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I love finding the origins of common expressions and colloquialisms. I am currently reading Skipper by Beverly Taff. This expression is used often by the title character. Being an American, I am not certain whether this is just Beverly's own expression, or a common British, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish one.
Could anyone offer some enlightenment?
waif
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I'm English and...
I'm English and have to say I have never heard it before.
But that's only me. Others may say different?
Sophie
I've encountered the short
I've encountered the short form, "needs must when the Devil drives," but still can't understand it.
Needs must what when the Devil drives?
At a Guess
At a guess I would say it's a way of saying When you REALLY HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, it matters not how you got there in the first place.
"Needs must when the devil
"Needs must when the devil drives" is the correct quote. It means that necessity compels you - basically, that when forced (by exigencies), it will somehow get done.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Needs must...
Internet search is your friend: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/needs-must.html
it translates into
stuck between a rock and a hard place.
or, picking the lesser of two evils.
my paternal grandmother used the phrase needs must regularly.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
I still trip over it. "Needs
I still trip over it. "Needs must" what "when the Devil drives"? It isn't grammatical in my dialect of AmE. I don't know whether it comes from another dialect with different uses of "must," or if it comes from another language, was never quite translatable, and has become a fixed phrase in a not-quite-translation.
It has to do with changes in
It has to do with changes in the English language over the centuries. See the link another poster gave.
14th Century - "He must nedys go that the deuell dryues."
Shakespeare - "... he must needs go that the devil drives"
The verb 'to go' was dropped, because the implication is that it is NOT simply to leave, but any action. Note that the 'he' is also dropped. 'Needs must when the devil drives'. Think of 'need' as being the verb, simply in the wrong place. The NEED must happen.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Overthinking
It's a poetic form, and so gets some pass from norms of grammar in any >modern< English.
Essentially, "Needs must..." ought be read, if you must, as "The needs of the situation must determine action..."
It also won't help you much that the modern syntax for both "need(s)" and "must" have changed rather a lot over the course of Modern Englishes, and so what is now and has been for some time a poetic form may, and in fact does, reflect relatively archaic common syntax, without much parallel in other phrasing to guide interpretation. Again, though, google and archaic phrase dictionary sites are your friends, to which I would also add etymological dictionaries and those with significant etymological content, such as the OED. Especially look for specifically diachronic perspectives, as synchronic ones (more typical) will tend to obscure or miss out clues that can give you the bridges you need. Historical Linguistics can be lots of fun. Or mind-crushingly boring. Somewhere on that arc, depending. ^^ *trails off in muttered babbling*
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"