hit the skids: deteriorate rapidly, either emotionally, physically, or financially

A skid is a plank used as a kind of slide over which heavy objects can be pushed. In logging jargon, skids are a set of peeled logs, partly buried in the ground, that form a track for hauling or pushing unfinished logs. In the nineteenth century, skids were commonly used to propel timber into the river. It was then floated downstream to a sawmill or ship.

Hit the skids or be on the skids has been in figurative use since the beginning of the twentieth century. Alcohol often precipitated a skid, but hitting the skids could imply any kind of decline -- falling apart physically, losing money, or getting in with a bad crowd. It's also possible to put the skids under someone else, causing that person's downfall -- The football team is planning to put the skids under their chief rivals Friday night.

Skids most likely became associated with down-and-outness because of where they were found -- Skid Row. Many people believe that the original Skid Row, first called Skid Road, was Yesler Way in Seattle. Yesler Way runs downhill through the downtown Seattle neighborhood now called Pioneer Square, ending at Elliott Bay. During the nineteenth century, Henry Yesler's sawmill sat at the bottom of this road, waiting for logs to be skidded down to it. Unemployed loggers naturally drifted into the area, looking for work or just killing time. Soon the neighborhood south of Yesler Way gained an unsavory reputation as a seedy area of transients' hotels, taverns, and brothels. By 1930 Skid Row was shorthand for the bad part of any town. The Underworld Speaks, published in 1935, defines Skid Row as the "district in a city where tramps (bums) congregate."

These days, several large cities around the United States are known for having skid rows. Some, like San Francisco, have a neighborhood officially named Skid Row. More often, the term simply describes that part of any town where the homeless and unemployed gather.

Read more about this expression in Let's Talk Turkey: The Stories Behind America's Favorite Expressions (Prometheus, June 2008).