This literally makes my head spin on its axis.

Poststructural Pub
1

My language-related pet peeve: Misuse of the word literally. Just heard a classic example on the TODAY SHOW. Campbell Brown interviewed CNN’s Lou Dobbs about immigration reform. (Lou Dobbs’s thing about immigration reform is another pet peeve of mine, but that’s for another day.) Campbell said to Lou, “This is really your issue; you talk about it contantly on your program; and when you do there is literally steam coming out of your ears.”

That Lou. What a hothead.

I have a family member who shall remain nameless who is an offender. She’ll say “I’m literally freezing to death” when it’s a bit chilly in the house. “I’m literally starving to death” when lunch is a bit late.

There’ll be a special citation for the person who can point out the largest number of English errors I made in this post.

2

Lou Dobbs is a steam locomotive?
I had no idea! :stuck_out_tongue:
This blows my mind!! :laughing:

3

Hmmmmm. ‘I’m figuratively freezing to death’ and ‘I’m figuratively starving to death’ don’t seem to cut it either.

4

Doesn’t seem to have the verbal impact the speaker was going for…
no oooommmph. :stuck_out_tongue:

Insert any number of synonyms or antonyms into a “literally” sentence for more fun (wow, just like MadLibs!!)

actually, completely, correctly, direct, directly, faithfully, indisputably, literatim, not figuratively, plainly, precisely, really, rightly, rigorously, sic, simply, straight, strictly, truly, undeviatingly, undisputably, unerringly, unmistakably, verbatim, veritably, absolutely, de facto, genuinely, in fact, in reality, in truth, indeed, literally, really, truly, veritably, very, candidly, face-to-face, honestly, in person, literally, openly, personally, plainly, point-blank, truthfully, unequivocally, verbatim, without prevarication, altogether, bang, carefully, completely, correctly, definitely, explicitly, expressly, faithfully, faultlessly, for certain, for sure, indeed, just, literally, methodically, no mistake, positively, precisely, quite, right, rigorously, scrupulously, severely, sharp, specifically, square, strictly, the ticket, totally, truly, truthfully, unequivocally, unerringly, utterly, veraciously, wholly, about, approximately, around, inaccurately, inexactly, roughly, ambiguously, equivocally, indirectly, figuratively, loosely, metaphorically.

My favorite is ‘ambiguously.’
“I’m ambiguously starving to death”
“Steam ambiguously comes out of your ears, Lou!”



This all ambiguously blows my mind.

:stuck_out_tongue:

5

I am undeviatingly unsurprised since modern journalism is rife with bad language.

6

No, but the best is saying, “Man, it’s f**king cold in here!” It has the oomph required in such a situation.

Mark

7

This reminds me of a story.

I’m in college, which means I spend more time listening to other people talking on cell phones than actually learning. So imagine how amused I was when, the other day, one particularly loud female declared that, upon some particularly surprising event, she had “literally sh*t her pants.”

I might have giggled.

8

Yeah. That’s a good one.

9

I thought you’d never ask :slight_smile:

Sentence fragment: missing the verb.

No subject here, move along.

It’s Dobbs’. And I’ve never liked the double possesive “of mine”.

You need a “[sic]” after “contantly”.

These look fine…

There’s a clause here that’s standing literally commaless. (This
is an example of taking “literally” out in the street and shooting it,
which I also witness almost daily.)


I have a friend who not only misuses “literally”, but pronounces it
without the second syllable: “lit’rally”. This makes me insane with
rage for some reason. It just throws salt on the wound, I suppose.
He also likes to follow all terminal fricatives with stops, like “a
caraft of juice”, or “a guitar rifft”, or “21 acrosst”, but I forgive
him because he’s from the mountains.

10

I have always found it best to side-step issues like these (yes, laterally).

djm

11

a guitar rift…
I believe the Guitar Rifft was Pete Townsend’s specialty…




12

I don’t know how you people got so learned, I swear. It took me some time to figure out what a “terminal fricative” would be. It sounded sort of like chicken fricasee but then it sort of sounded like friction and the f word so I was literally melting down. Would your friend say “girafft”? That would be sort of funny :laughing: .

13

Actually, “Dobbs’s” is correct. If you pronounce the possessive “ess” as a separate syllable - Dobbs-es - you write it just as Dale did. Only if you don’t pronounce it as a separate syllable - as in “the Sagers’ dog” - do you put only the apostrophe at the end.

Susan

14

This is a cool site about language construction, which gives a simple
overview of consonant and vowel groupings in linguistics/phonetics.

http://zompist.com/kitlong.html#sounds


My favorite use of these terms was in the wikipedia article on
“Bronx Cheer”, where the sound was described as a “Linguolabial trill”
(Linguo = toungue, labial = lips, trill is obvious). I think that term is
ambiguously dirty sounding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguolabial_trill

15

Deliberate. I hate verbs. I also often avoid subjects.

[quote=“Dale”]
Just heard a classic example on the TODAY SHOW.
[/quote]

No subject here, move along.

I rest my case.

[quote=“Dale”]
(Lou Dobbs’s thing about immigration reform is another pet peeve of mine, but that’s for another day.)
[/quote]

It’s Dobbs’. And I’ve never liked the double possesive “of mine”.

Yeah, I was just reading in “Woe Is I” about this. She prefers the double possessive. By the way, you misspelled possessive.

[quote=“Campbell”]
you talk about it contantly on your program
[/quote]

You need a “[sic]” after “contantly”.

No. I just misspelled it!

[quote=“Dale”]
I have a family member who shall remain nameless who is an offender.
[/quote]

There’s a clause here that’s standing literally commaless. (This
is an example of taking “literally” out in the street and shooting it,
which I also witness almost daily.)

Yeah, you know, I’ve been working on that. I tend to use a lot of commas, and, I’m, trying, to cut, down.

16

I have a nasty habit of always using… when I have a brain fart… which is quite often… just ask my wife… she witnesses it first hand…er, ear…

17

I bought a big stuffed dog for my brother with ears a foot long. :stuck_out_tongue:

The one that gets me is by and large. What on earth does that mean? :confused:

I am literally writhing in pain! :astonished: :boggle: [/b]

18

… you and me both buddy, as much as I admire Pete, I really cannot endorse smashing beautiful instrument that most of guitar players would give our eye teeth for… shudders and goes off to read another topic…

19

My big peeve is use of “which” instead of “that”.

20

English has no language academy (parallel to the Académie Française) or other governing body that controls (or tries to control) the language’s use so really anything that’s common usage eventually becomes the correct way to say it. It sometimes takes a long time (decades or centuries) for everybody to catch on, but that’s how languages change and evolve.