High and dry?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

High and dry?

In short, from stranded ships on the beach springs the term “high and dry” and it is now applicable in any situations where helplessness is keenly felt.

However, I’ve seen this term used in a positive tone, too. During a flood for example, people crowd themselves on a hill top and they might say something like, even though farmland is inundated, we are high and dry. That means lives are secure – at least people are all on “high and dry” land, not wet and submerged in water.

In that particular situation, being “high and dry” is a blessing.

Alright, here are more media examples of situations where people find themselves “high and dry”, for better or worse:

1. For the better part of three days, hundreds of York Mills Rd. apartment residents were left high and dry after a water main break cut service to four highrise buildings.

Water service to the apartments in two separate York Mills Rd. and Leslie St. complexes was restored Tuesday at about 7 p.m. following round-the-clock work by contracted pipe and drain crews.

The lack of water and the inconvenient trek with buckets and bottles to an adjacent building, whose water service was unaffected, angered many tenants.

“This is like living in Haiti. The Third World is here on York Mills,” one man shouted angrily Tuesday as he headed to the laundry room of a building on nearby Farmstead Rd. with two large plastic water bottles.