literally
I realize that a rant against the misuse of the English language isn't terribly original, but I just can't resist this one. I've noticed a lot of people recently who use the world "literally" in a completely inappropriate manner. It's like they literally have no brain.
This morning (Friday) in the elevator, a girl was talking to her friend about how much yesterday had felt like Friday to her. She then said that she was "literally here on Saturday today." It's Friday, but it's literally Saturday. Really?
I've picked up on this kind of usage a lot recently (literally millions of times), but now that I'm writing a blog about it, I'm running low on examples. Please help me out if you've got some funny examples of this literal slaughter of our language.
posted by Jordan @ 9:07 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hmm... If it's Friday, but "literally" Saturday, then we have a huge problem. This might mean some kind of rip in the fabric of time that has caused Friday and Saturday to merge into some unholy end-of-the-week monster of a day. I'm literally shaking in my boots. Of course, maybe we shouldn't take her claim literally.
What I wonder is how this usage arose in the English language. What this woman means is that today "feels" much like Saturday, and so working today is "like" working on a Saturday. She's using an analogy here, but she's simultaneously describing it with the word "literally" which by its nature negates the possibility of analogy or metaphor. I think "literally" has been confused with "practically." That is, "for all practical purposes," it feels like working on a Saturday. Not literally, but practically. But even practically is misused in this way. What we're really trying to get at is "almost."
Anyway, it's literally noon, so I had better get back to productivity.
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