"i literally died laughing!"

[natural_smurf]

i have to get something off my chest. ppl simply MUST STOP misusing the word "literally." jesus christ on crutches, i'm sick of it!!! ppl bastardize a lot of the english language (like my refusal to capitalize, for example), but the misapplication of this particular word has become fucking rampant in the last few years.

STOP IT!

ok, i feel better.

- smurf

[baric]

I think that the rampant use of the word 'fuck' is a bigger problem.

[natural_smurf]

no fuckin' way!

[Tenspace]

i have to get something off my chest. ppl simply MUST STOP misusing the word "literally." jesus christ on crutches, i'm sick of it!!! ppl bastardize a lot of the english language (like my refusal to capitalize, for example), but the misapplication of this particular word has become fucking rampant in the last few years.

STOP IT!

ok, i feel better.

- smurf
Umm... which misapplication of literally bothers you? Is it the incoherency of using literally to mean the opposite of its primary definition, or just overuse as an intensifier modifying a figurative expression?

Hey.. at least you're not inundated with irregardless. It's not even a word. :)

Tenspace

[natural_smurf]

yeah, irregardless is a classic. but, it's somewhat forgivable because it's at least a mixture of two real words that are actually synonyms -- irrespective and regardless. (similarly. most ppl don't realize verbage is not a word. verbage is a sarcastic combo of verbiage and garbage).

anyway, my beef with literally is both the things you described.

1. its imporoper use as an intensifier.

2. its use to mean exactly its opposite correct meaning!!!! this is the one that really burns my ass.

i've tried to figure out why #2 occurs so often, and here's my hypothesis: when someone uses the word properly, they usually put it directly in front of a word that would, in most contexts, sound figurative in meaning. thus the necessity to qualify its usage with the word "literally." so, when a misuser hears this, they conclude that the word "literally" should be placed in front of figurative expressions, not bothering to actually discover the meaning of the qualifier.

- smurf (geekin' it up at 7:00a.. giggity giggity giggity giggity git!)

[Tenspace]

From American Heritage: In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example “The 300,000 Unionists... will be literally thrown to the wolves.”

It's been abused for years; I imagine the inverse intensifier is still around simply from its shock value. ..."will be figuratively thrown to the wolves." just doesn't have the same ring to it. :)

Tenspace

[Viole]

Look, young one. You start using capitals, and I'll start worrying about your literary preferences, okay?

[BadFish]

I really hate it when people say "axe" instead of "ask".

[StillSurviving]

In Vermont, people are always taking things out of the freezer to "unthaw".

[Tenspace]

Horoscope for Scorpio from this week's The Onion: All right, Scorpio is going to say this for the last fucking time: With an apostrophe, it means "it is" and without an apostrophe, it means "belonging to it." This is really not that hard.


:)

Ten

[Philboid Studge]

I sent an email to Josh Marshall because he wrote that something or other "quite literally took the cake," and he wasn't talking about Betty Crocker (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_08_10.php#000287). I think it was the "quite" that literally shoved a hot red poker up my ass.

[StillSurviving]

Definitely is spelled wrong on the internet more often than not, from what I have seen.

It's kind of off topic, but another thing I hate is rhyming "love" with "above" and "rhyme" with "time". I immediately judge anything using those rhymes as crap, and disregard it.

[Lundie]

Oh? You Owlroight there mate? So you've got some beef choonkies wid the word 'literally' ey? Well me two. Some wankers jus dinnae how tae use their ain language propererly hey? Its no' their fault tho, parents be the ones to blaime innit.

Reet then. I'll leave ye noo wi'h me pearls of wisdom. Till next toime, tata.

[ghoulslime]

I literally fucked my girlfriend.

[Philboid Studge]

I literally banged my girlfriend.

-- Ike Turner

[natural_smurf]

i'm encouraged by the interest in this thread. let's keep it going..

i was just taking a crap and reading "reason" magazine when i noticed a writer begin a sentence with the phrase "needless to say..." fuck, i hate that.

[baric]

I literally read the Bible figuratively

[DMofD&D]

Maybe instead of shunning these "misuses", we should welcome them. They are the english language literally evolving. The word "literally" is used as in place of "figuratively" so often today that it's impossible to make the general populace stop using it in that way. Even if they do know they're not using the English language correctly, they don't care; it's a habit.

But then, that's easy for me to say: I'm 14 (had me birthday a few weeks back)

Who, i wuz gittin tired ove talcing dat wayh. dat feelz mucho better.

[Little Earth Stamper]

To me, the severity of a grammatical error is proportional to how much time it makes you furrow your brow in frustration or confusion.

For example, something that nobody except a grammar teacher will even notice, like dangling prepositions (something the English language is greatly inclined towards), barely even count as errors at all

A sentence like "We was at the ballroom" which will make most people stop for a moment and think "wait... that's not right" is a moderate to severe error, depending on context.

The worst errors are those in which the language is so mangled that people can't even understand what you are trying to say.

[Philboid Studge]

i was just taking a crap and ...
Speaking of needless to say!

[Philboid Studge]

I love this joke:

On the first day of school, a kid in high school asks the English teacher, "Where's the bathroom at?"

Teacher says, "Johnny, you mustn't end a sentence with a preposition."

Johnny says, "Okay. Where's the bathroom at, bitch?"

[natural_smurf]

winston churchill once said:

"ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which i will not put."

i love that quote!! the point being, of course, that the "preposition rule" should be abandoned if it makes the language awkward and cumbersome. actually, i read somewhere (dictionary.com, maybe) that the "preposition rule" is actually total bullshit, invented by pretentious english teachers a hundred years ago.

interesting...

[natural_smurf]

I love this joke:

On the first day of school, a kid in high school asks the English teacher, "Where's the bathroom at?"

Teacher says, "Johnny, you mustn't end a sentence with a preposition."

Johnny says, "Okay. Where's the bathroom at, bitch?"
when i heard that joke, it was a cowboy and a harvard professor both taking a leak. the cowboy says "where ya from?" and the prof says "i'm from a place where we don't end sentences with a preposition." and the cowboy says "ok, where ya from, asshole?"

but, i must say i like your version better. the social commentary and racial undertones really bring the joke to a new level. :lol:

[natural_smurf]

i was just taking a crap and ...
Speaking of needless to say!
hey, at least is topped short of describing the crap.. opting instead to go for a hitchcockesque romp thru your own stinky imagination.

[StillSurviving]

How about this for redundancy?

"Where the ATM machine at?"

[StillSurviving]

My father used to take mailings from school, correct them, and send them back.

[natural_smurf]

ending a sentance with at is almost always redundent anyway. Let me say again that ity is redundent. There is a redundancy that we do not need. In fact, we could do without it.
could you direct me to the department of redundancy department?.

[Aristarchus]

People on the internet switch around homonyms a lot.

to - too - two
your - you're
there - their - they're

It's almost a good thing that these errors exist, because I can immediately gauge if somebody is a douche. :cool:

Also, in speech, "excetera". WTF? A lot of people who do know how to say it correctly seem to use it a lot and really emphasis the ETcetera, just to show that they know. :o

Not as annoying (or common) is RPMs and the like. Redundancy. :|

Also in speech people say "acrost". WTF? :mad:

Another spoken error is forte. People usually put the emphasis on the second syllable when it belongs on the first, and, furthermore, there is no second syllable. :D

For a lot of science terms that end in "-a" and are made plural by changing them to "-ae", these are to be pronounced "EE", not "A". This one is abused so much I'd say it is correct in some common usages like "vertebrae", but for the most part this rule receives popular misuse. :rolleyes:

Oh, and people that refer to abbreviations as acronyms. WTF? They just don’t know what an acronym is. :P

There are so many more, but I this is all I can think of right now.

Language does, of course, evolve, and it is good that it does. But when words are corrupted that go against their etymology or, worse yet, are in conflict with their original meaning (as in literally) these changes should be seen as injurious to a language and actively avoided. :(

Mispronunciations of foreign words, especially of fairly phonetic languages like Spanish, are hilarious as well. :D

And people that end every paragraph with smileys. I don't even know where to begin with them. :):):)

[Tenspace]

Oh, and people that refer to abbreviations as acronyms. WTF? They just don’t know what an acronym is.
Acronyms are pronounceable, initialisms like WTF aren't. :D:D:D

Ten

[SoSoftly]

My two cents (and my first post here) - the misuse of 'Impact"
Example, a weather man that says "a storm impacted a community"
I do not doubt that the storm had an impact, but "Impacted"? makes it closer to saying the are constipated in that town.

[Another brick in the wall]

bomb. . . comb . . . tomb

Need I write more?

[Little Earth Stamper]

...

For a lot of science terms that end in "-a" and are made plural by changing them to "-ae", these are to be pronounced "EE", not "A". This one is abused so much I'd say it is correct in some common usages like "vertebrae", but for the most part this rule receives popular misuse. :rolleyes:
...
If you want people to pronounce it as "nebulee" maybe you should spell it that way. You can't expect people to figure out whenever you decide to change the pronounciation of our letters.

[Aristarchus]

...

For a lot of science terms that end in "-a" and are made plural by changing them to "-ae", these are to be pronounced "EE", not "A". This one is abused so much I'd say it is correct in some common usages like "vertebrae", but for the most part this rule receives popular misuse. :rolleyes:
...
If you want people to pronounce it as "nebulee" maybe you should spell it that way. You can't expect people to figure out whenever you decide to change the pronounciation of our letters.
That's precisely the point: there is no irregularity because that is what is best. This is a general rule that should be applied in all cases. It's so easy that a kid in elementary school could be given a 3-minute talk on pronunciation and wind up with better authority at pronouncing scientific words than some people in scientific careers. I just find it amazing how many people neglect the rules of regularity, which simplify things beyond belief. This includes memorizing Latin and Greek etymological roots. I'm a college student and the first class I took was called "Bioscientific vocabulary building from Latin and Greek stems", and all we did was memorize stems. This has given me such an advantage over my scientific peers who have not taken the class. It is not only commendable to offer attention toward language for those who need to use it with precision, but it is embarrassing for those who don't know what they should. It's not right to condescend to someone over something as artificial as language, but, of course, it is well-deserved constructive criticism when someone does not afford themselves the tools necessary to convey knowledge they are responsible for.

[Little Earth Stamper]

You know what? Fuck Latin. It's a dead language, and it's shadow has been warping English fo far too long now.

I consider learning archaic pronounciation rules from a dead language to be a huge waste of time. All it does is make science less understandable to the common man.

[ocmpoma]

Hey, we could invent a new language where the sounds and characters are based upon their meanings, so that looking at an unfalmiliar word would allow the reader some insight into its meaning...

Oh wait, that's already been tried (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Character).

[StillSurviving]

As long as we are getting into pronunciations, people are always pronouncing "Our" as "Are". For example, when I used to go to church, I used to cringe to hear everyone saying the "Are Father".

[fortytwo]

For example, something that nobody except a grammar teacher will even notice, like dangling prepositions (something the English language is greatly inclined towards), barely even count as errors at all.
You mean, "something towards which the English language is greatly inclined," right? :)

[Another brick in the wall]

I think rather than invent a completely artificial language, a simplified version of English would be a good universal language. English has several qualities that make it well-suited for an international language. For starters, English borrows words from other languages easily. English nouns typically do not have gender, and there is only one form of "you."

[Aristarchus]

I'm not sure I agree that English is the choice language for the world.

English's greatest strength is that it has a great supply of words at hand, and is fairly liberal in its constructions. The ability to "invent" words at command is also quite powerfull with liberal suffixing action. ;) English's greatest weakness is its irregularities. It is loaded with exceptions here and there. It has borrowed words from so many languages, and so its pronunciations are difficult, as well as its surface structures. This is just a guess but I bet American children take spelling tests to a much later age than children learning Spanish, Italian, Portugues, Romianian, German, Greek, and some others.

I say that a good language meets two criteria:

(1) The ability to succinctly and unambiguously convey an array functional commands.

(2) The ability to express oneself with a depth where the ideas are limited before the language can't handle the expresiveness.

I think English is quite good at #2, and decent at #1.

[Tenspace]

I think rather than invent a completely artificial language, a simplified version of English would be a good universal language. English has several qualities that make it well-suited for an international language. For starters, English borrows words from other languages easily. English nouns typically do not have gender, and there is only one form of "you."
English is the International Language. If you are a commercial pilot, anyway. International airports worldwide are required to use English in all aviation communications. Anyone know if trans-oceanic shipping has similar rules?

Tenspace

[Slaptickle]

You know what? Fuck Latin. It's a dead language, and it's shadow has been warping English fo far too long now.
MISUSED APOSTROPHE! *screams and dies*

[whoneedscience]

More importantly, what's up with the whole 'i' before 'e' rule? It seems like every time I try to spell a word (now that MS Word has robbed me of my spelling skills), I remember the rule, only to find that it's completely useless. For instance: protein, veil, vein, sleigh.

[Lundie]

I presume you've heard of the Imperial system of measurements? Not to mention the Imperial coinage (shillings, pence, ha'pennies etc.). They, along with English, sprang from the depths of our superior Anglosaxon mental facilities you know.

The unofficial British national anthem should be 'My way'.:D

[Aristarchus]

More importantly, what's up with the whole 'i' before 'e' rule? It seems like every time I try to spell a word (now that MS Word has robbed me of my spelling skills), I remember the rule, only to find that it's completely useless. For instance: protein, veil, vein, sleigh.
"i" before "e", except after "c", OR when sounding like "A", like in neighboor or weigh. The rule takes care of all of your words except protein. And for that one, the roots make in easy. "prote-" + "-in" = "first chemical".

[Philboid Studge]

More importantly, what's up with the whole 'i' before 'e' rule? It seems like every time I try to spell a word (now that MS Word has robbed me of my spelling skills), I remember the rule, only to find that it's completely useless. For instance: protein, veil, vein, sleigh.
"i" before "e", except after "c", OR when sounding like "A", like in neighboor or weigh. The rule takes care of all of your words except protein. And for that one, the roots make in easy. "prote-" + "-in" = "first chemical".
Weird.

[devil almighty]

wierd indeed,. There is alot of talk about god nd the bible on this forum, we know god does not exist and the bible is toilet paper. So lets get back to talking about the morons who do beleive in god and what we are going to do about it!

[Aristarchus]

wierd indeed,. There is alot of talk about god nd the bible on this forum, we know god does not exist and the bible is toilet paper. So lets get back to talking about the morons who do beleive in god and what we are going to do about it!
I think Philboid's reply of "Weird" was a double entendra (correct usage?), because "weird" itself does not conform to the rule I just stated. But that's, of course, because the word is weird. :P

Plus DA, look at the begining of this thread, it seems apearant that you havn't done that yet.

[Philboid Studge]

I think his Philboid's reply of "Weird" was a double entendra (correct usage?), because "weird" itself does not conform to the rule I just stated.
Right you are, but I'm pretty sure that's not an example of a double entendre, which would be more like, "Mary Magdalene worshipped at the staff of the Lord."

[Trublu]

According to the national news, Liverpool literally came back from the dead during last night's game

THE NATIONAL NEWS!

eejits

[Slaptickle]

According to the national news, Liverpool literally came back from the dead during last night's game

THE NATIONAL NEWS!

eejits
That's the funniest thing I've read all month. Lucky for them, though; I bet before that happened they were losing horribly.