pumps if the caulking crawled or wormed (two forms of caulking failure.) But it may also be a reference to keel hauling, a severe punishment very rarely handed down at sea as either form - the 'milder' athwartships keel haul or the 'serious' stem-to-stern keel haul - was often a death sentence. That is, you might choose to 'pay the devil' via keel haul or walk the plank and hope to survive abandonment at sea. - Amgine/t &middot; e 13:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The origin of this phrase as I've heard it is the same as what the U. S. Navy has at its own website: "In wooden ships, the 'devil' was the longest seam of the ship. It ran from the bow to the stern. When at sea and the 'devil' had to be caulked, the sailor sat in a bo'sun's chair to do so. He was suspended between the 'devil' and the sea -- the 'deep' -- a very precarious position, especially when the ship was underway." https://www.navy.mil/navydata/traditions/html/navyterm.html#deep

RFM discussion: November 2016–July 2020
to: between the devil and the deep blue sea, with "caught etc." either deleted or made a redirect.

The prepositional phrase between the devil and the deep blue sea ("PP") appears alone (eg, in titles) and collocates with forms of verbs catch, be, put, find (oneself), leave, choose, stand, sit, lie. Caught up, stuck, and trapped are from verbs that seem to collocate with the PP almost exclusively in the past participle form (or adjective). The PP occurs after certain deverbal nouns, like choice. Alternative prepositions are less common: eg, in between, as.

And, finally, shows none of the indexed references there have the term caught + PP, whereas  shows that a few unabridged dictionaries, an idiom dictionary, and a nautical dictionary have the PP. DCDuring TALK  15:25, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Move to, retaining as a hard redirect thereto. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Move, keep a hard redirect., I would have done the move myself, but I can't (since between the devil and the deep blue sea is already a redirect). PUC – 12:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ DCDuring (talk) 15:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

RFM discussion: November 2016–July 2020

 * See Talk:between the devil and the deep blue sea.