🍣 Go South
Definition: Fail, go bankrupt, decline. A colloquialism that most likely alludes to two-dimensional maps where north is up and south is down, with another intriguing tie to the Sioux belief system where the term meant “to die.”
✦✦ In Literature & Media ✦✦
⭐ For those wanting a narrative twist, look into David Baldacci’s Hour Game where he wittily writes, “Dorothea’s become involved in some questionable real estate ventures that went south very recently.”
🔍 Synonyms:
- Go belly-up
- Biting the dust
- Going downhill
- Hit rock bottom
- Come a cropper
👠 Antonyms:
- Flourish
- Prosper
- Soar
- Thrive
- Excel
🌐 Related Idioms & Proverbs 🌐
- Go belly-up: This one pictures an unfortunate fish floating lifelessly on water but applies marvelously to failing businesses too.
- Down the tubes: More visual animation—success disappearing into the plumbing.
- Crash and burn: Borrowed boyishly from aviation, perfectly tragic for startups.
- Fall through the cracks: To be forgotten or neglected—less violent but equally painful.
- Hit the skids: Originating from slipping logs, perfect imagery for tumultuous times.
Literary Pondering:
Experiment with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22—a quintessential classic that mulls over inevitable decline dressed in inescapable bureaucracy.
🎵 Soundtracks for Descent 🎵
- “Free Fallin’” - Tom Petty
- “The End” - The Doors
- “Lost Cause” - Beck
- “Another One Bites the Dust” - Queen
- “Creep” - Radiohead
Imagine playing these tunes while pondering your next risky venture.
📽️ Movies Plotting the Decline 📽️
- Wall Street (1987): Greed can certainly make things go south.
- The Big Short (2015): If a sandwich had economics—that well-layered and inevitable collapse documentation.
- The Pursuit of Happyness (2006): Where heartbreak on the descent fosters inspiration on the ascent.
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1992): When real estate dreams go grim.
- Casino (1995): Where the house always wins, except when it spectacularly doesn’t.
📚 Quiz Yourself! 📚
🪶 Farewell Frets 🪶
“In failures lie formidable learning, and in declines pause the potentials yet planned.” – W. T. Wittywords
Hint: Don’t fret when you go south. Just flip the map, and north is now your path!
Happy navigating! 😊
