Sink or Swim

Succumb or succeed, no matter what, as in Now that we've bought the farm, we'll have to make a go of it, sink or swim. This expression alludes to the former barbaric practice of throwing a suspected witch into deep water, often weighted down. In case of sinking, the victim died; in case of swimming, the victim was considered in league with the devil and therefore was executed. A related idiom, float or sink, was used by Chaucer in the late 1300s; Shakespeare had the current form in 1 Henry IV (1:3): "Or sink or swim."

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Sink or Swim may refer to:

In games:

• Sink or Swim (video game), a 1993 game also known as S.S. Lucifer: Man Overboard!

In music:

• Sink or Swim (Gaslight Anthem album)
• Sink or Swim (Over My Dead Body album)
• Sink or Swim (The Waifs album)

In television:

• Sink or Swim (TV series), a UK sitcom
• "Sink or Swim" (CSI: Miami episode)
• "Sink or Swim", an episode of Kim Possible
• "Sink or Swim", an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

In literature:

• Sink or Swim; or, Harry Raymond's Resolve, a novel by Horatio Alger, Jr.

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