5 Reasons To Never Use The Word “Literally”

[LiLredhairedgrl]

5 Reasons To Never Use The Word “Literally”

1. You’re Not Using It Right. Ever.

“Literally” means the literal use of a word. Meaning you’re not being figurative, symbolic or metaphorical.

The fat blogger is literally grasping at straws.

Correct because right now, I am grasping at three straws that will allow me to consume my tiny cannister of Diet Coke.

Fine regular Coke.

2 liters.

Omg you guys! I didn’t eat anything, I’m literally starving.

You’re not starving. Just hungry.

Omg you guys! I literally ran 2 miles today!

No, you did run 2 miles.

Omg you guys! I literally love cheese.

That might be a problem.

2. It’s The New “Like”.

What’s worse? Saying literally or using like every minute?

Or using “omg”?

Or combining them all to create a vapid unholy trifecta?

3. It Makes People Think You’re Lying.

Using ‘literally’ as an intensifier is like saying ‘honestly’. You don’t need it if you tell the truth.

4. It Stops You From Being Creatively Expressive.

Take this.

This individual was in class for a brief period of time.

Wouldn’t it be better if she changed it to this?

Maybe not.

5. This? This Is What You Sound Like When You Use “Literally”.

Enjoy.

There you have it. Reasons to never use “literally”.

I know many of you will hurtfully attack me because I come off like I’m word Hitler or something.

And I’ll face a shit storm of anger.

Just hopefully, not literally.

dee@tremendousnews.com
http://tremendousnews.com/2010/04/13/5-reasons-to-never-use-the-word-literally/

OMG! I literally like LoL'd while reading this...

:hello2:

 

[Anonymous]

I was talking with Nordling about the overuse of the word 'literally' too.


"OMG, I literally died laughing!"

"That was really scary! You literally gave me a heart attack!"

 

[Nordling]

:lol: ACTUALLY, I LITERALLY crapped my pants, YOU KNOW? OMG!

 

[SweepTheLeg]

I literally learned the proper usage of literally from theoatmeal.com

 

[RoxieRed]

It's only ok when Chris from Parks and Rec uses it!

 

[Rose]

I try not to use it too often, because I know I always misuse it. Lol. There's a few other words I badly abuse as well. I'm going to just push all the blame on my mostly southern upbringing. :lol:

 

[Mirra]

I guess I haven't been paying that much attention because I haven't noticed rampant overuse of the word nor how often it is used improperly. I may need to listen for this.

 

[SweepTheLeg]

you may need to literally listen for it.

 

[mynameisbob84]

It's only ok when Chris from Parks and Rec uses it!

I fucking love Parks and Rec :-D I also kinda have a thing for Lesley Knope

 

[SweepTheLeg]

Damn it, Jerry! This has literally gone off topic.

 

[VioletJune]

It's only ok when Chris from Parks and Rec uses it!

He's so obnoxious, though!

 

[mynameisbob84]

 

[SweepTheLeg]

I read your post just as soon as a commercial was being played of the most interesting man in the world. My mind has literally been blown.

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

Yep, I am gonna do it.....

:-D
I am *literally bumping this thread in order to share this video.

*Ok, maybe not me literally, but the buffalo is!
But wait!
The buffalo is not literally bumping the thread,
he is bumping the car.
So never mind....
I literally used literally incorrectly.

And now for our feature presentation....

 

[Nordling]

Ha ha! That was painful to sit through--literally!--but I couldn't stop!

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

Lets look at things literally shall we?

Facebook.

Cameltoe.

Lawnchair.

Loghouse.

Gunfire.

Dickhead?

 

[Just Me]

The last one blew it for me though. The others were literal, the dickhead only looked like one so was not literally a dickhead. :lol:

edit: Never mind, I see the question mark on that one now.

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah, I totally thought I was being clever with that one....

 

[Brad]

This is literally the most confusing thread ever.
:?

 

[Jillybean]

I am guilty.

I promise I'll work on it! LOL!

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

This is literally the most confusing thread ever.
:?

literally: in a literal sense or manner; actually
—Merriam-Webster

Etymology
Literally comes from the word literal. People began using it in the 1530s to mean in a literal sense.

Usage controversy
What is happening to literally is a lot like what is happening to unique, which we learned in the last post. People are using unique in its true meaning, of being the only of its kind, but they are also using it to mean unusual. People are watering down the word’s meaning (through semantic bleaching) to make it mean something different.

With literally, people are changing the meaning from in a literal sense to figuratively.

Take a look at these examples:

That joke was so funny that I literally peed my pants!

I was so mad at my boss that I literally jumped out of the window!

Now, if the person actually (or rather, literally) peed his pants, it is doubtful that he would want to share that story. (But I sure wouldn’t mind hearing that joke.) Likewise, if the person in the second example literally jumped out of the window, unless it was on the first floor, he probably wouldn’t still be alive to tell his story.

What the people in these examples really mean is that they figuratively peed their pants and that they figuratively jumped out of the window.

The Online Etymology Dictionary states that literally began being “erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate ‘what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense’ (1680s), which is opposite to the word’s real meaning.”[ii]

If literally has been used to mean figuratively since the 1680s, is there any way it can restore its original meaning? Perhaps the better question is, should we, as writers and speakers, just say “whatevs” and use literally in any context we please?

Where Grammar Party stands
My answer is: Stop it. Stop it, people! Literally stop using literally unless you are talking about something that has literally happened.

If you want to express how a joke you heard was so hilarious that it could theoretically induce unintentional peeing of pants, say something like, “Man, that joke was so funny that I nearly peed my pants.” Or if you want to explain just how upset your boss made you, say, “Man, my boss made me so mad that I almost jumped out of the window.” Unless you literally did something, and it happened in real life, don’t use literally.

In short, where Grammar Party stands on this issue of utmost importance is: Don’t use literally to mean figuratively. Use literally to mean literally.

http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/10/25/frequently-misused-words-literally/

:geek:

 

[Just Me]

In the end it is only people that do not like change and the pedantic's that get in a tiff about the usage. Did you understand what they said and meant? Did you think they were literally going to die like they said? The English language is an ever changing thing. Some of the greatest writers used literally incorrectly, it is an intensifier.

people have used literally as an intensifier for statements that were not literally true since at least the late 18th century. And it wasn’t just anyone using the word this way: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain—any number of respectable writers have thus employed literally. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, for instance, Mark Twain writes that Tom “was literally rolling in wealth.” But Tom is not, in fact, rolling around “in a literal, exact, or actual sense.”*

 

[Nordling]

In the end it is only people that do not like change and the pedantic's that get in a tiff about the usage. Did you understand what they said and meant? Did you think they were literally going to die like they said? The English language is an ever changing thing. Some of the greatest writers used literally incorrectly, it is an intensifier.

people have used literally as an intensifier for statements that were not literally true since at least the late 18th century. And it wasn’t just anyone using the word this way: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain—any number of respectable writers have thus employed literally. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, for instance, Mark Twain writes that Tom “was literally rolling in wealth.” But Tom is not, in fact, rolling around “in a literal, exact, or actual sense.”*

English and other languages are dynamic, they change over time, but is that fact license to use non-standard usage or malapropisms willy-nilly? Pendants have a purpose--they slow the change over time to keep language a useful tool for communications. Intensifiers have their place but often they are used as a result of sloppy speech. Does "literally" add anything useful when used this way? I suggest it rarely does, and people mostly use it as a habit they've gotten into--similar to how I end sentences on forums with "lol" too often. lol

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

I just had to "bump" this thread to share this relevant essay I found...

Literally Indefensible
Your protestations about “literally” are literally wrong

“Have we literally broken the English language?” asks Martha Gill in The Guardian today. The problem, such as it is, seems to be that the definition of “literally” has been updated in some dictionaries. “This might be the most unforgivable thing dictionaries have ever done,” says Samantha Rollins, anthropomorphizing bound stacks of paper, echoing the sentiments of literally 50% of Twitter.

Well, let’s see about that.

https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/1a82337f14a7

It really is quite clever, y'all ought to check it out.

:hello2:

*Oh and I apologize for the manboobs.... :mrgreen:


Edit to add one more link just for fun....muaw haha! It is called "Why I Stopped Being a Grammar Snob"... :-D

I used to be a proud grammar snob. I secretly reveled in my schadenfreude when people muddled their (there? they’re?) homonyms. I had inflexible opinions on the subject of comma use. I laughed at people who used “whom” incorrectly.

And then I took a linguistics class that changed my whole outlook, not just on grammar but also on the social impact of language. It sounds dramatic, I know, but in university you’re allowed to have dramatic epiphanies.

https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/aac6634d79af

 

[LilyEvans]

The main reason the overuse of "literally" makes me sad is that it lessens the humorous effect when I purposely misuse it.

"Ugh, my homework literally took about a million hours."
"...LITERALLY a million? Wouldn't you be, like, dead?"
:roll: Yes, it was hyperbole. Thanks for ruining my hilarious* joke though.

*I do not literally think that joke is hilarious. I am once again using hyperbole for humorous effect. :-D

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

Ha! I agree with you wholeheartedly my dear Lily...

And OMG the word "literally" is used quite often on this forum...I used the search function to find this thread and used the word "literally" of course and I was presented with 136 pages of posts!

Yeah, I had to be a little more specific if I was gonna find what I wanted.... :geek:


Note: Although I could have found it real quick if I had remembered that I was literally the one who started the thread to begin with...haha!

 

[LadyLuna]

Ha! I agree with you wholeheartedly my dear Lily...

And OMG the word "literally" is used quite often on this forum...I used the search function to find this thread and used the word "literally" of course and I was presented with 136 pages of posts!

Yeah, I had to be a little more specific if I was gonna find what I wanted.... :geek:


Note: Although I could have found it real quick if I had remembered that I was literally the one who started the thread to begin with...haha!

Do the following things before you search, to make it easier to look through:

Step 1: Narrow it to the proper subforum
Step 2: narrow it to search only topic titles if you know it applies to the topic you're looking for
Step 3: make it show results as topics, instead of posts (I always do this with the first search, because usually there's a topic about the question, but sometimes this doesn't work if what I'm looking for is somewhere in the middle of a daily thread).

 

[zippypinhead]

*Oh and I apologize for the manboobs.... :mrgreen:

I've seen that gif a million times before, but I literally just now realized it's from Trailer Park Boys.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Do the following things before you search, to make it easier to look through:

Step 1: Narrow it to the proper subforum
Step 2: narrow it to search only topic titles if you know it applies to the topic you're looking for
Step 3: make it show results as topics, instead of posts (I always do this with the first search, because usually there's a topic about the question, but sometimes this doesn't work if what I'm looking for is somewhere in the middle of a daily thread).

Step 1 is the problem. I only ever click on 'View unread posts' so I literally never see which subforum any post is in. ALL new messages are just there lined up by time the last new message was posted in them. So I just don't pay attention where they come from. (yes, i know it says at the top of each thread, but when I click on the the little symbol for 'view latest post' it goes to the bottom of the page and i don't see that either)

 

[LadyLuna]

Do the following things before you search, to make it easier to look through:

Step 1: Narrow it to the proper subforum
Step 2: narrow it to search only topic titles if you know it applies to the topic you're looking for
Step 3: make it show results as topics, instead of posts (I always do this with the first search, because usually there's a topic about the question, but sometimes this doesn't work if what I'm looking for is somewhere in the middle of a daily thread).

Step 1 is the problem. I only ever click on 'View unread posts' so I literally never see which subforum any post is in. ALL new messages are just there lined up by time the last new message was posted in them. So I just don't pay attention where they come from. (yes, i know it says at the top of each thread, but when I click on the the little symbol for 'view latest post' it goes to the bottom of the page and i don't see that either)

I can't really help that... I don't use that view, so I can usually find what I'm looking for. Then again, I only read Random Discussion, General Camming Discussion, Ask a Model, and check a couple threads in the games section. Occasionally, I'll visit Sexy Stuff for fap fodder... but I almost never post there. So if you're pretty sure I posted to it, try those three subforums

('Twas a joke, I don't really think you keep track of which threads I've posted in.)