This is one of the finest metaphors (it is a metaphor, right?) in the English lexicon, hands down.
Anytime something is described as having “gone all pear-shaped” it paints such the vivid, yet whimsically comic, picture of how the events in consideration turned out. Just lovely.
I will be using this phrase at least once today in conversation.
It’s used for something other than asses? Honestly, I did not know that.
You know, I don’t believe I’ve heard the phrase used to describe anything other than a body type (fat on the bottom, small on the top).
Can you use it your way in a sentence, please?
Instead of manufacturing a situation which would lack the authenticity to truly illustrate my point, I’ll c/p this quote from another thread which does it justice.
Literary brilliance.
Ah, so slumping, disheveled, out of order? Strange, for butts it’s a good thing.
I tilt my glass
To the lovely little lass
That I saw in mass
With the pear-shaped ass
Yes, that’s “in” and not “en”.
I’ve never heard (or read) it used in America. It seems tio be a British thing. (I don’t know about other English-speaking countries).
Here it almost invariably means literally “shaped like a pear”, and has no connotations of things going awry. Although I suspect that the British idion is beginning to sink in through osmosis.
British expressions and euphemisms are so much cleaner and more interesting than American ones. Some American equivalents to “going pear-shaped” are gross, or downright obscene.
It’
s like “dustbin” instead of “garbage can”. A Garbage can is cylindrical and probably misshapen, and can have coffee grounds in it, and rotting vegetables, and used cleaning rags. But a “dustbin” is a “bin”. And all it has in it is nice clean “dust”. I’ll take a binful of dust over a can full of garbage anyday.
Pear-shaped == FUBAR
But cleverer and giggle inducing.
The mental picture I get is of a sphere that begins to lose it’s integrity and then gravity draws it down…hence pear shaped, or having “gone south” or something like that.
crickets
Nevermind, carry on. :rolleyes:
Ooo, terrific. I like this.
I use “pear-shaped” all the time. Of course, I’m also a bit of a fan of British slang, and I tend to use it just because I can. That and it baffles my students.
It’s a win-win. 
Count me as a reluctant-to-admit admirer of british-isms.
In the same vein as “dust bin”, when in a grocery store, a “carriage” is so much nicer to push than a shopping cart.
Sometimes “Cloth eared bint”, “pilik” and “tosser” are so much more appropriate and discriptive than anything commonly north american. Mostly because it’s less often heard and vaguely funny without being completely obvious in meaning. 'Cept the last of course.
Also, cockney slang is fun from time to time.
Thank you! I came across that term in a book this week and I’d forgotten I wanted to look it up.
I’m going to start using that expression.
Unless I am totally mistaken (and it wouldn’t be the first time by a long shot), I think you mean “pillock.”
It’s a Gem cut and was one of the villians in Dick Tracy’s Rogues Gallery
Thanks.
Glad I could serve to illustrate the term.
:smack:
Does anyone find lieu’s myopicness in this regard surprising?
Why, I used this myself, just last night! What a coinkydinky!
Years back I’d read an author’s description of a brief encounter he’d had with a passing girl. He described her many exceptional features, including that she had a “pear-shaped ass that was something to behold.” That visual stuck with me and I think I might have even seen the same rear a couple of times myself over the years.
Like you though, Omniscient, I reckon it’s expanded designation and usage would be most tolerable.
I’d like to be the first to admit that my familiarity with the phrase is mostly through Terry Pratchett and Discworld…
When I think “carriage” I think “horse-drawn…” Now you’ve got me picturing horses pulling shopping carts through the store aisles.
