By now, you may be experiencing a newfound confidence regarding your language skills. After all, the snobs who’ve been making you feel stupid all these years have been using nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Many things you thought you were doing wrong you were in fact doing right.
Beware this newfound confidence. It’s a slippery slope. In the language world, self-assuredness can curdle into snobbery faster than you can say, “I’m William Safire.”
So let’s take a little test.
Imagine that one morning you open the Los Angeles Times business section and see an article about China’s booming auto-parts-manufacturing industry. The article, by James Flanigan, begins with the following sentence:
“In the ever-more-competitive global economy, China is now in the driver’s seat—literally.”
Do you:
If you chose C. congratulations. You’re in no danger of becoming a grammar snob (though you may be victim of the myth that being female is about nothing more than dieting and shoe shopping). If you chose A. or B. then it’s time for a reality check. Me, I chose D. which was to write a whole column on the subject.
I’m not the first to take a jab at someone’s questionable use of the word “literally.” I distinctly remember years ago a co-worker laughing out loud recounting the time a television newscaster said something to the effect of, “The city has been brought literally to its knees.”
At one point, people started using the word “literally” to mean “sort of” or “kind of” or “almost literally” or “please note the clever double entendre”—all of which are pretty much the opposite of “literally.” In other words, people use the word “literally” to mean “figuratively.”
The Chicago Manual of Style editors think “literally” should mean “literally”:
“literally.” This word means “actually; without exaggeration.” It should not be used oxymoronically in figurative senses, as in “they were literally glued to their seats” (unless glue had in fact been applied).
The Associated Press Stylebook agrees that “literally” should mean “literally”:
“Figuratively” means in an analogous sense, but not in the exact sense. “He bled them white.” Literally means in an exact sense; do not use it figuratively. Wrong: “He literally bled them white.” (Unless the blood was drained from their bodies.)
But beware the temptation to become a grammar snob here. Because the minute you scoff at someone using “literally” to mean “figuratively,” a more devoted grammar snob is likely to dig up evidence that you’re wrong. A few language experts—ones conspiring to drive the rest of us nuts—defend the use of “literally” as something called an “intensive.” According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, “literally” is “now often used as an intensive to modify a word or phrase that itself is being used figuratively. ‘She literally flew into the room.’ ”
The dictionary writers cleverly sidestep the danger of putting their own behinds (literally) on the line by adding, “This latter usage is objected to by some.”
So, are all these “experts” literally driving you and me to the loony bin? Yes. I call shotgun.