Saturday, October 3, 2009

Haunted by Literalism

Literally is one of the most misused words in the English language. Sure, we language lovers also get our hackles up over "irregardless"*; there, their and they're confusion; and apostrophe s as a way to pluralize a noun. Abuse of literally seems to lead to the funniest results.

Some of my favorites:

  • "Cars were literally flying down the highway." Why are people complaining that science hasn't brought us the hover car?
  • "I literally jumped out of my skin." Ewww!
  • "He literally has the sports world by the tail." Is the sports world a dog or a cat? Also, let go of the sports world's tail. That's cruel.

For more fun with literally, check out Literally, A Web Log.

For now, just enjoy that I have photographic evidence that my new job is literally where opportunity and technology intersect.

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*I don't know why I was surprised to find that Blogger's spell check didn't flag this. It did get ewww though.

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