Go against the grain

[1135] Go down in flames

🎲 Go the extra mile
English Idioms
All Idioms

Explanation

  • To fail spectacularly, dramatically, and often publicly.

Origin

  • Evokes the image of an airplane crashing and bursting into flames a very visible and catastrophic failure.
  • Became common during and after World War II with the increase in air combat.

Synonyms & Related Expressions

  • Fail miserably.
  • Crash and burn. (Similar imagery)
  • Bite the dust. (Fail, die, or be defeated)
  • Fall flat on its face. (Fail completely, especially a plan or performance)
  • Meet a sticky end. (UK, informal come to an unpleasant end/failure)

Alternatives

Slang/Informal:

  • Total wipeout.
  • Epic fail. (Internet slang)
  • Tanked. / Bombed. (Failed completely, often used for performances or products)
  • Shit the bed. (Vulgar fail badly, make a mess of something)

Vulgar/Emphatic:

  • It was a fucking disaster.
  • Everything went to shit.

Milder/Standard:

  • It failed spectacularly.
  • The venture was entirely unsuccessful.
  • It ended in complete failure.

Situational Appropriateness

  • Informal to semi-formal. The imagery is quite dramatic.
  • Might be overly casual or insensitive for very serious failures in a formal context (e.g., discussing a fatal accident).
  • Appropriate for business failures, project failures, performance failures etc.

Misunderstanding Warnings

  • Highly metaphorical. Learners need to understand it means spectacular failure, not a literal fire (unless context supports it, which is rare for the idiom).

Examples

  • His ambitious startup went down in flames after just six months.
  • Despite her confident presentation, the proposal went down in flames with the board.
  • If we don't fix this bug, the whole project could go down in flames.

Dialogue

Ava: How did your band's audition go?

Ben: Horribly. The lead singer lost his voice, the amp blew... we went down in flames.

Ava: Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that. That's rough.

Social Media Examples

  • Tweet: My attempt at baking sourdough bread went down in flames. Literally. Smoke alarm went off. 😂 #BakingFail #Sourdough
  • Reddit comment: That political campaign went down in flames after the candidate's disastrous interview.
  • News forum: Looks like another celebrity restaurant went down in flames. High rents and poor management.

Response Patterns

  • Oh no! What happened?
  • That's terrible!
  • I saw that coming. (If failure was expected)
  • What a disaster.

Common Follow-up Questions/Actions

After expressing sympathy (That's terrible!):

  • Usually involves asking for details about the failure. Were there any warning signs? or How did everyone react?

After prediction (I saw that coming):

  • Might lead to discussing the reasons for the failure. Yeah, the planning was flawed from the start.

Conversation Starter

  • No. Describes a dramatic failure, usually when recounting events.

Intonation

  • Stress on DOWN and FLAMES.
  • Often said with a sense of drama, finality, or sometimes even schadenfreude (pleasure at someone else's misfortune).
  • The whole plan WENT DOWN in FLAMES.

Generation Differences

  • Widely understood and used.
  • Crash and burn is also very common, perhaps slightly more so among younger generations.

Regional Variations

  • Common in all major English-speaking regions.
Go against the grain
🎲 Go the extra mile