Keep on top of his finances?

Reader question:

Please explain “keep on top of his finances” in this sentence: He said he was going through a hard time having split up from his girlfriend, started taking drugs and had “failed to keep on top of his finances”.

My comments:

Failing to keep on top of his finances means that he’s run out of money. It’s as simple as that.

Finances?

Money matters, that is.

Specifically, he’s failed to stay in control of his spending habits. Now that he’s run out of money, he’s in trouble. He no longer can spend freely, say, because you can spend money you don’t have.

This is understandable, though, because emotionally he’s been in turmoil, having just lost his girlfriend.

Secondly, he started taking drugs.

Let me be clear. I said understandable. By that, I mean it’s understandable that he’s emotionally in turmoil having split up from his girlfriend. But I do not mean to condone his drug-taking because not everyone who’s split up from his girlfriend will right away start taking drugs and lose all control over money matters.

That part is not condonable, no matter how understandable we try to be.

But what we are concerned with here mostly is the phrase “keep on top of something”, and that means “stay in control”.

Imagine two wrestlers in a tussle. One wrestler manages to throw the other man onto the ground and gets on top of him. In wrestling, to be on top of an opponent means now you’re in a commanding position. You’re in control of the situation. And if this was an official wrestling match, the referee would declare you the winner if you’re able to pin both shoulders of the opponent to the floor.

Hence, metaphorically, to be on top of things and situations means you’re in control of things and situations. In other words, you’re at the helm. You’re in the saddle.

In short, you’re in command.

Sadly, that is not the case in our top example. That person (he) has failed to keep on top of his finances, i.e. having spent more money than he’s earned.

Therefore, he’s no longer in control.

And if he were on a ship, he’d no longer be at the helm, steering the ship. And if he were riding a horse, he’d no longer be in the saddle, i.e. on horseback and in control of the horse.

He’d probably be on the ground right now, nursing his muscles and bones, having been thrown off the horse some time ago.

All right, let’s read a few media examples of people trying to keep on top of things in various situations:

1. Miley Cyrus has hired an ‘obsessed stalker’ to be her personal assistant for the summer.

The 19-year-old credits the mystery super fan with boosting her profile in cyberspace and as a reward she is flying her out to LA to live with her mum Tish for the summer months.

Speaking to US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday she said: ‘Yeah, she is actually flying out here and staying with my mom this summer, she is going to work for me for the summer.’

The unnamed fan will help Cyrus stay on top of her schedule and explain what she needs to do to get new songs and videos posted on the most relevant websites.

She added: ‘Because, let me tell you, I never know… I don’t know if this is how it works for you, but no-one ever tells me anything, I’m the last to know everything.

‘I didn’t know about a schedule today, I didn’t know what time I was going to be here, I didn’t even know I was going to sit on this couch and talk to you, I thought we were going to just do everything outside.’

And paying her new employee a backhanded compliment, she added: ‘She’s more than a stalker because she’s so obsessed, she knows things about how to break VEVO records, which we did with her help.

‘She just knows… I don’t know anything, I don’t YouTube or whatever, so she knows what has to be done in what amount of time to be number one or to break the record. She just knows everything.’

While she was sceptical at first the We Can’t Stop singer soon found herself becoming firm friends with her new assistant.

She explained: ‘When I first called her, I called her off my friends phone but then I ended up just texting her all the time. I bet she gets more annoyed with me than I get of her because I just hit her up all the time.

‘I’m like, “Yo, you gotta make this happen”, “You gotta make the fans trend this”. She’s really amazing.’

- Miley Cyrus hires ‘obsessed’ super fan to be her personal assistant, Metro.co.uk, June 27, 2013.

2. The Easter getaway has started, with 2.6 million car journeys expected on the nation’s roads today.

Good Friday is likely to be the busiest day for travel during the Easter break, with the number of car journeys higher than the two million expected on Easter Monday and the 2.3 million forecast for Saturday and Sunday.

Some 20,000 cars are expected to travel through the Port of Dover between Thursday and Easter Monday and the port’s chief executive Doug Bannister said Storm Nelson had already presented challenges.

“We suffered a bit of a backlog overnight because of the weather impacting on sailings,” he told Sky News on Friday morning, “but we’ve got back on top of it”.

He said tourist vehicles were taking around two hours to get through the port’s border controls, but this was likely to improve as crowds thinned out from mid-afternoon.

Ferry firm Stena Line said bookings on Irish Sea routes are up 26% on Easter weekend 2023.

- Millions to hit the roads for Easter getaways as Port of Dover boss says firm ‘back on top’ of backlogs, Sky.com, March 29, 2024.

3. “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart criticized the media’s coverage of President-elect Trump’s incoming presidency, questioning whether some speculation is doing more harm than good.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when Donald Trump takes over. Unfortunately, we can’t see into the future, but we have to be prepared for all outcomes. I don’t know how helpful it is to get us sh–ting our pants this much this early,” Stewart said during the opening minutes of his Thursday episode of the “The Weekly Show” podcast.

“But I guess it’s always important to stay on top of it,” he added.

Right before interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during the episode, Stewart knocked news coverage of Trump’s transition and argued that the country has been through a “tumultuous” year.

“We appear to be in a transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid, although the news media seems convinced that we are the Road Runner and the Coyote, and the Coyote has run over the cliff, and we just looked down and realized there’s nothing under our feet, and now we are plunging to our deaths,” Stewart joked in reference to the Looney Tunes animated characters.

“Because the news media is always very circumspect,” he added.

The political comic said it is a “strange thing” for him to observe president-elect Trump vowing to carry out some of the policy goals Stewart himself agrees with, considering he’s a vocal critic of the incoming commander-in-chief.

“It is for me, for someone who has kind of complained about wanting government to be more efficient and more responsive and making fundamental changes to see that mantle being carried out by a group of people that I don’t necessarily trust to do it in a manner that is,” he said.

“But I guess that’s what it is when you that’s what losing elections is, man, you don’t, you don’t get to dictate anymore,” he added.”

- Jon Stewart slams media speculation of Trump presidency, TheHill.com, December 7, 2024.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）