This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your

stories, send them to our American Stories.com.

They're some of our favorites.

Up next, we continue with our recurring series about the curious origins of everyday sayings,

the stories behind them.

Here to join us again is Andrew Thompson as he continues to share another slice

from his ultimate guide to understanding these mini mysteries, these many stories of our precious

English language. Out of the blue means a complete or unexpected surprise and it's a variation

of the expression a bolt from the blue. The ancient Romans

caught a flash of lightning on a clear day, a thunderbolt from the blue. The blue in the

phrase is related to the blue of the sky. Lightning on a sunny day was obviously very rare and

the Romans began to use the saying to refer to any sudden surprise. The phrase was first used in writing

by Thomas Carlyle in a book he wrote in 1837. The expression over the top sometimes shortened

to OTT means to an excessive degree or beyond acceptable limits or outrageous. And it has its

origins in trench warfare.

In World War I, to go over the top was to charge on foot across open ground

from the safety of the trenches.

The order was given over-the-top lads and the best of luck,

but few had much luck as they often ran head on into enemy machine gunfire.

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916,

...