That so many people have such a poor command of their native language is a sure sign of DOOM. We all know that the word like is abused endlessly in narrative contexts, especially when one is describing a conversation. Today, I overheard an extraordinary egregious violation of the word literally:
He spent three weeks in Europe and he literally enjoyed it.
People frequently misuse the word literally for emphasis. But this makes no fucking sense.
5 comments:
This makes sense only in light of the rash of metaphorical enjoyments going on.
He "literally enjoyed" his three weeks in Europe, because he might just as easily only gotten a metaphorical enjoyment:
He spent three weeks in Europe and he, like, enjoyed it.
Exactly.
I can understand (but do not endorse) the use of "literally" when it's used to qualify a term whose metaphorical use is dominant. For example, in "I literally kicked his ass," the *literally* is necessary to distinguish the sense from the metaphorical one (generic beating-up).
Anyway: DOOM pervades.
I don't have the greatest command of the English language when I'm speaking spontaneously. I need to speak pretty slowly in order to express myself coherently (and in this age of sound-byte conversation, a lot of people get impatient with me pretty quickly), and I tend to use "like" more than I should.
But I'm fluent in Spanish and have a grasp of Italian that's somewhere between basic and intermediate, so that puts me way ahead of a good portion of the American population.
Also, I know when and when NOT to use "literally."
Mary:
Well put. Literally.
My hobby entails using the word "figuratively" with the same emphatic stress as people use the word "literally." It tends to throw them off. "He was figuratively an asshole!"
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