Talk:top oneself

top oneself
to kill oneself. There is this quote in Evening Standard 11 March 2008, page 13 Sebastian Shakespeare column: '' "I nearly topped myself over that book," his mother told a friend afterwards. '' Context: Blake Morrison in his family memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993) portrayed his deceased father as a skiver and cheater. When the author's mother read her son's book about his father (her husband), she was so deeply embarrassed that she made the above comment.

sense given: to kill oneself. This sense is exactly the meaning of to top (=kill) oneself. Thus, pure SoP. DCDuring 22:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Sum of parts.--Dmol 14:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Weak keep. I'd never heard of the word "top" being used as a synonym for kill or murder before looking at the top article. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 02:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep set phrase....you very rarely hear top used other than reflexively. Widsith 09:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * So I don't waste time on RfDs, should I ignore non-idiomatic SoP collocations that constitute a large majority of uses of one of the terms? DCDuring 15:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how you'd say this isn't idiomatic. In en-us, when you've topped yourself you have outdone yourself, not committed suicide.  --Connel MacKenzie 05:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought that was "bested". *shrug* — [ ric ] opiaterein — 06:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Connel, it is the "kill" sense of the word "top" that is UK/Commonwealth. "top oneself" is the most common use of the term, but the word "top" is used with other objects. I am arguing that it is SoP to someone who knows the parts. DCDuring 11:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to be pedandic, the word top meaning suicide is very much a UK term, and not used elswhere as far as I know. Certainly not enough to earn a Commonwealth mention.--Dmol 19:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

RFD discussion: August–September 2021
We should delete sense 2 (‘overdose’) as I don’t think the phrase is used that way apart from when it means ‘intentionally fatally overdose’, which comes under sense 1 anyway. We could perhaps create a new sense of ‘accidentally fatally overdose’ but I’m not sure that exists. Regardless of whether we add any new senses to this entry or not, I think that this sense should be deleted. Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)


 * If the issue is doubt of the existence of this sense as distinct from sense 1, shouldn’t this request then rather be at RfV? --Lambiam 09:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I was in two minds where to put it. I would have thought the RFD-sense template was meant for this sort of thing but then people normally seem to use RFV-sense. I’d have no objections to this being moved to RFV. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:21, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Moved to RFV. Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August–October 2021
We should delete sense 2 (‘overdose’) as I don’t think the phrase is used that way apart from when it means ‘intentionally fatally overdose’, which comes under sense 1 anyway. We could perhaps create a new sense of ‘accidentally fatally overdose’ but I’m not sure that exists. Regardless of whether we add any new senses to this entry or not, I think that this sense should be deleted. Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Even if one could find it being used to mean 'accidentally fatally overdose', it still falls under sense one. Suicide can be accidental, such as in the following quote:
 * So I don't think this ends up being an issue for RFV at all, but rather one for RFD. Kiwima (talk) 05:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I can’t fault your logic there but I already made it an RFD a while ago only to get no response until I added a ‘look’ template (and that was a recommendation that I change it to RFV). I’ll give it a couple more days here at RFV to see if I get any convincing counterarguments but if I’m not convinced I’ll simply delete it at that point. Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I can’t fault your logic there but I already made it an RFD a while ago only to get no response until I added a ‘look’ template (and that was a recommendation that I change it to RFV). I’ll give it a couple more days here at RFV to see if I get any convincing counterarguments but if I’m not convinced I’ll simply delete it at that point. Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * To be labelled, a person’s demise as the result of their actions requires intention. Unintentional death resulting from ignorance or carelessness, however foreseeable, does not qualify. Sense 2 should be verified if uses can be found in which death by overdosing is unambiguously unintentional. The quotation from Strange Briefs suggests that “overdose” is too specific, as the cause of death in the quotation is by gotten out-of-hand. My conclusion is then that sense 1 and sense 2 should be merged into a generic sense unifying both: to die as the result of one’s own actions, regardless of whether the outcome is intended.  --Lambiam 16:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Though commit suicide certainly normally means ‘intentionally kill oneself’ and our entry at suicide doesn’t currently include a sense of ‘accidentally commit suicide’, it can be accidental, as can be seen from the following GoogleBook search, there’s also nothing in the etymology of the word that implies it has to be intentional. In other words we should just strike sense 2 (and alter our definition of suicide slightly) as ‘top oneself’ and ‘commit suicide’ are synonyms meaning kill oneself, the killing doesn’t have to be intentional but it is always assumed to be so unless preceded by the word ‘accidentally’Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:15, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Although a is normally a substance that is flowing, it can also be a solid, as can be seen from the following uses:, , . It is normally assumed to be flowing unless preceded by the word  frozen. This solid sense is currently not covered. So should we alter the definition of the noun liquid “slightly” by replacing “is flowing ” by “is or is not flowing”? Another issue with a relaxed definition of the term suicide is the lack of any definable limit on its application. Every day many people are killed in traffic and other accidents caused by their making a simple miscalculation or other error of judgement, or by a moment of waning attention. Can a newspaper then oxymoronically report the coroner’s verdict as “death by accidental suicide”?  --Lambiam 21:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that at least in most jurisdictions the available verdicts would be “accidental death” and “death by misadventure” in such cases, so the situation wouldn’t arise but I do actually think we could perhaps do with a usage note at liquid saying that people sometimes say ‘frozen liquid’ to mean ‘substance that was a liquid but has now been frozen to become a solid’ due to the long-winded form being too much of a mouthful (or too long to write or type) and they similarly use the phrase ‘evaporated liquid’ in preference to ‘substance that used to be a liquid but is now vapour/vapor’. Now I’m thinking about it, when people say ‘the water’s boiled’, they really mean ‘the top layer of the water has boiled’, the molecules below the surface don’t reach 100 degrees or they would no longer be talking about water but gas. ‘The kettle’s boiled’ and ‘the egg is boiled’ are even more incorrect senses from a literal point of view, yet we list these senses and treat them as valid at boil, so we could have similarly careful definitions and usage notes at liquid and suicide to cover all the ways the words are actually used. Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:16, 12 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to agree with Kiwima and Overlordnat here: suicide can and does sometimes encompass killing oneself without having intended to kill oneself, so unless we feel that the focus of citations in which someone dies from accidental overdose is on "top oneself" meaning "overdose" and not on meaning "bring about one's death", my initial impression is that accidentally topping oneself is covered by the suicide sense. (I would also point out that we do seem to already have a sense that covers accidental suicide, although it's as often figurative as literal: "An action that could cause the [...] death of a person [taking the action...] although death is not the aim of the action." - -sche (discuss) 17:29, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 03:26, 10 October 2021 (UTC)