More literal excitement here, here, here and here.
UPDATE: Like a late birthday present, the A.Word.A.Day newsletter drew my attention to an opinion piece written for the Sydney Morning Herald by a fellow literal soldier. Not sure how long that link'll last, so I'll paste the text here for posterity.
It's hard to express irony with tongue literally in cheekUPDATE 2: Jess has just drawn my attention to an entire blog devoted to misuses of the word 'literally'. Thanks Jess; I'm literally over the moon!
Sally Brownlow
February 28, 2007
I'M NOT a grammar prude. I admit to being amused by the ironic lack of irony in Alanis Morissette's song Ironic. Of course, the events listed in her song were not blessed with irony, they were just run-of-the-mill bummers. No matter how dramatically you sing it, rain on your wedding day is just rain on your wedding day. Thousands of us have had it and haven't gone off complaining to the Goddess of Irony.
If you were an internationally acclaimed meteorological forecaster and had chosen your wedding date based on years of data and weather modelling and then, in the midst of an unprecedented decade-long drought, it rained unexpectedly for the 20-minute duration of your outdoor wedding service, it could be getting closer to being considered ironic, but even then it would really still just be a bummer. Go complain to the Goddess of Bad Luck instead!
So no, I am not a prude. But, I have to draw the line somewhere. The misuse of "literally" has really got my goat. Metaphorically of course (not literally), as my goat is still in the paddock. I am bombarded (metaphorically) by it every day.
A quick Google of the news gave me a good sample. I was told that the Bush Administration has been on "a massive spending spree in Iraq, literally throwing tonnes of money at problems". A veteran of Australian Antarctic expeditions explained how the discovery of the ship Thala Dan had "literally blown us away". My 10-year-old often claims to literally laugh his head off. I hope he picks it up before I tread on it. I am surrounded by parents "literally bursting with pride" and their children "literally bubbling with excitement". Things could get unpleasantly messy.
Why do we feel the need to abuse this delicate and fragile word? When used correctly it is sublime. Consider the news item headlined "Doctor gives stripper a hand - literally" about a doctor who stole a severed hand and gave it to a stripper to display in her apartment. Perfect. We need to protect the sanctity of the word, to secure its integrity for future generations.
We all recognise the unwritten agreement that unless specified otherwise, we are speaking metaphorically. My earlier specifications in this article were obviously unnecessary; I was using them to make a point. You knew my goat was safe and that I was not being physically attacked by grammar errors on a daily basis. So let's just make a simple pact: literally never use the word "literally" unless the meaning is literal. Isn't it ironic that I'd need to suggest such a thing?
Posts
A thought that just occurred to me:
ReplyDeleteThe concept of "in a non-metaphorical sense" currently denoted by the word "literally" appears to be slowly but surely losing its word to the concept of emphasis.
It would appear that this particular word hijacking has happened before - after all "in a non-metaphorical sense" is the literal meaning of the world "really", which in modern English is commonly used for emphasis.
Is there another word that can be used to replace "literally" when it finally goes the way of "really"? And, how long will that word last in the slot?
I would literally replace it with absolutely.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, except that:
ReplyDelete1) "absolutely" already has a completely different meaning.
2) In any case, it's already well into the process of losing that meaning and joining "literally" and "really" in the club of emphatic adverbs.
Besides, it's not a question of mandating word usage. If it was, we wouldn't be bemoaning the gradual loss of the word "literally". We'd just get the Alliance-Anglaise to ban the incorrect usage. (and English would become as moribund as French.)
Great question, JJ. Juicy.
ReplyDeleteIt was with horror that I recently discovered the second definition for ‘literally’ in Microsoft Word’s dictionary is: “a word used to emphasize another word or phrase (informal).”
Argh! The masses are at the gate! Although according to Fowler's Guide to English Usage, they’ve been there since at least the early 19th century. It records a number of inexact usages, the earliest of which is from 1863, but my favourite is: And with his eyes he literally scoured the corners of the cell. –V. Nabokov, 1960. Ouch!
The Guide’s final word of advice is: It's a case of 'stop, look, and think' before using the word in any manner short of its exact sense. Something I’m sure I’ll never be successful in convincing people to do. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. English is only the wonderful language it is because the masses have taken it by the throat and hurled it against a wall, bashing into some new shape and form. But that’s no reason not to battle against change from time to time. And, for me, this is one of those times. Of course no one person, or yes, one institution, can control a language, but like that little band of Gauls facing off against the Roman Empire, I’ll fight to defend my village. :)
Oh, and as for alternate possibilities, what about 'factually'? "She factually threw the baby out with the bathwater." No. I like the actually/factually angle, but it's not quite right.
ReplyDeleteWhat about 'non-symbolically' or 'non-metaphorically'? No. Too clumsy. Sigh. 'Literally' is literally spot on!
Mongrels.
Hmm. Yes there's seems an unstoppable wave a comin'. "Actually "is pretty good. I don't mind the lengthy yet emphatic "word for word" or "letter for letter". Or both for extra punch!
ReplyDeleteeg. "She actually - letter for letter and word for word - threw the baby out with the bath water!"
I like it. Sounds a bit like an A. A. Milne poem.
ReplyDelete“Remember, Pooh,” said Christopher Robin, “Letter for letter and word for word, the actual sense is always preferred.” :)
Apostropher, as one who thankfully appears to care about such things, would you be similarly concerned by the affect/effect disease which is striking down the great unwashed in their thousands? Barely a day goes by in my (anonymous) workplace without
ReplyDelete"how many customers were effected by this?" or
"it had a negative affect on sales"
... and so on...
Perhaps people wrongly use 'literally' instead of 'practically'. "With his eyes, he practically scoured the corners of the cell".
ReplyDeleteI am coming back to this thread. I've just had a crazy burgerk week. I apologise for any inconvenience caused. Cheerio.
ReplyDeleteAlso "virtually".
ReplyDeleteOh Phil, I'm concerned about far more things than I should be. Affect/effect is one, certainly, as are inquire/enquire, stationery/stationary and to/too, plus, of course the old favourites: their/they're/there, your/you're, were/we're, and its/it's. Definite/definate is another irritation that springs to find. Oh, and using 'ambivalent' to mean 'undecided.'
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am less concerned than I used to be. I've mellowed in my old age, and gone a bit que sera sera. This came mostly from reading Bill Bryson's entertaining (though apparently deeply flawed) Mother Tongue, which helped me to realise a number of things:
• that when changes are seen happening in our lifetimes, it is almost always greeted with cries of despair and alarm, but such change is both continuous and inevitable;
• that many throughout history have tried to arrest change, but have failed almost every time, and to interfere in the process of change is both arrogant and futile "since clearly the weight of usage will push new meanings into currency no matter how many authorities hurl themselves in the path of change."
• that many words we think of today as 'Americanisms' were actually used in Elizabethan times, but fell out of use and have only now been reintroduced to the Motherland, eg, 'Fall' (the season) and 'trash';
• that keeping or losing the 'u' in words like humour, honour and colour was almost entirely arbitrary, and we were quite happy to lose it in terrour, horrour and governour. Even more confusing is that we dropped it in some forms but kept it in others, so we have honour and honourable but honorary and honorarium; colour and colouring but coloration; humour but humorist; labour and labourer but laborious.
• that there are many words we use and accept today that caused much alarm amongst yesteryear's defenders of the language. Racial, television and speedometer, for example. Can you imagine railing against 'television'? The word, I mean. Rail against Flavor of Love or Breaking Up with Shannon Doherty all you like.
So, it's examples like these that helped me to see that what I know as English is not the end of the journey; it's not a model of perfection to be chiseled into stone and venerated until the End of Days by those who are yet to come. It's simply the crest of a wave that can change and will change whether I'm waving my hands and shouting at it or not.
So if people want to misspell 'definite', use 'awesome' to mean 'ok' and use 'literally' to mean 'really, really, really', well... go ahead. Their doing so doesn't mean that I have to do so as well. As I said before, I'll still fight my battles, still champion the Cause of Clarity, but it's not a holy war, not a win-at-all-costs fight; it's more an arm-wrestle at the end of which we're still all friends and I'll see you down at the pub. :)
I've always found the following quote from Yes, Prime Minister very amusing ...
ReplyDeleteBernard Woolley: As they say, it's a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Jim Hacker: Oh really, Bernard, must you and Humphrey really always express yourself in this roundabout and pompous way? "More honoured in the breach than the observance"! Must you always distort and destroy the most beautiful language in the world - the language of Shakespeare?
Bernard Woolley: That *is* Shakespeare, Prime Minister.
"With his eyes, he practically scoured the corners of the cell." Also "virtually."
ReplyDeletePractically, meaning 'very nearly but not quite', isn't too bad, but I think 'virtually' has developed too strong a sense of 'virtual reality' and simulation to really work. It might suggest he'd slipped on a pair of VR goggles that he'd somehow managed to have smuggled into his cell, right under the noses of the screws. Yeah!
The real shame in this example is that it really didn't need *any* emphatic adverb. 'Scoured' brings enough 'really, really, really' to the sentence all on its own, imho.
Pot calling the kettle black and all that, but Apostropher, do you think you might have read too much science fiction?
ReplyDeleteOutside the genre, I wasn't aware that the word "virtual" was quite so lost to us yet.
Funny that you should bring up Bill. I was going to add that Mother Tongue also gave me a new appreciation for that writer of irritating high school amateur theatre productions.
ReplyDeleteI'll paste in a slab:
"The changing structure of English allowed writers the freedom to express themselves in ways that had never existed before, and none took up this opportunity more liberally than Shakespeare, who happily and variously used nouns as verbs. as adverbs, as substantives, and as adjectives – often in ways they had never been employed before. He even used adverbs as adjectives, as with 'that bastardly rogue,' in Henry IV, a construction that that must have seemed as novel then as it does now. He created expressions that could not grammatically have existed previously – such as 'breathing one's last' and 'backing a horse'.
No one in any tongue has ever made greater play of his language. He coined some 2,000 words – an astonishing number – and gave us countless phrases. As a phrasemaker there has never been anyone to match him. Among his inventions: one fell swoop, in my mind's eye, more in sorrow than in anger, to be in a pickle, bag and baggage, vanish into thin air, budge an inch, play fast and loose, go down the primrose path, the milk of human kindness, remembrance of things past, the sound and the fury, to thine own self be true, to be or not to be, cold comfort, to beggar all description, salad days, flesh and blood, foul play, tower of strength, to be cruel to be kind, and on and on and on and on. And on. He was so wildly prolific that he could put two in one sentence, as in Hamlet's observation: 'Though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance.' He could even mix metaphors and get away with it, as when he wrote: 'Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles.'"
Although I can't say I've referred to my "salad days" of late...
ReplyDeleteAnd I really should sit down and watch Yes, (Prime) Minister sometime, and get to know more than just the last five minutes of every epsiode from when my parents would switch from SBS News to ABC News during the dinner times of my childhood. :)
ok i don't want to FREAK YOU GUYS THE HELL OUT, but i have a contribution to make...
ReplyDeletemy understanding of the original meaning of the word 'literally' is in fact the *opposite* of its contemporary meaning.
clearly, the relationship between the words 'literal' and 'literature' are evident. it is with some regret that i suggest that 'literally' originally referred to something which is being described in a 'literary' manner, therefore meaning somewhat altered for the sake of semantic attractiveness.
therefore, something which is now referred to as 'metaphor' is in fact a 'literal' description. an example of this is in the opening lines of william blake's poem 'The Tiger': "Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, in the forest of the night". This poem is, in fact, a literal (in this different sense of the word) description of the moon.
'Literal' is thus not the OPPOSITE of 'metaphorical' or 'figurative', but in fact describes a similar concept...
OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH........
and an interesting contribution on this subject (although not one i completely agree with) can be found here: http://www.slate.com/id/2129105/
and this links to a FULL BLOG on the use and abuse of the word 'literally': http://literally.barelyfitz.com/
ENJOY!
:) JT x
Hi Jess. Thanks so much for those links. Who would've known there'd be people out there who'd want to keep a record of literal misuses? Crazy.
ReplyDeleteNow. What is your reference for this crazy talk? I don't have an authoritative hard cover my word is law etymology dictionary to cite, but the Online Etymology Dictionary (comes top in a Google search and has an impressive looking logo so that's good enough for me) records 'literal' as "taking words in their natural meaning (originally in ref. to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical)." That sounds near enough to me to our contemporary meaning.
And anyway, even if 'literally' did once mean the opposite of what it means today, that doesn't mean we should change our ways. We can only work with what we've got, and if we travel down that path we'd have to start using 'nice' to mean 'stupid' again. And wouldn't that be confusing!
hehe Hugh Laurie on winning his second Golden Globe for House: "I'm speechless. I am, literally, without a speech."
ReplyDeleteTrust the Brits to do it right :)
haha... so i'm doing a bit of househunting... check this out:
ReplyDelete"this two-bedroom apartment has an array of local amenities such as Union Square shopping, city-bound tramlines and local parkland literally on its doorstep."
i wish they had a photo. that must be one HELL of a doorstep :D