promising vs up the creek

promising

adj

  • Showing promise, and likely to develop in a desirable fashion. 

  • a promising young apprentice 

  • Encouraging and inspiring confidence. 

noun

  • The act of making a promise. 

up the creek

prep

  • In trouble; in a difficult situation. 

How often have the words promising and up the creek occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )