Merry Christmas to all of You!
Somebody can help me to understand the meaning of the sentence in the subject?
I thik it’s like "sails in troubled waters", but I’m not sure…
Thanks a lot
Lucia

Merry Christmas

I take the expression to mean ‘chaotic, broken down, dead’ the dictionary descibes "A disagreeable or troublesome situation; a plight. "

I did not understand the bit about sails, though. probably you meant as a verb, sailing in trouble waters?

Bryn

    Hmm… Reminds me of the game we played back in elementary school called, I think, "pickle". I don’t remember the rules or anything except that there were two bases, and a "pickle" was to be caught between bases when one of the basemen had the ball. (Might have been one of those big kick-ball types, but it’s been too long for me to remember for certain.)
    In any case. I’m not a big sports guy, (Though I did go to my first ever hockey game on this Woden’s Day. I’ve always found sports to be kind of "blah".) but I believe that in baseball the same situation is also known as a "pickle". Kind of like, to be "caught between a rock and a hard place." One guy has the ball on the one hand and the other guy could probably get it fast enough that trying to get past him would be something of a trick.
    How this all relates to the actual "pickeling" process, I’m not sure. Might have something to do with being trapped in a tight and hostile/uncomfortable environment.
    In theory it’s just a matter of time before a player in a pickle gets tagged as the players on either side squeeze in tighter, but in practice it’s possible for the runner to squeeze through.

It may just be another expression that Shakespeare coined:

“How cam’st thou in this pickle?”

Shakespeare: Tempest, v. 1.

Apparently the Dutch, from whom English adopted the term, have used the term similarly.

I’m sure it’s also related to our English phrase, "sticky situation" (meaning predicament).

[quote author=tcward link=board=idiom;num=1040395954;start=0#3 date=12/23/02 at 13:59:43]It may just be another expression that Shakespeare coined:

Apparently not, for a change.
The OED attests the usage "a condition or situation, usually disagreeable; a sorry plight or predicament" as far back as 1562, just before Shakespeare was born.

[quote author=tcward link=board=idiom;num=1040395954;start=0#3 date=12/23/02 at 13:59:43]Apparently the Dutch, from whom English adopted the term, have used the term similarly.

The OED provides what seems to be a Dutch proverb: in de pekel zitten, iemand in de pekel laten zitten. Can anyone translate that?

Grant

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=idiom;num=1040395954;start=0#4 date=12/23/02 at 16:36:41]The OED provides what seems to be a Dutch proverb: in de pekel zitten, iemand in de pekel laten zitten. Can anyone translate that?

Yes, I was writing while I researched and didn’t delete the Shakespeare-coinage reference, which clearly didn’t happen in this case.

Those expressions translate roughly to "sit in a pickle" and "let someone else sit in a pickle".

Maybe that’s the Dutch equivalent to ‘stewing’...?

[quote author=tcward link=board=idiom;num=1040395954;start=0#5 date=12/23/02 at 16:40:04]Yes, I was writing while I researched and didn’t delete the Shakespeare-coinage reference, which clearly didn’t happen in this case.

Ah, I wondered about that, since there seemed to be an internal contradiction - clear now.

[quote author=tcward link=board=idiom;num=1040395954;start=0#5 date=12/23/02 at 16:40:04]Maybe that’s the Dutch equivalent to ‘stewing’...?

A long time in an unpleasant environment from which there is no escape - "stew" and "pickle" seem to do the metaphorical work very well!

Grant

Dutch pekel has two meanings: the end result of pickling, i.e. the pickle, and also the brine in which the pickling occurs.