身陷困境

    Pickle是“泡菜、腌黄瓜”。In a pickle是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: Stu came over to borrow 20 dollars just now.

    B: What’s up?

    A: He found himself in a pickle after he ordered for a pizza delivery and then had no money to pay once it arrived!

    Note: This idiom means “in a mess or an undesirable situation.” The earliest pickles were spicy sauces made to accompany meat dishes. Later, in the 16th century, the name pickle was also given to a mixture of spiced, salted vinegar that was used as a preservative. In the 17th century, the vegetables that were preserved, for example cucumbers and gherkins, also came to be called pickles. The “in trouble” meaning was an allusion to being as disoriented and mixed up as the stewed vegetables that made up pickles. Shakespeare was one of the first to use the idiom, in “The Tempest.”

    记住了吗？In a pickle就是“身陷困境”。