Idiom
go south
Meaning
To become unfavorable; to decrease; to take a turn for the worse.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The meeting started well but soon went south.”
“Everything was going according to plan until the weather went south and we had to cancel the picnic.”
“When the economy went south, the company was forced to reduce its workforce and cut all non-essential spending.”
Examples
simple
“The meeting started well but soon went south.”
contextual
“Everything was going according to plan until the weather went south and we had to cancel the picnic.”
complex
“When the economy went south, the company was forced to reduce its workforce and cut all non-essential spending.”
Origin
The origin remains unclear, though common belief attributes the idiom to the standard orientation of maps. In this reading, the word follows the logic of the downwards direction on the page, aligning with related expressions such as go downhill, decline, or drop off. The movement is one of simple verticality; a situation goes south because south is where the bottom of the map resides.
Alternatively, the phrase is suggested to stem from a euphemism for dying used by some Native Americans. In this version, the direction is associated not with the bottom of a page, but with a final departure. Whether the idiom entered the language through the cartographer’s desk or the gravity of mortality remains a matter of unsettled speculation.
Key words
Related idioms
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