FROM "GOING SOUTH" TO "IRSE AL GARETE" IDIOMS OF MISFORTUNE

 

When things go wrong and turn out differently than we expected -when expectations go awry- we instinctively reach for our idiomatic trove and pull out phrases like go to the dogs, go down the drain, go to rack and ruin, go to hell, go downhill, go south, come apart at the seams. These expressions, somehow, are very descriptive of our mindset in the face of fortune’s adversities; they help us let off steam and perhaps feel relieved, even a little better.

Spanish is no exception, with expressions such as irse al garete, irse al traste, irse a la porra, irse al carajo, or irse a la mierda. As the Venezuelan writer Boris Izaguirre explains in his 1965: “Pero todo el esfuerzo por mantener la relación entre cantantes míticos y los vehículos de sus padres se fue al garete ante la obstinación del destino.”

The idiom carries the same expressive force in English, as David Lodge has one of his characters exclaim in Nice Work (1988): “No wonder the country is going to the dogs.”