knee-deep in the Big Muddy

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, a 1967 folk song by Pete Seeger, protesting the war in Vietnam.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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knee-deep in the Big Muddy

  1. (chiefly US, idiomatic) Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership.
    • 1994 September 16, Cal Thomas, “Clinton should heed Gore advice”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010:
      Polls show three-quarters of the people don't want us to invade Haiti. Nonetheless, it appears we're about to go knee-deep in the Big Muddy.
    • 2002 July 16, Edward Iwata, “Enron faces 'hornet's nest' of charges”, in USA Today, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010:
      The 40-year-old Fastow, a hot-tempered financial whiz, engineered the controversial partnerships that led to Enron's meltdown. . . . "He's knee-deep in the big muddy," Meagher says.
    • 2007, Janice Langan-Fox et al., Research Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace, →ISBN, page 142:
      In the classic ‘knee deep in the Big Muddy’ scenario (Staw, 1976), individuals continue to contribute to a losing cause long after it is clear that this is a tremendous waste of money.

Synonyms

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