Re: Cross Dimensions

On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 01:05:21PM +0000, Douglas Evans wrote:
>Also, 'went west'? I've heard 'gone south' and 'gone north' in the US,
but is that something said in Oz? I'd love speculation on origins.

19c. British idiom for "die, be killed" (popularized during World War
I), "probably from thieves' slang, wherein to go west meant to go to
Tyburn, hence to be hanged, though the phrase has indubitably been
influenced by the setting of the sun in the west." [Partridge]

R