Re: OT: "literally"

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:
> Are you literally driven up the walls, as I am, by the misuse of
> "literally" as in the start of this sentence?
Yes, and we're not the first. H. W. Fowler, and his last good reviser,
Sir Ernest Gowers (whose own Complete Plain Words is also
informative and entertaining) pilloried this with such examples as
"If the Home Rule Bill is passed, [the Irish Unionists] will be
literally thrown to the wolves" (I thought wolves were extinct in the
British Isles?)
"She literally lifted her horse over the last jump." (She being
Atalanta or some such.)
"The Prime Minister sat through the debate literally glued to the
Treasury Bench" (tsk, tsk. MPs acting like little boys.)
> It occurs, in a variant form, in David Pogue's column:
>
> "On trips, I literally used to pack two laptops."
But no, it may be trite there, but he did, literally, pack two
laptops. If he had written, say, "I used to literally break my back
lugging two laptops," THAT would be the usage we all condemn.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx