Thread: Pet Peeves
View Single Post
Old 05-13-2005, 11:18 AM   #83
Abstract
Scoring Winger
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Exp:
Default

Quote:
Originally posted by BlackEleven@May 11 2005, 08:01 PM
I thought of another one that drives me mad. People's use of the word literally. As in (and I heard this on tv the other day) "drugs literally tore my parents apart". So what? They were phyiscally attached and drugs somehow separated them?

What's annoying about it is literally is a word used to void the metaphor and have the words taken at their actual meaning, but people use it to -- and I use the term loosely -- enhance the meaning of the the metaphor they are applying it to. So effectively, they are using it to mean metaphorically, which is the exact opposite of its true definition...

I'm no English teacher, far from it, but that drives me nuts....especially considering its usually teeny-bopers that I hear this sort of thing from...
Yes! When i read the title that was gonna be mine. Infuriating. And the worst culprits are usually sports commentators, "He's literally been a brick wall today" NO HE HASNT!!
__________________
Those days are past now, and in the past they must remain, but we can still rise now and be a nation again.
Abstract is offline   Reply With Quote