Learn English – the origin of “breaking bad”

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Wiktionary gives the meaning of "break bad" but does not mention about the origin:

1. (colloquial, of an event or of one's fortunes) To go wrong; to go downhill.

2. (colloquial, chiefly Southern US and Midwest US, of a person) To go bad; to turn toward immorality or crime.

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (by Jonathon Green) has the below definition that gives a hint about the origin:

break bad v. 1 [1960s] (US Black) to become angry and aggressive 2 [1980s] (US campus) to perform well. [BREAK v.2 (3) + SE bad]

break v.2 (US) 3 [1930s] to conduct oneself.

It looks like the origin is African American Vernacular English but how did this phrase emerge exactly? And how did it gain a new meaning (with almost opposite connotations) in campus slang?

Best Answer

I have heard of 'breaking bad' in the context of Southern slang but it has a surprising and older Wall Street reference:

One of the earliest instances of the phrase appearing in the New York Times backs up the definition (to turn violent unnecessarily) and history (black, Southern, 1970s) suggested by those lexicographers. In a 1980 excerpt from John Langston Gwaltney’s Drylongso, a Self-Portrait of Black America, an oral history of African-American communities; in describing his view of race relations, a black man from rural Missouri told the author that “if a white man was to come over here and ask me anything, I wouldn’t break bad with him.”

But, while that idiom matches the one appearing in many dictionaries, there’s an even earlier appearance of the expression with a very different sense to it, suggesting the violence now implied by the phrase came later. In a 1919 overview of goings-on on Wall Street, the writer suggested that “the average speculator will not take a position in the highly speculative industrials for over Sunday, but because he can’t stay out of the market altogether, gets into the rails at the end of the week in hope of making a successful turn and with confidence that if things ‘break bad’ over Sunday rails will feel the shock less than the industrials.”

That older use of “break bad,” meaning “to go bad,” requires little knowledge of regional slang, and it makes enough sense that anyone might come up with or at least understand it. -http://entertainment.time.com/2013/09/23/breaking-bad-what-does-that-phrase-actually-mean/

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