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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"I was told there would be a handbasket"
When you say things are going to Hell In A Handbasket you mean that a situation is
rapidly deteriorating or that you are set firmly on a course for disaster.
Example of use: Hows work going? Answer: Horrible. Everythings going to hell in a handbasket.
https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/phrases/hell-in-a-handbasket/
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"I was told there would be a handbasket" (Original Post)
kpete
Apr 2020
OP
Earlier use found than that site says, so not about a true guillotine, or American:
muriel_volestrangler
Apr 2020
#3
Zoonart
(11,849 posts)1. Perfection.
sagesnow
(2,824 posts)2. I also love
the old "Where are we and what are we doing in this handbasket?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,305 posts)3. Earlier use found than that site says, so not about a true guillotine, or American:
It isn't at all obvious why 'handbasket' was chosen as the preferred vehicle to convey people to hell. One theory on the origin of the phrase is that derives from the use of handbaskets in the guillotining method of capital punishment. If Hollywood films are to be believed, the decapitated heads were caught in baskets - the casualty presumably going straight to hell, without passing Go. That's a nice theory but fails a pretty basic test - guillotines were invented in the 18th century and the phrase dates from the 17th.
The first version of 'to hell in a handbasket' that I can find in print comes from the Weekly pacquet of advice from Rome: or, The history of popery, 1682:
"...that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fa∣natical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms."
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hell-in-a-handbasket.html
The first version of 'to hell in a handbasket' that I can find in print comes from the Weekly pacquet of advice from Rome: or, The history of popery, 1682:
"...that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fa∣natical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms."
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hell-in-a-handbasket.html
Damme, concludes the fourth man, that story of Godfrey's being
Killed at Sommerset-house was all Bubble; why the Divel should
the Papists meddle with him? the three poor fellows were meerly
sworn out of their Lives, and so were all the rest; that noise of a
Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to
destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a
Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fa∣natical
Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A69775.0001.001/1%3a31?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Killed at Sommerset-house was all Bubble; why the Divel should
the Papists meddle with him? the three poor fellows were meerly
sworn out of their Lives, and so were all the rest; that noise of a
Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to
destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a
Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fa∣natical
Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A69775.0001.001/1%3a31?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
kpete
(71,984 posts)4. Thanks for that
peace & wellness to you and yours,
kp
delisen
(6,042 posts)5. Handbaskets now being blackmarketed.nt
cwydro
(51,308 posts)6. Love it!
One of my mothers favorite sayings.