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The other day, I was talking with a friend, and within just a very few minutes, the conversation turned to a rather risque one.  I commented, "boy, this conversation has gone south in a hurry." Where does this phrase come from, and is it something common around the world? Are there other phrases like this?
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No idea, but I always guessed it had something to do with those charts showing productivity, profits, etc. Interested in finding out.
k
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Dear Angel: I haven't encountered your phrase for lapsing into the lascivious. But it reminded me of one prim old maid at a church supper telling another that her slip was showing by saying:"It's snowing down South."
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my guess is that it's no more than a connection between charts and maps -- down is bad is south. and I'm betting that there is no equivalent "this conversation has gone north in a hurry" in the antipodes, but I hope I'm wrong. http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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old hand
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Or perhaps it is a reference to the genitals, which are "south" of the conversational part of the body....might just mean the conversation has got to the "unmentionables" pretty quickly? People also refer to oral sex as "going south" - since we're being risque an' all on this thread....  
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old hand
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I agree with modestgoddess - always thought it was a reference to going below the belt.
stales
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down is bad is south.
A--HEM, sir. Grr. I beg to differ, being 600 miles south of you. I believe the expression used to be "gone sour", and then was changed in some movie to gone south. Possibly Tommy Lee Jones in U.S. Marshals.
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old hand
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Angel, down south some of we see things in a different light.Years ago my Sainted Mother cried for days and wrung her hands for two years when my not-so-sainted brother joined the Air Force and was sent to a not-so-resortful airbase in Dover, Delaware. Her fear was that he would return with a "Northern Woman". Around the house the words northern woman were spoken in hushed tones with pause brackets, as if children -God Forbid- might hear of their unsavory existence. Funny thing, Mother is a died-in-the-wool Southern Baptist, but I'll always remember her sad lament... " I don't care if Robert G. marries a Catholic, a heathen, or a Jew, as long as she's Southern- black or white, but please Dear Lord, don't let Gary bring home a woman from the north."Well it worked for our family, neither Gary, Linda, nor me, married a "Northen woman". ( well, there was that one time I fooled around with a woman from Minneapolis, but she was a floozie and I was drunk.)
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...and then was changed in some movie to gone south. Possibly Tommy Lee Jones in U.S. Marshals.oh it's older than that, although I don't know how much: 1977 Time 12 Sept. 46/3 Some striped jobs look like pousse-café or rugby sweaters gone south.edit: maybe it's from this Warner Brother's cartoon: Dog Gone South (1950) with Colonel Shuffle and Belvedere 
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Well it worked for our family, neither Gary, Linda, nor me, married a "Northen woman". Darlin' Milum, Think he knows I'm going to blast him yet? I sincerely hope that Linda did not marry a "Northen woman". Or a "Northe rn woman" either, or there would really be some explaining to do! And as far as children hearing of their unsavory existence, I resemble that remark! You don't get a whole lot farther north than Buffalo, NY!  But I still love you Milum. [hugggggg-e]
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