# I'm literally blowing a gasket over the word 'literally' **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 19, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414 "2005-09-19T19:52:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/181 "2005-09-21T23:46:55Z")
From _Mother Tongue_ by Bill Bryson > [@](#): > > So if there are no officially appointed guardians for the English language, who sets down all those rules that we all know about from childhood - the idea that we must never end a sentence with a preposition or begin one with a conjunction, that we much use _each other_ for two things and _one another_ for more than two, and that we must never use _hopefully_ in an absolute sense, such as ‘Hopefully it will not rain tomorrow’? The answer, surprisingly often, is that no one does, that when you look into the background of these ‘rules’ there is often little basis for them. > > Consider the curiously persistent notion that sentences should not end with a preposition. The source of this stricture, and several other dubious ones, was one Robert Lowth, an eighteenth-century clergyman and amature grammarian whose _A Short Introduction to English Grammer_, published in 1762, enjoyed a long and distressingly inflential life both in his native England and abroad. It is to Lowth we can trace many a pedant’s most treasured notions: the belief that you must say _different from_ rather than _different to_ or _different than_, the idea that two negatives make a positive, the rule that you must not say ‘the heaviest of the two objects’, but rather ‘the heavier’, the distinction between _shall_ and _will_, and the clearly nonsensical belief that _between_ can appply only to two things and _among_ to more than two. (By this reasoning, it would not be possible to say that Paris is between London, Berlin, and Madrid, but rather that it is among them, which would impart a quite different sense.) Perhaps the most remarkable and curiously enduring of Lowth’s many beliefs was the conviction that sentences ought not to end with a preposition. He recognized that ending a sentence with a preposition was idiomatic and common in both speech and informal writing. He suggested only that he thought in generally better and more graceful, not crucial, to place the preposition before its relative ‘in solemn and elevated’ writing. Within a hundred years this had been converted from a piece of questionable advice into an immutable rule. In a remarkable outburst of literal-mindedness, nineteenth-century academics took it as read the the very name pre-position meant it must come before something- anything. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/182 "2005-09-21T23:47:47Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > The poynt is two git the massage accross anythink else is superfluid. Don’t you think it’s funny how the people defending descriptive grammar in this thread all have impeccable writing? Because I sure do. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/183 "2005-09-22T01:08:21Z")
> [@BayleDomon](#): > > Well, yes, exactly. That’s sort of the point. > > He’s not in = grammatical linguistically (it’s a sentence of English) and prescriptively (it adheres to standardized conventions) > He ain’t in = grammatical linguistically but not prescriptively (it’s non-standard) > In not him = not grammatical linguistically Are you saying that “In not him” adheres to standardized conventions? ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/184 "2005-09-22T01:14:44Z")
> [@Large Marge](#): > > Are you saying that “In not him” adheres to standardized conventions? I think you need to read a bit more closely. There’s a whole paragraph after those three lines. If it helps, “prescriptive rules” is more or less equivalent to “standardized rules.” ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/185 "2005-09-22T01:46:21Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > The poynt is two git the massage accross anythink else is superfluid. Yes, but why make anyone struggle through that? I had to read it rather slowly to comprehend what you were trying to say, especially with “two” and “massage,” which sound the same or similarly and have different meanings than the words “to” and “message.” The missing comma also caused me to have to read “accross anythink” twice. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/186 "2005-09-22T01:52:28Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > The poynt is two git the massage accross anythink else is superfluid. Sorry, **canvasshoes** already beat you to the punchline, on this page of the thread. It’s still hilarious, though! HAW HAW HAW Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/187 "2005-09-22T01:57:01Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Sorry, **canvasshoes** already beat you to the punchline, on this page of the thread. Ooh, here’s a great example of my fucking up a prescriptive convention in a way that obscured meaning. My comma before “on” makes it appear as if “on this page of the thread” is a nonrestrictive phrase: it makes it appear as if his lame joke was beaten only once. Really I meant that to be a restrictive phrase: the same lame joke has been made several times on every page of this thread, repeatedly strawmanifying the descriptivist position in a way that shows ignorance of the position without providing the least elucidation He was only beaten by **canvasshoes** on this particular page. I should have left out that comma. “Strawmanifying,” on the other hand, is a great example of breaking rules of standard English in order to convey meaning. That’s nowhere nohow good Emily Post grammar, but it’s perfectly fine English grammar, inasmuch as most English speakers (and virtually all dopers) will know exactly what I meant. I hope these two examples will shed some light on the seeming contradiction in my stance for those interested in understanding where I’m coming from, and will irritate those who’d just prefer to lob cheap shots. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/188 "2005-09-22T02:02:11Z")
> [@BayleDomon](#): > > I think you need to read a bit more closely. There’s a whole paragraph after those three lines. If it helps, “prescriptive rules” is more or less equivalent to “standardized rules.” It’s not necessary to be condescending. I did read the following paragraphs. I was just reviewing the recent posts, trying to understand why you used that example at all when I discovered that **you were not the original poster I questioned**. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/189 "2005-09-22T02:04:14Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > The answer to that is long and complicated – certainly more complicated than “a bunch of stuffy old monks,” as someone else suggested, but that’s part of it. Monks did try to make English sound more scholarly by developing rules based on classical Latin. Some of it was social stratification – the upper class codifying a prestige dialect as a kind of filter, and as the middle class grew the climbers aspired to speak “proper English” by mimicing the prestige dialect of their superiors. Some of it was standardization of spelling and syntax after the printing press began widespread use. Both publishers and readers were probably tired of having things spelled a gazillion different ways. It’s complicated, but there’s obviously an artificality to “proper English.” If it was really indistinguishible from the common use of the language, there would be no distinction between good grammar and bad. > > Exactly. Those rules of grammar describe how people actually talk. The only “wrong” grammar would be an utterance no non-disabled native speaker would utter. Thanks. This makes sense to me. 😃 I would prefer a more real answer to the other question, though, than “the answer to that is long and complicated.” Is there a short version you can use for dummies like me? ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/190 "2005-09-22T02:06:19Z")
> [@BayleDomon](#): > > Some random shmucks. **cricetus** will probably have the answer before me, but if I look in _The Language Instinct_, Stephen Pinker says: > > “[In the eighteenth century] London had become the political and financial center of England, and England had become the center of a powerful empire. The London dialect was suddenly an important world language. Scholars began to criticize it as they would any artistic or civil institution, in part to question the customs, hence authority, of court and aristocracy. Latin was still considered the language of enlightenment and learning (not to mention the language of a comparably vast empire), and it was offered as an ideal of precision and logic to which English should aspire.” > > So basically, you’ve got critics who are saying the linguistic rules of Latin should apply to English, despite one being nothing like the other syntactically. The infamous rule “Don’t split an infinitive” came about because in Latin you _can’t_ split infinitives as you could in English. Many other rules, particularly for writing, came about simply because a group of people got together and decided what looked good on paper, then published a book about it. People looked at these rules, decided they liked them, and adopted them for use in writing. Some people go overboard and try to apply it to speech as well. > > (I hope that passage isn’t too long for copyrighted material. Would it help if I pulled an MLA style guide and gave a proper cite? 🙂 ) This was helpful, too. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/191 "2005-09-22T02:11:25Z")
> [@Large Marge](#): > > It’s not necessary to be condescending. I did read the following paragraphs. I was just reviewing the recent posts, trying to understand why you used that example at all when I discovered that **you were not the original poster I questioned**. Sheesh. My apologies. I might have misinterpreted the question. It seemed to be one that was answered by the same post. If you’re interested in this subject, I’d highly recommend _The Language Instinct_. It’s a very approachable and thorough introduction to the field of linguistics. It’s literally the best book out there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/192 "2005-09-22T02:53:22Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > And thanks for that great link, although I would hardly call it a rant. . I view it as a thinking man’s rant. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/193 "2005-09-22T02:56:06Z")
> [@BayleDomon](#): > > My apologies. I might have misinterpreted the question. It seemed to be one that was answered by the same post. > > If you’re interested in this subject, I’d highly recommend _The Language Instinct_. It’s a very approachable and thorough introduction to the field of linguistics. It’s literally the best book out there. 😃 I read it in college–I was an English communications major–but it’s been YEARS, so maybe I’ll give it a second read. I have always been interested in the evolution of language. For my linguistics final, I wrote a paper comparing Derek Bickerton’s theories with Charles Darwin’s. Don’t ask me about it now, though, cuz I don’t remember much more than the title and the grade I received for it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/194 "2005-09-22T07:53:16Z")
> [@Grelby](#): > > This is the social problem with prescriptivism. The people in power make the rules, and are able to use them as yet another reason to draw classist and racist boundaries. Poor people speak Cockney because they’re too stupid and uneducated to speak proper language. Black people speak AAVE because they’re too ignorant and undereducated to learn “real English.” Prescriptivist rules help to perpetuate these and related cultural memes about who’s “right” and who’s “wrong.” I know that social prejudice based on linguistic difference is a problem, and if you read the “Ebonics” thread that **liberty** linked to above, you’ll see that I’ve put in my time arguing against such prejudice. However, you can’t blame it on formal prescriptivist rules _per se_. Speakers of many languages stigmatize other languages and dialects as “gibberish” or “barbaric” or “savage” or “childish” speech, whether or not those speakers invoke a formal set of prescriptivist grammatical rules for their own language/dialect. Considering familiar linguistic usages to be “right” and unfamiliar ones to be “wrong” is a universal tendency, and would persist even if all explicit prescriptivist grammar rules were somehow wiped from the face of the earth. > [@Grelby](#): > > The icing on the cake of all this is that, not only is prescriptivism potentially harmful, it’s fundamentally useless! No matter how much effort you put into it, you have no measurable effect whatsoever on the way people actually speak. Sorry, but this doesn’t make sense. Of course rules have an impact on how people actually speak, or at least how they write. When publishers or newspaper editors or broadcasting executives adhere to a particular set of grammatical rules, and edit the texts they present to conform to those rules, that presents a certain picture of “standard usage” in formal communication. When some of those texts get into textbooks and anthologies used in schools, that picture becomes part of the pedagogical model for “correct” use of language. It’s true that enforcing grammatical rules can’t (and shouldn’t) actually **eliminate** all linguistic change over time. Some new usages will eventually win acceptance and the rules will change to reflect that. But I think it’s undeniable that prescriptivism to some extent **slows** the pace of change, at least in formal written communication. And as I’ve said a few times already—although AFAICT, nobody in the course of four pages of posts has responded to it—there are definite advantages to slowing the pace of linguistic change in formal written communication. It keeps more of our literary heritage and history accessible to more people for a longer period. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/195 "2005-09-22T13:37:15Z")
> [@Large Marge](#): > > Thanks. This makes sense to me. 😃 I would prefer a more real answer to the other question, though, than “the answer to that is long and complicated.” Is there a short version you can use for dummies like me? Um… everything that followed that sentence was a short version – scholarly monks following classic Latin, standardization of dialect in the wake of the printing press, upper class dialect and middle class affectation. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/196 "2005-09-23T00:56:23Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Um… everything that followed that sentence was a short version – scholarly monks following classic Latin, standardization of dialect in the wake of the printing press, upper class dialect and middle class affectation. You said “that’s part of it,” so I assumed there was more. Clearly, this is over my head. But beginning your sentences with a condescending “Um…” as though I’m a moron isn’t helping me to grasp the concepts any more quickly; it’s just making you look like an arrogant snob. Don’t worry, I won’t dirty your highly intellectual thread with any more of my stupid questions. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![galt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@galt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galt)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/197 "2005-09-27T06:59:33Z")
> [@Large Marge](#): > > Don’t worry, I won’t dirty your highly intellectual thread with any more of my stupid questions. Um… your inferiority complex is literally boring me to death. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414/198 "2005-09-27T22:02:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Sorry, but this doesn’t make sense. Of course rules have an impact on how people actually speak, or at least how they write. When publishers or newspaper editors or broadcasting executives adhere to a particular set of grammatical rules, and edit the texts they present to conform to those rules, that presents a certain picture of “standard usage” in formal communication. When some of those texts get into textbooks and anthologies used in schools, that picture becomes part of the pedagogical model for “correct” use of language. I’m not actively reading this thread anymore, so I don’t know what’s come before this, but in many cases, this is surprisingly untrue. A lot of rules (like our canonical example, the split infinitive) still exist in great numbers, even in formal writing. Even in the formal writing of people who deny they use it. Many people simply are not aware of what they actually say. There’s no doubt that formal grammar teaching has some effect. But if you ever take a look at Language Log ([http://www.languagelog.com/](http://www.languagelog.com/)) they frequently have discussions comparing grammatical advice given by “experts” (very often self-appointed ones) and the experts’ own usages - and finding that the experts themselves don’t apply them consistently. I’m sure it varies from rule to rule - restrictions on “ain’t” have certainly succeeded in ridding it from formal usage. But I bet that whole relative clause which-that rule (I can’t even remember how it’s supposed to go) isn’t applied even by those few stylists who still recommend it - it’s certainly easy to find violations in common literature. Most of these rules are very frequently violated when you examine literature; that’s one of the ways we can confirm that they aren’t largely all that effective. > [@](#): > > It’s true that enforcing grammatical rules can’t (and shouldn’t) actually **eliminate** all linguistic change over time. Some new usages will eventually win acceptance and the rules will change to reflect that. But I think it’s undeniable that prescriptivism to some extent **slows** the pace of change, at least in formal written communication. You’re making the all-too-common mistake of assuming that rules always enforce old usages (and the frequent comeback, “It’s a living language!”, doesn’t help that confusion.) Many - if not most - of the arbitrary grammar rules of the sort that linguists bitch about were simply invented, and do not have any basis in past usage. Even the use of “ax” in place of “ask” (forgive me if I’ve already used that example recently - I can’t keep these threads straight) is not new; Chaucer used them interchangeably. It’s simply erroneous to claim that conventional grammar instruction helps students understand older literature; it’s important to teach the rules of standard English writing, but don’t assume that the rules we teach today were followed by Shakespeare. > [@](#): > > And as I’ve said a few times already—although AFAICT, nobody in the course of four pages of posts has responded to it—there are definite advantages to slowing the pace of linguistic change in formal written communication. It keeps more of our literary heritage and history accessible to more people for a longer period. See, that’s why the Chinese were smart to use a writing system that didn’t change as spelling changed! I simply don’t believe that prescriptivist grammar slows the change of language enough to make any significant difference. It’s not just a matter of language evolution - in many cases, these rules are arbitrarily grafted onto a language that already violates them. And if formal written language is arrested in its development, it will simply mean that learning to read becomes an arduous task that most people won’t manage. For instance, before a hundred years ago, in China the literary standard was based upon Classical Chinese. Vernacular literature is a very recent development over there, precisely because of the reverence for old things (coupled to the highly stratified society and the ability of the rich to while away years of their lives learning to read and write.) But that just meant that learning to read entailed not just speaking the language and learning the characters, but also learning the language of two thousand years ago. By the time language has truly changed enough to render old literature hard to read, your choice becomes one between a formal written style that doesn’t reflect the spoken language at all - and thus becomes stilted and imitative, and very difficult to learn - or one that’s based on modern speech. Either way, reading older literature by the time the language has evolved significantly is quite difficult - but there’s no reason that should mean reading road signs and magazines should be difficult as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-literally-blowing-a-gasket-over-the-word-literally/322414.md?page=9)