Catch 22
Where did this phrase originate?
It came from the novel – it’s a phrase invented by Joseph Heller for his 1962 novel of the same time. It did not exist prior to the novel, and took on a life of its own after the novel as an idiom to describe a frustrating loop where two choices are both prevented by the other.
“You mean there’s a catch?”
“Sure there’s a catch,” Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
The number has no significance. In fact, it changed right before publication (it was originally going to be 18).
Why I Looked It Up
Of course, I knew about the idiom. And I knew it was a title of the novel. But I figured it had a life before the novel – like, the novel was named for a thing that existed.
I was wrong. In this sense, it’s a lot like Bucket List and La Dolce Vita.