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Catch-22
(redirected from Catch 22)

    Also found in: Idioms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.

Catch-22

A paradoxical situation that has no happy ending. A popular movie with Alan Arkin in 1970, Catch-22 came from Joseph Heller's 1961 comical, yet gruesome, best-selling book about pilots in a fictitious World War II setting. The paradox was that no sane pilot would be crazy enough to want to continue flying dangerous missions. The only way a pilot would be grounded is if he were truly crazy, but if he asked to be grounded, he was then considered sane and would not be grounded.

A Catch-22 with software would be trying to install a new version of the OS that conflicts with the current display driver. Although a new version of the display driver may be available for the new version of the OS, the current display driver does not allow the new OS to be installed. Sometimes, a Catch-22 is used synonymously with a "chicken-egg" dilemma (which comes first?), but it is more accurately a conundrum without a winning solution.

Catch-22
concerned with the frustration of red-tape mechanisms. [Am. Lit.: Catch-22]
See : Bureaucracy
Catch-22
Air Force captain’s appeal to be grounded for insanity not granted because desire to avoid combat proves sanity. [Am. Lit.: Joseph Heller Catch-22]
See : Frustration
Catch-22
pleading insanity to leave army indicates sanity. [Am. Lit.: Catch-22]
See : Irony
Catch-22
claim of insanity to be relieved of military duty proves sanity. [Am. Lit.: Joseph Heller Catch-22]
See : Paradox


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In an audiobook, all this can cause more than a little initial confusion, but for those who persevere, this novel is to the Civil War era what Catch 22 is to WW II.
Wright, Stephen. The amalgamation polka by Levitov, Francine / Kliatt
Pataki said "The Attorney General of Connecticut has placed Long Island residents in a real catch 22 situation--on the one hand he claims that the cable should not operate because it is not buried deep enough, while at the same time Connecticut will not allow it to be buried to the proper depth.
Pataki vows to help LI re-energize by Real Estate Weekly
In Joseph Heller's two best novels, Catch 22 and Something Happened, the narrative circles obsessively around a repressed memory that it is the stories' business finally to confront.
Closing Time by Murtaugh, Daniel M. / Commonweal
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