It’s All Downhill From Here

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

My name is Tara Ardenbaugh. I’m calling from Burlington, Vermont.

Yeah, welcome to the show, Tara. How can we help you?

Great. Yeah, I was actually talking to my friend the other day, and I used the phrase, it’s all downhill from here.

And it was funny because we got in a dispute. We were wondering if, well, I guess this is used in a negative way, in a positive way. We were kind of wondering, you know, where this originated from and whatnot.

What were you talking about?

We were going into our final exam. We just graduated from college on Sunday.

Oh, congratulations.

What’s your degree in?

Dietetics and nutrition and food science.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, and we had our final exam in biochemistry, and this was our last exam that we would be taking. And I said, you know, Brett, after this exam, it’s all downhill from here.

Your life is over now.

I was using it, and it’s a positive thing. Like, you know, we’re at the top of the hill, and it’s all downhill. Like, it’s an easy ride from here.

And we thought she was confused by this.

That’s interesting. It’s a very context-dependent word, and I can understand the confusion and the circumstance where you used it.

But in most cases, it’s pretty clear whether or not it’s positive or negative. And in all cases that I know of, there is kind of an overall meaning here when we use downhill in this way to describe a movement towards an inevitable end, whether that end be good or bad.

So it’s an inexorable kind of steady approach towards the finish. And sometimes that finish is awful and sometimes it’s wonderful.

In your case, it sounds wonderful.

It really could go either way. I’m thinking about hiking. I do a lot of hiking at 10,000 or 11,000 feet. It’s easier going downhill.

Well, if you’re walking downhill, it’s preferable to rolling down the hill, right, Martha?

Yeah, yeah, but uphill and downhill are great when you’re hiking.

I’m thinking of the business uses, though, where you might have a big whiteboard showing the decline in the company’s sales, and it’s a downhill slope on that, and that’s pretty negative, but it’s a different use.

When we talk about it’s all downhill from here, it’s pretty idiomatic. I mean, we have to make sure that we pay attention to the context of the word company that downhill is keeping, and we’re almost always going to understand the positive or negative influence here.

But it’s funny because you found one of the cases where the context wasn’t clear.

She maybe thought that you were like…

Right.

She was like, we’re graduating. The best years of your life are over now. You’re graduating from college.

I hope not.

Well, congratulations on the degree and thank you for the call. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Have a great day. Your best years are ahead.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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