OTT

abbreviation (Youth Culture) In slang, short for over the top: (especially of a person, or a person's appearance, manner, opinions, etc.) extreme, exaggerated, outrageous; characterized by excess. Etymology: The initial letters of Over The Top; this phrase began in the sixties as a colloquial verbal phrase go over the top, 'to go beyond reasonable limits' and was itself based on the army metaphor of going over the top of the trenches and into battle. History and Usage: Over the top began to be used as an adjectival phrase among young and middle-aged people in the early eighties and was soon being abbreviated to OTT, even in print. It is mentioned as a Sloane Ranger expression in the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook (1982), but is just as likely to be found in the popular music papers or youth magazines as in writing for or by the upper classes. Anything that seems overdone or offends a person's sense of proportions and propriety can be described as OTT, but it is used especially of people or of things in which a human agent has been at work to stir up (sometimes only mock-serious) outrage. I think that's puritanical. It's totally over the top. Green Magazine Dec. 1989, p. 38 Fans will be happy enough to get half a dozen previously unreleased tracks, including a typically OTT Watkins offering. Folk Roots Aug. 1990, p. 35