This comic’s kind of a cheat because I already talked about this on Twitter, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head and, well, here we are.
If you use “literally” to describe something that actually happened, you’re not wrong, I suppose – but the word is normally used in situations where the other person might otherwise believe you were speaking figuratively. For instance, “I literally licked her buns – no, really, she bakes the best cinnamon buns I’ve ever had.”
This might just bug me so much because at least when you use “literally” incorrectly, I can bust you on it and make fun of you. But when you say something like, “I literally put on pants this morning,” what is there to say? Sure, I can rant about it a little on a mediocre blog, but nobody wants to hear about my grammatical nitpicking in everyday conversation. Nobody.
I bet you thought I was going to add “literally” after that. Nope.
In other news, you may have noticed from the sidebar that Fudge That Sugar now has its very own Facebook page! Go and join and then… uh… you will have joined.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one this bothers.
I totally agree! And what about “actually”? I don’t know if you’ve run into people who use that just as much but I have and it is so annoying too!
Not to be a jerk, but “totally” is equally unnecessary. There is a tendency in speech to add superfluous words more as a rhythmic device than for the actual or literal meaning. I’ve made my peace with these, but misuse of “literally” is a crime against language. Totally.
This is a litteraly awesome blog.
spell it correctly
Are you a David Cross fan by any chance? He does a similar routine/rant but with much more swearing.
I love that rant, but he only talks about using “literally” incorrectly – which is annoying, yes, but not my biggest pet peeve by far.
LOL!!!!
I hate when my cat gets the literally stuck in it’s paws and tracks it all over the house when it goes to poop. I tried to put balloons on the cat’s feet, and it just chewed them off, and my Mom was all “Chris, you have to sort through the cat’s poo now” and I was like “Yeah right Mom,” and I slammed the door to my room and played Kid Rock really loud like this BAWITABATHEBANGGABANGNABGGTTYGITTY
Chris, you’re my hero.
While I don’t see the “literally” fail train too often, “seriously” has filled the void around here.
“That was seriously the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Though technically correct in informal speech, it just sounds dumb.
The one that bugs me is surreal. Oh yeah, it was so umm surreal. People say it about everything.
i am guilty as charged. i am also guilty of using legit and actually and seriously. tralala
I encourage and enjoy reading about grammatical nitpicking!
But you stole this idea from The Oatmeal :(
Booo be more original
Nuh uh! The Oatmeal (like the David Cross bit) just talked about using “literally” incorrectly, which is not the point of my comic.
Plagiarism!!!
lol
Ha ha, ROFL, I literally know what you mean!
And what about the often-beaten-to-death-always-in-front-of-every-word-in-a-sentence word, LIKE!!
I find it painfully annoying when people like use like in every sentence like..
What the ..?!?!
The females in my office who are aware of their own overuse of the word “literally” have begun to substitute “legitimately” in its place, which is so much worse and so much more irritating.
Eg. I was legitimately so sick that I couldn’t stand.
Also, a friend of mine once stated that he wanted to start using the word “physically” in place of “literally.” I do it too now.
Eg. I want to tear your head off. Physically.
I was literally having this exact conversation last night.
…you can also pick on “irregardless” as well…that one to me has the same effect as a monkey playing the bagpipes. One eye bulges while the other one sucks into the back of my skull…kinda like that teacher guy off of Daria (I miss that show) :’(
That last bit regarding the facebook page reminds me of this xkcd: http://xkcd.com/703/
I’ve just realised you are working in my office. Or someone whose mind works along amazingly similar lines is.
I saw something like this on the internet few days ago. I couldn’t help laughing then and now.
So, here’s the link: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally
You just inspired me to blog about the “like, literally illegal” use of ‘literally.’ I hate when people do that….
Besides I think it’s an ill use of adverbs in general… All words that end in -ly…
clearly this is a hot topic on the internet.
http://xkcd.com/725/
This topic always reminds me of how Alanis Morrisette did not know the meaning of the word “ironic” when she wrote the song of the same name.
Every time I hear that song, I am reminded of the scene in Princess Bride when Vizzini exclaims for the umpteenth time, “Inconceivable!” to which Inigo Montoya replies, “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Inconceivable!
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