ADAMSONIAN

Joebert,

I’m glad you have a blog on catch-22…
For all you know, it has been my most misunderstood English (American) idiom, along with “wild goose chases.” Back then in the call centers I worked with, customers often mention catch-22 whenever they’re confronted with unjust situation. I got so curious with it that I asked 1 of the customers said it. He explained to me that the origin of it is in baseball. But he didn’t expound since he’s angry and I didn’t dig in.
Then I chanced upon Condrado Di Quiroz’ column about the sanity test for the OFW workers, a proposal by POEA, owing to the fact that some OFWs would snap and the result has alwas been ugly. Catch-22 came in describing the OFW’s situation, that is unbearable but opt to go anyway because they needed to and that they work hard to slip out of poverty and work anyway amidst the absurdities of the situation, and thats catch-22.
Then I chanced upon Catch-22 in wikipedia, as a WW2 story. its nice, fienging insanity in war to escape the war. And thats it, just a thought…
The phrase “chanced upon” though was borrowed from the great Joebert Lazarte.