Re: OT: "literally"

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Michael Norman wrote:
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: 
This is what sometimes annoys me about modern practitioners of
linguistics--a failure to see the tree for the forest. There are three
places where "literally" is commonly used: one is proper, one is
trite, and one is nonsense. The proper use is when the reader or
hearer might, with some reason, think the speaker or writer was
employing metaphor--as in my "died of fright" example. We use that
phrase so often to mean merely "extremely afraid" that if it is to be
taken au pied de la lettre, we should say so.
The second is the use exemplified by Pogue's article. What he is
saying is literally true, not a metaphor, but why would anyone think
it's a metaphor? As Carl said, it's not a mortal sin, but it certainly
is a venial one, and I fear a vicious habit among many writers. The
word does no real work in the sentence, and expresses no more meaning
than "I did, I actually did." It's like the thousands of verys that we
used to weed out of copy at Grolier.
The third use, exemplified by the Fowler-Gowers examples, is flat-out
nonsense and balderdash. It is also verbicide, because one is using a
word to mean the exact opposite of what the word has historically
meant. I do consider that the linguistic equivalent of a mortal sin,
and red pencil it whenever I see it. (Another editor on this list and
I recently had an offlist chat about this, agreeing that we loathed
the usage.)

> Almost as if we no longer trust our tropes.
Now there I think you're on to something. If you can find a copy of
Wilson Follett's Modern American Usage, read what he says about
metaphor: an excessive, and mindless, reliance on it is poisoning our
ability to tell the difference between plain statement and trope.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx