Comments on: Shut it. Literally.

By: jessica

jessica — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:41:50 +0000

This is why I’m scared to speak around you. And even more so to write…

By: Rob H

Rob H — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:26:49 +0000

Too funny… I always knew there was a reason why I repeated that word outloud when I heard it used with so much force in a series of run on sentences. I dub thee…”jackhammer on jello” speech. ~R

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:57:49 +0000

Thanks for a good laugh on a serious subject, Tony! At the end of the semester, I am going crazy (figuratively, I hope) at the lack of precision in all the verbiage I am forced to read. (Yes, I give the assignments, but *they* are the ones who write them so badly; if they wrote precisely and literately, I wouldn’t mind the grading nearly so much.) Just this afternoon I was discussing the difference between “lie” and “lay” with a student, and, getting rather passionate about it, remarked that while it is probably a losing battle, *someone* needs to fight for precision. Why, for example, I ask my students, as I slam a textbook on the desk to wake them up, say “I want to impact the world for Jesus”? Really? You want to hit them, strike them, for the Lord? Well, some of us need 2×4 intervention, I’m sure, but we have this perfectly accurate, time-tested word in English — “influence” — that says what you probably *literally* mean that you want to do . . .

Oh, end of semester is a bad time to get me started on language . . . I’ll shut up now!

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:28:05 +0000

Oh yes. And how about the frequently used, “(he is) one of the only people…”. I thought “only” already implied uniqueness.

By: wife

wife — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:11:21 +0000

towknee

a glance or two at the original Webster’s, and some in succession, will demonstrate how as a reference it changes with the culture. Therefore, you will now find definitions that reflect common cultural usage along with original definitions.

In other words, if someone ‘hijacks’ a word and enough people use it and it becomes commonly used for a number of years, you will eventually find it’s ‘new’ usage in reference books, thus validating your own belief of what it really means.

It doesn’t seem a wise or sustainable option for those with a limited vocabulary, for the sake of clarity in communicating outside one’s own peers or culture. After all, I don’t allow my children to continue to speak in their limited vocabulary using common words for multiple things, even though I and understand them just fine.

By: towknee

towknee — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:13:18 +0000

Yup.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:37:34 +0000

Seriously, Towknee?

By: towknee

towknee — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:52:06 +0000

I’m not quite sure what your point is. You start out by saying that the word “literally” doesn’t mean really. Honestly I think that is exactly what the word means. People use hyperbole regularly (I’d hate to say “all the time” for fear that it may be taken too literally). The reason why people use the word “literally” is that they wish to have the words that they say understood in the exact sense in which they have been said. If I say a man is insane, you might be able to interpret what I have said as meaning that a man doesn’t meet my standard of being normal (i.e. he doesn’t have his own blog, he must be insane!) In order to gaurd against you interpreting my words in an exaggerated or metaphorical sense, I would add the word literally (i.e. The man was literally insane, they sent him to an institution). Another way of wording that may be, “The man was really (or actually) insane.” I do, however, feel that you may have been using the term “really” in a different sense. If you meant to use the word to mean “very” as in, “That guy is really good at painting,” I probably don’t mean it to say that he is actually good at art, I mean he is very good at painting. I think that you may be falling in to your own critical trap by not using the word “really” in its literal sense. You are using the word “really” in the exact same way that everyone else uses the word “literally.” The usage of the word “literally” is defined in a second sense by Mirriam- Webster as, “2 : in effect : virtually “will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins.” They define it the same way they define the second sense of the word “really,” as in, not in its literal sense.

By: Llana

Llana — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:18:17 +0000

If these habits, like, drive you nuts, don’t, like, come to California, dude.

By: dustbury.com » The adverb as a form of litter

dustbury.com » The adverb as a form of litter — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:46:56 +0000

[...] here [oh, if only I had an embeddable video for this, to show you precisely where "here" is] with this particular misconstruction: “Literally” doesn’t mean “really.” It’s not a word that you [...]