antedating?: "top dollar"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Mon Apr 23 16:43:40 UTC 2007


That is a sense I'm unfamiliar with.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: antedating?: "top dollar"
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Or, by extension, attributively, "of highest quality" (since you get what you pay for)?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:21:27 -0700
>From: Jonathan Lighter
>Subject: antedating?: "top dollar"
>
>OED correctly defines "top dollar" as "a high price," but it literally means "the highest price or remuneration."
>
>JL

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