“Pupils at a school in Leeds have spoken of how the online world is a double-edged sword for children and young people.”
“Secchi describes tourism as a double-edged sword: ‘At the beginning you earn a lot of money, but in the end it destroys the community and our own economy.’”
“If the virus is to infiltrate the Pacific islands, residents may face heightened mortality risks due to their lower levels of immunity to outside diseases, their natural isolation forming a double-edged sword.”
“The study shows how centralizing care, in a hub-spoke arrangement, is a two-edged sword.”
The phrase apparently dates back to the 15th Century and was originally used to describe an argument that could both strengthen and undermine someone’s position [1].
A literal double-edged sword, of course, cuts in two directions, and the phrase “to cut both ways” is used in a similar way to “double-edged sword”.
e.g. “A lagging currency also cuts both ways.”
[1] Seland, D. 2015, “THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD”, Quality, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 6.
Photo credit: Rama (Creative Commons)
Updated Monday 09 March 2020
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