Thu, March 25, 2010
Literally, A Web Log It will literally make you forget you ever saw another blog. (Literally.)
Strange Brew (Video)
Oscar poster 02.02.12
Drive (Video)
It's a Boy! 01.28.12
I'm Still Geeking Out About It 01.13.12
A Bumper Sticker We'd Like To See 01.10.12
THE LATEST FROM POOP READING:
Why French Parents Are Superior
You Will Never Kill Piracy, And Piracy Will Never Kill You
Reasons That the Super Bowl Party You're Attending Isn't Very Enjoyable
More, more, more at poopreading.com
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AC — Thu, 3/25/10 4:20pm
Thank you for this. Now could you please track down the "irregardless" blog?
Joe Mulder — Fri, 3/26/10 1:51pm
I'm with you in spirit, but I have to admit that once I read somewhere that "really" and "real" mean the same thing as "literally," my passion for this just wasn't the same. "That guy's a real asshole" isn't any different from "that guy's literally an asshole," is what I'm saying. Somehow "really" gets a pass, and "literally" gets hammered.
That really gets my goat.
Bee Boy — Fri, 3/26/10 4:09pm
Ha ha! My passion for this is your passion for this – I only posted it because I thought you'd go crazy. I admit I'm floored by this "really" business, and now it has me wondering where "seriously" fits in.
I'd much rather persecute people for misusing "momentarily" (I will not yield on this one) or "nonplussed" (if I could ever figure out which is the correct usage myself). Or my new thing is flying off the handle when people try to apply degrees of meaning to a word that only has one, like "full." (E.g., stewardesses who say the flight is "very full" – no, it's either full or it isn't. Maybe it's nearly full, maybe it's very crowded, but "full" is an on/off switch, toots.)
rush — Fri, 3/26/10 6:18pm
I'm holding out for the "actually" blog.
rush — Fri, 3/26/10 6:18pm
I'm actually serious.
"Holly" — Mon, 3/29/10 2:14am
I think that "literally" is really, actually worse. People have been using "really" or "actually" for several centuries as simple intensifiers for whatever follows; even the O.E.D. happily concedes that they serve this function. Additionally, "literally" carries the very specific meaning of "in its literal sense" i.e. "NOT figuratively." It's a term used to describe/emphasize a specific rhetorical choice – the choice to eschew metaphor. Thus I say you can be "really an asshole" while not being "literally an asshole" – you are, in reality, an asshole-like person, you are an asshole according to one of the word's real definitions, but you are NOT an asshole in a literal sense, non-figuratively. You can be truly, really "under the weather" without literally being rained on. Etc. "Literally" means NOT FIGURATIVE. Whereas any poet will tell you that a good metaphor can still communicate truthful, real information.
I hear you about "full." "Unique" is the one that makes me crazy, though I'm pretty sure that's a lost cause.
"Holly" — Mon, 3/29/10 2:15am
No, I have not ever taken on a student on this point. Why do you ask?
Joe Mulder — Tue, 3/30/10 3:06pm
Don't believe Dana Whitaker, Jameson: "momentarily" means both "for a moment" and "in a moment." Feel free not to yield all you want, but, still.
Holly, you've re-convinced me about "literally." It's good to have that to get angry about once more... thanks. I feel like myself again.
"Nonplussed" is the one that gets me the most; I'd say, from what I tend to see, people get it wrong about 95% of the time. It means puzzled, flummoxed; and yet for reasons beyond my understanding, people think it means the exact opposite. Where does that come from? How does somebody encounter a word, presumably in context, and get the complete opposite of it's actual meaning?
I can only assume that someone widely-seen or influential used it wrong at some point, and that was most people's first encounter with the word. And then those people went on to use it 100% incorrectly, and anybody who heard or read them got the wrong idea... so I'd love to find the nonplussed "Patient Zero," if such a thing is possible.
My theory (that I just now developed, thirty seconds ago, but I've become convinced is correct): somebody used "nonplussed" wrong in a "Sex and the City" episode. I can't explain how else everybody but me would have seen – or at least eventually come to know – the same wrong thing.
Bee Boy — Tue, 3/30/10 10:47pm
Dana Whitaker said that? I didn't know it was her thing, I just knew it was wrong. I heard it was one of those that had been added to dictionaries because enough people were using it badly that it was considered to have "entered the language" under both uses, but to me it's absurd for something to mean two relatively contradictory things, so I'm not yielding. (Same with my refusal to recognize Missourah.)
The theory I've heard on "nonplussed" is that the "non-" throws people off. It looks like a prefix, as though to be "plussed" is to be atwitter, so to be nonplussed is to be cool as a cucumber. Doesn't make a ton of sense, since if you think about it you never hear of people being plussed, but "nonchalant" is a word, and people are idiots, so there you are.
Joe Mulder — Wed, 3/31/10 2:00am
I think you're right about the "non" being part of the problem somehow; clearly that's what's throwing people. But isn't "plus" good? Like, positive? So wouldn't "nonplussed" be negative? Shouldn't that be a clue?
I just don't get it.
Bee Boy — Wed, 3/31/10 8:43am
Yeah, but think about what you're saying, there. You're asking people to be good at language and math.
Whereas most people don't devote any more thought to communication than the time it takes to mash "ya rly lol" onto a phone keypad.
rush — Fri, 4/9/10 1:01pm
Clearly Randall reads onebee: http://xkcd.com/725/