Meaning and etymology of "down with"

Question

I've searched a lot and found out that down with as a slang phrase means "being in an agreement with something". On the other hand, I know that it also means "death upon something".

So in a sentence like

Down with war!

how am I supposed to know which one of these meanings is applied?

Has this term changed its meaning with time?

@AndrewGrimm Have you ever heard of the first meaning mentioned above? — Benyamin Hamidekhoo, Jan 17 '13 at 21:40
There are a number of negative phrases/words which have reversed their meaning when they are adopted as slang. Wicked and evil, for example. — Andrew Leach, Jan 17 '13 at 21:42
http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/down-with — Benyamin Hamidekhoo, Jan 17 '13 at 21:44
@BarrieEngland clearly you are not down with the kids. Which incidentally has another use that inverts it again; among groups that would be familiar with the slang term, but not use it themselves, "down with the kids" is often used in a joking manner, the joke being that they are pretending to try to use "young" slang but are clumsy with it. Around my part of the world, "down with the kids" is common in this joking use, the "down with" more generally is not. — Jon Hanna, Jan 17 '13 at 21:54
possible duplicate of What's the origin of "I'm down with it"? — FumbleFingers, Jan 17 '13 at 22:29
As has been said, context will, as almost always, remove any ambiguity. If a Glasgow Rangers supporter says ‘Down with the Pope’, no one will think he means he’s in agreement with the Pope. — Barrie England, Jan 18 '13 at 08:21

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

We already have a question covering the origin.

As to your question, "how am I supposed to know which one of these meanings is applied?" The bad news is that English doesn't work on "supposed to" (though good writers do), so there are indeed words and phrases whose meanings include some that are diametrically opposed to each other.

The good news is that this isn't one of those cases.

The exclamation "Down with X!" would state an opposition to X. If I say it, then I am down upon X.

The description of someone, often oneself, like "I'm down with X", means I am in agreement with X. Or if X is a group, not only do I like them, but I get on with them generally. Likewise "he's down with X" and so on.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 17 '13 at 22:05

5

This is a simple application of the UP/DOWN Metaphor frame.

As it says in the link above:

What’s UP?
English speakers (like all humans) are oriented vertically with respect to a gravitational field, so the up/down dimension is significant, and English uses it in a variety of metaphor themes. All of them are coherent, i.e, we tend to think of them in the same ways (e.g, LESS, SAD, WEAK, PASSIVE, and WORSE are all negative evaluations, and vice versa.)

a) UP is MORE (DOWN is LESS):
- The prices are rising/falling.
- The stockmarket’s moving up/crashing.
- Turn the volume up/down.

b) UP is HAPPY (DOWN is SAD):
- He’s depressed.
- feeling really up/down about it
- What a downer!

c) UP is POWERFUL (DOWN is WEAK):
- upper/lower classes - superior/subordinate
- the highest levels of the government
- oppressed masses

d) UP is ACTIVE (DOWN is PASSIVE):
- The computer is up/down.
- Are you up for some handball? - Rise to the occasion.
- Down in the dumps

e) UP is BETTER (DOWN is WORSE):
- higher/lower animals
- He fell down on the midterm.
- a rise/fall in performance
- aim high - upwardly-mobile

f) UP is ABSTRACT (DOWN is CONCRETE):
- He’s got his head in the clouds.
- He’s got his feet on the ground.
- Come back to earth.
- higher mathematics
- high-level cognitive functions
- low-level details
- new heights of abstraction
- down-to-earth solution

answered Jan 17 '13 at 22:05

John Lawler

107,887

The sense the querent asks about doesn't fit in with this at all well. – Jon Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 22:10
Down with X means Move X Down, where the up/down dimension is probably (c) UP is Powerful/Down is Weak. A bas le roi. etc. – John Lawler Jan 17 '13 at 22:13
1

So what about "down with" meaning "in agreement with", as in the question? – Andrew Leach Jan 17 '13 at 22:15
Yep. Possibly from "I'm down on the list for that", possibly not, and with quite some information in the answer linked to, but completely at odds with what's given here. – Jon Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 22:18
That's physically located down, on the page/screen, with a different (Writing) metaphor theme, where the page is down, the words are deposited down on top of it, and the reader is above it all. Also, if you're on a list, you're likely down for a job or a tax or something else by order of your betters, so it's (d) UP is ACTIVE-INDEPENDENT/DOWN is PASSIVE-DEPENDENT, with a dash of (c) thrown in. These are not independent; they're coherent. – John Lawler Jan 17 '13 at 22:24
In a question about why being "down with something" means you actively approve of it, that's directly contradictory. – Jon Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 22:29
@Jon: As well as the You can put me down for that! allusion, the "positive/agreement" sense may also draw on Get down! as used by, for example, rap artists. Plus of course slang usages often reverse meanings (bad, wicked = good), so "I'm down with that" could be seen as just a "subversive" version of "I'm up for that". – FumbleFingers Jan 17 '13 at 22:39
@FumbleFingers I don't know whether those forms would have been around in 1935, when "I'm down with that" is cited, though I suspect "get down!" at least was. Know anything on that yourself? – Jon Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 22:42
@Jon: I'm not sure it's meaningful to cite a 1935 instance in the context of an "origin" for such trivial "warping" of language. I doubt the usage itself has survived and passed by word of mouth across all those decades. It seems to have been originally a feature of black (musicians?) speech, but the big upsurge in the US in the 90s seems to mainly involve white middle-class college students – FumbleFingers Jan 17 '13 at 23:16
@FumbleFingers it is if you can show it persisting through the period, which Hugo's answer did pretty well. – Jon Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 23:19
1

@Jon: I don't really see that as "continuity" at all. In 1959, for example, Esquire magazine was defining down with something, to be: to know something thoroughly, which in essence I feel was always the musician's sense (I've got that down pat). The modern sense is only loosely connected, and probably owes its popularity more to standard slang "semantic inversion" than to a gradual shift of meaning. Plus, to pick up on John's points, down = in** is probably a relevant spatial metaphor. – FumbleFingers Jan 17 '13 at 23:35
The nice thing about metaphors is they aren't consistent. They don't have to be. All metaphors start off life by denying the Law of Contradiction: ¬(p ⋀ ¬p) 'No proposition can be both true and false'; but a metaphoric statement is both true and false, and so are its presuppositions. So logic gets a pass. – John Lawler Jan 17 '13 at 23:52
So, Answer the question? – cbbcbail Jan 18 '13 at 01:24
Down with X (meaning I hate X) is an expression, all by itself. If it's a predicate phrase, be down with X, it means be in agreement. They never occur in the same construction. – John Lawler Jan 18 '13 at 05:23

Meaning and etymology of "down with"

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