[Ads-l] Miscellany
Dan Goncharoff
thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Fri Dec 28 16:40:23 UTC 2018
"price ceilings" referred to government-imposed maximum prices,
usually during war time. "Going through the roof" would have been
illegal.
DanG
On Fri, Dec 28, 2018 at 11:03 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Oxford English Dictionary has information about the phrase
> “through the roof” with a first citation in 1946.
>
> roof, n.
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> P5. colloq. through the roof.
> a. Esp. of bids, prices, sales, etc.: beyond the expected limit, to
> extreme heights. Chiefly to go through the roof .
> 1946 E. Hodgins Mr. Blandings builds his Dream House viii. 118 The
> Knapp sales curves were going through the roof.
> 1972 Times 24 Oct. 10/3 Only a few special treasures were bid
> through the roof.
> 1973 Times 30 Oct. 19/6 On lots that were rare and undamaged they
> [sc. prices] went through the roof.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Here is an instance of the metaphorical phrase “went through the roof”
> in the domain of commodity prices in 1925.
>
> Date: May 7, 1925
> Newspaper: The Akron Beacon Journal
> Newspaper Location: Akron, Ohio
> Article: Crude Rubber Strikes Peak Price in Years
> Quote Page 1, Column 6
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> CRUDE RUBBER STRIKES PEAK PRICE IN YEARS
> Crude rubber prices went through the roof Thursday morning and as they
> gave signs of continuing to advance, the market suddenly became
> completely demoralized, according to White-Seiberling Co., Akron crude
> rubber brokers.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Why was this metaphor selected? In the price domain I have heard
> phrases such as “price ceiling” and “price cap”. If the phrase “price
> ceiling” was established initially then one might talk about “going
> through the price ceiling” or more emphatically “going through the
> price roof” or a “price going through the roof”.
>
> Yet, I do not know when or why the phrase “price ceiling” entered
> circulation. Perhaps a graph plot of a constrained price was
> reminiscent of a ceiling.
>
> On Thu, Dec 27, 2018 at 5:19 PM Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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