兩個選項中間的那個做法
把「站在路中間」從地點換成想法。兩個清楚的選項就是路的兩端，最後落腳的方案卡在中間，兩邊的成分各帶一點。
noun · C1
A middle arrangement between two others, which takes something from each — and which is often a step on the way from the old one to the new one.
折衷的中間做法
核心畫面
Picture a long road with a house standing at its middle point. You are not at the place you left, and you are not at the place you are going; you are at the one building between them, and you will move on. Everything this phrase does comes out of that position. A resident of a halfway house has left the institution and not yet reached their own front door. A halfway-house policy has left the old rule and not yet reached the new one. In every use, the meaning is not what the place is, but where it stands — in the middle, on the way to somewhere else.
可以想成一條長路，正中間站著一棟房子。你已經不在出發的地方，也還沒到要去的地方；你在中間那一棟，而且等一下還要繼續走…更多收起
可以想成一條長路，正中間站著一棟房子。你已經不在出發的地方，也還沒到要去的地方；你在中間那一棟，而且等一下還要繼續走。這個詞所有的用法，都是從這個位置長出來的。住在中途之家的人，離開了機構，還沒走到自己家門口。一個被說成 halfway house 的方案，離開了舊制度，還沒到新制度。重點從來不是「那是什麼」，而是「它站在哪裡」——在中間，而且還在往前的路上。From the word’s history
Wiktionary notes that the literal sense — an inn about midway along a journey — was already a well-established term when Samuel Pepys mentioned a famous example in his diary in 1662. So the road-and-house picture is not a later metaphor; it is where the phrase started.
Wiktionary 指出，字面的意思（旅途中間那間客棧）在培普斯（Samuel Pepys）一六六二年的日記提到一間有名的 Halfway House 時，就已經是通行的說法了。所以「路中間那棟房子」不是後來才生出的比喻，而是這個詞一開始的樣子。
Wiktionary (kaikki extract) entry for halfway house, etymology_text citing Samuel Pepys's diary, 1662 [source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1884427206]
From the picture
回到自己生活前的中間一站
這一支把「中間那棟房子」照字面用回到真正的房子上，只是這次路的兩端不是兩個城鎮，而是機構和自己的家。
noun · B2
A house where people who are leaving prison, hospital, or a long course of treatment live for a while, with staff nearby, until they are ready to live on their own.
中途之家
Also in this word
noun · C1
An inn or stopping place about halfway along a journey, where travellers rested before going on; also any place of rest reached partway through a long trip. This is the oldest use, and today it is met mostly in older writing, on old maps and in place names.
半途的客棧、中途歇腳的地方