Resources
Between the Cracks
Cracks to Fill
By Evan Jenkins
Alex McKale (see "Hitting Milestones"), e-mailed to say: "Another phrase I've heard misused too frequently is 'between the cracks.' The speaker generally means 'through the cracks' or 'in the cracks.' "
Quite so. It's another phrase that turns intended meaning on its head (see also "Could/Couldn't Care Less"). The writer who suggested using a creeper "to plant in between the cracks of paving stones on a terrace" obviously wasn't thinking of some aggressive plant that might punch its way through paving stones, yet it was the stones that were "in between the cracks." Something was wanted to fill the space between the stones, and therefore in the cracks.
The same logic applies in figurative use: if certain insurance policies "have often fallen between the regulatory cracks," they haven't escaped bureaucratic attention, which is what the writer had in mind. They've landed in plain view on solid ground. They would enter the void only by falling through the cracks, or into them.
CJR
