The phrase "catch-22" was hard to understand. I saw this phrase in a newspaper article long ago. You can't get a job unless you have experience, but you can't get experience unless you have a job. Age 22 means the year of graduation from university in Japan. You know, the students have to get their job at age 22, so I vaguely understood the origin of the meaning of "catch-22". As you can imagine, I thought that "catch some kind of job at 22...." is something contradictory due to the reason that I wrote above. Consequently the phrase "catch-22" comes to mean dilemma. That was my understanding about "catch-22" at that time.
I understand the correct origin of "catch-22" from an e-mail newsletter a couple of days ago. That phrase came from a novel called "Catch-22". I found myself with this book today.
Comments