AND BY "TRUE" I MEAN "FALSE"

To say that the following frustration is a pet peeve is not entirely accurate. It is, however, close enough that I'll go ahead and use that phrase to describe it until I come up with a better one (it's less like a pet than a wild animal that keeps returning to my door because I feed it from time to time - maybe leaving little gifts for me, but not actually my pet). The peeve is this: the systematic abuse of the english language. I do not mean that I get upset everytime someone gets confused about grammar or accidentally replaces "accept" with "except. I am talking about a more insidious form of abuse, blatantly using words in a manner that directly contradicts their own definition. My specific example today is the word "literally." Here's the Random House College Dictionary version of the definition:

lit.er.al.ly adv. 1. in a literal manner; word for word "to translate literally." 2. in the literal or strict sense. "what does the word mean literally?" 3. without exaggeration or inaccuracy "literally bankrupt"

Note that "literally" does not mean "very." It does not mean "extremely." It is not purely for emphasis, it does in fact have a definition that restricts it to a very specific use. When you use "literally" to modify a phrase, it means that the phrase is completely accurate as stated with no metaphorical deviations. It is a way of setting apart those times when you are exaggerating from those times when that's honestly-to-um-goodnessly exactly the way things are.

In today's world, however, "literally" seems to have lost its way. People use it as a form of exaggeration, which seems (to me at least) to run exactly counter to its stated definition. It has been used as a way to take another step closer to superlative. When someone says "Today was literally the worst day of my life," they do not usually mean what they say, that it was worse than every previous day they have ever experienced. What they mean is that this particular day is worse than the days they have claimed to be the worst day of their life. "Literally" has become a matter of scale. However, like "pregant" or "dead," "literal" is a true/false word, not an indicator of degree.

I could sit here and make up hundreds of examples (literally) but alert reader Bruce has already provided me an excellent true life example of exactly the problem I'm talking about (the bold emphasis is my own):

I know how much the overuse of "literally" gets on your nerves so i thought you'd find this annoying. But if you make a mental picture it's down right gruesome: "This form of massage involves the use of heated lava stones blended with Swedish strokes. The heated basalt stones literally "melt" through stiff muscles, going beyond the physical experience of typical massage and entering a deeper dimension of relaxation, health, and spiritual well being."

As stated, that certainly does go beyond the typical massage. I don't know about you, but my spiritual well being might be significantly compromised if my muscles started to melt. Although as Bruce points out, "I'm especially amused that they use quotes around "melt" to show they mean it figuratively, even though they say they mean it literally." These people went so far as to acknowledge that they were not being accurate, and yet kept "literally." I guess it means their stones really (don't really) melt people's muscles. Sigh. Think about what you're saying people, that's all I'm asking...

TODAY I'M FEELING...

[This is perhaps a bit atypical of posts to this blog, but it kind of deals with a form of contemporary insanity, and I'm in a sharing mood, so you get to hear it anyway. Plus the metaphor is just too good to keep to myself]

I think I understand how Jack'O'Lanterns feel. I would go so far as to say it's the most appropriate way to describe my current state of being. I've got this kind of warm glowing feeling, this sense of shining with friendly promise. At the same time, though, it's a bit drafty - as if everything that actually belonged inside me has been completely scooped out, as if I've been scraped clean and left empty. It's a very curious feeling, to be spilling over with light and yet completely hollow, and I'm not sure I'd recommend the experience. It's got its pluses and minuses, but it's got them at the same time and that's a bit tricky to deal with. I can, of course, deal. I know this because I've felt this dichotomy before, I just didn't have such a good name for it at the time. Now I do, though, so that's something... I can and I will deal, and in the future I'll be much more sympathetic to the pumpkin plight.

Also (and this is the one place where this feeling differs most from that experienced by the Jack'O'Lantern) it makes me feel tremendously alive, not tremendously pleasantly alive, but very alive nonetheless, and it's been too long since I've felt that.

QUICK BIT O' NEWS

I have just created another blog. "But Rob" I hear you say, "You never update this blog, why do you need another one?" Well, dear reader, I'm adding another blog because it's a completely different concept. The posts here are meandering musings on the oddities of life (often of my life in particular, but not always). What I intend to post over at this new blog are the little pieces of fiction that pop into my head on a near constant basis. My muse works pretty hard to get these ideas to me and its about time I shared them. I've started trying to write something new every day. I don't actually hit that mark, but I'm trying. Some of them have inspired new ideas for stories, some of them come from story ideas that I cannot yet figure out how to assemble.

Now that I have a decent backlog, I'm going to start posting them for other people to see. At my current rate, I feel comfortable committing to producing three a week (and the backlog will serve as a nice buffer to keep that rate constant). I do not think it will slow my posting here. I would say, given the evidence of the past month or so, that it has actually accelerated my posting here. So no worries on that front.

Check it out, let me know what you think. This is as much for my practice and growth as a writer as it is for your entertainment (probably moreso, if I'm going to be honest about it) so anything you have to say good, bad, or indifferent will be appreciated. It's called "Leaves from the Tree" and you can find it here.