| 词汇 | over the top |
| 词源 | over the top. A very popular expression in the U.S. lately, when reality itself often seems over the top. It means “excessive, exaggerated, even gross,” and may come from the name of the British television series Over the Top, which premiered in 1982. It apparently has no connection with the World War I expres- sion over the top, meaning “to climb out of trenches and attack the enemy.” Rather, it seems to refer to a container that is filled to overflowing. In just one instance of the wartime over the top—on the first day of the battle of the Somme in World War I—over 21,000 men were slaughtered by machine gun fire as they charged out of the trenches. See maxim. |
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