Zheesh… isn’t it usually fairly straightforward to tell when “literally” is being used as in intensifier. Normally it precedes a hyperbolic statement.
To wit:
“The house is literally a piece of shit”
Does any sane speaker of English actually think the house is physically composed of excrement? It is absolutely OBVIOUS this is being used to intensify the hyperbole.
“He literally drives me up a wall.”
“The unionists will be literally thrown to the wolves”
Exactly the same as the above.
“He literally has thousands of CDs in his collection.”
In most contexts, I would assume this means that he really does have thousands of CDs in his collection. It’s plausible, so I would assume “literally” is being used in its literal sense here.
It’s fairly obvious most of the time. It’s a freakin’ figure of speech…Don’t tell me that it is that difficult to when people are using “literally” literally and when they are using “literally” figuratively.
I mean, listen to this sentence:
a) His house is figuratively a piece of shit.
b) His house is like a piece of shit.
c) His house is a piece of shit.
d) His house is literally a piece of shit.
Sentence “a” is the most “scientifically” accurate; also the most boring. Sentence “b” is a simile. A comparison is made, and it is stated that “house” shares something in common with “shit,” but the two are not equal. Sentence “c” is a straight metaphor. It’s much punchier and has more impact than the other ones. Astute readers with any sense will know that we are not to take that sentence literally. Sentence “d” is an intensified or exaggerated metaphor. That’s it.
I will agree that literally is an overused word but are you really telling me that you guys are such fucking daft pedantic pointy-nosed grammarians that you can’t tell when “literally” is being used as an intensifier and when it isn’t?!?!
No, we can tell, that’s why we’re all in here bitching about it being used improperly.
None of these need to be intensified, for the same reason you don’t need to say “more better”. By definition, hyperbole is already a method of ridiculously intensifying some statement or position. All of the above examples sound a million times better without the L-word. Notice how I did not need to use “literally” before “million” to make my exaggeration clear.
Based on the underlined parts of your statement, it doesn’t sound like you have any idea how many CDs he has, you’re just assuming he might have thousands. If, however, we continue to use “literally” to mean “figuratively”, as you suggest we should be able to do, then it’s no longer safe to make that assumption.
Disagree. Sentence C already contains hyperbole and does not need to be intensified. Sentence D is overkill.
If the “sleep for a year” and “weighs a ton” examples above are already hyperbole, what do they become when an unnecessary word like “literally” is added?
Who are you to say that you can’t add an intensifier to a hyperbole? Why can’t we agree that “literally” can be used two different ways? I mean if we can figure out by context the difference between “raze” and “raise,” then surely we’ll get by with “literally.”
Also, what happens when you add other unnecessary words to your hyperbolic example?
“I could sleep a year.”
“I could sleep a year and a fortnight.”
“I could sleep ten years.”
“I could sleep a million years.”
They’re all hyperbole. And it’s still a hyperbole when you add “literally.” (Incidentally, according to the OED, the first recorded use of “literally” as an intensifier is 1863. Yes, the OED frowns upon it, too.)
I literally died when I came across this post, basically, because, basically, I too am literally annoyed by the misuse of words, or the overuse of words, basically, which is quite literally a pain in the ass. Ironically, I literally laughed when I read the other posters. I mean I literally exploded with laughter, basically.
Yes, one can just give up the fight over “literally” and use “actually” instead. But then I reserve the right to complain when people start misusing “actually” as well. Because then there literally won’t be any way to say “literally”.
You know, I really don’t understand why I’m such a “grammar liberal,” especially since I did graduate with an English degree and I have been a copy editor on-and-off several times. (And, yes, I do have my grammar pet peeves…)
Now, Steven Pinker addresses the “I could care less” vs the “I couldn’t care less” controversy in one of his books. I believe it was in “The Language Instinct,” but I’m not positive. Listen to the tones of the two sentences when you say them out loud. The correct literal sentence, “I couldn’t care less” has a flat, falling tone to it. The tone of the oft-heard “I could care less” rises in the middle, i.e. “icouldCAREless.” Hey, what’s that tone mean kids? Anyone? Anyone? Yes!! IT’S SARCASM!!! The sentence isn’t meant to be taken literally…
What are your grammar pet peeves, pulykamell? I was wondering about that last night…
Okay, I don’t mind people saying “I could care less…” if they mean to be sarcastic (although even then, it seems a bit weird to me - and shouldn’t the emphasis be on the “less”, instead of the “care”?) but some people do say the phrase flatly, the same way they would say “I couldn’t care less”. So when I see the phrase in writing I give my pedantic instincts the benefit of the doubt…
My grammar and English-related pet peeves. I dunno… “loose” to mean “lose” always gets on my nerves. I perfectly understand why people insist on spelling it this way, but it still drives me nuts. Also “it’s” for “its” and any inappropriate or excessive use of the apostrophe prickles me, especially in university-level writing when people should know better. Also, for some reason the misuse of “imply” and “infer.” I know, I know…I’ve pretty much defended the whole “borrow” to mean “lend” argument, and I should be consistent with “imply” and “infer.” Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten my ears used to it like with “borrow.” Anyhow, that’s just a couple of them. Oh, yeah, and I hate the verb “impacted.”
Or as my father used to say “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times - don’t exaggerate!”
The whole concept of “literally” is to distinguish between exaggeration and truth. “Literally” is a word that is supposed to be used in place of “… and I know this sounds completely unbelievable but I swear to you it’s true…”. Using it to add weight to exaggeration renders it useless, because you can’t rely on it to make that distinction any longer. I had a friend who drove me crazy by saying “…he literally beat the crap out of her…” because I knew she didn’t mean it, but when she said “… he literally beat her black and blue…”, I didn’t know if she was saying that the guy beat his girlfriend until she was covered in bruises, or if she was exaggerating.
“Literally” shouldn’t be misused in this manner because it’s a useful term if only used correctly. It’s literally the difference between fact and fiction.
Here is what the American Heritage Dictionary has to say about ‘Literally’.
lit·er·al·ly (l¹t“…r-…-l¶) adv. 1. In a literal manner; word for word: translated the Greek passage literally. 2. Abbr. lit. In a literal or strict sense: Don’t take my remarks literally. 3. Usage Problem. a. Really; actually: “There are people in the world who literally do not know how to boil water” (Craig Claiborne). b. Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.
————————————————————
USAGE NOTE: For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of “in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.” In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example “The 300,000 Unionists . . . will be literally thrown to the wolves.” The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself—if it did, the word would long since have come to mean “virtually” or “figuratively”—but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive meaning “without exaggeration,” as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended. This looser use of the word literally does not usually create problems, but it can lead to an inadvertently comic effect when the word is used together with an idiomatic expression that has its source in a frozen figure of speech, such as in I literally died laughing
I hate it when people post from the dictionary, even in grammar threads. I hate it even more when people pop in at the end of a thread and post stuff from the dictionary that somebody else already posted earlier in the thread.
I am also feeling grumpy today, so don’t take too much offense, robcaro. Welcome to the boards! And stop posting from the dictionary, or I’ll kick your ass. Literally.
Think about this. Language usage changes. Always has, always will. I have to agree with those that assert that one should be able to distinguish the meaning from context. Consider ‘bourgeois’, it went through meaning changes in everyday usage through overuse. Big deal.
As to those quoting the dictionary (regarding ‘everyday’ usage), remember that words enter the dictionary through usage - not vise versa. This is language, not law.
Turning to a dictionary to claim that “literally” should appropriately be used to mean “figuratively” is begging the question. Dictionary definitions are descriptive rather than prescriptive tools, which is to say they describe how people commonly use words rather than making a judgement about whether or not the usage is correct. The original rant complained that a lot of people used literally to mean its opposite; the dictionary citations provided only further establish that this is a common practice. A more appropriate reference for this kind of question would be a stylebook. Both Strunk and White and the L.A. Times Stylebook curtly recommend against the broad usage.
Thinking people decide for themselves which linguistic shifts to encourage. Personally, I support liberal usage in most cases, but in the cases of “literally”, “ironically”, “disinterested”, and “begging the question”, I fear that no common alternative exist to carry the meaning these words once had. As they disappear, many people fail to recognize the ideas these words and phrases represent.
Yes, I know the whole descriptivist-prescriptivist spiel, but dictionaries are generally fairly to very conservative on allowing new non-standard meanings to enter. I mean, I certainly can’t find “to borrow” to mean “to lend” in the dictionary, even though many people do use it in this sense. And dictionaries do make judgment calls on usage and as well they should.
I must admit, you are the first person I have ever heard use the phrase “begging the question” in its original and correct sense. And you know what? It just sounds really weird to my ears.
Just don’t say “I could care less” and think it is an insult, It’s Not!!! The proper thing to say is “I couldnt care less” Then it is an insult, as you are at the lowest end of your care value.
