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I was reading this just now. I am not going to comment on the politics of this at all. I just want to use this as an opportunity to rant about something else that bugs me.
From the article:
"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. (Emphasis mine.)
No, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama did not literally throw you under a bus. If he had, and assuming that the bus was in motion at the time, then you probably would have been killed, and he likely would be in prison now for murder rather than serving as the President of the United States.
The word "literally" is not a word thatis should be used for emphasis or hyperbole or whatever. As with all words, it has a literal meaning. The meaning of the word "literally" is, in fact, pretty much the exact opposite of what most people erroneously seem to think it means when they use it.
Yeah, I realize I fight a losing battle here. From what I can tell, descriptivism is probably going to win out over prescriptivism, ultimately, and for the most part that doesn't bother me. It's just that there are a few cases that make me gnash my teeth when I see them. And the whole "language is a fluid, living thing so get over it, you pedantic loser" retort that people use when defending this kind of thing seems, at best, rather lazy to me. I don't see things like what I rant about, in particular, as being born out of the awesome power of dynamic language change. I see it as a result of people being too apathetic to bother learning to write or say something properly, so as to avoid looking like an illiterate jackass. Or, worse, I see it as people explicitly attempting (and, in the attempt, utterly failing) to sound smarter or more articulate than they really are, by using "big words" the meanings of which they don't actually know or even care to know, really, as long as it makes them appear to have a bigger vocabulary. (Honest apologies to people on my f-list who may still say stuff like "rediculous" or "could care less" or "irregardless" or whatever without realizing they're doing it. I don't mean to offend anyone with this, but that crap seriously gets under my skin. If, however, you're fully aware that it makes you look retarded, but simply don't care, then don't consider that apology as applying to you. You are an illiterate jackass.)
Besides, this is my journal and I'll rant about whatever I want. >:P
From the article:
"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. (Emphasis mine.)
No, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama did not literally throw you under a bus. If he had, and assuming that the bus was in motion at the time, then you probably would have been killed, and he likely would be in prison now for murder rather than serving as the President of the United States.
The word "literally" is not a word that
Yeah, I realize I fight a losing battle here. From what I can tell, descriptivism is probably going to win out over prescriptivism, ultimately, and for the most part that doesn't bother me. It's just that there are a few cases that make me gnash my teeth when I see them. And the whole "language is a fluid, living thing so get over it, you pedantic loser" retort that people use when defending this kind of thing seems, at best, rather lazy to me. I don't see things like what I rant about, in particular, as being born out of the awesome power of dynamic language change. I see it as a result of people being too apathetic to bother learning to write or say something properly, so as to avoid looking like an illiterate jackass. Or, worse, I see it as people explicitly attempting (and, in the attempt, utterly failing) to sound smarter or more articulate than they really are, by using "big words" the meanings of which they don't actually know or even care to know, really, as long as it makes them appear to have a bigger vocabulary. (Honest apologies to people on my f-list who may still say stuff like "rediculous" or "could care less" or "irregardless" or whatever without realizing they're doing it. I don't mean to offend anyone with this, but that crap seriously gets under my skin. If, however, you're fully aware that it makes you look retarded, but simply don't care, then don't consider that apology as applying to you. You are an illiterate jackass.)
Besides, this is my journal and I'll rant about whatever I want. >:P
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Date: 2010-05-19 12:35 am (UTC)From:Mark Twain (1876):
"And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth."
Arthur Conan Doyle:
"Even the triumphant issue of his labours could not save him from reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing with his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams I found him a prey to the blackest depression."
Sir Walter Scott (1828):
"The house was literally electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects of her genius that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence could be carried."
Thomas Hardy(early 20th):
"It was literally teeming, stratified, with the shades of human groups, who had met there for tragedy, comedy, farce; real enactments of the intensest kind."
Henry James(early 20th):
"She has been speculating on her impunity, on the idea that her danger would hold off: she has literally been running a race with it."
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (19th cent.):
"Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye."
Jack London:
"...and they literally swamp the working classes in a vast sea of tracts and pamphlets."
Despite that, I think that Wright's usage is strange. If he had just said "Obama literally threw me under the bus" I think it would have been unremarkable, because "literally" is usually used with as an emphasizer of figurative phrases when there is no way the figurative phrase can actually be taken in a literal sense. (In other words, it's impossible that Wright actually means Obama physically picked him up and threw him under a real bus.) But Wright's usage doesn't really match with that norm and it stands out; it sounds like he is actually trying to say that Obama really did throw him under a literal bus, but that's obviously not what he means to say.
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Date: 2010-05-19 01:33 am (UTC)From:I still think the way that most people use the word is wrong though, even in the literary examples you cited. Just because famous authors did it a hundred years ago doesn't make it right, in my eyes. On the other hand, in the case of novels and such, I can at least give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume (or at least hope) that they knew they were using it incorrectly and were simply using it that way to try to make their writing more "real," because, indeed, this is just one of those words that most real people are going to use incorrectly, no matter what, and it would make sense that a character in a story would as well. But then, in at least some of those examples, it seems more like it was the omniscient, impersonal narrator that was doing so, rather than a specific character, which is somewhat less tolerable to me. Though for what it's worth, either case simply reinforces the misconception that this is the proper usage of the word, which I don't see as a good thing.
Most of the time, it's the things that people say, thinking it makes them sound smart and scholarly but instead makes them look stupid, that irk me the most, e.g. using "begs the question" incorrectly (man, I can't believe I haven't ranted about that one yet). Wright's strange phrasing struck me as one such case, more so than is usually the case with that word. It's usually the emphasis on the word that makes it stand out to me, especially when it's used in spoken conversation as opposed to writing. Of course, this kind of thing is so widespread that almost nobody cares about it or even thinks it's worth caring about. Honestly, even I'm not going to lose sleep tonight because Wright used the word "literally" improperly, but it still just bugs me (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustBugsMe/EnglishLanguage).
If I'm ever caught saying something similar to this, I would hope that someone would call me out on it, and when they do I will thank them for it, rather than grumble about "fluid language" or "lousy pedants" or whatever.
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Date: 2010-07-31 06:44 pm (UTC)From: