up or down!

[crisgal]

why do people say "oh, it's all down hill form here on" when they mean it's going to be tough? Why don't they say UP hill? Surely down hill all the way is pretty easy? I know which I'd rather do!

[Ethel]

Because in traditional towns and villages the poor folk lived in the nasty little hovels at the bottom of the hill, clustered around the dirty, smelly workplaces such as harbours and factories and the rich lived in isolated spendour in their mansions at the top of the hill.

The higher up the hill you lived the more money and standing you had.

[Quizmonster]

The earliest recorded use of the word 'downhill' - back in the 1500s - was a reference to the difference between the good and bad elements of life. It reads: "The icy downhills of this slippery life." The suggestion obviously is that life is full of variety, with sunny 'peaks' and dark 'troughs'. So, going 'downhill from here on' implies a descent into the darkness, as it were.

[Rumford]

Oddly enough I have heard the phrase used to mean both. 'It's all downhill from now' to mean that the hard part of a task/journey is over and 'Everything's going downhill' to mean that things are getting worse.

[spudqueen]

I'm with Rumford, in fact I've never heard of it being used in the sense crisgal mentions, always as something easy.

[jno]

an uphill struggle means a difficult one, but going uphill also suggests you are making progress (perhaps a mountaineering metaphor). So going downhill suggests you're slipping back, or at any rate away from your goal.

[maxi29]

I'm with Rumford too. I've always taken it to mean that everything's going to be easy - I've never heard the other meaning before. As you say, it doesn't sound a very logical phrase.

[Quizmonster]

Here's the second verse of Rabbie Burns' poem, John Anderson My Jo...

John Anderson my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

A good example of life seen as an upward climb, followed by a slow, tottery downhill slope towards death. It's pretty clear that the downhill leg is - whilst still companionable - not nearly as 'exciting' as the uphill one was. A perfect illustration of the use of the phrase exactly as Crisgal presents it, despite the fact that it can be used to mean the virtual opposite!.