How can "It's all downhill from here" mean two different things?

Whats the origin of this phrase (or its variant) and how did it come to mean both "things will get easier from now" and "its only going to be worse from now"?

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Asked in phrases, language, origin asked on: 08/11/2006 06:55am

closed on: 08/18/2006 06:55am

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cairina.moschata

Rank: Albert Einstein (19,453) | language (164), origin (40), phrases (9)

5 minutes after the question was opened (08/11/2006 06:59am)

HI Niv. What a good question, never thought about it before and I wonder how many more examples of this sort of thing exist?

As you say, one meaning is that things can only get worse, like the snowball effect and the other that things are plain sailing, ie meeting with no, or little, resistance.

Can't say that I know the derivation of this one so not a lot of help in the answering department I'm afraid.

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Rank: Albert Einstein (14,959) | language (70), phrases (18), origin (13)

60 minutes after the question was opened (08/11/2006 07:54am)

Well I'm going to have a guess before I look it up... I presume that the "it's all easier from now" comes from the fact that going down a hill is easier that going up it. The other one I can guess comes from going downhill towards rock-bottom...

I'll see if I can find a link to back me up/contradict me...

Supplement from 08/11/2006 07:56am:

Ok, I've found this link which backs up the first one and is similar to the second as it is a representation rather than actual doing something:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/20/messages/865.html copy

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How can "It's all downhill from here" mean two different things?

2 Answers