Nancy Matos

Reader question: “About eight out of every ten new small businesses go belly up within five years.”

Could you explain “go belly up”?

My comments: Type in the phrase “go belly up” in an online search engine nowadays and you will see several headlines reporting everything from banks to airlines going “belly up” due to the financial crisis.

“Go belly up” means losing, failing, etc. It is used when referring to companies and organizations going bankrupt, not so much in the personal sense. For example, you wouldn’t say “Don’t go belly up on your English exam” to indicate avoiding failing the exam.

The term “go belly up” is based on the visual of a dead fish lying upside down in the water, with its belly facing up.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網(wǎng)立場無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

Related stories

Never-never land

Hybrid car

Fan mail

Opening number 開場

Three hanky

Have a method to your madness

Common-law marriage

Under my skin

Drunk sexcapades

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Burst one’s bubble

See eye to eye

Nancy Matos is a foreign expert at China Daily Website. Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Nancy is a graduate of the Broadcast Journalism and Media program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Her journalism career in broadcast and print has taken her around the world from New York to Portugal and now Beijing. Nancy is happy to make the move to China and join the China Daily team.