Bryan Garner, author of “Garner’s Modern American Usage,’’ has developed a scale for the five stages of misuse. Stage one is when usage mistakes crop up, but are widely rejected. By the time a word reaches the dreaded stage five, Garner writes that the incorrect definition is “truly universal, and the only people who reject it are eccentrics.’’(Videos: short, long. HT: Linda Holmes.)
Garner now puts “literally’’ at stage three, which is defined as “being used by a majority of the language community.’’ However, Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com, believes “literally’’ has already slipped dangerously close to stage four, which means that it has become ubiquitous and only a few diehards reject the new meaning.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
A CHRIS TRAEGER GRAMMAR RODEO SPECIAL: Yes, literally weeks after we tackled the topic, the Boston Globe explores what literally must be America's most overused adverb:
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The Little Earthling literally knows the difference.
ReplyDeleteLiterally? Seriously?
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ReplyDeleteYou know, I'm no expert, but I sense a problem in the interpretation of the misuse of the word.
I don't buy the idea that people don't know what the word means. And I also don't buy that people who use it "wrong" are using it in place of "figuratively" in any sense more meaningful than the fact that the sentence would still make sense if you switched out the words. I think that almost everyone who uses it to modify a figurative statement is using it as an intensifier only, and knows full well it doesn't mean the same thing as figuratively.
I think many, MANY more people are aware of the proper meaning of literally than are aware of the proper meaning of words like bemused, nonplussed, and most other commonly-misused words, even hopefully. Things like the MadTV sketch and the Rob Lowe character are one reason I think this. If people didn't know they were using it wrong, what would the joke be?
Then there's this:“It should not be used as a synonym for actually or really,’’ writes Paul Brians in “Common Errors in English Usage."
But…why not? Aren't those both words that could mean either "very" or "literally"? It makes perfect sense that literally itself would be treated the same way over the course of time. And even if you're against using literally as an intensifier, there are still a lot of situations where literally, actually, and really are all synonyms.
Given that this has been going on for about 200 years, with precedents such as Dickens 1839 in place, it's kind of amazing that anyone still knows about the distinction at all.
I am actually in favor of using literally as an intensifier, VERY SPARINGLY. The problem is that for some reason it's hard to use sparingly. It's a weirdly sticky word that's hard to stop using once you start.
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FWIW, we discussed "nonplussed" back in April.
ReplyDeleteThis is literally one of my biggest pet peeves.
ReplyDelete"Literally" is not just an intensifier, or a synonym for "actually" or "really." It is intended to signfiy something that sounds like an exaggeration but really isn't. If you're really angry, you can say "I'm really angry" or "I'm very angry," but saying "I'm literally angry" doesn't mean anything. However, saying "I'm so angry that smoke is literally coming out of my ears," if smoke is indeed coming out of your ears, then that's an appropriate use of the word (although I confess I don't know if this is anatomically possible).
I've given up being irked by literally - I now save my wrath for actually.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how stages four and five can be fairly described as "misuse."
ReplyDeleteI tend to side with descriptivists, but not when the etymology of the word establishes a literal contradiction between origin and usage. Does it break The Rule to blame this all on Joe Biden?
ReplyDeleteIf you said "I'm literally shaking with anger," that would be an appropriate use of the word.
ReplyDeleteI like to qualify my usuage of literally as follows: "I was literally pulling icicles off my eyelashes--and I know the difference between literally and figuratively and I truly mean literally in this instance." Wordy, yes. Obnoxious, yes. But I like it.
ReplyDeleteQuestionable as to The Rule, but blaming it all on Joe Biden is unquestionably a big f**king deal.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, I watched the STOP. POOPING. clip linked from the second youtube vid and I literally could not keep myself from laughing. AGAIN. Hundreds--nay, thousands!--of times, never not funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as usual, there are "objections" that are nonsense:
ReplyDelete---
He points to a recent quote by Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, who said, “This is literally a dream come true, just like it is for everyone on this team.’’
“Thomas and his teammates didn’t all ‘literally’ dream about winning the Stanley Cup and then wake up to find themselves acting out their dreams,’’ Zimmer says.
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Who said anything about dreaming and then waking up immediately? How does the author know that it is not true that each Bruin has literally dreamed of winning the Cup?
"I'm so angry that smoke is actually coming out of my ears."
ReplyDelete"I'm so angry that smoke is really coming out of my ears."
"I'm actually shaking with anger."
"I'm really shaking with anger."
Sure seem like synonyms of literally by my reading.
Sorry, just realized "very" was the wrong choice...it works for really but not actually. I should have just said that both those words are used as both intensifiers AND synonyms for literally.
ReplyDeleteAnd all wrong, too, assuming that smoke is not literally coming out of your ears and you are not literally shaking with anger.
ReplyDeleteGuest was me
ReplyDeleteI'd be willing to bet there's not a player in the NHL who hasn't literally dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup. That one also struck me as absolutely ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteMy now nine year old daughter used literally as a synonym for figuratively a few times and genuinely didn't realize she was using it incorrectly until I told her. My guess is she picked it up from hearing it used that way all around her. THAT'S how the incorrect usage spreads - kids who don't know any better repeating what they've heard.
Or all hyperbole.
ReplyDeleteTo show how far this has gone there is a Mercedes (I believe) commercial where a person says "I was literally falling asleep at the wheel" and it sounds funny to hear someone use it correctly.
ReplyDeleteA few years back, after our company' annual "volunteer day," when all employees do a community service activity for a day, the CEO left a VM for all employees that thanked us for the "literally back-breaking work" we did. Sorry, I can't accept that becoming accepted usage. I just can't.
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely why the misuse of literally is such a problem and not just a technical objection that causes one to be mocked by society. When "literally" is taken to mean "figuratively," then we have lost the ability to simply inform a listener that the seemingly hyperbolic thing just described actually happened. Unlike "actually" or "really" or other synonyms, "literally" tells the listener (as Meghan does explicitly) that the speaker understands that what he/she is about to say may seem like exaggeration, but it is not.
ReplyDeleteThis usage makes much more clear why "literally" is misused so frequently today. It is not, as has been suggested, that "literally" is just used for emphasis as a stand-in for "very." Instead, "literally" is used as a shorthand to say "I know people use this expression all the time, but it really applies to my situation." In other words, by adding "literally" people are saying "I really mean it" but by "it" they are referring to the sentiment, not the phrase. For example, if someone says "It is literally raining cats and dogs out there." he/she probably doesn't mean that animals are falling from the sky, but instead means something closer to "It is really raining hard out there and much harder than when people normally say it is raining hard out there." I see this use of literally as a backlash against the overuse of idioms, leaving people with worn out phrases that they have to somehow revive in order to get the meaning across. (Rob Lowe's character is emblematic of this. It is not enough to say something is the best "X" because that phrase is overused; so you add a "literally" to distinguish yourself from those who call everything the best "X."
ReplyDeleteI am guilty of overusing "literally." I had dinner with a friend tonight and caught myself saying it far too many times. That being said, I usually use it properly, i.e. as someone put it above, to explain that something that could be an exaggeration is actually true, and not as an intensifier.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I recently told someone that when I first saw the scene in Billy Madison where the professor begins by saying, "What you just said....is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard" that I laughed so hard that I literally almost threw up. This was true -- I laughed to the point of extremely bad stomach cramps and very narrowly avoided losing what I remember as a large dinner.
Also, I literally have frequent nightmares about returning to my former law firm.
Which is why the creep with "literally" is so bad -- it's a word that means "not hyperbole." Why would we want to rob it of that meaning? It's as if the argot swallowed up "I swear under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America" and spit it back out as "just kidding."
ReplyDeleteAre you telling me that was a special effect in 9 to 5?
ReplyDeleteThe very weird other useage I've only just started to notice is the, I-guess-technically-correct-but-completely-missing-the-point use of "literally" to describe the mundane. As in, "I am literally sitting in my desk chair typing this."
ReplyDeleteWe were watching my older son pitch in a 9-year-old baseball game (in a tense situation) when my younger son said, "I'm literally having a heart attack." Fortunately, he obviously didn't know the meaning of either "literally" or "heart attack."
ReplyDelete