Reader question:

What does this quote describing a basketball game – "Our offense¹ has gone south completely in the second half" – mean? And "gone south" in particular?

My comments:

It means they have been unable to score – they could during the first half, but their hot hands have since gone cold.

As I prepared for writing this morning, I received an email (a junk mail in fact) titled "Don't let everything go south".

Ah well, you'd better not.

Go south?

Well, on the map, north points upward, south down. The first map makers² obviously were from the northern hemisphere. Henceforth we (in the northern hemisphere) talk of going to Inner Mongolia "up in the north" and Guangzhou "down in the south". North is up, south is down. Up is good. We talk of the stock market going up – not now, of course. Down is no good – we talk of someone going downhill. Likewise, when someone looks down, he's depressed³.

When situations look up, the future is brighter than it is now. In David Copperfield, Mrs. Micawber talks of her poor (yes, poor in every sense of the word) husband as "a man of great talent". Here's the passage:

"My family are of opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be upon the spot."

"That he may be ready?" I suggested.

"Exactly," returned Mrs. Micawber. "That he may be ready - in case of anything turning up."

If anything GOOD turns UP, that is, the Micawbers' fortunes will turn for the better. Well, worse situations might also "turn up" (happen), but for the sake of our present argument, just remember that up stands for optimism. When something goes south, on the other hand, the situation deteriorates⁴.

There's no such saying as "going north", by the way, for things looking up, just "going south" for situations getting worse – count it as just another oddity of the English language.

Here are media examples of things heading south, each followed by an explanation.

1. A headline: Mexicans who went north see jobs go south (International Herald⁵ Tribune, October 14, 2004).

Explanation: "Jobs go south" – no jobs. A play of words here. Mexicans who went north to the United States and Canada could not find jobs there because they saw jobs "go south". Literally⁶ so, too. Thanks or no thanks to NAFTA, the free trade agreement between Canada, United States and Mexico, Canadian and US jobs had gone to Mexico, down in the south.

2. It was the close of a balmy day in the French capital. You had to remind yourself that this was autumn and the swallows had already gone south. It was somewhat less of a surprise that Ireland's World Cup chances had gone south with them. Three weeks of deepening crisis had prepared us for the worst. In winning by a 30-15 scoreline that didn't flatter them, the Argentinians just put us out of our misery⁷.

- Game over as Irish fighting spirit flies south for winter, Ireland.com, October 1, 2007.

Explanation: "chances had gone south" – hopes had vanished.

3. Another headline: Baker⁸ went east; his game went south (Sporting News, December 16, 2002).

Explanation: "his game went south" – he does not play as well as before.

Supersonics star Vin Baker left Seattle in the west coast to join the Celtics, which is in the Eastern Conference of the NBA, in Boston in the east coast. Meanwhile his play dropped.