¶ Podcast Welcome and Idiom Introduction
Hi, this is Diab from Yemen. You are listening to Everybody ESL. ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple Podcasts.com. and wherever you find your podcast. If you like everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too.
And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyesl at gmail.com. Okay, let's get on with this mini episode. In this episode, I am going to teach you an interesting idiom. The idiom is to go south. To go south. That's G-O-S-O-U-T-H. To go south. What does it mean if we say that something is going south? Or something has gone south, or something went south? What does it mean when we use this go south expression?
¶ Understanding "To Go South" Idiom
Sometimes we might mean that in a literal way. Maybe we want to say that somebody went south of here. Somebody went in the direction called south. But there is a more interesting meaning for this phrase. There is a meaning that is idiomatic. In other words, the kind of meaning that an idiom has. The idiom go south means to become work. We usually use go south to refer to some kind of situation or circumstance.
when we want to say that the situation is becoming worse, or becoming bad, or becoming all messed up, or it is failing in some way, Or it has gone out of control, we can say that the situation is going south. Here is an example of a situation where somebody might use this idiom to go south. Imagine that we are watching a basketball game, and let's say that my favorite team is playing very well in this game.
They are scoring many more points than the other team, and it seems like they will win the game. But then, with only a little bit of time left in the game, my favorite team starts making a lot of mistakes. And while they are making a lot of mistakes, the other team starts playing very well. Now, the game is getting close. Maybe my favorite team will not win. Maybe the other team will win. I could say My team was doing so well, but then everything went.
But then everything went south. In other words, they started playing badly. The game started going the wrong way. Everything became worse. Everything became bad. Now it is out of control. It's all messed up. It went south. Or imagine somebody who is always watching news about the economy. He is always watching news about the stock market and other things like that. For a while everything was looking good. Everything was looking positive for him.
Then the economy started to get worse, and this person said, My investments were doing so well before, but now things are going sour. Now things are going south. In other words, now things are becoming bad in some way. Now things seem out of control. The wrong things are happening. I don't like this.
¶ Episode Recap and Listener Engagement
Things are going south. That is to go south. An interesting idiom that I think you should know. This is the end of episode 462. Love everybody ESL. Remember, if you have questions about English, or if you have comments for me, Or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes, the same way Diab recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode, send an email. I'll be back soon with a new episode. Until then, keep it.
And keep learning.