Pear Shaped

[jrbarnett]

The phrase "Going Pear Shaped" means "To go wrong, fail, stop working or break" in my understanding. Does anybody have any idea as to the source of this?

I can't see anything wrong with the shape of a pear.

John

 

[KenCunningham]

I haven't Googled or anything, but it's possible derivation is something that breaks the 'perfection' represented by a circle perhaps?

I don't mind people who aren't what they seem. I just wish they'd make their mind up.

 

[johnwm]

Without looking it up I have always understood it to refer to pottery and the potters art. When you 'throw' a pot on a wheel and start to draw it up to a vase shape you need to control wheel speed carefully. A slight overspeed and your pot will succumb to centifugal forces and go 'pear-shaped'

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[KenCunningham]

The RAF seems to get quite a few mentions in Wikipedia too - the most plausible (in my opinion) being the shape of an imperfectly formed loop-the-loop. Cabbage crates over the briny and all that!!

I don't mind people who aren't what they seem. I just wish they'd make their mind up.

 

[rjoubert]

I've always heard "Pear-shaped" when referring to the shape of someone's body. As you can imagine, it refers to someone who is not exactly in the best shape. The pear is thinner up top, but gets rather rotund towards the bottom.

I like big butts and I cannot lie...

 

[Ladyazh]

Women with a large bottom is the only thing that I've ever heard 'Pear' assosiation with.

 

[Thadeus]

Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!

I'll vote for johnwm's story. It's better than Roy Blount Jr.'s

~Thadeus

 

[Lunatic]

I've never heard anyone describe something going sour as 'going pear shaped'.

However I have heard 'pear shaped' being used to describe people, specifically women, and actually as a compliment or positive comment about a women's shape. A 'pear shaped' women would have wide hips which would make birthing easier (from what I've been told, being a guy who has never experienced childbirth I'll withhold claim that I know this with any sort of confidence).

Conversely, calling a man 'apple shaped' is also a compliment as it describes a man with broad shoulders, who would presumably in pre-20th century (and even through to day to a lesser extent) be able to best provide for his family.

At least thats how I've always heard those analogies being used...

 

[Welshbird]

centifugal forces

<pendant mode>

Surely Newtons' first law forces?

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[Dagon]

I hope you're not hanging on for an answer.

 

[Ladyazh]

Lunatic, you are absolutely correct IMO.

 

[Dagon]

I disagree with the "apple-shaped". This refers to a man with a large stomach i.e. bulging at the middle, like an apple. It therefore means being overweight and unhealthy.

 

[Lunatic]

Dagon, the widest part of an apple is at the very top near the stem, which would equate to the shoulders on a man.

http://www.craftdirect.co.nz/images/cdmaster/apple-150x150.jpg

There are other shapes, but at least where I'm from that is the 'classic' apple shape. Broadest at the shoulders and narrower waist (at the bottom of the fruit).

Maybe its a regional interpretation thing.

 

[Dagon]

This is the meaning to which I was referring:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/269798.stm

 

[Lunatic]

It looks like the way we used the phrase in my neck of the woods is different than how the majority uses it (or at least uses it now).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_body_shape

"Triangle (Downward) or aka Apple"
"The apple shape has a chest that is at least 110% (10% larger) in circumference than the hips..."

That's how wikipedia describes the female shape, but a that roughly matches how I always heard the 'apple' shaped used to describe men.

However other articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_obesity

Reinforce the way you've heard it used.

***

Pearsonally I think they're looking at the wrong fruit, it should be 'orange' shaped (to describe fat deposits) because apple shaped is broad at the shoulders and narrows as it you go lower ;p

 

[Welshbird]

Hee.

Spotted Dagon!

Cna u raed typo?

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I've only recently heard "going pear shaped" - probably on Tek-Tips. When I first saw it, I thought it was probably a UK thing. But I instantly understood what it meant.

Here in the US (at least) we might refer to something being "upside down", especially financially. E.g. if you owe $10,000 on your car but could only hope to sell it for $3,000, you would be upside down in your loan.

As for body shape, I've never heard "pear shaped" used a compliment.

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[Ladyazh]

Pear shaped as a compliment means very feminine figure like having waste line thiner and hips noticeable, 'currrrvy' you would say nowadays.

 

[Welshbird]

I found this (set of) explanations.

"It went pear-shaped" is used, in common English jargon, to refer to a project that resulted in failure. It suggests that the fiasco was beyond the control of any specific individual. The expression it is not in any way regarded as offensive or vulgar.
Now for the etymology: There are several versions and it's a case of choosing the one which seems to you the most likely.
Some sources insist that its origins lie in ballooning, and that a pear suggests the shape of a collapsed balloon. Others believe that 'pear-shaped' is rooted in aircraft terminology. The story goes that certain types of aircraft engine casings might go 'pear-shaped' in the event of failure. There is a sidebar theory that the expression relates to pilot efforts to attempt perfectly circular loops in the air. Often, their circles would become pear-shaped; hence the connection to failure.
Math experts have yet another opinion. Quoting from an English website : Pear-shaped refers to a so-called "normal" distribution where the extremities of the distribution have become enlarged. In such a situation, improbable events would becomer much more probable. This at the moment (according to the site) is the preferred origin for "It's all gone pear-shaped".

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[Stella740pl]

Pear shaped as a compliment means very feminine figure like having waste line thiner and hips noticeable, 'currrrvy' you would say nowadays.

No, no, no. Hourglass-shaped figure, or sometimes also called guitar-shaped figure means very feminine, curvy figure. But I've never heard term 'pear-shaped' to be used as a compliment to a female (or male) figure, only as a description of the type of the figure where the lower part (hips) is much wider than the upper part (breasts, shoulders), even though the waist (NOT waste) is present.

I believe it is commonly accepted by medical professionals (at least from what I read) that type of gaining weight depends on hormonal reasons. So putting on fat on the hips, to form, errr... pear-shaped figure, is a feminine type, while putting it on in the midriff/waist line/belly is largely a masculine type. Women of post-climax age become susceptible to the masculine type of gaining weight.

As for the question posed in the OP, that's what I found on World Wide Words site (

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pea2.htm):

[b][Q][/b] [i]From M-C Seminario[/i]: “What’s the history behind pear-shaped?”

[b][A][/b] It’s mainly a British expression. “It’s all gone pear-shaped”, one might say with head-shaking ruefulness, in reference to an activity or project that has gone badly awry or out of control.

There are plenty of things that are literally pear-shaped, of course, such as a person’s outline, a particular cut of a diamond, or the shape of a bottle, anything in fact that is bulbous at the bottom but narrows at the top, like the pear. It isn’t immediately obvious how the literal meaning turned into the figurative one, though we do know that it started to appear in the 1960s.

A common explanation, the one accepted by Oxford Dictionaries, is that it comes from Royal Air Force slang. However, nobody there or anywhere else seems to know why. Some say that it may have been applied to the efforts of pilots to do aerobatics, such as loops. It is notoriously difficult (I am told) to get manoeuvres like this even roughly circular, and instructors would describe the resulting distorted route of the aircraft as pear-shaped.

I’ve not seen firm evidence to convince me of this explanation, which sounds a little far-fetched, but that’s the best I can do!