Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
metaphor dead
Source: Seafaring → Event Structure
Categories: linguistics
Transfers
The “devil” on a wooden ship was the longest seam on the hull, typically the garboard seam where the hull planking meets the keel, near or below the waterline. Caulking this seam — “paying the devil” with hot pitch — required a sailor to be suspended over the ship’s side, wedged between the seam and the ocean. There was no safe position: lean too far in and you fall into the sea; lean too far back and you cannot reach the seam. The work itself was dangerous, the location was dangerous, and there was no alternative.
The metaphor maps this physical entrapment between two dangers onto any dilemma where all options are bad.
- No good option exists — the sailor cannot choose not to caulk the seam (the ship leaks), cannot do it from inside (the seam is on the outside of the hull), and cannot avoid the proximity to the ocean. Every available action carries genuine danger. The metaphor’s core structural insight is that some situations offer no safe path, only a choice between hazards. This is more specific than “a difficult choice” — it is a situation where the difficulty is structural and inescapable.
- The dangers are qualitatively different — the devil (the seam) and the deep blue sea are not the same kind of threat. One is a technical challenge requiring skill and endurance; the other is an environmental threat requiring luck. The metaphor preserves this asymmetry: the two bad options in a “devil and the deep” dilemma are typically different in kind, not just different in degree. Firing an underperforming employee (personal conflict) versus keeping them (organizational harm) — two different species of trouble.
- The sailor is already there — this is not a dilemma about whether to enter a dangerous situation. The sailor is already between the devil and the sea. The metaphor maps this onto situations where retreat is not an option, where the question is not “should I get involved?” but “which danger do I face now?”
- Both dangers are real — neither the seam nor the sea is hypothetical. The metaphor resists the common advice to “just pick one” by insisting that both sides of the dilemma carry genuine, non-trivial consequences. This distinguishes it from weaker dilemma metaphors like “between a rock and a hard place,” which has no specificity about the nature of the dangers.
Limits
- The theological misreading has consumed the nautical original — most English speakers assume the “devil” in the expression is Satan. This misreading transforms a specific structural metaphor (physical entrapment between hull seam and ocean) into a generic religious one (trapped between evil and chaos). The theological reading loses the asymmetry of the original: Satan and the sea are both vast, cosmic threats, while the actual devil (a ship’s seam) is mundane, specific, and workable. The dead metaphor has been killed a second time by folk etymology.
- The original had a solution — the sailor between the devil and the deep blue sea was doing a job. It was dangerous, uncomfortable, and unpleasant, but sailors did caulk the devil seam and survive. The metaphor in modern usage implies no solution exists, but the nautical original was about difficult work in a dangerous position, not about paralysis. The loss of the “the work gets done despite the danger” element makes the modern usage more fatalistic than the source warrants.
- The etymological claim is contested — some lexicographers question the nautical origin, arguing that “devil” in the expression may simply mean the Christian devil, making the phrase a straightforward religious metaphor rather than a nautical one. The OED’s earliest citations (1620s-1630s) do not clearly disambiguate. The nautical etymology is widely repeated but not definitively established, and asserting it as fact is itself a kind of folk etymology — just a more sophisticated one.
- Dilemmas have more than two sides — the metaphor’s binary structure (devil on one side, sea on the other) forces every complex situation into a two-option frame. Real dilemmas often involve three, four, or more bad options, none of which map neatly onto the spatial metaphor of being squeezed between exactly two dangers. The expression oversimplifies by geometrizing the problem.
Expressions
- “Between the devil and the deep blue sea” — the full form, now used to describe any dilemma with no good option
- “Between a rock and a hard place” — the dominant American variant, which has largely displaced the nautical original and carries no trace of seafaring
- “Caught between the devil and the deep” — shortened form, common in British English
- “The devil to pay” — a related nautical dead metaphor (paying/caulking the devil seam with pitch), now understood as a reference to Faustian bargains, the nautical origin completely overwritten
- “The devil to pay and no pitch hot” — the full nautical expression meaning an urgent problem with no resources to fix it, virtually extinct in modern usage
Origin Story
The earliest recorded uses of “between the devil and the deep sea” date to the 1620s-1630s. The nautical etymology — tracing “devil” to the garboard seam or the longest seam on the hull — is widely cited in naval history and maritime folklore, though the OED and some historical linguists regard it as uncertain. The phrase may have always referred to the Christian devil, with the nautical backstory being a later rationalization.
Regardless of the true origin, the expression’s survival illustrates a common pattern in dead metaphors: when the source domain fades from common experience (few people caulk ship seams today), the expression acquires a new folk etymology that fits the audience’s existing knowledge. The devil becomes Satan, the deep blue sea becomes hell or chaos, and the specific nautical geometry of being wedged between hull and ocean is replaced by a generic image of being trapped between two cosmic evils. The metaphor dies, is reinterpreted, and lives on in a different body.
References
- Jeans, P.D. Ship to Shore: A Dictionary of Everyday Words and Phrases Derived from the Sea (1993) — comprehensive catalog of nautical dead metaphors including this expression
- Rogers, J. The Dictionary of Cliches (1985) — discusses the contested etymology
- Smyth, W.H. The Sailor’s Word-Book (1867) — defines “devil” as a seam on the hull, providing period nautical evidence
Structural Neighbors
Entries from different domains that share structural shape. Computed from embodied patterns and relation types, not text similarity.
- Argument Is War (war/metaphor)
- Difficult Subjects Are Adversaries (war/metaphor)
- Illness Is an Invader (war/metaphor)
- Morality Is War (war/metaphor)
- Treating Illness Is Fighting a War (war/metaphor)
- Dark Forest (mythology/metaphor)
- Information Asymmetry (/mental-model)
- All Warfare Is Deception (military-history/mental-model)
Structural Tags
Patterns: boundarynear-farblockage
Relations: preventcompete
Structure: competition Level: generic
Contributors: agent:metaphorex-miner