Language: en
Meaning: (intransitive,especiallyUK,Commonwealth,Ireland,idiomatic)Togo awry; togo wrong.[from 1980s]Synonyms:go downhill,go down the toilet,(Cockney rhyming slang)go Pete Tong,go sideways,go to pot,(vulgar)go to shit,go to the dogs,turn pear-shapedAntonyms:seeThesaurus:prosper1983,Jeffrey Ethell,Alfred Price, quoting Bob Iveson, “To Goose Green and Beyond, 26 May – 7 June”, inAir War: South Atlantic(The Air Combat Trilogy; 3), New York, N.Y.:Macmillan Publishing Company,→ISBN,pages158–159:After the third attack run I was letting back down to low level, passing through about 100 feet on the way down, when there were two bangs very close together. The whole aircraft shook and thingswent"pear-shaped" very quickly after that.1991January 7, Tim Power, quoting David Coles, “The business of survival”, inEvening Post, Reading, Berkshire: Thames Valley Newspapers,→ISSN,→OCLC,page 8, column 2:Now the whole world economy seems to begoing pear-shapedall at once[…].1993October 16,Sally Vincent, “Lost boys”, inPeter Preston, editor,The Guardian Weekend, London:Guardian News & Media,→ISSN,→OCLC,page 8, column 1:Patsy dwells on this, as though on the last ordinarily weird thing she ever experienced, the last moment of sanity before it allwent pear-shaped.1998, Michael Armstrong, quoting Tina Mason, “Team Building”, inManaging People: A Practical Guide for Line Managers, London:Kogan Page, published2001,→ISBN, part 2 (Managing People – the Basic Skills),page39:If you are asking people to make decisions, then it's very important that you support them when things go wrong, otherwise they'll never make one again … when thingsgo pear-shaped, and occasionally they do, we try to treat it as a learning experience.2002March 25, “Stay Positive”, inMike Skinner(lyrics),Original Pirate Material, performed byThe Streets:I hope you understand me / I ain't no preaching fucker and I ain't no do-goody-goody either / This is about when shitgoes pear-shaped2008, Nicholas Bate, “What to Do if It Goes Awry”, inHave It Your Way: 52 Brilliant Ideas for Getting Everything You Want, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Infinite Ideas Company,→ISBN,page38:Once you've acknowledged that things havegone pear-shaped, you need to re-take control and move on.2012, Dave Simpson, “Gary Speed– ‘Speedo’”, inThe Last Champions: Leeds United and the Year that Football Changed Forever, London:Bantam Press,→ISBN, part 1 (The Rise),page24:[Gordon] Strachanwas an experienced Scottish international who, underAlex Ferguson, had won European honours with Aberdeen and an FA Cup with Manchester United, but his relationship with his former mentor hadgone pear-shaped.2013December 21, Malcolm Brown, “Without morality, the market economy will destroy itself”, inAlan Rusbridger, editor,The Guardian[2], London:Guardian News & Media,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe originalon12 November 2021:They call for the economics syllabus to be rewritten to reflect the chasm between the confident mechanistic models they are still taught and the real economy whichwent pear-shaped.2017November,Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl, edited by Meg Foley,CSS: The Definitive Guide: Visual Presentation for the Web[3], 4th edition, Sebastopol, Calif.:O’Reilly Media, published22 January 2022,→ISBN, page697:There are a few cases that need to be covered, as they fall under the general umbrella of "what grids do when thingsgo pear-shaped."
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