Talk:Pear-shaped

message: 1) I've seen far more Aussie ladettes go under the knife here in Oz than I ever saw in California.
2) The poms here clearly see it as analogous to a married woman 'gone to shite'. Whether that was the original meaning, who knows.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtdunlop (talk • contribs) 20:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: US/Aus perspective

message: This famous caricature from 1831 may warrant a mention. Drutt (talk) 17:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: King Louis

message: It's 'generally assumed' this is a derivation of pear-shaped? Any citations for that? "Tits up" simply means to have fallen flat on your back, like the colourful expression "arse over tit" means to have fallen forwards in a very ungainly manner. It is often used, like pear-shaped, to denote failure, but I don't think there's any evidence they are related.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.165.81 (talk) 14:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Tits-up

message: The link to the OED is broken.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.46.207.62 (talk) 15:34, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: External Link

message: I first heard this term 40 years ago in the US in the context of planning a project or other endeavour. The meaning in this case was not "awry, perhaps horribly wrong" but a refinement on this, that the situation was no longer as originally envisaged - not necessarily awry, nor bad, but different. In this context I haven't seen the meaning change, but the "horribly wrong" meaning is now more common in popular usage in Australia.
Used in context: "We'll work to the plan and if the situation changes we'll play it pear-shaped." means that we're prepared to divert from the plan should the need arise.
Gabby33 (talk) 02:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Planning Context 

message: The first paragraph of the article (at least today, April 16, 2014) describes the regionally-limited nature of the usage. I dispute this and suggested it be removed, or  at least downplayed and moved later in the article, although I acknowledge it is MORE COMMON usage in the Commonwealth countries.  I have heard the term used in Canada, and it was used on the US David Letterman show on Jan 30, 2014 (http://www.cbs.com/shows/late_show/wahoo_gazette/1001870) without any need for an explanation.  I submit it is now well-known in standard English  and is at least as well understood as other very standard, but uncommon, English words or phrases such as "foggiest idea", "didactic" or "subjunctive clause."
Nexus501 (talk)
:As a Canadian, I can confirm that pear-shaped is unremarkable, common coin in pubs and on hockey blogs (where else is there?) for at least the last decade, and was in some regular circulation all the way back to the mid nineties; before that time, I can no longer recall whether it was part of my regular idiom or not. Back in the late nineties, shows like Scrapheap Challenge did bring a fair amount of British idiom that wasn't in common circulation to more attention in Canadian lingo; one of the ones that did not rub off was "brilliant" or "bloody brilliant". I can also report that the "obscure" British slang "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkeys" has been heard uttered in Canadian English a time or two over the years, without an apple from British television. — MaxEnt 09:39, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  US vs elsewhere