[Ads-l] Another Janus-faced phrase: "not going anywhere"

[Laurence Horn]

ESPN's college football “power rankings” says of Iowa State, after their second upset win, “Iowa State isn’t going anywhere”, meaning they’re not going away, they’re for real, they’re around to stay.  My first understanding of “Team X isn’t going anywhere” is that they have no upside.  

It’s a bit like “it’s all downhill from here”, meaning either the good part is over or the tough part is over.  I think there are others of this type that we’ve discussed, but I can’t come up with any at the moment.

LH
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org