Religious Origin Metaphors 101 Devil
Devil’s Advocate, Devil Incarnate, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Better the Devil you know, Devil-may-care, Daredevil, Making a Deal with the Devil, Devil to Pay, Selling Your Soul to the Devil, Bring out the Devil Inside of you, The Devil is in the Details, The Horn Effect
In the movie The Italian Job, John Bridger quips: “Trust everyone, just don’t trust the devil inside them.” Am I the only one who has wondered why the devil hides in the details or why facing the deep blue sea is considered as difficult a choice as facing the devil? There are many common figures of speech that have religious connotations.
But first, a disclaimer. Religion is complicated and there can be different versions of stories and beliefs. The intention of this blog post is not to hurt anyone’s sentiments or feelings.
The Devil
We will start off by looking at figures of speech where the devil figures prominently. “Handsome devil“, “The devil incarnate“, “Poor devil“, “What in the devil do you make of this”, “What the devil’s gotten into you?” are all used in everyday language.
While the devil is mostly used in the noun form, it can also be used as a verb. To Bedevil is to be a little bit like the devil and to cause trouble, distress or annoyance, bedeviled is the adjective. Devilling is a legal term in some countries (UK, Australia). Per this source, devilling is a practice among self-employed barristers by which one barrister obtains the assistance of another, usually, amore junior, barrister to carry out work to help the first barrister discharge his instructions.
The classic definition of the devil however, per Wikipedia, is “In mainstream Christianity, the Devil (or Satan) is a fallen angel who rebelled against God. A fallen angel is one who was expelled from heaven.”
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
A rarely known meaning of the devil is used to refer to the seam on a wooden ship’s hull. To keep this seam caulked, a sailor would have had to stand on the edge of the deck, and the sailor would have been between the devil (seam) and the deep sea. And so, there are divided opinions on whether the origin of the phrase Between the devil and the deep blue sea is nautical or religious. If religious, then the phrase could also refer to a difficult choice between drowning (deep blue sea) and damnation (the devil).
Whatever the origin, the phrase means to be caught in a dilemma between two equally difficult choices. As the following headlines illustrate,
“Afghan Refugees Caught Between Devil and Deep Blue Sea”
“Journalists in Balochistan: Caught Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea”.
Another figure of speech that conveys similar meaning is Between a rock and a hard place. The phrase Damned if you do damned if you don’t is slightly different. Per the latter phrase, the person in the specific situation will be blamed no matter what choice they take.
Better the Devil you know
Out of two choices, if you are somewhat familiar with one of them, then it is Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. This proverb is sometimes used in its shortened version Better the devil you know as in the following headline,
“Better the devil you know: the inside story of how Judith Collins became National’s leader”
The full version of the phrase appears in this Bloomberg news article discussing rich Americans moving money,
“Not every adviser agrees that it’s necessary to pay extra in 2020 to avoid hypothetical tax hikes in the future, because deferring taxes still has financial advantages. But for some clients, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know”.
Unsurprisingly, the devil appears as the representation of evil in most figures of speech. However, there is nothing sinister when the object of a discussion unexpectedly appears on the scene as in the phrase Speak of the devil and he shall appear. It is simply an issue of timing. This interesting blog post has an equivalent phrase from every well-known language in the world.
When you give the devil his due, you are simply acknowledging the good even in a person you may dislike. This phrase also occurs in the classic novel “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes.
Devil-may-care
I guess being a daredevil or having a devil-may-care attitude is better than being in league with the devil, selling your soul to the devil or making a deal with the devil. Per this source, the origin of devil-may-care probably dates back to the seventeenth century during the Golden Age of Piracy when pirates were recklessly carefree and unconcerned with consequences of their piracy. The devil would still care about their actions and thus the expression came into being, which in its fuller form is The devil-may-care, but I do not. Even the royals and quarterbacks are not spared, as seen here,
“Prince Harry has devil-may-care attitude of Diana and Philip’s blunderability”
“Then there was Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, whose devil-may-care attitude made for deliciously naughty stories“.
Daredevil
Although there is a Marvel Comics character named Daredevil, in common usage the expression refers to a bold person who deliberately likes to take risk; sometimes recklessly. As in this headline,
“Daredevil pilot is captured on camera flying the world’s smallest twin-jet aircraft at 5,000 ft.”
Making a Deal with the Devil
Making a deal or pact with the devil (also called a Faustian pact) comes from the legend of Dr Faust, an intellectual alchemist who is said to have sold his soul to the devil’s agent Mephistopheles in exchange for knowledge. But if you thought you could only sell your soul to the devil, you would be wrong.
Turns out over 7,500 people legally sold their soul to British retailer GameStation in 2010 when they failed to read the fine print during their online purchase. No harm no foul- it was an April Fool’s Day prank by GameStation.
Of course, if you make a deal with the devil, you will also have to pay the devil for services rendered or rather have the devil to pay, another way of saying that there will be serious trouble.
In the movie “Gettysburg”, the Union Brigadier Buford tries to keep the Confederate soldiers off the high ground. Knowing that he is heavily outnumbered until reinforcements arrive, he says in a dialogue,
“There is the devil to pay“.
So how much is one’s soul worth? Per Business-InSider, – anywhere between a fiddle of gold for a half million dollars to a VSL (Value of a Statistical Life) for 8.5 million dollars.
Most folks, it seems are willing to settle for much less like a Roblox or a dutch oven. Here is one parent’s account on the use of electronic babysitting during the pandemic,
“My Kid Sold Her Soul to Roblox. I made a deal with the devil this summer. Lots of devils, if we’re going to be accountants about it. But one in particular weighs heavy on my heart: Roblox.”
Another one from Food and Wine,
“I Would Sell My Soul for This Dutch Oven. Does the devil take AmEx or just Bitcoin?“
Children usually know how to push buttons and bring out the devil inside of their parents, so keep those young minds busy because idle hands are the devil’s workshop otherwise you will have the devil to pay.
Devil’s Advocate
As Inc.com explains it “One of the key roles that teams often get wrong is that of the devil’s advocate. This is the person on the team who takes an opposing point of view and brings up contrary evidence and perspective. It’s a key role to help make sure the team isn’t missing a critical piece of information or failing to consider other options.
In 1587, the Catholic Church established the role of advocatus diaboli as part of the process of declaring someone a saint. The purpose of the role was to present counterevidence of sainthood and to find holes in the events presented as miracles. One of the most famous examples was when the atheist author Christopher Hitchens was asked to testify against Mother Teresa.”
Usually in the canonization proceedings, there would also be someone with the role of God’s advocate.
The Devil’s advocate is also sometimes referred to as The tenth man rule. The essence is that if there are ten people in a room and nine of them agree on a course of action, then the tenth man should propose an alternate course of action to ensure all options have been considered. The term came into existence from the novel, “World War Z, 2006”. By the way, did you know that an organization called the Satanic Temple is offering Devil’s Advocate scholarships?
Here are some news headlines demonstrating use of the phrase,
“Guilty by Association: Why playing devil’s advocate on social issues is not helping anyone”
“Red Teams And Devil’s Advocates: How To Make Use Of Contrarian Thinking”
“Stock splits: playing devil’s advocate”
The Devil is in the Details
This might seem like a lot to wordplay but to understand the subtle nuances of culture, the devil really is in the details. This idiom means that even if something looks simple, the details are complicated and likely to cause problems when you get into the nitty-gritty. The phrase is also popularly used in the context of contracts or agreements. The earlier form of this idiom was God is in the detail. Here are some uses of its expression,
“As always, the devil is in the details: the length of the fixed term, the range of variability and the behavior of the benchmark rate”
“The devil is always in the details, but most Americans are clearly on board with getting the pandemic under control and reviving the economy”
The Horn Effect
The horn effect (named for the horns of the devil) is seen used most often with the halo effect when discussing biases. Consumers can correlate a single negative experience with everything associated with a brand. This effect can also manifest itself during the hiring process in job interviews. As one interviewer quotes
“There’s a science behind what’s happening here, known as the halo effect and horn effect, where we subconsciously allow one belief to overshadow others. I once hired an individual who had far less experience than the position required simply because they reminded me of myself when I first started my career. I subconsciously assumed they possessed the other qualities that I pride myself in, like integrity and accountability, only to find out later on that they lacked these characteristics.”
Devil Food, Devil Sports and Devil Clothes
If you were not aware that The Devil Wears Prada is the name of a popular Hollywood movie from 2006, you may be mistaken into thinking that the devil was into luxury brands like Prada, Chanel, Givenchy, and Gucci. The movie is titled as such because the main character has a cold personality.
There are devil foods, although I am not quite sure if they are the devil’s favorites. Devil’s food cake is darker and richer than a regular chocolate cake and almost considered sinful and that is how it got its name. Boiled eggs seasoned with hot or spicy ingredients came to be known as deviled eggs.
And the Devil does not just figure in luxury clothing or hot or sinful food, but also in the name of a sports team. The Belgian national football (soccer in America) team is called “The Red Devils”. NHL- New Jersey Devils. And although one could go on about the Devil, the next topic in this category deals with Heaven, which makes for a much easier read.