A law professor introduced this great phrase to us in contracts class.  It means being on the hook to perform two conflicting contractual obligations at the same time, the doing of one interfering with the doing of the other.

I’m whipsawed today: the 1974 NYC Human Rights Commission Report cries out for more description, what Irv did in Germany after the war also does.  

It’s a minor dilemma — there’s no contract here.  Write one and the other, separate them later.  

Thus you, gentle reader, will have no idea, but these paragraphs, that I was was ever whipsawed at all.