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stranger
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I just started reading this board and saw that someone (johnjohn?) mentioned the phrase "It's all gone pear-shaped." I love the phrase and have been curious about its origins since hearing it a few years ago from a British friend. I have the amusing but probably incorrect notion that it stems some someone's observation of an overfilled plastic trashbag in the second before it splits open. Does anyone know the true origin?
To answer johnjohn's question, the phrase is not in common usage in the US. I've only heard it used by people from the UK and one Australian. Such a shame!
(If I've violated any posting etiquette, I'm open to instruction. I've read enough to know I'm risking an admonishment to "LIU," but I haven't been able to find anything yet. So I seek your wisdom. ;) )
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enthusiast
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Hi Cee Dubb, and welcome from one stranger to another. Day 1 and posting #3 - I'm on a roll after weeks of being only a voyeur. I'm going out on a limb by not looking it up, and worse, I'm risking being politically incorrect, but.... I've always assumed its origin is to do with body shape - particularly of women. The perfect body shape, the marketers would have us believe, is the hour-glass. If your body is trending towards having more weight around the hips and bottom, you're "going pear-shaped", i.e. going in an undesirable direction, going to pieces, going to seed. I hasten to add that the sentiments expressed by the coiner (?) of the expression are not necessarily those of this writer.  [Insert some anxious hours here, awaiting retribution/rebuttal/excommunication/worse.]
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Marty - yep that sounds pretty plausible to me. At the risk of being un-PC myself, I'd say that often non-PC expressions and similes are the most vivid and hence effective! See you later at the auto-da-fe! :0)
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Carpal Tunnel
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well, if you're fearful that someone will take offense should you call them pear-shaped, we have pyriform...
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Carpal Tunnel
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First, welcome Cee Dubb and Marty--good to have you! if you're fearful that someone will take offense should you call them pear-shaped, we have pyriform...tsuwm, you are certainly giving 'equal opportunity' with this one! 
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Pooh-Bah
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It can't be all that non-pc. Marks and Spencers have a big board in the female changing room advising on the clothes that people should wear according to their shape. Apples and pears feature in the list with appropriate remedies.
Myself, I'm longing to look like a twig. Funny how we're never happy with what we have!
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Pooh-Bah
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Without having any real idea of the origins of the phrase (which I agree is remarkably apposite in most of the situations where I've come across it) and disregarding anyone who says, "What's new?" I have always understood it to mean that events had become so erratic that there shape was no longer perfect. Perfect is often - usually? - epitomised by the circle: "The perfect circle," which, in turn, can be equated to apple shapes. Pear shaped, therefore, could mean that the apple-like perfection has been lost. Mind you, personally, I tend to the view that all the best things come in pears.
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Carpal Tunnel
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better pyriform than napiform...
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Carpal Tunnel
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better pyriform than napiform...
Quite a pear, tsuwm! But what's wrong with the shape of a turnip? Did you turnip something sinister in this? It
appears that you are biased toward the fruit.
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it's simply a matter of taste, he said insipidly.
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stranger
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An interaction in the movie,"Meet Joe Black";A.Hopkins is a so confident boss.He thinks that he knows better than every one.When he advises pepople he does that with the air of a gratuitous pride-confidence.So he gets criticized for giving advice in a pear-shaped tongue.
I am still smitten with the movie./obviously.
nudfe
nudfe
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I used to have an hourglass figure -- (38-26-38) but over the years the sand has run to the bottom! (never you mind!)
pyriform = pear shaped
napiform = shaped like a turnip, round above and tapering below.
IF there was a choice I'd prefer napiform - easier to disguise the figure with the bubble-top style dresses, or flowing tops and skinny pants!
And all the napiform ladies I know have great legs!
OK, Jackie, stop flashing those gorgeous gams, you're distracting the gentlemen!
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OK, Jackie, stop flashing those gorgeous gams, you're distracting the gentlemen!A-hem---who's the one who "hoped" she'd be getting into trouble, I ask you?
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A-hem---who's the one who "hoped" she'd be getting into
trouble, I ask you?
"Me!" she said meekly followed by great whooshing West-of-Ireland sigh.
But it's a very, very, faint hope --if your plans go as you have contrived, the Kiwis will never get out of Kenucky.
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Me!" she said meekly followed by great whooshing West-of-Ireland sigh.
But it's a very, very, faint hope --if your plans go as you have contrived, the Kiwis will never get out of Kenucky.
WHAT plans ?!?!?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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--if your plans go as you have contrived, the Kiwis will never get out of Kenucky.
WHAT plans ?!?!?Never you mind, Dear. wow--be quiet! I don't want my plan to go all
pear-shaped.
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old hand
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-if your plans go as you have contrived, the Kiwis will never get out of Kenucky.
WHAT plans ?!?!?
Never you mind, Dear.
wow--be quiet! I don't want my plan to go all
pear-shaped.Really, Jackie, didn't you tell me in a PM that you didn't give a fig? Now, go back to your TV and watch Okra Winfree, and be in hominy with the world. 
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Is it always the food related threads that go downhill the fastest?
True story: I was in a salad bar when a cowboy asked, what is this? His buddy replied, it's okra. Shocked he said, this is Oprah?!
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napiform = shaped like a turnip, round above and tapering below.
is it just me and my mind, but do the rest of you have problems with certain words raising an image the first time you meet it and it never going away? To my enduring shame, "napiform" is just a trade name for panty liners. And when you read the description above, it just gets worse.
[I'll just hide away in a corner emoticon]
Rod
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Pooh-Bah
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Is it always the food related threads that go downhill the fastest?
Usually; some of the other threads start from so far down, they can't pick up any steam as they descend.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Is it always the food related threads that go downhill the fastest? Usually; some of the other threads start from so far down, they can't pick up any steam as they descend.Into my mind comes that scene from "Romancing The Stone" where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner slide down a hill and end up in a pool of mud!
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Into my mind comes that scene from "Romancing The Stone" where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner slide down a hill and end up in a pool of mud!Oh, I just took that as a commentary on the progress of all relationships!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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down a hill and end up in a pool of mud!
Oh, I just took that as a commentary on the progress of all relationships! Oh, but then, m'dear, you get to get up and shower it off together...
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old hand
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down a hill and end up in a pool of mud!
Oh, I just took that as a commentary on the progress of all relationships!
Oh, but then, m'dear, you get to get up and shower it off together...But, Jackie, there WAS no shower nearby in that movie, remember? Also, please recall the contrast between their two attitudes. She was sputtering mad, whereas he, who landed squarely in her crotch face first, was all smiles, no doubt causing part of him to become banana-shaped
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But, Jackie, there WAS no shower nearby in that movie, remember?
Ah, but a stream for bathing can be just as pleasant, and in the time it takes to get there, both members of the party could have time to cool off...
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She was sputtering mad, whereas he, who landed squarely in her crotch face first, was all smiles, no doubt causing part of him to become banana-shaped.... which is, of course, the usual prelude to her becoming pear-shaped ... [just dragging the thread back on-topic -e]
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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She was sputtering mad, whereas he, who landed squarely in her crotch face first, was all smiles, no doubt causing part of him to become banana-shaped.
... which is, of course, the usual prelude to her becoming pear-shaped ...
Oh, no, you did NOT say that...but you did. Welcome to the gutter, mate.
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Carpal Tunnel
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CAp K "causing part of him to become banana-shaped.... which is, of course, the usual prelude to her becoming pear-shaped ...
Jackie : Oh, no, you did NOT say that...but you did. Welcome to the gutter, mate.
Cap K thinks he's safe, Jackie, because he's about to flee the country !
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Yes-- but will the Capital K be able to flee from Jackie?-- He is stopping off on this continent on his way to an other!
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An incontinental drifter, huh?
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old hand
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... which is, of course, the usual prelude to her becoming pear-shaped ... just dragging the thread back on-topic
Ah, a seminal insight, CK!
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Mav avers An incontinental drifter, huh?I'd rather be an Intercontinental traveller, but someone bought the hotel chain out, so incontinental will have to do, right enough!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Ah, a seminal insight, CK!No, not really. Just the natural approach to take, of course.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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mav winks: An incontinental drifter, huh?
Depends....
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old hand
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An incontinental drifter, huh?
Depends....So, AnnaStrophic, that's urinalysis of this topic?
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So, AnnaStrophic, that's urinalysis of this topic?
Now Geoff, stop taking the p.... !
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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And another thread goes down the toilet.
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old hand
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He looked flushed, and said, "And another thread goes down the toilet."Then there's the US of American folk song, "Skip To My Loo."  which provides exercise to help one pare the pair of pears one eats, thus not becoming pear-shaped. Whew! And you thought we were off thread!
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old hand
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> And you thought we were off thread
Speaking of which, what other objects do peoples bodies get compared to?
Pepper pots , outdoor WCs, or just a wall perhaps?
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Ohmigawd, you-all! I am rolling! Oh, Geoff--"urinalysis"! Ohmigawd--that one is at LEAST worthy of the Tedster, whom I hope can return soon. Down the toilet...flushed. What a joy to wake up to! AnnaS, to clue in our non-U.S.'n pals, I'll point out that Depends is a brand of adult diaper panties here. And, I am glad no one is raising a stink over this thread. CK, this is all your fault--well, yours and Aunt mav's.
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BY asks : what other objects do peoples bodies get compared to?
Piano legs
Spindle legs
Hourglass figure
(built like a )Brick outhouse
Then there is also : Ham-fisted!
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newbie
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another example is from Korea: 'mu-dari' -- 'radish legs'
Generally directed at women (though not always), and never complimentary.
It bears mentioning that mu are not the tiny red radishes that commonly are grown in the US, but one of the (for lack of a better term from a USn perspective) Asian radishes, often sold as 'daikon' (which is Japanese).
[note the ill-conceived and ill-obscured attempt at redirecting this thread to subjects less offal]
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Mutton chops-- for men--
and in clothing-- mutton leg sleeves...
cauliflower ears-- fingers like sausages-- oh-- is this just an other food thread?-- lets Depend on Rod to get things Napiform....
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addict
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cauliflower ears-- fingers like sausages-- oh-- is this just an other food thread?-- lets Depend on Rod to get things Napiform....
sorry to disappoint you Helen, but I'll stay with the food theme, now you Girls have started it [duck emoticon], and only slightly down hill, with Cheesecake and Beefcake which give an indication of body shape.
And away from pear shaped and food we have wasp waisted.
Rod
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i was read a description of someone (they were describing them selves) as being shaped like a barrel on piano legs-- the auther has slipped away-- but the vivid description lives on in my memory--
it was in an autobiography -- a man who went blind in his early teens-- and went on to a successful career as college professor-- and writer.. i read it my teens-- (circa mid 60's) any one remember it? He went to school in NYC (a school for the blind in the bronx) it was interesting because I knew the man by sight--he often took the local subway-- and i had often seen him. then suddenly-- here he was a famous author!
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