I Literally Pissed Myself

One of my favorite topics is the misusage of the word literally. It all derived from some David Cross sketch my buddy Juice forced us to listen to on a trip to Mammoth. I use “forced” in the same sense as, (I was forced to play Beirut) or (I was forced to hook up with this really hot chick last night and she had a shaved…) you get the picture. Needless to say, the CD might be one of the funnier things I have ever listened to. There are a couple of levels of misuse that I commonly hear. There is the slight use, where they intend to use it to exaggerate or emphasize the intensity as in, “Dude, last night was literally crazy”. This type I don’t take as much of an offense to as the blatant abusive kind. An infomercial I recently saw used it in this term, “Your taste buds will literally explode”. This is supposed to sell me on the product? So I am supposed to by this cooking pot, microwave, egg cooker, blender, juicer or whatever, so I can never taste again? Basically you are telling me that not only are you too stupid to realize that this is incorrect, you think your customers are morons as well. I guess most product sellers feel their audience are slightly more intelligent then a bowl of rice, but it still pisses me off. Another example is a commercial I hear on the radio about this wrinkle remover for your skin, “Dr. so-and-so will literally turn back the hands of time, naturally”. Wow! If he has the ability to go back in time, why do I need this wrinkle cream? Oh, wait. If I go back in time, I would still have wrinkles on my face, just everyone around me would be younger, so how does that work? So this “doctor” will make me feel older, not younger. Friggin morons. On 4th of July 2004, I was “almost” caught misusing the term. My aforementioned buddy walked into the garage and I said, “F that guy, literally F that guy”. So this chick sitting next to me says, “literally?”, trying to call me on the use. Well, being the quick witted stud that I am, I turn to her and say, “Yeah, you should literally F that guy”*. This habitual notation of the word literally has lead my house (at least as I left it) to have a board designated to these types of travesties. The worst part of all of this, is because so many of Americans can’t figure out how to properly mix-in literally, the actual definition has changed. If you look up the most current definition, it is no ok to use it as a synonym of figuratively. I love this type of cop-out by our society. It just goes to show you that the old time withstanding saying holds true, “circle enough morons together in a covered wagon and you change almost anything, literally”. I think we should start a movement to change the word luminescent to mean very bright. Or better yet, I think we should be able to combine similar words to create actual new words that next year will appear in Webster’s Dictionary. My additions for 2005 will be, “dramastic”, “seriousity”, “illuminous” and, although it is not combining two words, I think “prolly” should be synonymous with “probably”.



*I didn’t literally say “f” instead I used the word “fuck”. But I thought using that word multiple times in my story may be tacky, so I chose to drop “fuck” and replace it with “f”. So, fuck off you fucking fucker.