Between a rock and a hard place

This is an American expression for a difficult choice between two equally adverse options. It is first attested from 1921, allegedly from Arizona, and possibly connected to the difficulties faced by mining crises in Arizona and California around that time. Those with a more classical education might prefer to use the idiom “between Scylla and Charybdis”, which derives from Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus had to make the unenviable choice of sailing in between these two mythical sea monsters, which in later Greek writings were rationalised into a dangerous shoal of rocks (Scylla) and a whirlpool (Charybdis) said to be located in the Straits of Messina. The classical idiom has been in use in English since at least medieval times but is scarcely heard outside of academic circles.