#62064
03/23/2002 1:09 AM
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Joined: Dec 2001
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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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#62065
03/23/2002 1:30 AM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
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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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#62066
03/23/2002 2:28 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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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#62067
03/23/2002 2:30 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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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#62068
03/23/2002 3:12 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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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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#62069
03/23/2002 12:24 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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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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#62070
03/23/2002 2:19 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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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#62071
03/23/2002 3:23 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
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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#62072
03/23/2002 3:29 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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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#62073
03/23/2002 4:41 PM
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Posts: 688
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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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#62074
03/23/2002 4:58 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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I wonder how much of the venom encapsulated in the phrase "Northern women" was engendered by the hatred in the South of the Norhern Abolitionist women. Many Northern women were active in active public advocacy of many worthwhile causes. At the moment I cannot recall any single Southern woman so involved. It was just not considered ladylike in the South.
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#62075
03/23/2002 5:50 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
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You don't get a whole lot farther north than Buffalo, NY!That's funny, I always thought of NY as down south!
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#62076
03/24/2002 1:18 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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old hand
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That's funny, I always thought of NY as down south! Good on yer, Rouspeteur! They were scratching their heads over that in Rankin Inlet.
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