Politics and the English Language ripoff

[nonplusplus]

My favorite: "So I walked to the podium to do this speech, and I literally had butterflies in my stomach."

[jamesblackburnlynch]

That's a good one. Where did you hear that? I gotta feel sorry for those poor butterflies.

[AKTpro]

haha, sorry it posted figuratively five times!

[AKTpro]

wow... actually using the word 'literally' in place of figurative language (its not always metaphor) is not a confusion of words, its being used hyperbolically. You said in your rant that we shouldn't use the word as an exaduration because it ceases to have meaning, well thats satire for you. If we couldnt be hyperbolic we couldnt be sarcastic. Literally still has meaning, but it can also be used to emphasize. saying 'this video makes me figuratively want to jump off a building' has no effect

[jamesblackburnlynch]

But the choice isn't between "literally" and "figuratively." Your sentence could be "this video makes me deeply want to jump of a building" or better "this video makes me want to jump of a building, desperately." In using the word "literally" the way you (and others) use it, it makes its other use more ambiguous. And hence quite useless if people can't tell if you mean it literally or not.

[DudermanGG]

I actually saw an episode of "The Colbert Report" with something similar.

Steven made fun of some guy who said "...literally on a downward spiral into hell..." or something to that effect.

Well it didn't bug me like it bugs you, at least. The only pet peeve I have is people saying "Specific Ocean/standard time" instad of "Pacific".

Have a nice day.

[jamesblackburnlynch]

That I've never noticed. It's kind of annoying that people feel the need to constantly translate. 8 pm eastern is 7 central. Yeah, thanks, I think I can handle that particular transformation.

[billyjackblue]

this is literally 1:54 of my life that i will never get back...i could have been whitewashing

[jamesblackburnlynch]

While I appreciate the fine use of the word "literally," I take absolutely no blame for your poor choice in video watching.

[billyjackblue]

touche

[slybly10]

that my friend is an intellectual burn...literally.

[yoonycks]

Whitewash is not paint, because it is just pigment and water. There's no component to get the pigment to actually stick to whatever you are applying the whitewash. The missing component is generally the expensive part of paint, so whitewash costs less than a tenth of the cost of paint - but because it doesn't stick, you need to re-apply it after every rain. Over the course of a single year, it ends up being more expensive, if you re-apply it whenever the whitewash is washed off.

[jamesblackburnlynch]

Well, that's bizarre. Does anyone still do that?

[CobiCobe]

I think you're onto something, literally!

[jamesblackburnlynch]

Wait...what do you think I'm on?

[mobious67]

i dunno but i want some its made you really

intellectual