Aug 23rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Literally
Whatever merits Joe Biden may have as a Vice President, one problem — as his announcement speech made clear — is that he’s by far the greatest abuser of the term “literally” in American politics today. Were he to wind up in the Oval Office, I fear he might somehow get dictionaries to officially reclassify the word as a meaningless intensifier.
69 Responses to “Literally”
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August 23rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, that was annoying. Its the kind of thing that doesn’t annoy too much in interviews or more casual speaking, but it really drives me nuts in a prepared speech.
Oh well, I get the feeling that Biden is going to be slated for less speeches and more interviews anyway.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
You are certainly on the mark that “literally” is a brutally misused word, but Biden never misused it. He was clearly making “literally” a keyword of his speech, perhaps it didn’t work so well, but it wasn’t abused or meaningless. He didn’t say anything like “McCain literally is George W. Bush.” In my opinion, he gave and impassioned and powerful speech, and we should save our grammatical criticism for real modifier abusers.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The worst? When he said Obama “literally made his mark in the Senate.”
Um… I don’t want to know.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Matt… I bet you were loving all the riding the train references.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Meh. Like “really” and “totally” before it, “literally” is already meaningless, which is to say, figuratively quite meaningful.
Plus, yeah, commenter #2 is dead on. (By which I mean literally alive.) He said things like “literally his first day in the Senate” which is probably literally true.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Oh, come on. People have been using literally as an intensifier by the best writers for centuries.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I fear he might somehow get dictionaries to officially reclassify the word as a meaningless intensifier.
I never thought I’d say it, but maybe they should just do that and get it over with. Someday we’ll be able to look back at that speech and see it was the moment in which the battle of “literally” was decisively lost.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The pictures aren’t bad.
When they made the pick, Team Chicago had to be thinking about how useful the Ted Kennedy endorsement was. Old Irish Catholic guy acting as a validator for Obama.
—–
The Official Theme Song of watching Joe Biden deliver a speech.
(That’s not really a slam. I like the song.)
Misusing the word “literally” is the least of it. Literally. Like Jesse Jackson, Biden lives in the world of half self-parody.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Considering the our Republican friends have literally destroyed this country, I am willing to countenance a minor verbal quirk from Joe Biden.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I literally thought it was one of more annoying quirks I’ve heard from a politician. Literally. I also liked that he literally reappropriated John McCain’s “my friends” at least once.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Michael, your ‘focused’ commentary on Biden’s substantial speech is literally the most vapid, missed-the-forest-for-the-trees (actually a twig) comment of the year. If this is the best you can do on a major political event, I suggest another week of suspension from blogging.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
At least he is not one of those annoying Brits like Jamie Oliver who abuse the word heavily, and pronounce it “lit’rally” while they’re doing it: “You lit’rally pour the broth into the t’mahtos, and then lit’rally pour th ‘ole mixture over the prawns.”
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
The pictures aren’t bad.
Yeah, put them in dark suits and you have Men in Black III.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Two more general Biden notes:
- This is the first Presidential ticket in the history of the Republic with two non-WASP’s, given modern usage of the word.
- Team Chicago dropped the pick into the newshole on purpose. The almost invisible “Biden” on the signs today is one reinforcement of that. Interesting in several ways.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“Yeah, put them in dark suits and you have Men in Black III.”
Yup. There is definitely that aspect. “Rumpled White Guy” always works as the Will Smith co-star.
But the parts I thought really effective were the two-shots of Obama sitting silently as Biden stood and gestured toward Obama as he vouched for him.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Joel, we don’t know that isn’t true. For all we know, Obama has spent the last 4 years carving his name into bathroom stalls, senate seats, and perhaps even the podium itself. We may never know, but it’s possible that Obama actually has literally made his mark in the senate.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Biden gave a great speech. For people who are older than 26 and have real worries “hope” and “change” are meaningless to their life. Talk about becoming a meaningless intensifier.
Biden talks in practical and unambiguous, if not forceful, language. Something more important than transformative nonsense to lot of undecided voters.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Why doesn’t anyoone ever actually (literally) look at a dictionary before proclaiming what words mean? In my Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary the second meaning of literally is “In effect: virtually”. So dictionaries already define the word the way you are afraid they will in the future. About 90% of usage complaints are like that – the usage being criticized is perfectly valid, of long use by esteemed writers, and recognized by reference books. Rant mode off.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Word to Buzz79. Apparently, the use of literally as a meaningless intensifier goes back to the 1760s…
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Stagecraft aside, meet Joe Biden.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Biden gave a great speech. For people who are older than 26 and have real worries “hope” and “change” are meaningless to their life. Talk about becoming a meaningless intensifier.
I beg to differ. I’m 49, and my political outlook has become as bleak as a German Expressionist painting. Contemporary America seems like a nightmare to me, and hope in the possibility of waking up from the nightmare is the only thing that keeps me actively engaged.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I think the campaigns first move should be to reach across the aisle to the McCain campaign and make a bipartisan agreement to ban the words “my friends” and “literally” from the campaign trail.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
too late:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
when McCain addresses us as “my friends”, does he mean that literally?
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
call me crazy, but the drone of “literally” seemed premeditated. Obama’s liberal use of metaphor has almost reached a parody-like tipping point in some minds. Biden exudes a sense of tough realism. He literally makes the message feel more real.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Perhaps you are already aware of David Cross’s rant/stand up bit about his hatred of the misuse of the word “literally” from his album “Shut up you Fucking Baby”. Just in case you haven’t, you should, because you will “literally shit [your] pants”. It’s spot on/or at least quite funny.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Stagecraft aside, meet Joe Biden.
How many McCain points did you get for that one, Petey?
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
This was my favorite:
He will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America, but literally, literally to change the direction of the world.
Just like Superman.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’ll give Petey this. He’s a Pumatard, not a McTroll.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
On a side note, even though “Barack America” was a gaffe, it sounds quite good. I think supporters should figuratively take it and run with it.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Hey, at least the guy knows how to pronounce “Nuclear”.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Don Kervick,
All do respect, but age aside, I think you’ve made my point. Most American’s have no idea about the bleakness of a German expressionist painting. They are less concerned about political buzzwords and more about their bills. Most people want to know how exactly someone is going to help them, not if that person politically inspires them. Most people are beyond looking for political inspiration. That ship sailed. They want help.
The independent voters out there makin $7 hour want to know how Obama is going to fix their lives, they are not looking for political inspiration.
Democrats need to get out a little more.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I really like Joe Biden, not for policy reasons per se, but rather because he has always seemed willing to agressively go after the GOP without shame or apology.
That said, didn’t Obama just win a primary over the 2002 Iraq War vote?
Look, I want him to win, but a lot of folks here spent months lambasting HRC for that vote, and now seem not so concerned about it.
End of rain-on-parade.
This can work, provided Team Obama realizes they’re in a street fight, and not a ‘transformative’ moment–Kervick, no one cares about your sad life, this is about winning elections and improving people’s real lives, not making you feel good.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Can the Vice President also hold a cabinet post at the same time? Is there any reason Biden couldn’t serve as Secretary of State while holding the Vice Presidency?
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Did someone say “Men In Black?”
http://alexch.tumblr.com/post/47144043/men-in-black-or-should-it-be-men-in-white
“Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe” indeed
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Comics are going to have a field day with Biden. Just a few minutes into the speech I Was already imagining the “literally” drinking game.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
That does it, I’m voting for Nader. At least he doesn’t use the word ‘literally’ too much.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Chris Matthews would be appalled by your elitist intellectual nit picking.
Anyway – notice that when Biden says “literally” he usually means figuratively or roughly or symbolically.
Similarly – like Newt Gingrich saying “Frankly ….” usually precedes one of his lies or elliptical statements
August 24th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Well, he did say something like “he will literally change the direction of the world.” So that’s not literally what literally means.
On the other hand he did say “literally not figuratively” when he really meant literally. On the other other hand, he didn’t use “quite literally,” which I believe lies somewhere in between “literally, not figuratively” and plain old “literally” on the literality scale.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:55 am
“I’ll give Petey this. He’s a Pumatard, not a McTroll.”
I’m not really a fan of the PUMA’s. They don’t have enough ideology for my taste.
The PUMA’s are about the cult of personality around Clinton just as folks like you are about the cult of personality around Obama.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:42 am
On the off chance any comets are in danger of impacting the earth, I am quite glad we have Barack’s ability to literally change the course of the world. It could come in handy in such times.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am
What bugs me in particular about the misuse of “literally,” and what sets it off from other intensifiers, is that is that it leaves a hole in the language where some idea is literally ineffable. (Not a literal hole.) Once “literally” means figuratively, you have no word left for–oh, whatever it is.
There’s a blog devoted to this subject.
And CJ (#22), what you said.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:38 am
jb (#23), it’s not too late, unless you wilfully ignore the two functions of a dictionary: prescriptive and descriptive. In the past half-century, lexicographers have seen dictionaries as chiefly descriptive (this is what is said) rather than prescripive (this is what ought to be said). That’s why it’s no longer true that “ain’t ain’t in the dictionary.” It’s slightly absurd to appeal to an authority on what is said to decide what ought to be said.
One leader of that trend has been, yes, Webster’s Third Unabridged Dictionary, the basis of the Merriam-Webster.
But dictionary publishers have also balanced these two functions with the usage note, and there’s one in the Merriam-Webster entry on “literally.”
August 24th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Mim — nah, language is pretty good at filling holes. I suspect that “actually” will be next up at bat to mean “not figuratively.” And remember that “literally” is already figurative when applied to things that are not letters.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:46 am
> I want him to win, but a lot of folks here spent months lambasting HRC for that vote, and now seem not so concerned about it.
The big difference is that Biden apologized for his vote, and expended a lot of gas and wind power lambasting the administration about the war in the meantime. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1op8vwF5UA for instance.
But sure, I’ll admit that a lot of the problem with Hillary is personal. A lot of people, myself included, think she’s a pretty horrible person, and a lot of the explanations for this are actually post-hoc rationalizations.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Seriously. Though to Biden’s credit, he didn’t misuse it, so much as overuse it.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Greatest abuser of “literally” in American politics today? I guess that depends on whether the (otherwise masterful) Glenn Greenwald counts as someone “in” American politics, or only in American punditry.
Like Biden, Glenn overuses much more than he misuses. In his case, it’s made a little more wearing by the fact that he so regularly employs it in the same locution: “it is literally impossible to overstate…”
August 24th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Beat ya by a couple minutes…
thefrustratedteacher.blogspot.com
August 25th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I was listening for that, and it seemed that he was using it somewhat correctly about 75% of the time, which is much better than how most people use it. By “somewhat correctly,” I mean that he was using it as an intensifier, but the sentence was still true if the actual meaning of the word “literal” was assumed.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
For those of you who are squarely in the ‘literally is misused’ camp, my favorite all-time misusage comes from Surfer Magazine. Remember, these guys are literally in the water:
“While the waves were few and far between at the beginning of the final, when the swell did begin to pump toward the end, Patacchia and Martinez were literally on fire, mixing up tube riding with scintillating top turns and incredibly committed lip bashes – all just above the razor sharp reef.”
August 25th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Yay. I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one who hated that usage.
I love Biden. But not literally.
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