She's a writer! I'm sure that her socks were actually blown off. I just want to know what happened to her shoes...

That's what I'm saying, man-- those five minutes of song actually removed the socks from my person. (Tom says I'm using it incorrectly for humorous effect; I maintain that I could no longer feel my feet, or the rest of my body, save for my pounding heart after "And I Am Telling You," so I'm convinced that I took leave of my socks.)

Tell it to Louisa May Alcott who wrote in Little Women "the land literally flowed with milk and honey."

Tell it to F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote of Jay Gatsby that "he literally glowed."

Tell it to James Joyce who, in Ulysses, wrote of a Mozart piece that it is "the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat."

The use of the word literally in an unliteral way is at least a century older than the objection of modern proscriptive language mavens objecting to it.

Examples above drawn from this article from the editor of the Oxfored English Dictionary. As the article states, the English language is full of words used in opposition to their most...literal...meaning (and it also points out that the literal meaning of "literally" you are calling for is not actually the most literal original definition of the word).

This from the man who harps on people for saying "most unique".

You're thinking of someone else. I don't think I've ever harped on anybody for that.

I don't have a problem with "most unique" since I don't have a problem with the idea of various levels of uniqueness (its kind of like different sizes of infinity).

How dreary language would be if we had to strip out all metaphor or fiction and were forced to only use the factual and precise. Especially since life is so full of ambiguity and appearances often are at odds with an unseen reality. We'd need a whole new vocabulary, one full of words we could never define correctly.

Is the fact that I tried to read something by each of these writers at one point or another but dropped the books out of fear that I might expire due to pure, gasping boredom a good reason to invalidate your point?

Here's my only possible response: Clipped parcel viola whipple painting acrobat canticle.

In what way does finding them boring (and you'll also have to invalid Twain, Austen, Hemingway, etc.) invalidate the point that this use of "literally" long predates as common usage the decision of some that it is wrong?

How does it invalidate the point that using "literally" in the way you deride is a pretty standard feature of the English language and you've many other words and usages to object to.

More movies, less grammar speakings.











:D

My heart belongs to dada, for dada treats me so well - Ba-umf