Hell or High Water

Come Hell or High  Water

A rather ominous term in the English language, it’s one of the things that I love about the English language.  The origin, according to wordorigins.com, is from old Western pioneer days, when cattle ranchers would have to drive their cattle to a certain spot no matter what the circumstances, or “come hell or high water.” (High water being where there was flooding on land, making it impossible for ranchers to drive their cattle through. It denotes the idea of necessity, of something being so important that you would fight through anything to get to it, but it also shows the culture of a country, of a language, that that phrase was created and adopted throughout the ages. It’s as much of American history (and really, human history) as the cheeseburger or the Mayflower, and much like those other icons of history, it sounds cool to say: come hell or high water, depicting images of this large tsunami-like wave on one hand or the depths of hell on the other, and a prospective adventurer having to overcome either one to get to the Fountain of Youth, a long-lost love, or some other noble quest, etc. etc. Japanese and Chinese idioms are similar in the sense that they tell a story, of something the culture values, whether it be something involving animals (apparently, badgers are bad, especially ones who live in the same hole, but cats are smart, meek, and have a coaxing voice when they purr) or boats, there’s quite a lot in the language that makes the language uniquely of that culture. Somebody back in the day took a lot of time to come up with a phrase like that, to perfect it and spread it to enough people to catch on. Nowadays people just pervert the language by ending their sentences with “so” or “and stuff/sh*t” (MY ABSOLUTE LEAST FAVORITE), use emojis, gifs, and pictures to express their ideas (lazily, IMO). Hopefully all of the beautiful linguistic phrases we use will survive the changing times, come hell or high water.

“Hell or High Water” is also the name of a 2016 bank robbery movie that described a man who had to get money to pay for a lien on his land, merging classic themes of rich v. poor, the old days v. the new era, racial tensions between white settlers and Native Amercians. Quite a movie and under 90 minutes, so come hell shouldn’t come in the form of high water on your bladder (need to pee). It was 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, which in the past meant I’d definitely have to watch come hell or high water, but now I’m much more selective and have been jaded enough by purportedly 90%-plus movies.

“Hell or high water” was United Airlines’s level of urgency to get passengers off the plane to accommodate its flight crew this week, with disastrous results. I think in previous eras “hell or high water” tactics could be glossed over, but nowadays with everybody pretty much being a photographer and gathering the evidence and being able to show it to the court of public opinion almost instantly, you gotta pick your spots for “hell or high water” techniques.

I’ve never been to IKEA, but MJ insisted that we go come high or hell water, in order to move into our new apartment! I didn’t need to overcome hell or high water to get to their Swedish meatballs (just $4.99), but they were pretty good! And effective at keeping me there long enough to buy more furniture. Our new building has 7 floors located near the Staples Center, so even if high water did actually come hopefully we could wait it out on the top floor. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan