what does the phrase catch 21 mean?

Question

i have heard it about 4 times randomly over the past week. i have never heard it before and i have no clue what it means.

Answer 1

It's catch-22, not catch-21. It's from the title of a book by Joseph Heller, called "Catch-22."

Anyway, it means a situation where you can't do A without first doing B, and you can't do B without first doing A.

A good example is looking for a job:

A company won't hire you without experience in the field. But you can't get experience if you won't be hired. Thus, you are caught in a catch-22.

And it's always got the hyphen - that's important.

Read the link below. That is the section of the book by Heller that is the origin of the expression.

EDIT: And a catch-22 does NOT mean a choice with only undesirable outcomes. That's "being in a bind," "being between a rock and hard place" or, more simply, a dilemma.

Answer 2

Catch 21

Answer 3

Catch 22 is, among other things, a gereral critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. As a result of its specific use in the book, Catch 22, the phrase has come into common use to mean a double blind of any type.

Whitin the book, catch 22 is introduced as a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic of which, for exanple, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions.

Catch 22 is a 1962 novel by the American author Joseph Heller. It was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1970. The Modern Library ranked Catch 22 as number 7 on its list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Answer 4

Your answer is already listed (assuming you mean catch-22), but I feel the need to correct a couple of issues:

The book, Catch-22, was written by Joseph Heller and not Kurt Vonnegut.
The book (and movie) took place in World War II and not Vietnam.

It is an excellent book. The movie is fun too, but it's filmed out of order. This is the same for the book, but at least with the book, you can grok what's going on by flipping between pages. You could do the same with a Catch-22 video, though.

The book is filled with catch-22s, but the most commonly touted one is when the main character, Yossarian, begs the doctor to ground him on grounds of insanity. The doctor points out that Yossarian is obviously quite sane if he doesn't want to fly, so he can't ground him. He can ground Yossarian only if he wants to fly, but if he wants to fly, then he can't ask to be grounded. If he asks to be grounded, then he's obviously sane, and the doctor cannot ground him.

The whole book is a play on words and semantics. Awesome read.

Answer 5

Catch 22 Urban Dictionary

Answer 6

There are two possibilities depending on the context in which it is used.

Catch 21 is when you speed through a deck of cards making as many 21s as possible i.e. king (10 points) jack (ten points) ace (one point) which totals 21. Of coarse there are numerous ways to get to 21.
Here's a link to where I found this.

http://www.linkopedia.com/fun/catch_21.html

ALSO- catch 21 is a situation in which you have to make a choice but both choices have drawbacks.
(from the Urban Dictionary)


And in case you were wondering....
Catch 22 is a no win situation such as: You can't get your car fixed to go to work and because you can't go to work to earn money you can't get your car fixed.

Have a great day!!!

Answer 7

Catch 22 indicates two rules which contradict each other. No matter which one you follow you are violating the other. One small example comes from two rulings from the OSHA regulations.
Rule one: Anyone working in the area of a noise source greater than 70 dB's must wear hearing protectors.
Rule two: All equipment must be sound shielded to reduce sound to less than 70 dB's where possible.
Later on:
Rule three: All vehicles used in a work environment must have an alarm attached to the reverse gear sounding no less than 90 dB's.
PS: We pay good tax money for these "catch 22" rules.
Vaya con DIOS

Answer 8

The expression is actually Catch-22, coming from the book of the same name (Joseph Heller) and it refers to a no win situation, also known as "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't". In the book, if a pilot wants to fly another mission, that's an indication of insanity, coz doing so could get you killed and no sane person wants to die. But you have to request to not be allowed to fly any more missions. But asking not to be put in harm's way (i.e. not be made to fly any more missions) is a sane action, so you can't not fly any more missions coz you're not insane. As to why "22" and not some other number, I don't know. I've read the book and seen the movie and I don't recall the significance of the number ever being given.

Answer 9

The correct phrase is Catch 22. It's from Kurt Vonnegut's book of the same title.

Answer 10

It's catch 22, no win situation, it's comes from the title of a book