"It's Gone All Pear-Shaped!"

[Lynne Murphy]

This is a _very_ common British phrase.

> Followups have suggested
>  1. the devolution of the male physique in middle age,
>  2. what happens when a balloon begins to deflate (quoting Partridge),
> and
>  3. the discovery that the Earth is not only not spherical, it's not
> cleanly spheroidal either

I think the most likely/closest is (2).  Something that's gone all
pear-shaped is something that should have had a nice structure, but entropy
has had its way. (I think I can use the word 'entropy' that way.)

I most frequently hear it in the context of people's Scrabble games (since
I have an unreasonable amount of discussion about Scrabble games).  You
will have started well, but then start picking up lots of I's and U's at
which point you say "I was doing well but now it's gone all pear-shaped on
me".

There's another theory at:
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/pear_shaped.html

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320