go south (also head south)
idiom

- to become much worse

- to decline, deteriorate, fail, etc.

The Cambridge Dictionary / Collins Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Go south" first appeared in the mid-1970s, making it a relatively new addition to the English language.

Although the origin of the phrase isn't definitively known, it's generally believed to come from the notion of "down" being negative and "up" being positive; tied to the idea of the compass (where north is traditionally up and south is down) something "going south" might be seen as it going downwards or getting worse.

Another theory links the term to the U.S. stock market. When a stock's value decreases, it's commonly represented by a downward movement in graphs, which could also be associated with the direction south.

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SOME MORE SOUTHS

- Southpaw: a left-handed person, especially a boxer who leads with the right hand.

- Down South: typically used to denote the southern part of a country, especially the southern states of the U.S.

- South in your mouth: used primarily in the U.S, describing the distinctive, delicious taste of Southern cooking.

- Take a southerly course: a decision or action that is leading towards a warmer, more comforting situation or environment.

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SYNONYMS

become debilitated (dilapidated, enfeebled, moribund, rusty,  weak, worse), be giving up the ghost (in decline, on the way out, be on your last legs, slipping away, the worse for wear, be wanting), bomb, break (down), belly up, come apart at the seams (unstuck), conk out, crash, crumble (away), degrade, depreciate, die (away, down, off, on vine, out), diminish, dip, disintegrate, dissolve, dive, do a fade, downsize, downgrade, drain away, draw to a close, droop, dry up, dwindle, ebb, fail, fall (apart, apart at the seams, away, back, from grace, into decay, into disrepair, off, short, steeply, through), falter, fade (away), faint, fizzle (out), flounder, flop, founder, flag, go amiss (awry, bad, downhill, down, down the toilet, down the tube(s), from bad to worse, pear-shaped, to pieces, to pot, to rack and ruin, to ruin, seed, the dogs, under, up in smoke, wrong), go into a decline (a tailspin), GO SOUTH, grow dim (faint, less, small, weaker, weak), hit the floor (the rocks, the skids), implode, languish, lapse, lag, languish, lessen, moulder, melt (away), nose-dive, peter (out), phase down, plummet, plunge, recede, regress, retrogress, rot, run down (low, out, to seed), sag, shrink, shrivel  (up), sink, skid, slacken, slump, sour, stagnate, take a dive (a nosedive, a step back, a turn for the worse), teeter, underperform, vegetate, wane, waste (away), weaken, wear away (down), wilt, wind down, wither (away), worsen

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“It’s not nice to say that something is 'failing',... using an idiom like ‘GOING SOUTH’ can sound more diplomatic.”

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