where does the phrase it's all gone pear shaped come from
Pear-shaped The third meaning is mostly limited[citation needed] to the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa and Australasia. It describes a situation that went awry, perhaps horribly wrong. A failed bank robbery, for example, could be said to have "gone pear-shaped". The origin for this use of the term is in dispute. The OED cites its origin as within the Royal Air Force as a cleaned-up alternative version of its phrase " tits-up" meaning completely broken or dead; as of 2003 the earliest citation there is a quote in the 1983 book Air War South Atlantic.[1]
Heart (symbol) The first known depiction of a heart as a symbol of romantic love dates to the 1250s. It occurs in a miniature decorating a capital 'S' in a manuscript of the French Roman de la poire (National Library FR MS. 2086, plate 12). In the miniature a kneeling lover (or more precisely, an allegory of the lover's "sweet gaze" or douz regart) offers his heart to a damsel. The heart here resembles a pine cone (held "upside down", the point facing upward), in accord with medieval anatomical descriptions. However, in this miniature what suggests a heart shape is only the result of a lover's finger superimposed on an object; the full shape outline of the object is partly hidden, and therefore unknown. Moreover, the French title of the manuscript that features the miniature translates into "Novel Of The Pear" in English. Thus the heart shaped object would be a pear; the conclusion that a pear represents a heart is dubious. Opinions therefore differ over this being the first depiction of a heart as symbol of romantic love.[7] Giotto in his 1305 painting in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua) shows an allegory of charity (caritas) handing her heart to Jesus Christ. This heart is also depicted in the pine cone shape based on anatomical descriptions of the day (still held "upside down"). Giotto's painting exerted considerable influence on later painters, and the motive of Caritas offering a heart is shown by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce, by Andrea Pisano on the bronze door of the south porch of the Baptisterium in Florence (c. 1337), by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Publico in Siena (c. 1340) and by Andrea da Firenze in Santa Maria Novella in Florence (c. 1365). The convention of showing the heart point upward switches in the late 14th century and becomes rare in the first half of the 15th century.[7]