Re: OT: "literally"

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 04:35 PM 6/8/2007, cld@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> True, he didn't commit the mortal sin. As I see it, Pogue (who is,
> after all, a very smart guy) isn't using "literally" in opposition
> to "figuratively" at all. For one thing, there's no possibility, in
> this context, of confusion with any figurative usage -- how would
> one figuratively pack two laptops? Rather, I think, he's using it
> as an intensifier, as in "this is no joke" or "God's honest
> truth". Like it or not, "literally" has acquired this secondary
> meaning, especially in informal speech. Life's too short to get
> into a pedantic tizzy over it, IMO. Water off the canard's back.
I think it was Carl who introduced to this list, or at least
mentioned, Huddleston and Pullum (The Cambridge Grammar of the
English Language) or perhaps he led us to Quirk et all (A
Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language). At all events, H&P
talk about the above in slightly different terms: they call this a
"speech-related adjunct," words used in the "residue" of the
sentence, so to speak. Words used to clarify meaning, which is to say
words used to modify the way other words are to be understood in a
"metalinguistic" sense, they say. Example, "They literally live in
glass houses," wherein the use of the adverb to clarify the way
"live" is to be understood is clear. I like Carl's label
"intensifier" to explain Pogue's use, which, strictly speaking (H&P
speaking, that is) is misuse. Or not. How about, (from H&P)
"Metaphorically speaking, French is descended from Latin." Almost as
if we no longer trust our tropes.

Michael Norman