Idiomatic Saying - To Go To Town

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An expression with a similar meaning to pushing the boat out, meaning complete commitment to something, usually in reference to hedonistic extravagance. We tend to really go to town on special occasions; spending extravagently on weddings or big birthdays, etc. For people living in villages or the countryside, a trip to the town or city centre would once have seemed a big expensive adventure. Nowadays many more of us are town / city dwellers anyway. In many ways, going to the countryside would be a rarer experience for me than going to town. Sometimes, going to town can be a negative expression. A thug may be seen as having really gone to town on a victim, leaving someone assaulted with broken bones or worse. Someone returning from the shops with expensive furs or caviar might be accused of having really gone to town with the money, spending above their means in the process. The phrase usually means going too far and acting or spending with reckless abandon, often with severe consequences later. Arthur Chappell