By: J.B. Hooker

J.B. Hooker — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:18:22 +0000

I would be remiss to not suggest adding “Literally” to the list. A heart-breaking situation to be sure, the most common mis-use of this word conveys the OPPOSITE of it’s meaning. For example: “Dude, I was laughing so hard last night, I literally shit my pants”. Clearly, our speaker was attempting to put emphasis on the hilarity of the situation by inserting “literally,” when in all likelihood, he meant “figuratively”. Also common is the jilted lover who claims his or her heart to have recently been “literally ripped out” of his or her chest; and so on. Finally, there is the use of literally where it simply doesn’t belong, either because the described situation is impossible, “You gotta meet this guy, man…he’s literally had sex with 10 million women” (don’t worry – I did the math, it works out to 500 women a day for 60 years, or 20 women per hour)

Comments on: 9 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think

By: J.B. Hooker