[Ads-l] Miscellany

[Mark Mandel]

Well, sort of. That use is literal, but I've never taken the idiom to imply
flames, but just "very high" in some metaphorical sense or other:

- numerical: prices, interest rates, medical readings (blood pressure...),
(dis?)approval ratings...
- emotion: Wilson's enthusiasm example; very commonly anger in a different,
implicit construction ("When she heard about their escapades, the principal
went through the roof")


Ah. Cambridge agrees:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/go-through-the-roof
:

- to rise to a very high level:
Prices have gone through the roof.

​- (*also hit the roof , informal*) to get very angry:
When I was expelled from school, my parents went through the roof.

Mark


On Dec 27, 2018 3:43 PM, "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

Heard on local news
A fireman says to a reporter,
"By the time we got here, the flames were _through the roof_."
Is this the source of such expressions as:

When she said yes, I was through the roof!
After she had explained the concept, my enthusiasm was through the roof!
During the concert, the fumes of Teen Spirit were through the roof!


-- 
-Wilson

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