'terrible muddle' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a situation or a task that has become chaotic or disorganized, potentially without a clear solution. For example: "I'm in a terrible muddle and don't know how to clean up the mess I made".
Her owner Lady Lloyd Webber added: "She loved the ground, but was all over the place and got in a terrible muddle.
One of the main themes of Jytte Klausen's refreshingly down-to-earth book is that western Europeans have got themselves into a terrible muddle over the 15 million-or-so Muslims in their midst.
I think we have got into a terrible muddle legally by putting them together, as is the case in the Anglican church and many other churches and some synagogues.
Julian Schnabel – whose The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was so outstanding – has got himself into a terrible muddle with his movie Miral, based on a novel by Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal.
PAGE A28 A CLEAR CLEAN WATER ACT The United States' clean-water policy is in a terrible muddle, and the country has the Supreme Court to thank for it.
The win was assured after Lewis and Blackpool substitute Darren O'Dea got into a terrible muddle trying to cut out a pass from Kevin McDonald and Afobe scored his 20th goal of the season, having struck 19 times during a loan spell at MK Dons earlier this season.
The UK is in a dreadful muddle.
Salami slicing is a term of abuse in budget circles – but we muddled through and nothing terrible happened.
It's a play about politics as muddle as much as willed power, but the rest of the histories follow the terrible consequences.
A culture of aggrieved petulance pervades politics, and nowhere is it more intense than on Wall Street, where it is a kind of psychological buffer against the terrible responsibility the banks bear for their central role in the economic disaster that we're all still muddling through.
Mr Runciman stresses "muddle".
