“To hit the fan” is an American English idiom meaning a situation has gone wrong. It’s based on a visual metaphor of an object hitting a fan’s blades. The term is often used to describe a catastrophic turn of events and is associated with feces. The phrase dates back to the 1940s and has a similar meaning to “all hell breaks loose.” The metaphor provides more information on the cause of the chaos, resulting from human negligence or stupidity. The vernacular version is more commonly used in speech, while the general expression is used in print.
“To hit the fan” is an American English idiom meaning “to go completely or chaotically wrong”. The saying is based on a suggestive visual metaphor involving the interaction between a thrown object and the swirling blades of a fan. It is usually used to identify the point at which a situation takes a catastrophic turn; it’s commonly used in phrases like “and that’s when the fan hit.” The most common use of the term involves layman slang for feces, creating an uncomfortably vivid visual metaphor that leaves the listener in no doubt as to the messy and unpleasant nature of the situation.
The first recorded uses of “fanning” date back to the 1940s, although some authorities say the use dates back to the 1930s. An early version, “when the soup hits the fan,” is based on the visual image of a fan splashing soup on a frightened group to evoke a sudden descent into chaos. The vernacular version of the expression is documented as early as 1967, but may have been in use even longer. Lexicographers can often be reluctant to document profanity, meaning that the origins of foul language are often harder to trace than those of more socially acceptable expressions.
Like many successful expressions, “to hit the fan” relies on its colorful imagery to convey its meaning. While it refers to a circumstance most people have been lucky enough not to experience, the image is a good visual shortcut to utter chaos. Furthermore, the metaphor provides more information, as the sudden transition from peace to panic results from the interaction between an existing situation (the rotating blades of the fan) and a malicious or careless act (the actions of someone who threw something into the blades of the fan ) ). The resulting catastrophe is therefore both the inevitable result and the result of human negligence or stupidity.
The expression “all hell breaks loose” has a similar meaning to the phrase “To hit the fan”. These are typically colorful bits of American vernacular that have spread into other branches of English. The predominant version of the expression is probably the vernacular version, which has the inventive and vigorous characteristics of great slang. Its vulgarity, however, means that the more general expression discussed here is probably more widely used in print. This is the case with a number of slang expressions.
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