The whole purpose of using the word literally before an assumed hyperbole is to eliminate the possibility that it is a hyperbole at all, and to emphasize the literal meaning of what was said.
Some examples would be:
- I was literally up all night working on my essay. (Implies the speaker was working from dusk to dawn. Believable.)
- I literally drank a whole pot of coffee this morning. (Implies that the coffee is now gone and was consumed in its entirety. Believable.)
However, some people feel that they can use a hyperbole and literally to further emphasize the ludicrous nature of the statement.
Some examples would be:
- “He literally chewed my ass all day.” (Implies the speaker's ass was being gnawed on for a whole twenty-four hour period. Unbelievable)
- “What an expensive taxi ride! That cab driver literally charged me an arm and a leg.” (Implies the cab driver in this scenario forced the speaker to dismember himself to pay for the fare. Also unbelievable.)
- “I literally slept for six days straight.” (Implies the speaker slept for 144 hours with no water or food. Not even possible. )
- "I'm literally doing like a million things at once right now." (This is just ridiculous.)
If you are guilty of this silly debauchery of the English language, please do me a favor and stop it. Thank you.
1 comment:
i was reading your post, and i thought to myself, this is just craziness, just goofy goofy goofy, he does not know what hes talking about. so i says to myself "this is gonna take all day to read this post" and then son of a vondruke, i realized the err of my ways.
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