The abused phrase that leaves you Ð literally Ð fuming

Date Published: {J}

Is there a more abused word in the world of broadcasting than ‘literally’? Because it seems that there is an unwritten rule that you must use it for emphasis in – literally – at least every third sentence you utter.

And invariably it’s in the wrong context – because what the broadcaster really means is ‘metaphorically’ or ‘figuratively’ or even ‘actually’ although they shouldn’t have to resort to that space filler either.

Of course they take their cue from the rest of us who seem to buy time mid-sentence by sticking in the word ‘literally’ in the mistaken belief that it either underlines your point or takes it on to a whole higher level.

Because when was the last time a man literally had a canary? How do you literally get to your wit’s end? When did the economy literally take two steps forward and one step back? And if a Government thinks it can solve our financial woes by literally kicking the can down the road, shouldn’t someone pull them up for littering?

How do you literally keep someone on tenterhooks?

When did you find the time to literally see that movie a million times? And were you not afraid of the danger of literally laughing your head off?

Then there was the woman who literally threw herself at men – the ability to throw oneself at anything should mean this woman is a national hero rather than a metaphorical tramp. And what about the male equivalent, who was literally caught with his pants down?

A speeding driver who was literally flying down the road is actually a pilot. A man who literally tears the head off another man in an argument is a murderer. You may literally devour your dinner, but you’ll get chronic indigestion if you literally devour a book.

If a movie was literally heartbreaking, it should carry a health warning – and if its main star is literally making a name for his or herself or literally carving out a career, then they are clearly handy with a piece of pliable wood.

But if they literally put their heart and soul into their screen or stage performance, wouldn’t they then have a chronic medical difficulty living and breathing long enough to reap the reward of their incredible commitment.

Have you ever seen someone who literally pulled themselves up by their bootstraps?

The only people literally freezing to death are those who are actually suffering from hypothermia – although they might also be those people who are literally jumping out of their skin.

But even the coldest of weather isn’t the most dangerous time to go outdoors – you need to take extra care when it’s literally raining cats and dogs....not least if you’re a dog.

Politicians are chronic abusers of the word as well; Osama Bin Laden may at different stages actually have had blood on his hands, but he didn’t literally have the blood of thousands of Americans despite what the pro-war lobby might have you believe.

But that pales beside the proclamation of former US Presidential candidate Gary Hart – a man who frequently visited Oughterard and Connemara as a Senator – who blamed reporters for destroying his presidential prospects by revealing his sexual peccadilloes, exclaiming: “I saw journalists become animals, literally.”

Metaphorically he would not have been wrong, but that sort of transformation belongs in Twilight or other werewolf offerings aimed at teenagers on the small screen.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.