Heart and Mind

Blog Classic: Literally

With the exception of one lone post early on, I haven't used "recycled material" on this blog. I wanted to keep it fresh and not draw upon old concepts and writings that folks who know me already have heard before. But I recently came across this old "essay" I wrote on my distaste for the misuse of the word literally and decided it had to be posted. Not only because I still get bugged by it, but because this is...well, simply put, it's a big one. My rants on this topic are almost part of my identity. There have been times where I met people for the first time and they already knew about me because they've heard stories and knew me as "that 'literally'guy." My 15 minutes of non-fame, perhaps? People think of me when they hear the word "literally" used for non-literal things. What can I say? It's nice to have a legacy. It's not quite as glamorous as, perhaps, a movie-, sport-, or music- stars legacy, but I'll take it! My literally rant is kind of like the forefather of all things bloggerific. So it is only appropos that we include it here. This particular rant was posted to an online forum when one of our good contributors mentioned how the Everly Brothers & the double-male harmony literally paved the way for many new groups. I immediately pictured their harmonies somehow spewing out asphalt and having the Beatles and others walking down the new street, and this was my response.

I present this one in the spirit of a classic band digging out a vintage favorite from the very first album to close out the set. Hopefully it turns a few new people on, and the folks who already have heard it can enjoy hearing it again. Let's dig in...


My friends find great humor in busting my chops about how I have this anal-retentive thing about the word "literally."

I'm always ranting about how it's become so common to use the word "literally" to refer to things that you mean figuratively.

People might say, "When (some tragedy) happened, I LITERALLY fell to pieces."

Um...no you didn't! If you literally fell to pieces, you'd be dead, unless some a surgeon was on hand to re-attached everything right away.

A question for the world: Why say literally when you mean figuratively? It's like specifying something that needs to be kept general. It's like saying, "I have EXACTLY one dollar in my pocket," when you have $1.07. If you're going to speak in generalities or estimations, why add the word "exactly" to your description? You would be better just saying, "I have a dollar in my pocket," no?

"Literally" has become a word that I see everyone using to simply add emphasis to something. But here's where my problem is with that: our entire language is figurative! Even that statement is figurative, because the "entire" language really isn't. But so much of what we say is figurative: "That guy's got A MILLION CDs" to describe someone with an extensive collection. "I DROPPED my brother off at the mall" describes that you let him exit your car, not that you put him in danger by letting him fall on the concrete outside the food court.

Everyone knows these things, because most of the time, it's clear that we are speaking figuratively.

However, everyonce in a while, we need to use a word to explain that we're not. Every once in a while, we need to pull out a word that specifies that we're not exaggerating or making generalizations, but mean exactly what we say. That's where
"literally" comes in. And it's a great word.

But when the word "literally" starts meaning "figuratively," we're just plained screwed.

posted by Steve @ 11:22 AM