Out of boredom, the other night, I searched on Twitter for random phrases with the word literally in them to see how people use it in colloquial language. That gives you, by the way, a rough idea of what I'm up to in my spare time. Yes, they say if you have no life, you can't be killed, ergo I am immortal so it doesn't bother me anyway. Back to the topic in hand, there are two phrases that are especially funny and will hopefully make you realise that it is often worth thinking twice before you say something.
I was literally gutted
No. You did not have your innards removed. I can imagine, however, that some animals happen to be literally gutted every now and then and so are people if they are unfortunate enough to meet a psychopath with a big knife.
I literally pissed myself
Accidents happen, right? Then again I’m not going to believe that all those people on Twitter actually pissed their pants that day. As I was wondering about that phenomenon @BroughtonLass joined in, saying:
You need to recognise when people are being facetious or just talking slang (...) these are everyday people, not arbiters of the language. I hate inaccuracy too but these aren’t published comments, so maybe should be given some leeway?
I agreed with that, I shouldn’t have a go at people, but at the actual mistakes they make. Please, try to avoid using words if their meaning isn’t suitable. Remember, if something literally happens it really happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment