Literally
July 7th, 2008
Only in the past year has the overuse of the word “literally” begun to irritate me. It’s not just that the word is often misapplied to mean “figuratively,” since that usage has been around for a while. All languages evolve, and people have a grand history of inverting the meanings of English words (e.g., “peruse” to mean “skim”). Rather, I am frustrated that writing and speech has been besieged by what seems like an unnatural prevalence of the word.
I believe there are also a few MAD TV skits out there that overemphasize the misuse of the word, but I am not savvy enough to find them online and/or cite them here…
if i had a choice, i would rather people fix people’s yours and you’res….
interesting note about “peruse” though – i didn’t know the meaning meant to go in detail rather than a brief once over…
I also thought “peruse” meant to skim through, and I use it semi-frequently. Now I feel like a dunce.
Are you aware of this? http://www.xanga.com/Hydrodrome/665678486/keachers-news-media-debut.html
I also misused “peruse” for many years. However, the meaning seems to be changing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the official definition is revised to acknowledge the common (mis)use of the word.
Regarding the CNN thing, yeah, I thought that was pretty neat! It happened to be my second bit of national exposure from that trip. The first time was an article on MSNBC.com about Franco-American relations.