What is the origin of "it went south"?

It comes from the orientation of a map, with north at the top and south at the bottom.

A graph of a stock’s prices trending above a level is considered “north of…”; and a falling price chart is said to have “gone south”. You can thank Wall Street slang of the 1970s.

Sure, North is “up, South is “down” the way we orient ourselves at least here in the Northern Hemisphere, don’t know what they do in the Southern one.

Might look Here at an earlier version of the question for additional answers.

@rojo in the Southern Hemisphere they apparently resent the sleight. In fact that generates A question I’ve been wondering about since I was a kid.

@stanleybmanly I’ve never heard the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t like the expression. I have heard the American south doesn’t like it. Is the expression used in the Southern Hemisphere?

I’ve heard more than once that Southern Hemisphere countries have maps and globes with South at the top. It’s our world upside down.

^^Do they even use the expression?

In addition to the foregoing, since 1978, there has also been this…

@JLeslie I didn’t mean to imply that countries in the Southern hemisphere use the expression, but that they resent the idea of the Northern hemisphere as ’“the top of the world”.

@stanleybmany Oh. Well, the maps used by the US show the US basically in the middle, not just that it’s North Pole up. Other maps have a different country centered in the world map. Makes sense.